Sorry for the intrusion on Dave’s wonderful post, but . . .
Congrats to Simon Wood on his Anthony Award for best Short Story! And congrats to Alex for her nom for best first novel.
Hey, congrats to every single nominee! What a wonderful awards ceremony last night must have been.
Cheers, Pari
Hey there, Murderati fans,
Alex is in Alaska at this year’s Bouchercon. I’ve been going through the archives and found this gem from last year. So, let’s get to know Alex all over again through the wonderful interviewing of former Murderati member Elaine Flinn. Elaine now has her own blog at http:/www.evil-e.org
cheers,
Pari
PICTURE THIS: Gorgeous blonde mane, a body built for dancing (you should have seen her at ThrillerFest!), hands that play classical piano and can fly just as fast across a laptop producing screenplays and really scary novels and who do you see? Why, just my guest today – Alexandra Sokoloff – and she is about to set the vast world of mystery/suspense on it’s ear. Not only does Alex manage to scare the hell out of us with her new book – THE HARROWING – but she has also written, directed and acted in productions from Shakespeare to street, choreographed four full-scale musicals and spent a summer as a backup singer! But wait! There’s more! She’s worked for numerous Hollywood studios- adapting original and suspense thrillers for producers such as Michael Bay, Laura Ziskin, David Heyman and Neal Moritz. Her adaptation of Sabine Deitmer’s psychological thriller COLD KISSES was filmed in Germany by director Carl Schenkel.
This is what I call multi-tasking to the fullest! Oh, did I forget to mention that somehow she managed to graduate Phi Beta Kappa as well? Don’t you just hate people like this? I mean, don’t you feel utterly under accomplished? I know, deep down in your heart – you’re hoping to learn she has at least one or two faults – but even if she hasn’t…we can pretend, right? But don’t look too hard – none of my friends have faults. They’re all perfect. 🙂
So after you’ve listened in on my chat with Alex today – mosey over to her website and get the full story on this fabulous new writer – because she is – despite all her talents – one terrific gal! http://www.alexandrasokoloff.com
EE: I know everyone wants to know this, so my first question is: At what point in your life did you find it necessary to abandon the arcane and highly competitive catacombs of academia for the more welcoming and stable life of a screenwriter?
AK: I’m not sure I’d call the Los Angeles Juvenile Court System the catacombs of academia. Catacombs, maybe. I was teaching incarcerated and emotionally disturbed teenage boys in the lockup campus (yes, with this hair…) Wrangling emotionally disturbed teenagers was excellent training for dealing with Hollywood executives. Seems like a pretty natural transition to me.
Yes, I understand the suits can be a rather emotionally challenged breed. Your training did you well! I mean, you survived and lived to tell about it!
EE: While we all know you’re an accomplished pianist, is it true you listen to Handel whilst you write? I’m also told you hum along to the Hallelujah Chorus when that new paragraph just ain’t going the way you want. As you can tell, I have spy’s everywhere.
AK: Accomplished pianist – NOT. I do love doing the gang bang Hallelujah Chorus thing at Christmas, actually, but darling, you can’t think that I’d come up with the stuff I write if I were listening to Handel while I wrote it?
Hmmm, well, I kinda thought my spy was a bit off – but then – he’s new, so I’ll overlook this for now. But not long. I demand accuracy!
EE: Uh, Alex? You wanna tell us about that year in Istanbul when you were sixteen? Or, do you want to save that for another time? 🙂
AK: Seriously, it was very hard. I was blonder than I am now and so, so obviously American. I was harassed everywhere I went – abduction attempts – not fun. But that’s the year that I threw every practical plan out the window and decided to go into the theater, because life’s too precious not to do what you love. And Istanbul itself is a phenomenal city – it was life-changing.
Life changing?? How about life CHALLENGING?? Abduction attempts?? Aieeee! But wait. There could be a story here. I can see it now…Jude Law is at an outdoor cafe at the Grand Bazaar, in the main great bazaar commissioned by Suleyman…sipping thick Turkish coffee, pondering his life when he witnesses an attempt to kidnap a young girl. He springs to action… I mean, think about it, okay?
EE: Whew. I’m still thinking about Jude – but we can talk about him later. Let’s get back to the writing life for a minute. When the last page is written-and you’ve sent the manuscript off to your editor – and you’re ready to lax out – what is your favorite retreat? And what do you do there?
AK: The most relaxing thing for me is to blow out dancing. And – anything on the water. So the perfect combination is this great swing dance weekend that happens every summer on Catalina Island. There are classes in all kinds of dance all day, and dancing to the big bands all night in the Avalon Ballroom – THE most romantic dance venue I’ve ever been in – huge octagonal floor under a domed ceiling, a 260 degree view of the ocean from the wraparound balcony – just magical!
Ah, Catalina Island! I know it well. And you’re so right – it is magical! And there’s something about big band dancing that is entrancing. It conjures up images of Fred & Ginger, don’t you think? And those wonderful days -Those late, great days of Hollywood musicals – where have they gone?
EE: Okay, it’s time for your Walter Mitty Dream! Keep it sorta clean, okay? We’re all for dish, but some dreams are best saved for – well, later.
AK: I thought this WAS my Walter Mitty Dream! You know, I’m really not getting enough sleep.
What? Being here at OTB? Or writing what is sure to be a mega seller? Oh, being here? Gosh. You are too kind. Really.
EE: Word on the street is you went into a fit of depression when you only graduated Phi Beta Kappa. I mean, I know who disappointed you must have been, but surely you’ve put that behind you.
AK: It was too surreal to process. My extracurricular activities had been so extremely – well, extreme – that the possibility had never occurred to me. I still have dreams that I haven’t graduated. Not that anyone’s ever asked to see my degree.
Only a cretin would ask! But about the dreams – think about Jude rescuing you from those nasty kidnappers- and then maybe improvise a bit? Surely that would work.
EE: Rumor has it John Travolta is begging you to teach him ballet for his next film – but you turned him down. Was it because you just couldn’t envision him in tights, or what?
AK: I don’t have the slightest difficulty in imagining ANY man in tights – I have this Elizabethan fetish. I wouldn’t presume to teach JT anything about dancing – but I’d dance with him any time, any place, anywhere. Can you set that up?
Can I set it up? Darling, you are talking to moi! Consider it done. John and I go back, you know?
EE: My favorite little spy told me that you’re working on new lyrics for a duet with Paul Guyot for next year’s gala at ThrillerFest, but Guyot wants to make it a trio thing and have Tony Bennett do backup.
AK: I have no doubt Guyot would be up for a trio thing, but Tony Bennett wouldn’t have been my first guess for a third. Works for me.
You sure about Bennett? I mean – I can talk to Guyot. Between us – we could pull a few strings and get someone else. I hear Wayne Newton is writing a thriller and could use the exposure.
EE: Suspenseville is abuzz about a certain few female writers jealous of your glorious blonde mane and are intent on having a ‘Sokoloff look’ – care to offer a few tips here?
AK: My hair does whatever it wants to – I just follow along. I have no control whatever. How do you think I get into these situations I get in?
Oh, it’s your hair that gets you into…well…uh, situations? What the hell, I’ll buy that.
EE: I understand you have a fetish for avoiding cracks in the sidewalk. No – don’t ask who told me. I don’t reveal my sources – but he’s very high up in the…well, the industry, okay? Anyway, isn’t that a little tough when wearing those to-die-for spike heel boots of yours in New York? Is that also a problem in Raleigh? How do you manage?
AK: My street boots are very well constructed, actually, because I like to walk places whenever possible. I save the spikes for – indoors.
Hmmm. I think he set me up with that question. I wonder if he’s reading us today?
EE: Okay, Alex – now that you’ve left LaLa Land behind, and are now a full-fledged suspense writer, who would be your ideal panel mates at the next ThrillerFest?
AK: Anyone in the Killer Thriller Band, of course – I can’t get enough of them. But ITW is such a candy store, don’t you think? So how can you begin to choose? Can’t we all just dance this year instead?
Ah, yes. The Killer Thriller Band! Can’t blame you there. Candy store? Oh, darling – my sweet tooth was never so sated! I like your idea of just dancing – let’s start a conga line next year!
EE: My most trusted spy told me that you’re no longer accepting calls from Clive Owen. Is it because he’s driving you nuts with his constant entreaties to be written into your next book? Surely you can find a spot for him in THE PRICE! Alex! I mean – CLIVE OWEN???
AK: Elaine, you’re a genius- Clive Owen would be perfect for THE PRICE. But as the hero or the devil? Hmmm. I just love ambiguity in a man…
Yes, it’s true – I can be a genius now and then. It’s so kind of you to remind everyone. But getting back to Clive – the hero, of course! But…ah…with maybe a little devilish twinge lurking? Those eyes of his…that sexy accent…those…
Note to readers: Hot flashes overtook me at this point and I had to stop the interview. Alex, however, was making notes to include Clive in her dreams along with Jude – we both agreed the combination was a sure-fire way to end her nightmares about that graduating thing. I eventually regained my equilibrium and continued the interview.
EE: Now Alex, this is serious: Whispers are rampant that a certain NYT Best Seller followed you all over Bcon in Madison last week, and that you finally had to tell him to take a hike. Tough to do – ’cause the guy is really a hunk, but I’m proud of the way I heard you handled it. But spilling that wine on him was an accident, right?
AK: I’m having trouble keeping track of who I was stalking and who was stalking me. In any event, we’re writers, and we call that ‘research’. No wine was harmed in any of these incidents.
Ah, a lady with discretion! Isn’t that nice to find these days? Okay, we both know who it was – so we’ll just leave that alone. Not that I expected you to name him you understand – I was just hoping you might give us a few specifics. A little dish to chuckle over….but hey, that’s fine. Glad to hear about the wine, though.
EE: Okay, here’s a question I ask every guest – and I ain’t letting you off the hook – so – which writer would you loved to have all to yourself in a cozy corner of the bar at next year’s ThrillerFest? Now the bar at the Grand Hyatt isn’t all that big, but I sure as hell know you can handle more than one, so be my guest.
AK: Seriously, the amazing wonderful thing about these cons is that you really don’t have to choose. Line ’em up. Have I mentioned how much I love this job?
Now that’s what I call a clever non-answer answer! Notice how she skirted that one? "Line ’em up??" Oh, to be young again – to be blonde and…
EE: You’re having six guests for dinner. Who would they be, and what would you serve? Your guests don’t have to be alive…er, I mean – I know you’re a spooky writer, but they can be historical personages too.
AK: To my left, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin. To my right, Shakespeare, Elizabeth R and Oscar Wilde. However, I’m not cooking. Believe me, it’s better that way.
Now that’s a dinner party I’d volunteer to cook for you!
My thanks to Alex for being such a fun guest -for taking time to play – and to wish her all the success in the world with her debut – THE HARROWING. This is another book that requires leaving the lights on! Don’t miss it! This will reel in the noms. Remember – you read that here, okay?
By JT Ellison
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for self and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (Translated by W. D. Ross)
I was coming out of the grocery store today and the woman carrying my bags asked me how I was. Now, before you start thinking I’m hopelessly lazy or have morphed into Paris Hilton, I was at Publix, it’s part of their service, I still have a half-cast, it was a stunningly gorgeous Tennessee day and she wanted to get outside, I was just an excuse. (Nicely justified, J.T.)
ANYWAY… she asked me how I was, and I said, "Fabulous!" Because I was. Like I mentioned, it was a beautiful day, I’d hit my word count, I’d chosen well for dinner and grocery shopping equals bliss in my mind. To be perfectly honest, I’m a generally satisfied soul, so most days I can answer honestly that I am, indeed, quite well. I mean, truly, how could I not be? I’m pursuing my dream. I’m one of the luckiest women on the planet. I have a spouse who is terrific, my parents and family are a huge support, my friends are lovely, my books are fun to write, I eat well, exercise as often as I can, have a nice roof over my head, am relatively free of defect and am not morally bankrupt. What more does a girl need? Skinny jeans aside, of course.
So my kind grocery carter asks me how I am, I reply in a most chipper manner that I’m fabulous, and she nearly dropped my bags. She actually stopped mid-stride for a moment, then got a huge smile on her face. "I don’t hear that very often," she said. "Usually when I ask people how they are, they tell me about something horrible that’s going on in their life."
Considering a situation not twenty minutes earlier. I had a hard time getting the attention of the young girl behind the bread counter. She was in a complete daze. If she were a writer, I’d know she was plotting a particularly juicy scene, but I can’t make that assumption, not just yet. So I finally got her attention, and she laughed. Not in a humorous way, but with soft, chagrined embarrassment. She apologized. "My mother gives me these ADHD pills and they just put me in a daze. I have some bad thoughts sometimes, and I just get lost in my head trying to sort them out."
She went on to wrap up my Tuscan garlic loaf, apologizing again. I told her to stop apologizing, A., and B. write it down. I told her that’s how all great writers start. They get lost in their heads and can’t make head or tails of their thoughts, so they begin writing them down. The thoughts become stories and your head will be less full of bad things. And I saw that my words struck a chord with her. She was thinking about how to do that when I walked away, and I gave her a thumbs-up. I’ll see her again, I’m sure (it is my favorite loaf of bread, after all.) It would be cool to hear that the remedy helped in some microscopic way.
Couple that with the check out girl being surprised at my happiness leaving the store and I realized just how much negativity we’re surrounded by. Day in and day out, people complain. Little things, big things, life altering things, and things that just don’t matter, all build into this verbal stew of complaints. When is the last time someone asked how you were and you said fine, then qualified it with a complaint? It astounds me, truly it does, to hear how dissatisfied so many people are with their lives. I wonder how many are stuck, and how many thrive on dissatisfaction and don’t do anything to change their lives toward happiness.
To hear people tell it, as a writer I should be a morbid depressive, forever unhappy with the state of my life, my writing, my publisher’s treatment of me, my books, my lack of appropriate money, my reviews and channeling this unhappiness onto the page. I just can’t make it work that way. My glass if half to three-quarters full, thank you very much. Sorry. I can’t do anything about that. It’s just me. It’s not that I’m a newbie and haven’t been beaten down by the industry yet. I am genuinely happy to be pursuing a career that I love. I’m a karma girl, big time. Aristotelian. I believe that my attitude and my actions dictate the course of my life. I try to do good things, and when I do something nice for someone else, it makes me feel good. My happiness is gauged not by my accomplishments, but my basic satisfaction with myself and how I treat those around me.
So, with this ideal in mind, did you do something nice for someone else this week?
Wine of the Week — We need a magnum of Dom Perignon today, because…
MAJOR CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER!!!!
My dear friend Tasha Alexander has made a fantastic two book deal, moving her exceptional Lady Ashton series to St. Martin’s Minotaur in a pre-empt. Nice! I can’t tell you the joy this brings to me and to her fans! Watch out New York Times, your next bestseller is on her way!!!
Tasha is at the Great Lakes Booksellers Association this weekend in Schaumburg, so if you’re attending, go see her speak and read from A POISONED SEASON.
In more fun news, Tasha’s most recent adventure hit the shelves this week!
Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the companion novel to Cate Blanchett’s new movie. Tasha was commissioned to write the novel this past winter, and it is vastly diverting!
Bravo, Tash!!!!
I’m all always a little nervous around doctors…this gave me good reason…
Carrying on from my fall off the side of a mountain in New Zealand, I took a trip to an orthopedic surgeon to check out my damaged knee. I hadn’t been impressed with my primary care physician’s initial assessment to knock back the Motrin like it was going out of fashion, so I looked forward to a second opinion. Dr. Smith ordered an MRI. I spent a nice couple of hours inside a seven-foot-high electromagnetic donut that clanged like someone inside was trying to escape from within. I returned to Dr. Smith’s office for the results.
“Operate?” I echoed, hoping I’d misheard.
“Yes, operate,” Dr. Smith confirmed. “It’ll be purely an outpatient affair. Repairing a torn meniscus is commonplace. Nothing to worry about.”
Easy for him to say, he wasn’t being operated on. Okay, I know how wimpy that sounds, but I’d never gone under the knife before. For over 30 years, I’d managed to bend but never break anything that required anyone to check under the hood, as it were.
Dr. Smith must have seen the look on my face. He did his best to reassure me. He blew it when he raised the subject of risks—namely, the risks associated with the anesthetic.
“One in a thousand people react severely to anesthetic,” he said nonchalantly.
One in a thousand? Excuse me, but that doesn’t sound like great odds. I had visions of a deli counter ticket dispenser in the operating theater. I’d pull a ticket and hand it to the anesthesiologist and hear him cry, “Now, serving 1000. Stay sharp everyone, this one is going to be tricky.”
I quizzed the doctor on the whole “one in a thousand” matter. He tried to play down the death and vegetative state issues. I think he locked the door to his office at this point.
He ended the consultation with, “Of course, the decision to do this is yours.”
I talked the matter over with my wife. Julie said I had to have the op, but that’s Julie. She’s a scientist and she’s into this crap. I’m an engineer and I know how easy it is to break delicate machines. She justified the operation by joking that she wasn’t going to lift me off any mountains again. I mentioned the one-in-a-thousand thing and she proceeded to recount how she’d woken up during surgery and the doctors had to hit her with enough gas to floor an elephant to get her back to sleep. Apparently, she has a high tolerance to anesthetics. This did nothing to comfort me. I think I’d lost all color from my face at that point.
“Look, you’re worrying about nothing. Now, where’s your life insurance policy?”
Ha-bloody-ha.
Seeing as I hadn’t been able to kneel down in nearly two years, I agreed to the procedure.
As the days counted down to the surgery, I tried not to worry about it. I met with Dr. Smith and my primary care physician to ensure I was in good enough health to have the surgery. They gave me the green light. I was well enough to be sick.
In the last few days before the operation, Julie took me out to dinner. A last meal, if you will. We sat in a secluded booth and had a nice meal. We talked about all the usual daily stuff and whether Julie would remarry if things didn’t go well.
Our attention wandered to the person in the booth next to us. Some guy was pouring out his life story to a friend over a beer and steak. He recounted how his life was essentially in the shitter. He had no lust for life or his career and was contemplating throwing in the towel and doing something else. This overheard conversation put things into perspective for me. There are greater things to worry about in life. If you have your health, you have something. As Julie paid the check, I glanced back at the booth containing this man on the edge. I wanted to know who this person was.
There sat my surgeon, Dr. Smith, the man who was going to cut my knee open with a scalpel.
My soul drained out through my ankles. I quickly hustled Julie out of the restaurant before he saw us. I didn’t want him knowing that I knew his state of mind.
To be continued next week…
Yours in pieces,
Simon Wood
PS: I’m in Alaska for Bouchercon. I hope it’s not too cold.
by J.D. Rhoades
Well, I had a fun
and funny column planned for today, with
my usual wit and jollity. But I find myself unable to write anything like that
right now.
This past Friday
morning, Emily Elizabeth Haddock was home alone, sick with a case
of strep throat. Three young men, not realizing that there was someone in the
house, broke into the mobile home where
she lived. Apparently, when Emily
surprised them, one of them shot her to death with a stolen .22 caliber pistol. Emily’s
grandfather found her body on the floor when he stopped by the house to check
on her and saw the door forced open.
Emily Haddock was
12 years old. She went to my daughter’s school. She lived on the same road as one of my daughter’s close friends.
The three charged
in the murder were apprehended and jailed Monday night. They’re 16, 18, and 19
years old. They’re being held without bond and two are most likely looking at the death
penalty. The time and place of their next bond hearing is being kept secret
because of “security reasons.”
The news vans are all over the courthouse
square, and the reporters are all there, with names like Sloane and Greg and with
their perfect hair perfectly in place,
droning away with that look of fake concern on their faces, and I’m sorry, but I
just want to punch them. They were outside the Sheriff’s office as they were
taking one of the defendants to the jail, and they were asking “why did you do
it?” I mean, do they really expect an answer? Is there one?
Where do you begin to process something like
this? How do I make sense of the utter stupidity and futility of it all when
someone who’s nearly the same age as my son is involved in the killing of a
bright, happy, pretty girl who’s only a
little younger than my daughter ?
I’m sure there will
be those who see this as an indictment of the availability of guns, even though
the gun wasn’t bought from a dealer, it was stolen in another B & E. Comments are already
up on the news stations’ websites blaming the parents for leaving the girl alone, even
though we really know nothing about the economic circumstances that might have led to that.
At some point, since the accused are black and the victim was white, the race
issue is sure to raise its ugly head. The pontificating and chest beating has
just begun, and the whole prospect just makes me sick. These people, victims
and perpetrators, aren’t symbols or symptoms. They’re a sweet, sunny-natured
little girl and a trio of young dimwits like
the ones I see every day. Except now one of them’s dead, and at least one of
the three others are probably going to be dead in a few years at the hands of the State. Because if someone
dies while you’re committing a felony like B & E, it’s first degree murder, baby. Class A, top of the sentencing charts, even if you didn’t
plan the death. Unless you’re under 17, in which case you’re "only" looking at life
without parole. At age 16.
As crime writers,
I think we sometimes lose sight of what murder’s
really like. Most often, it’s not a puzzle for the brilliant detective to
solve. It’s not the plot device that causes the plucky heroine and her true love to get together so they can be happy and just too cute for words forever. It’s
not the dangling thread of a giant tapestry of international conspiracy to be unraveled.
More often than
not, a murder is just a stupid and
pointless fuckup by someone who didn’t start the day out thinking “I’m gonna
kill me someone today,” but who started that day with one bad choice that cascaded
inevitably into another, then another, like a snowflake that turns into a snowball
that turns into an avalanche. In this case, the avalanche leaves an innocent girl dead
and not just one, but four families devastated.
I’ve been looking
at the words above for the last fifteen minutes, trying to draw some conclusion
from all this, some point. And I can’t find one. But maybe that is the point. This
story’s not going to have a happy ending, or a moral, or a compelling or even a coherent plot.
It’s just some really shitty stuff that happened this past weekend. All I can
do to try and make sense of it is to write about it.
And it’s not enough.
I’m sorry.
By Ken Bruen
"AWAIT THE OLDEST CURSE OF ALL"
-Charles Bukowski
"One Night Stand" from Poems Written Before Jumping Out of a Six Story Window
A recent interview I did, they asked me about the blog on Murderati
“How could you expose yourself so openly?”
Never my plan
When Alex invited me to join the crew, I thought
“No way, not even for Alex.”
And then I thought, maybe you can write a different kind of blog, where writers are not
vilified
Then life took over and I wrote about how things are on a daily basis
James Taylor …. I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain ………….
Something Louise wrote in her last blog triggered a memory, my first time in America, I was 17 and oh so damn scared
Of everything
I got a job as busboy in Central Park
And learned what it’s like to be truly bottom of the food chain, Led Zepplin had their first album out and people were murmuring about a coming event at some place
called ……. Woodstock
Yeah, right, how long have I been around
Too long
The chef, I dunno why, took a shine to me and taught me how to ride a Harley and introduced me to heroin
I was flying
On all cylinders
I met a woman named Nancy, she was 25 ………… and that was so Mrs. Robinson for me
She thought my accent was cute and my naiveté even cuter
My visa ran out after five months and my last night in New York, before I went home to
attend Trinity in Dublin, I told her I loved her
Her laugh resonates even now
She said
“You crack me up.”
I gave her a ring I’d saved for and she looked at it, said
“It’s fake.”
My late brother came over for a weekend, he was a high flyer then, money to am …. burn ……….. and women just adored him, honest to god, we’d go in a bar, two seconds, he’d have a woman chatting him up and he’d say to me
“You need to lighten up, women don’t like that serious look you always have?”
They’d agree in Arizona
He thought life was just one massive joke and me, I never got the punchline, still don’t
I took him to Times Square, back then it was dangerous and not Disneyfied and went to see a movie that had just opened called The Wild Bunch
When I left him at the airport, he said
“Why do you always look on the dark side?’
He was already on his second bourbon, eyeing up a gorgeous lady and said
“Them books will be the death of you.”
His flight was called and he was already chatting up the lady, shouted
“Learn how to smile for fooksake.”
I did
Learn
Smiling is easy
He looked like David Cassidy, if anyone remembers him ……… and everything came easy to him, and that was his curse
I loved him to bits, still do
He never read a book in his short un-encumbered life, he saw his existence as …………… party on
I don’t regret for one moment not being invited to that party
And it’s unlikely at this stage I’ll ever get an invite
For a real smart guy, he was wrong about one thing
Books were my salvation
And remain so
I so deeply regret he never got to see either of my daughters, they saw his photo and asked
“Gee dad, were you jealous?’
Not one moment
He was my brother, gold and burning
Years later, I remember so much of my life that appeared gold, was indeed ………. fake
Nancy married a doctor, god bless her, no doubt he gave her real stuff
I don’t look back on that summer when I grew up, with bitterness, I do regret the three awful days, locked in a room going cold turkey from heroin
Rehab, like the internet, was unheard of
My next stint in New York, I was a security guard at The Twin Towers and gee, I’d really grown up, not tough cos I hate that shite, but as they say able to mind me own self and
Thank god, not one bit cynical
I swear on all that’s holy, I hadn’t learned how to be bitter or cynical then, I did later, but then I still, if not outwardly, at least lived in hope
How dumb was that
I still believed …. in basic human goodness, all the shite that Oprah makes a friggin
Fortune upon
I got me Doctorate and was good to go
Right
Am …………?
Stuff happened, ugly, violent and dark
I continue go to New York, I just love that city ……….. but live there ………. I wish………… I
Lost something along the way, I know, not so much spirit as commitment
Jason Starr was asked in Arizona last weekend what I was like……….. that I sounded controlling, intense and dark
Nailed right there
A guru I heard recently said ………….. go with the flow
Bollix
I do the only thing I know
I write
Get in fights
And recently had a woman tell me
“I think you’re not quite what I’d been led to expect”
Fake perhaps?
Nancy would agree with her
I read my daily dose of philosophy and today it’s Jorge
“If only morning meant oblivion”
But God forbid I end on a dark note, I had an email from a lieutenant in Iraq, saying
“American Skin is getting us through this horror.”
That is all I need to know
It’s been worth it for that
In Galway they say, the old people,
“He meant well.”
I didn’t …………… not a lot of the time but now and again …………….
You know ……………
Fire and ……………………… the damn rain
Mostly I remember my brother loved James Taylor, I’m glad he didn’t get to see James lose his hair
He loved James’s hair, not unlike his own
Go figure
And when I played him Led Zepplin’s first, he said
“That shite will never sell.”
He was Bukowski, without the poetry
KB
Don’t know why
There’s no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather . . .
Do you think much about the weather?
Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve got no place to go,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
I do.
Some people might think we’re a bit obsessed with it here in New Mexico. A hefty portion of each news broacast is spent with witty meteorologists giving play-by-plays about storms and wind advisories. They blissfully fill our minds with numbers referring to relative humidity or barometric pressure. In New Mexico, we have hailstones as big as golf balls. Rainstorms dump inches of water in minutes and then disappear as quickly into deep, cloudless azure. When rare tornados touch down, their landings merit higher billing than commonplace murders.
Maybe New Mexicans feel a kinship with our mercurial world because we can see it. We’ve generally got 30-60 mile views in most places; that makes for mighty big skies. Thunderstorms don’t sneak up on us; they lollygag.
Are New Mexicans loners in their eyes-to-the-sky approach to the world? Are we the only ones who care so much about jet streams and El Nino?
I don’t think so. Otherwise, there would be no Weather Channel. Al Roker wouldn’t have a job. And hundreds of bloggers would have to find other things to write about. What would these guys do? Or this guy? Or the millions of others I found through a Google search?
But where does weather fit into fiction?
Elmore Leonard advises never to open a book with weather. Yet the recently deceased Madeleine L’Engle does just that in her masterpiece A WRINKLE IN TIME: "It was a dark and stormy night."
I believe weather is underestimated in novels. It can set the tone, cause problems, invite sensuality. L’Engle’s tongue-in-cheek opening gives us an anything-can-happen, delicious feeling that’s both ominous and tempting.
I know I often write about weather in my novels — but then I’m a New Mexican, so it’s natural for me.
Don’t other authors see the connection? Why aren’t writing blogs abuzz with discussions about weather’s roles and uses in literature?
I want to know . . . (have you ever seen the rain?)
Maybe in big cities, weather isn’t important. Maybe it’s just a nuisance or a given. The only time it attracts attention is when it’s exceptional — a blizzard or a drought — not like here in NM, where each day it’s a fascinating topic even if nothing much is happening.
I wonder.
Why is weather taken for granted?
Who writes it well?
Does weather even matter in fiction? Is it overdone (and I’m just missing it)? Underrepresented?
One place where weather certainly does matter is in music. Here’s one of my favorite songs of all time, a beautiful version by Louis Armstrong when he entertained the troops in Vietnam. He could have been singing about New Mexico.
I’ve seen skies of blue, clouds of white . . .
I’ve got writer brain: that fuzzy, deep-in-the-world-of-the-book existence where it’s sort of hard to remember real people’s names and where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to do–unless it’s connected to the book. When I’m spending this much time in the story, it’s sometimes harder to connect to reality than to the stuff I can see in my creation. I was driving across town in really heavy, slow traffic, having just polished an action sequence, and realized… I’d stopped… in the middle of a busy intersection. No reason, other than the fact that I just had a thought about how to do something in the book and got distracted. Completely stupid, and I was lucky the oncoming traffic had to wait for the light to change and the guy in the first truck was patient. (For the record, I’m normally a great driver — years of being made to drive obstacle-course-type of situations by my dad, a champion driver, forced me to learn. However, no more driving for me while brainstorming.) I immediately turned around and went home, getting my unsafe self off the damned street.
It’s weird to think that there are people out there who don’t carry whole fictional worlds and sets of people (with complete interactive histories) around with them all of the time. Worlds that they are busy manipulating and orchestrating and controlling. That would be so… quiet… in my head. I’m not sure I’d know how to handle that much quiet.
Once, when our kids were little, I’d taken Jake (the youngest) to a mothers-day-out program so I could write. I was supposed to be there at 2:30 to pick him up. As I was writing, I got completely in the zone. It flowed, it worked, it rocked. I could ‘see’ the whole world in 3-D surrounding me; I was ‘in’ the moment. And the phone rang, this distant sort of jangling and I suppose I answered it (it was to my ear); a woman was asking, "Honey, are you going to pick up Jake?"
I swear to you, I scanned the page in front of me, looking at the names there, so immersed in that world, I asked, "Who’s Jake?" Because he sure as hell wasn’t on the page.
And she said, "Um… your son?"
I was two hours past due to pick him up.
The times I’ve called the kids by the wrong name are legion. (The standard joke around here was that if they walked in the room and there was a computer on, they’d instroduce themselves with, "Hey mom, it’s Luke." (or Jake) (there are only two of them) (I still got their names routinely wrong when I was writing.)
Please tell me I’m not the only one. What have you done that was absent-minded or nutty or a little crazy when you were so deep into writer-world (or so deep into a good book) that it had taken over your brain?
By Alex
I know, I’m late to this memorial, and stalling, because I already know anything I say today will be inadequate. I lost two great writer/teachers this month and I’m wrung out. But this belongs on Murderati.
From Publishers Weekly, 9/7/2007
Madeleine L’Engle
Children’s book author Madeleine L’Engle died on Thursday, September 6, in Litchfield, Conn. She was 88.
Over the course of six decades, L’Engle authored over 60 books for adults and children, which often melded elements of science, religion and fantasy and have been treasured by generations of readers.
L’Engle published several novels before her best-known work, A Wrinkle in Time, which won the 1963 Newbery Award. But it was that book and its sequels about the Murry family that earned her widespread acclaim, along with another series that began with her 1960 book, Meet the Austins. Holtzbrinck’s Square Fish imprint reissued two new editions of the Time Quintet, A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters and An Acceptable Time this past spring. A forthcoming young adult book from L’Engle, The Joys of Love, is scheduled for spring 2008 publication, from L’Engle’s longtime publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
L’Engle was born on November 29, 1918 in New York City. She attended Smith College, and went on to marry actor Hugh Franklin. She volunteered as a librarian and served as a writer-in-residence for many years at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Along with her husband, she founded the Crosswicks Foundation, Ltd., which has given money to community and arts organizations in New York and Connecticut for over 20 years. She is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
When people ask me why I write what I do, or even just why I write, instead of rambling on I could just as well just say A WRINKLE IN TIME. A surreal number of my female author and screenwriter friends, and a good number of the men as well, have said the same thing to me over the years. I could win a fair amount of money if someone would pay me a dollar to guess every regular Rati reader and writer who would make the same claim – in fact, I suspect just about every woman genre writer who came of age pre-Harry Potter. Meg Murry wasn’t just our Hermione – she was our Harry Potter. She is every smart girl who ever lived.
I’ve read just about everything L’Engle ever wrote. Once in a while I realize I’ve missed something and it’s always a huge treat to add that book to my shelf. She was a huge part of my extremely random spiritual education… I was raised with both no religion and a smattering of a large number of religions, but once I was in college and away from any friends who would drag me along to church or temple when I spent the night, I developed my own ritual. When I was down, or lost, I would find myself heading to a bookstore on Telegraph Ave. called Logos. It took me about two years to realize it was a Christian bookshop – it was pure Berkeley. It had crystals in the windows and rainbows on the walls and was just – light. And peace. And it had every Madeleine L’Engle book yet published, all in the same section, and I’d go and stay and read there until I felt better and then I’d buy the book to take with me and go on, comforted.
But her equally profound influence on me (it’s inseparable, really) was as a genre writer. I always gravitated toward the spooky, the thrilling, the fantastical, the twisted, in my reading. I discovered A WRINKLE IN TIME when I was in sixth grade and something in my mind said – “THIS is what a book is supposed to be, do, feel like.” I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything ever since (except, um, HAMLET) that feels as perfect in every way – character, theme, structure, dialogue, action, spectacle, catharsis – every single layer and detail.
I’ve read it hundreds and hundreds of times and I learn something new about how to tell a story every single pass. And not just about the how of it, but the WHY as well. It makes no sense on the surface to write as dark as I do and say that I aspire to the spirituality of that book, but it’s true.
As L’Engle said:
“Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”
I am grateful for every word L’Engle ever wrote. There are other books of hers that shaped me as a writer, an author, a genre writer. She wrote thrillers – ARM OF THE STARFISH is a wonderful YA spy thriller, again with a profound spiritual dimension, and even her dramas have such an thriller edge – I’m thinking specifically of A RING OF ENDLESS LIGHT – that I’d almost call them cross-genre. She put urgency and cosmic stakes into everything she ever put on paper.
But A WRINKLE IN TIME is a masterwork… and I guess it’s always in the back of my mind, the question – will I ever be open enough, focused enough, skilled enough, mature enough… enough anything – to write something that is everything I could write, in a perfect world?
I don’t know. But at least I have a light to guide me on that path.
To make up for everything I would like to say and haven’t, here is a constantly updating roundup of the coverage on L’Engle.
I hope others here will share L’Engle stories, and maybe thoughts on other authors’ masterworks.
In eternal gratitude.
Here Be Dragons.
Supposedly, on ancient maps, cartographers labeled sections that were unexplored with these three words. It represents the bogeyman, the deepest darkest corner of the closet, the literary equivalent of Do Not Enter. So I take these mythical words, stretch the meaning a bit, and apply them to today’s post.
I recently came into possession of a magnetic poetry kit. The kind that has a ton of words jumbled up with a magnetic backing so you can write poetry on your refrigerator door. I’ve always had fun with this stuff. At parties, we used to start the night with a single word, and every person who went to the fridge was required to add on. It would start off entirely logical, poetic, meaningful, and by the end of the night, would be nonsensical, string after string on words that were utterly discordant.
At the time, under the influence of mankind’s finest inexpensive beverages, it was a riot. In the light of day, not so funny. There was always the one person who had stayed up later than everyone else, who nursed along a broken heart, or a broken soul, who left the saddest imaginable notes hidden in the jumble.
We’re all poets at heart, aren’t we? I know I am. I’m a terrible, horrible poet. Should burn all but one or two of the idiotic crapola I wrote in college. Yet every once in a while, the spirit moves me, and I try my hand. It’s god awful stuff that I end up deleting.
So I thought it would be fun to have my own little game of poetry on the refrigerator. No pressure, nothing of importance. Just another way to play with words, which is my dearest passion. I break out the kit, tear things apart, careful to keep the three letter words separate from the fours and fives, separate the multiple I’s from the Am’s and Me’s, etc.
Ready, Freddy.
My first foray into this new game pleases me.
Life is a languid symphony of never and always.
Sigh. How pretty. I leave this on the refrigerator and go to bed, a love note of sorts for my husband.
The following morning, I come downstairs, knowing that hubby be playing the game, will have left me a note. Something to compliment my beautiful phraseology perhaps, or an entirely new sentence will have emerged. Maybe it will be romantic, maybe it will be wistful. Maybe it will give me an idea that causes an eruption of like-minded words and similes that will keep me happy for the rest of the day.
I knew he’d leave me a note. And he did. It read, and I quote:
Smell my finger.
Have I ever mentioned hubby was an economics major?
Once I picked myself up off the kitchen floor, wiped the tears from my eyes, called him to compliment his sarcasm and admit he tickled my funny bone, a thought occurred to me.
It’s fitting, really. We can write the purple, flowery prose with a capital P all day long. We can pour our hearts out onto the page, examine and impress ourselves with our imagery, our command of the language. But it’s the short, sweet stuff that makes the most sense, cuts through the bullshit and makes our writing tight and spare.
I’d like to think that I have a literary style to my writing. But I also try to keep the sentences short, punchy, to the point. It is possible to have both. I think. Which is what I mean about here be dragons. As a writer, I feel like I need to get better, to take chances, to work myself to death finding the most sophisticated yet approachable terms and descriptions. I think we all move off into uncharted territory daily, coming up with new, better phrases, finding different ways to relate our thoughts to the reader.
What about you? Are you a slave to metaphor, or do you prefer the slam, bam, thank you ma’am approach? And who does either style the best?
Wine of the Week:
2005 Renato Ratti Torriglione Barbera d’Alba