Janette Rallison & CJ Hill Books

I admit I put off watching the movie Godmothered, because I knew after I watched it I was going to feel sick. And who wants to ruin a perfectly good night? But my husband finally insisted we watch it.

Anyway, I thought I would list the similarities I noticed between Disney’s movie and my series. It’s been years since I read the last two books, so I may be missing some things. (And I know Disney read My Fair Godmother because it was pitched to them more than once.)

The premise of my series involves Chrysanthemum (Chrissy) Everstar, a young blonde, slightly ditzy, slightly incompetent fairy godmother wannabe who’s been going to school to learn to be a fairy godmother and whose biggest goal is to become a real fairy godmother.

Ditto for Godmothered.  (But Chrissy has more sass than Eleanor.)

Chrissy goes to modern-day “damsels in distress“ who don’t believe in fairy godmothers and question their sanity when they meet her.

Ditto for Godmothered.

The role of magic is discussed: Do people still believe and need it?

Ditto.

My Fair Godmother has a dark-haired, handsome man named Prince Hugh.

Godmothered has a dark-haired, handsome man named Hugh Prince.

My Fairly Dangerous Godmother has a teen girl character who has an amazing voice but is so nervous when she sings in front of people that she projectile vomits. She gains confidence during the novel and sings her big number perfectly at the end of the novel.

Godmothered has a teen girl character who has an amazing voice but is so nervous when she sings in front of people that she projectile vomits. She gains confidence during the movie and sings her big number perfectly at the end of the movie.

In My Fair Godmother, the main character’s sister’s name is Jane

In Godmothered, the main character’s daughter’s name is Jane.

In my Unfair Godmother, since Chrissy hasn’t become a real fairy godmother yet, she’s been forced to take a part-time job as a tooth fairy, something that is beneath her.

In Godmothered, when the fairies discuss not being able to become fairy godmothers, they worry that they’ll end up having to become tooth fairies instead.

In My Fair Godmother, Chrissy whips up a ball gown for the character when the character doesn’t want it. It’s sort of a running joke in the series.

In Godmothered, Eleanor whips up a ball gown for a character when she doesn’t want it.

In My Fair Godmother, most of Chrissy’s magical help just makes matters worse.

In Godmothered, most of Eleanor’s magical help just makes matters worse.

In my series, it’s clear that Chrissy is helping out her charges because of self-interest–to help her become a real fairy godmother, and her charges call her out for it.

In Godmothered, it’s clear that Eleanor is helping out her charges because of self-interest–to help her become a real fairy godmother, and her charge calls her out for it.

In My Fair Godmother, Chrissy can’t find a pumpkin and so turns a squash into a carriage.

In Godmothered, Eleanor doesn’t have a pumpkin and so turns a watermelon into a carriage.

My Fair Godmother has a main character (Chrissy’s assistant, Clover) whose last name is BloomsBottle.

In Godmothered, Eleanor’s last name is BloomingBottom.

In My Unfair Godmother, Chrissy’s assistant is checking to make sure the heroine is presentable in her gown and says, “Your hair is fashionably done. Check. Wearing a stunning gown. I guess so, if that’s the sort of thing you like.”

in Godmothered after Eleanor creates a ball gown for Jane, she says, “Perfect outfit, check.”

In my series, Chrissy’s headmistress was not happy with her assignments.

Ditto for Godmothered.

In My Fairly Dangerous Godmother, one of the main characters is from Hamilton, Ohio.

In Godmothered, Jane goes to Hamilton High.

So coincidence? I think that’s statistically unlikely.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know if these similarities were the writers’ way of nodding to my series’ fans or whether the similarities crept into the screenplay subconsciously because the writers had read my series.

Whatever the case, the result is that studios who may have been interested in my series may now not be interested because my stories will now look like they’re copying Godmothered.

Godmothered differed in a lot of ways from my series. Instead of time traveling to medieval times to relive fairytales, the writers took a page (or more) from Enchanted and revisited a lot of things from that movie: an innocent young woman comes to the cynical big city, doesn’t even know what money is or how relationships work, and the protagonist takes her in out of pity. Woodland creatures help with housework.

I’ll also admit that there were some cute things in the movie. I laughed at the raccoon and the blonde reporter. I didn’t find the end all that satisfying, though, because it seemed to be more of a statement than an ending.

We read and watch stories because we want a happily ever after. If we wanted to be reminded that endings don’t always turn out the way we want, we’d watch the news instead.

Here’s the hard thing for me, though. I’d always planned on writing a fourth Godmother book. It’s partially plotted already. But there’s just something that feels really violating about having your ideas taken this way without any sort of consideration or acknowledgment. (I’m already wondering if someone is going to come out with a TV series about modern teenagers who fight dragons.)

If I tried to write the fourth book now, instead of enjoying spending time with my character and the fairy world I created, I’ll be dealing with those feelings of violation.

So… that book is going to be on hold for a while. Maybe for good.

Everyone is a little shaken up this year

I just realized that it’s been a long time since my last blog–and seeing that this is 2020 and I’m in the oldish demographic, some of you (Do people actually read blogs anymore?) may wonder if I’m still alive and writing.

Yes, yes I am.

I’m done with the first draft of the cowboy romance (and waiting for my writers’ group to finish theirs. You’ll love them all!) And I’m 200 pages into a medieval fantasy. So I’m back to researching vague things about the Middle Ages like how they danced. (No one is quite sure. Thanks, history scholars…)

And doing some other stuff that I can’t discuss because…contracts. So it just seems like I haven’t been working because nothing new has come out, but I really am.

I just don’t have anything to show for it except my messy desk.

One day I’ll have time to clean it off…

We all have bucket lists with a lot of dream items.  For example, going to Egypt is on my bucket list. And those sorts of goals are good, but as I was thinking about the subject, I realized that if I was making a list for my posterity, it would have different sorts of goals. So then I made a list for the grandlings and all the other spawn. Here it is. Hopefully you’ve already done a lot of these.

Save a life (by donating blood, or donating money to a humanitarian group, or some other way)

Have a family

Love an animal, even though you know you will lose it

Have you’re heart broken and love again anyway

Be discouraged but continue to do what needs to be done

Develop at least one talent

Create something that wasn’t on the earth until you got here

Help someone–do something for them that they can’t do for themselves

Stand up for something

Go to an art gallery

Listen to a seashell

Wear sequins at least once

Listen to an Italian sing about love

Write a poem

Sing in public

Build a snowman

See the autumn leaves and collect one

Have a white Christmas

Go caroling

Swim in the ocean

Keep a journal—write at least 100 entries

Make a Valentine

Be in a play

Learn a dance

Give a talk in church

Sew something/tie a quilt

Visit the country of your ancestors

Ride a rollercoaster

Go to a formal dance

Ask someone on a date

Watch The Nutcracker

Visit Williamsburg

Visit the Grand Canyon

Visit the Redwood Forest

Visit Arizona and see the Saguaro cactus

Go Skiing

Go sledding

Listen to Pachelbel’s Canon in D

Memorize a hymn

Wish on a star

Ride a horse

Run on the beach

Contemplate whether modern art is really art

Throw a coin in a wishing well

Blow on a dandy lion

Make a dandy lion chain

Make a birthday cake

Watch the good musicals and sing along with their songs

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life

Read all of my books because hey, Grandma/Great Grandma/Great Great Grandma wrote those

This means that the series I’ve been working on for over ten years is finally done. When I started the first book, I had four kids living at home. Now I’m months away from being an empty nester and I have four grandkids.

I wrote this after walking around my old home town. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I’m putting it here for a bit. I have such odd feelings about my old hometown. Really, it’s one of the few times in my life where I feel like I may be the only one in the world that feels this way.

First of all, I want to say that my adulthood has been way better than my childhood. I’m not James Barrie wishing for never-ending childhood or a magical island. And really, even if I could relive a couple years, I wouldn’t choose high school. College was much better. I certainly wouldn’t choose junior high or elementary school, where I was constantly a fish out of water and simultaneously in over my head. Some years of my childhood could have qualified me for PTSD. I’ve told many, many students that life gets better exponentially the farther you get away from high school.

But Pullman. Ah, Pullman.

Maybe my memories would feel different if my parents had stayed in the city longer, but they moved when I was seventeen, thus encapsulating my time in Pullman in a sort of box that became my childhood, from beginning to almost end.

I didn’t grow up—I staggered up, was dragged up, fell down repeatedly, and a few times rocketed into the sky.

Our class only had about 150 students in it and most of us had lived in Pullman since kindergarten. We knew everyone and everyone knew us. In a school that small, there was no reinventing yourself. You’d been judged long ago, and everyone knew where you fit in. Teenagers don’t forget.

I made friends and made mistakes and loved people blindly and stupidly. I had my heart broken, and broken again, and literally prayed to stop caring about someone and cared anyway. I loved a couple of friends like they were sisters without considering the harsh truth that I could one day be disowned.

Well, as they say, it’s better to have loved and lost.

And then it’s reunion time. Each time I come back, I discover that my peers have been changing right alongside me, riding the river of life with all its turbulence and joys. I find I have things in common with people that I never expected. I’m truly happy for their successes and mourn their losses. I’m not looking for any sort of validation. I’m way past the age when I believe my high school peers can give that to me. So when we get caught up, it’s all as it should be and everything is right in the world.

Except that coming back is also like walking into a memory that’s empty of everything but ghosts. I see the Neil Public Library and I’m four again, picking out picture books with my mother. It’s a good recollection, but still a painful one because memories of one’s mother shouldn’t be so fleeting and threadbare, so cut short. She is gone, but part of her still lives on in that red brick building and when I look at it, it’s the one place in the world that I’m back with her.

Time skips and I’m fourteen, riding my bike without braking, all the way to the library because there’s nothing to do in the summer but read and no one will drive me. I look at Dack Street and I’m a second grader riding my bike around with a gaggle of neighborhood kids or sitting on Kristy Turner’s front porch with her, scheming how we can convince her parents to take us to Reaney Park Pool. The water is always freezing, but I jump in the deep end anyway, and we’ll spend most of our time rescuing the ladybugs that had poor navigation skills from drowning.

I look at Gladish and I’m in sixth grade and can taste the soy hamburgers that for some reason I loved. I can taste other things too—the sting of rejection. Sixth grade was the time when everyone else figured out how to act—except me. I was wild, brash, oblivious, and such a target.

Some of my peers there cut me down, intentionally and unintentionally, and for the next few years told me in subtle ways that I wasn’t enough. And I was so far from perfect—sometimes swinging that same blade at others myself. Fortunately, my church leaders, ever patient and kind, taught me that I belonged and I was more than enough. I even believed them some of the time.

And then there was high school where I tried so hard to walk the tightrope of coolness, to pretend I was someone who knew what I was doing. I didn’t. I completely didn’t. But mixed with all that insecurity was magic because sometimes you just didn’t care what anyone else thought and so many things were hilarious. Laura Kleinhofs and I made a giant paper mache hamburger in art class and left it on a stranger’s doorstep. We decided that gifting a stranger a huge random hamburger was the perfect prank. The recipient probably still wonders to this day where that thing came from.

There was the time Laura and I tricked Michael Kerr into TPing Larry Johnson’s house by convincing him that Laura lived there. That was two birds with one lie.

So many moments of happiness. The emotions I felt back then, the highs and the lows, I was sure I was the first person to ever feel them.

Now when I see the houses and buildings in Pullman, it’s like looking at a stage set that’s gone wrong. I know what the story should be and yet the actors aren’t there anymore. Every time I see a teenager milling about town, I think: Wait, I’m the one who is supposed to be young and expectant. This is my childhood, not yours. But of course, it’s not anymore.

It’s so odd to stroll around. At every turn, I feel like I should meet specters from the past. And there’s always that sense that if I just keep walking, I’ll run into myself–that part of me that was beleaguered and hopeful and innocent. When I’m in Pullman, time stops, and something feels so very unfinished. I’m not even certain what it is.

When I leave, I leave those emotions in Washington until the next time I come back, visiting my childhood like it was a tourist destination. Rome, London, Janette’s stage set of memories.

Well, as they say, “You can’t go home again.”

Sometimes They are right.