3 Great Ugly-Duckling-Gets-Made-Over Movies

Right around this time of the year, I start wanting to give myself a whole new look. This is probably inspired by my love of the three movies listed below. I watched them all repeatedly when I was a kid, and as one who was frequently teased, I always hoped that I could get made over and change my life.

Never Been Kissed (1999)
This film, starring Drew Barrymore, is one of my favorites. Josie Geller, a less-than-memorable editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, gets her first assignment: to go undercover as a high school student. For Geller, who barely survived high school the first time around, this is mixed blessing. In the process, she makes friends with the popular crowd and falls in love with teacher Sam Coulson (Michael Vartan). And in the end, when she's standing on the pitcher's mound waiting for Sam to give her her first kiss, she's gorgeous.

The Princess Diaries (2001)
Mia Thermopolis is one of my favorite heroines. I loved the books and the movie is fantastic. Mia, an unsightly 15-year-old, finds out that she's actually a princess, and her super chic grandmother, Queen Clarisse Rinaldi, gives her princess lessons and Paolo, a pompous gay man who considers himself a great artiste, gives her a makeover. And with one look at the results, it's clear that he knows something. I just love this one!

She's All That (1999)
Rachel Leigh Cook plays Laney Boggs, a high school student very serious about her art but not her appearance. Zach Siler (Freddie Prinze), recently dumped by his popular girlfriend for a reality TV star (played by Matthew Lillard), makes a bet that he can clean up any girl and make her popular. Laney is the victim of the bet but the beneficiary of Zach's lesbian sister's make-up skills. I always wished I could meet a Zach who would make me over and fall in love in the process.

My Latest Obsessions

I have kind of an addictive personality. And these are the things I've been obsessed with lately (and most of them are food/drink related):

- Magazines: This one's kind of a life-long deal. My latest faves: Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, Esquire.

- Smores pizza at Maxi's (Liacouras Walk, Philadelphia, PA): This is nutella, fluff and cinnamon & butter blended together on pizza crust. Just yummy.

- Hot chocolate at Good Karma 2 Cafe (928 Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA): I never used to like regular hot chocolate but whatever they do to their hot chocolate at this place, it's incredibly scrumptious.

- Sweet Iced Tea at Eppy's Steaks (a truck at Montgomery and 13th Streets, Philadelphia, PA): As the girl who turned me onto it said, "It's like crack."

- The Vampire Diaries: I know, I know. It's so cheesy. But I just love it. And I'm kind of dying that there won't be a new episode until January.

Cool Reads: 11/17/11

For Felicity Jones, Her Clothes Play the Role, Too - Journalist Courtney Rubin got a lot of great information, anecdotes and quotes from actress Felicity Jones in this piece about how Jones greatly influenced the costumes of her character in the much-talked about indie film, Like Crazy, in which she stars alongside Anton Yelchin.

Marilyn Minter's Oozing Desire - Linda Yablonsky writes about artist Minter's slow-motion video "“I’m Not Much But I’m All I Think About" in great detail -- with lots of $10 words. Some of them she made up, I think, but still an interesting read and a great reminder that you should use great, unusual words.

Fatties Need Love Too (An Uncool Read)

I'm sorry, but I have a bit of trouble with women who think a size 12 is fat and that a man can't love them when they've gained a few pounds. And bam! There in the back of the November 2011 issue of one of my favorite magazines, Marie Claire, is an article titled "Til Pounds Do Us Part." Written by Theresa O'Rourke, the piece is about how the author gained some weight and the weight was coming between her and her husband.

O'Rourke begins the piece with five paragraphs about her and her weight gain. Altogether the piece is 17 paragraphs long. She only really gets to talking about her "rock-star lean" husband in the seventh paragraph, which suggests to me that her piece is less about her husband than the weight gain. And possibly the piece is really about how her husband's view of her was influenced by her own feelings that she wasn't sexy.

Her husband comments in the twelfth paragraph that if she looked like she had when they married, they'd "have 10 kids by now" and this triggers "the most honest talk we've ever had," O'Rourke writes.

Her conclusion is that her husband's laziness influenced her and thus she gained weight. "For every way we enriched each other's bad habits, we had caught each other's bad habits, too, like a cold," O'Rourke writes. "And we knew that without care, we would just keep passing them around."

Still, after this, she concludes that the "care" had to begin with her and so she joins a gym. That's how she wraps it up. Really?! This piece at 740 words tries, but fails to make any single, strong point.

If the wedded couple were at fault for each other's flaws, then why weren't the two of them going to the gym together? (And as an aside, if the husband is so rock-star lean, then how was it his laziness that made her lazy?)

Also, she mentions stress causing her to drink a little more than usual at the beginning of the article. Might not her inability to handle stress productively be part of the problem?

Furthermore, if the author's own unease with her body -- and her mentioned unsightly wardrobe -- are really to blame for her husband's own lackluster feelings for her new shape, then what about dealing with her own issues? There are skinny women who have expressed disease with their lack of curves. If O'Rourke really gained the weight in the "right" places, i.e. her breasts and butt, then what's so bad with her new shape? Google image-search the words "5'3 and 165 pounds," which is how much she weighed after gaining pounds, you'll see some normal-looking women.

What's wrong with normal or even slightly overweight women? Especially if you own it?

So, I beg of you, what was the point of "Til Pounds Do Us Part"? Journalistically, it definitely could use some work. For any modern-day feminist, it's a bit of an outrage.

Cool Reads: Writing for Writers, 11/4/11

Here are a couple of blog posts from The Renegade Writer that I think are really useful.

5 Tips to Finding Story Ideas That Sell - This post on The Renegade Writer is really informative for newer freelancers like me. Most of these tips sound a lot like the information Becky Batcha, Philadelphia Daily News editor, gave my class about generating story ideas. Still, it's good to read these things a few times so it all really sinks in.

5 Packaging Ideas to Make Your Article Idea Stand Out -- Instead of submitting a query formatted in the usual way, why not entice the editor with a quiz or with clever subheads?

Becky Batcha, Philadelphia Daily News features editor, on finding story ideas

Batcha, a newspaper editor, says journalists should
view the world through "story goggles."
(Eye candy courtesy of weheartit)

Today in Magazine Article Writing class, we had a visitor: Becky Batcha, features editor at the Philadelphia Daily News. Batcha, who got her start in trade magazines and has since freelanced and edited at national glossies, daily newspapers and weekly alternatives including the Boston Pheonix and the now-defunct Child magazine. During her talk in our class, this sometime Temple University adjunct professor, talked about how to find story ideas, especially trend story ideas.

"Philosophically, you just need to have your eyes and ears open," Batcha said. You have to wear story goggles, Batcha said. This means you have to be prepared to view the world differently than normal people. To illustrate this point, she put on a pair of oversized black-framed glasses. As a journalist, "you need to be able to spin a story out of just about anything," Batcha said.

You have to know what makes a good story. For trend stories, the idea has to be new. "Anything that makes you say 'huh' might be a story idea," Batcha said.

Next, she showed us some clips she'd written and pieces she'd edited and explained where the ideas came from.

One such example she provided was the source of a story she edited, entitled "Childhood: The New Battleground State," which won the 2007 Clarion Award for magazine coverage of a major news event. This story, about how the nastiness of politics trickles down to students in elementary school, came from an anecdote a friend told Batcha over dinner. Batcha's friend's child came home from school and said that they couldn't vote for Al Gore because he was a baby killer. This anecdote got Batcha's wheels turning and she assigned the story to writer Susan Warner.

Just last week, she went for a walk around her block and noticed that the Halloween decorations weren't just black and orange but green and purple. From this "germ," she came up with a story for the Philadelphia Daily News on the change.

Then she provided examples of how she'd put together a trend story. One such example was this:

Batcha, who is a firm believer in reading everything you can get your hands on, read this tidbit in Leslie Kaufman's article, "Stone-Washed Blue Jeans (Minus the Washed)" which ran in the New York Times yesterday: "To customers seeking further advice, Levi Strauss suggests washing jeans rarely, if at all — the theory being that putting them in the freezer will kill germs that cause them to smell." After reading that, she got to thinking about a couple of other trends she'd heard about: Those with curly hair are shampooing less frequently because they believe it's better for their hair. And her son, who's in college, told her that people aren't using deodorant. The three of these together would make a great story called "Permission to Be Totally Gross? Granted." for a female consumer magazine.

A couple of other things she shared with us:

For her first pitch, she read a lot written by the editor she wanted to pitch and channeled her voice when she wrote her pitch. Of course, she'd also done a ton of research.

LexisNexis is a great resource; any idea you get you should check on Nexis to see if it's been covered.

"Every magazine editor reads the New York Times every day," Batcha said. And we should too, she asserted.

Finally, cold calling and cold pitching works! The editors don't need to know you as long as you can prove you're a good writer.

Cool Reads: 11/1/11

There's a fantastic oral history of Ms. magazine, the first magazine run by, written by and made for women, on New York Magazine's website. Check it out here.