[fiction, instead of lies]

Has anyone else seen the trailer for Because of Winn-Dixie? May I just say that I HATE movies where they digitally shift animal’s faces? — their expressions always look so completely stupid and anthropomorphic… Anyway, somewhere, Kate DiCamillo ought to be wincing because the movie people totally RUINED her book. The trailer emphasizes all this slapstick and goofiness out of what was really a very quiet, very sweet little book with a sneaky humor that didn’t bash you over the head. That’s what made it a good read. Why is it that we authors let movie people absolutely wreck our books? Ditto for last fall’s Ella Enchanted and I just can’t wait to see the whole Traveling Pants thing — (although I just didn’t really like the book either, so maybe that will make a difference?) — who are they going to get to play the ethnic-chick-with-big-butt the book talked about so much???

Yeah, I know, I know, I sound like an over sensitive movie purist, but really — sometimes it gets to the point where the character has differently colored HAIR than she did in the book. You know, the last really good book-into-movie morph I saw was To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck. (And no, I didn’t like the whole Lord of the Rings thing, either. And did anyone see the Lemony Snickett flick? I haven’t yet… Should I bother? Is it ANYTHING like the books?!)

People, people, people! As I see it, we’ve got TWO jobs before us. One, write books, get published, get rich and famous, and two, retain some kind of artistic control over our famously published works.

Okay, rant over. You may now go back to your keyboards.