Research tripping

by Alexandra Sokoloff

As anyone who interacts with me on Facebook knows, I got a little tense this election week.  Not that that’s unusual.  And I doubt I was the only one here who wasn’t getting much work done in the last few days.  At the same time, I can’t really afford to take time off, given the deadlines I’ve got going on, even if most of them are self-imposed.

But the Universe lined itself up for me,as it so often does. Actually, some people would say it ALWAYS does, even if that’s not the way it looks on the surface. But that’s another blog!

I just finished a second draft of my new book, BLOOD MOON, and I don’t know about you all, but I find it REALLY REALLY hard to take the advice I am always giving other writers: to take time off in between drafts of a manuscript. Even when I know it’s the best possible thing I can do for the next draft. But the next logical step in my process required research, in fact, a research trip to San Francisco.  I know, I know, rough life. So on Tuesday I just got in the car and drove up, meaning  I got to watch election returns in downtown Oakland (massively fun and obviously a huge party…)

And now I’m running around the city to locations I’m using in the book.

Now, I lived in the Bay Area for years, it’s not lke I don’t  know what I’m writing about. But there is nothing like revisiting a city, neighborhood, park, street, whatever, while you are in the headspace of your characters, looking specifically for those details that will color in your book.  And that’s really how I think of it – coloring in. I have the outlines of the story, but now I have to add those layers of light and shadow, color and sound and smell. And the feeling of being in a place.

I did a great panel at Bouchercon this year and the fabulous moderator, Daniel Palmer, who knows my acting background, asked if I used acting techniques to develop character. And of course I do. I don’t think about doing it, its just something I’ve done for so long that I couldn’t imagine not doing it. A lot of conveying emotion on stage is about creating that emotion inside of you, first, and then layering on the physical manifestations of that emotion so that the audience feels it, too.

So all this walking around in the actual physical world of my story is what really helps me to get the sensual reality of that world and whatever the characters are experiencing onto the page. I need to FEEL it.  I can do research online and read books, and craft an approximation of an experience from that research and my own  memoreies of experience, but it’s a lot harder for me than being there in person. In fact I have been doing so much walking that I can barely move at night, but it’s the only way I really know how to do this. Driving it won’t cut it.

But I’m a really physical person. Kinetic learner, psychologists call it. And the kind of writing I like to do and read is a lot about creating a sensory experience.  I realize that not everyone is like this, because there are books out there that do very little to create a sensory experience., and people buy them anyway, so someone  must be getting something out of them. But that kind of book rarely does anything for me. I want all six senses n ny books – especially that sixth sense of SENSING – the unseen stuff, the things that make your skin tingle.  Synchronicities. A smell that takes you back to your childhood.  Walking into the exact scene that you have been thinking about, and realizing the epiphany that your character will have there.

So for today I’m wondering – are you guys aware of what experiences you most want to read or create in a book, the way I find sensory experience (including the visual) my prime pleasure in reading?  What is that draw for you, and  what do you do in terms of reearch and craft to create that? Does acting technique play a part?

Or in reading, which authors/books are great examples of the experience you most want in a book?

(Sorry for the typos and short post today – I’m working on my iPad, which is not an optimum blogging experience!)

– Alex

Writing Australia Tour

By PD Martin

Last weekend saw the final part of a writing tour I’ve done this year for Writing Australia. While some authors get to tour a lot, and probably too much for their liking, that’s not generally the lot for us mid-list authors.  So my last interstate dash was met with the excitement of someone who doesn’t get to travel for work much, if at all.

At the beginning of the year, Writing Australia (via Writers Victoria) asked me if I’d take part in a tour, where they’d sponsor my airfares and appearance fees so that other state writing centres could access a range of teachers. In this case, me!

It’s been great fun…I’ve done a weekend course in Canberra, a whole weekend of activities as part of the Salisbury Writers’ Festival (blog about it here) in South Australia, and this weekend I took a one-day workshop in Hobart on wrting crime fiction and popular fiction; and a one-day workshop on crime writing in Sydney. 

All the centres have been wonderful hosts and the tour was expertly put together by the Director at Writers Victoria.

I’ve received excellent feedback from all the attendees at my workshops and I’ve had a blast! I mean what’s not to love? Downtime at the airport – great time to fire up the laptop and get a few hundred words done over a glass of wine or beer. A hotel room to yourself, TV in bed, and time to myself. I think the latter is something many parents (and dare I say it, mothers) don’t get much of, so when we do it’s appreciated. Of course, I missed my two munchkins enormously, but I also think I lapped up the ‘me time’ and also made sure I made the time productive, where possible.

I’ll give you a sample with a breakdown of this weekend. Cab to the airport in the afternoon. Wasn’t a whole heap of time at the gate, so I read on my Kindle. Love my reading time! Arrived at the Hobart airport and then onto the hotel. Decided to treat myself to a good-quality steak dinner and delicious wine – Kindle in hand. Then back to the hotel room where I eyed the bath and noticed that not only was it deeper than ours, but I didn’t have to clear a million bath toys to get into it. Hot bath, bit of TV in bed, more reading. Heaven. 

Then there was the course (great fun) followed by two hours to kill before heading to the airport. Cheese platter, glass of red wine, laptop out and some writing time. Gold.

Arrived into Sydney late, so didn’t do any more work but I did read for half an hour or so before it was sleep time.

Next day was the course (great fun again) and then my hour at Sydney airport was spent writing with a beer.

Like I said, who can complain about touring??

I have to confess, while I first took up teaching to add another income stream, I LOVE teaching. I love talking to eager students, I love seeing their faces light up when something clicks or excites them. I love watching them leave the venue at the end of a day with their heads spinning with information but also feeling inspired. 

So, Murderati. What courses have you taken part in recently, as either teacher or student? What makes a course ‘good’ to you?

GOOD VS. EVIL, POST-ELECTION EDITION

by Gar Anthony Haywood

By the time you read this (I hope), someone will have won the U.S. Presidential election and someone will have lost it.

To most Americans, the election was a battle between two men with fundamentally different ideas about the role government should play in our everyday lives.  For others, it was something much greater, a virtual war between the Powers of Darkness and the Agents of Light over the very soul of this nation.    If you think I’m exaggerating, you haven’t been reading some of the Facebook “discussions” I have been over the last several months.

Because it’s easier to get people to the polls by convincing them their vote could make the difference between putting the Son of Satan in the White House and a decent, God-fearing human being, the political arena is an ideal setting for this kind of silly, provocative oversimplification.  But politicians are not the only ones who like to describe every human conflict as one pitting Good against Evil.

We crime writers have a tendency to reduce things to those very same extremes.

Of course, we do it for the sake of high drama, not election results.  In the interests of maximizing the stakes in a thriller, for instance, we often go in for villains who are simply heartless monsters, rather than complex people with conflicting motives.  Conversely, our protagonists are soldiers of righteousness, angels with dirty faces who have no doubts, whatsoever, about the virtue of their cause.  God is on one side and the Devil is on the other, and there’s no way to mistake which is which.

Gray areas are okay for literary fiction, the reasoning goes, but readers of mysteries and thrillers only have eyes for black and white, the better to root for the latter as they hungrily turn pages.

I can’t view the world that way, no matter how popular such fiction is.  Just as I know Barack Obama is not a freedom-hating Muslim and Mitt Romney is not a Scrooge-like robot with contempt for all poor people, I also know that real “good guys” and “bad guys” come in all stripes and colors, and that their needs and motivations cannot always be described in a single line.  I keep this thought in mind whenever I enter my polling booth and whenever I sit down to write.  Nobody in this world wears horns and a barbed tail, nor walks with a halo consistently overhead.

The shorthand of Good versus Evil might win (and lose) elections, and it might sell a boatload of crime novels, but it’s just not for me.

Sorry.

AN INTERVIEW WITH BLAIR HAYES

 

A Wild-Card Tuesday Exclusive by Stephen Jay Schwartz

If you’re only going to do one thing today, vote.

If you’re going to do two things today, vote, and read this interview with my good friend, the remarkably talented commercial and film director Blair Hayes.

I met Blair many years ago when I was a development exec working for Wolfgang Petersen. Blair is one of the top commercial directors in his field, with clients that include Pepsi, Federal Express, Kodak, Budweiser, American Express, Nintendo, Verizon and many more. He has received all the top commercial awards — the Clio, Addy, One Show, Mobius, IBA, and even a First Place Golden Trailer Award for the theatrical trailer of “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (“…If you see one movie this summer see “Star Wars”, but if you see two movies, see Star Wars and Austin Powers!”)

Blair’s creative energy is infectious. Actors love working with him, and the list of celebrities he’s directed in commercials include Denzel Washington, Richard Gere, Geena Davis, Andre Agassi, Barry Bonds, and Cal Ripkin, Jr.

In 2001 Blair directed his first feature film, the cult classic, “Bubble Boy”, for Touchstone/Disney Studios, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. I was fortunate to have had a small part to play in this process, as I was a “go-to” person for the scripts that Blair was considering to direct at the time. I knew he’d found the right project when I read an early draft of “Bubble Boy.” Blair gave me the opportunity to help develop the project with a series of notes I provided over the course of several months. I remember visiting the set a few times, watching the magic evolve despite a tight, chaotic schedule and the inevitable financial and technical obstacles involved in making a feature-length film where the star is encased in a “mobile bubble” throughout. Blair also honored me with an invitation to join him and a few select people — his girlfriend (now wife), mom, film manager, and Jake — at an opening night dinner in Beverly Hills followed by a limo tour of the different theaters where Bubble Boy appeared. If you haven’t seen Bubble Boy, rent it. Now. Before you go to the polls. It’s irreverent and hilarious.

In 2004 Blair directed the pilot, “Fearless”, for Jerry Bruckheimer Television, starring Rachel Leigh Cook and Eric Balfour. He also designed, directed, and photographed the award wining opener for the series, “Push, Nevada”, produced for ABC TV by Ben Affleck and Sean Bailey, and served as a visual consultant on the series, shooting scenes to visually punch-up the look of each episode.

Forays into long-form filmmaking aside, Blair still find his greatest passion in commercials. “Telling a story, provoking a response–be it a laugh, a tear, or a scream–in 30 seconds, is the toughest challenge there is – and the sweetest when it works!”

Blair grew up the son of a career marine officer and diplomatic serviceman, living for many years in South America and Thailand. He graduated with a BFA in film and a minor in music from the University of Miami and did post graduate work at USC in screenwriting. He currently lives in Topanga, California, where he shares a house with his beautiful wife, actress Boti Bliss (“CSI:Miami”), his adorable two-year old son Ashby, three enormous dogs, and the occasional Topanga Canyon snake.

Stephen: We have something in common in that we both studied music before settling in on our chosen, creative careers. For me, music influenced everything I did in the arts. My writing wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t feel the crescendo and diminuendo, the staccato and legato of every sentence. How has music influenced your career as a film maker and commercial director?

Blair – Opening line to my uncompleted first novel: “That quick, stridulous tone, like some strategically placed dissonant semi-quaver, lingered familiarly and perfectly in the air, ending abruptly and crudely in a resounding “thwack” as screen door met frame.”

The two studies are intertwined and inseparable. I can always find in music the perfect metaphor for what I am going through in life – career or otherwise. I can’t tell you how many frustrated musicians I have encountered in the film business, including, *sigh*, me.

Stephen – I understand that you had some connection to Jaco Pastorius, the great bass player from the jazz fusion band Weather Report. How did you come to meet him and how has he influenced your creative process?

Blair – I studied music at theUniversity of Miami in the late seventies, my principal instrument being bass.  Jaco was teaching there as well as playing with several of the various rocdk and jazz ensembles.  The first time I ever saw him perform was one of my earliest “door moments,” you know, those pivotal moments you encounter where you have some sort of epiphany – and a door opens or closes for you.  Though I openly derieded his playing to my roommate as “too many notes,” I knew in my heart that I was witnessing a divinely gifted individual.  What was actually going on in my mind was, “okay, either I study my ass off and woodshed til my fingers bleed to get as good as this guy or toss in the towel now and acknowledge I will never get to that level.”  I knew in my heart the answer.

(The brilliant Jaco Pastorius, of Weather Report)

Stephen – And yet you didn’t have the same response to film. What motivated you to become a professional film-maker and commercial director instead of a studio musician?

Blair – To be perfectly honest, it was a combination of seeing Jaco and realizing I was never going to be that good and meanwhile having professors saying shit like, “less than one percent of you will ever go on to anything more than teaching accordion to grade school children”, and other such discouraging stuff. I knew I had to switch majors and saw that UM had a film department and thought, “hey, all those countless hours in movie theaters and in front of the boob tube has certainly prepared me for this!”. And that is honestly how it happened.

So, basically, I owe my career to Jaco!

Stephen – That’s wild, Blair – I had a very similar experience in music school. I spent one year at North Texas State University, one of the top jazz schools in the country, studying saxophone performance. I was a somewhat decent musician, but everyone around me was insanely good. I noticed that I was having more fun in my English courses and, after one of the many days when I skipped my Sight-Singing and Ear-Training course to argue literary style with my English professor, he suggested I leave music school to study film and literature in Los Angeles. It was the right move.

You ultimately chose film-making as the preferred medium in which to express your art. Have you always seen stories as images, or do you feel equally comfortable telling your stories on paper?

Blair – My primary effort both on the page and on the screen is to tell the story as “experientially” as I can.  You know, intimately and personally.  I just want to be provacative; be that a laugh, a tear, or just a reflection on something.  So a lot of what I’m known for visually is what some might call impressionistic.  I call it jazz.

If you want to see a few samples, go here, here, and here.

Stephen – What was film school like for you? What were your goals and expectations?

Blair – I honestly wouldn’t recommend film school to anyone these days. Not with DSLR’s and the multitude of inexpensive ways to record an image. In film school, other than the theory and film history stuff you learn (all of which is terrific at chatting up girls and geeks), you don’t really get to know anything substantive until you actually get your hands on a camera, which, in most cases, isn’t until your senior year. That’s when you really learn something. All the theory, the history, didn’t do me a bit of good professionally. You know what did? Knowing how to thread a Movieola! As a PA (production assistant) right out of college, on my very first job (back when everything was shot on 35mm film), I was asked if I knew how to run a Movieola (the ancient though venerable rackety machine that was the industry norm for editing and viewing dailies on location). “Yes!”, was my enthusiastic reply. I even knew how to repair the torn sprocket holes that would inevitably occur when the director would take over the running of the machine…

Stephen – What was your experience after film school? Did you march into Warner Brothers with that reel in your hand? How did you end up in commercials?

Blair – I became a commercial director really by default. I never intended to be a commercial director (how low brow can you get???); I totally believed that diploma in hand, I would be granted the reins to “Citizen Kane 2″. But, as fate would have it, I started working as a production assistant primarily on commercials and started moving up the old ladder, to production coordinator, location scout (which was really fun because I was creatively contributing to the project), then assistant director and ultimately producer. But all the while “what I really wanted to do was direct.” By the time I was in my mid-twenties I was producing for some of the biggest and best commercial directors in the business, including Ridley and Tony Scott, and making very good money, but it just wasn’t where I wanted to be. So I self-imposed a goal to be directing by the time I was thirty. And to really light the fire I also said to myself the day I produce for someone younger than me is the day I give in and realize, “that’s it, I will be a producer the rest of my life”. And guess what? The occasion presented itself to me in my 29th year and that was it: I sold my house and financed a showreel of spec spots that I directed. The reel worked. I got representation as a director right away and that was that, I was on my way. Now the only frustration was that I wasn’t directing movies…

Stephen – How did you make the move from being one of the top commercial directors to directing a feature film for Disney?

Blair – One of the production managers working for me on a commercial, who also worked for Jerry Bruckheimer, saw my reel and asked if I’d be interested in directing a movie and if it would be alright with me if she showed my reel to Mr. B. Needless to say, after I peeled my ass from the floor, I ran to give her all the reels she could carry. A week later I was ushered into the presence of Mr. Bruckheimer, who was incredibly complimentary of my work and asked If I’d like to direct a movie for him. That’s it. That’s how it happened. I ultimately did not make a film for Jerry Bruckheimer, but word got out that I was on the short list of directors he wanted to work with and then the agents and managers came out of the woodwork. I had also directed the trailer for “Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me”. The one where you think it’s Star Wars only instead of Darth Vader it turns out to be Dr. Evil, “If you see One Movie this summer, see Star Wars. But if you see two…” That garnered quite a lot of attention.

Stephen – How did the Bubble Boy opportunity come about?

Blair – My agents and manager started sending me stacks and stacks of scripts to read. They were pretty much all the shit that everyone had passed on. Then I got “Bubble Boy” and literally laughed aloud (for me a rare occurrence) at least four or five times so I knew it was something that I could get behind for the next year and a half of my life.

Stephen – How did you get hooked-up with Jake Gyllenhaal?

Blair – Jake was one of many many young men who came in and read for the role. We all (the producers, casting director and myself) knew he was the guy the moment he started reading.

Stephen – I remember a lot of hair-pulling going on when you were in production. Was the experience a dream or a nightmare?

Blair – Actually, the production of the movie was the fun part. Once the studio was happy with the dailies (I was told lunch time screenings at Disney were standing room only) they pretty much left me alone. It wasn’t until post production and all the other chefs came into the kitchen that it got less than fun.

 

Stephen – Why are movies so hard to make? What gets in the way?

Blair – Well, as my experience was working for a studio, I can only speak to that. And honestly, the hardest part is just what I mentioned before, too many cooks in the kitchen. I honestly don’t know how any good studio pictures ever get made. Most of them come from experienced directors that, having “proved themselves”, get a little less interference. But even the big boys get notes.

Stephen – How has the film industry changed since “Bubble Boy?” How have you had to change to keep up with the times?

Blair – I don’t really know because, frankly, I’m not really playing in that arena, I do Commercials. But both worlds have really become stripped down financially and therefore have become all about how to create the maximum bang for the minimum buck. Which is of course, also where some of the best filmmaking in the feature world is happening today, e.g.,”Butterfly and the Diving Bell” and this year’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild”. This is the type of movie I intend to do next. That or a Wes Anderson sort of pic; visual, personal journey sorta thing.

I recently directed a “short” film. I say short in italics as it’s 43 minutes long. Didn’t write it; it was a one act play written by Andrew Fischer, who, along with my wife Boti and the other actor in the film, Guy Birtwhistle, were all members of Howard Fine’s Masters Class. Howard Fine is one of the most well-known and respected acting teachers in Hollywood. Bo came to me along with Guy and Andrew about directing it. I loved the material and jumped onboard immediately. It’s a wonderful piece that takes place all in one long evening in one house. It was great fun to do. We rehearsed for months, something I had never done before (we had only a couple weeks rehearsal time for BBoy). I really learned the value of rehearsing – with good actors, of course. Being 45 minutes long it fell into a category that was too long for most short film competitions and too short for feature film festivals, but from the get-go we were just making it for the love of the piece and the experience of bring it to life. I also composed the music (to get back to your first question). Something I had been wanting to do for a long time.

Here’s a link to the film.

And the trailer for those without the patience.

(Boti Bliss in “Bubble Boy”)

Stephen – Your lovely wife, Boti, plays a now legendary cameo in “Bubble Boy,” one that makes me laugh from the moment she appears on screen. How did you and Boti meet?

Blair – I met Boti Bliss on a commercial shoot. She was the girl Damon Wayans and David Arquette were fighting Chop-Sakey style over in an AT&T commercial. It was honestly love at first sight for both of us. We started dating shortly thereafter and moved in together 13 years ago. We tied the knot officially two years ago when we got pregnant. And now share the house with the World’s Most Adorable Child, Ashby Buck.

Stephen – I often wish that I could be reborn as Ashby – the kid with the cool, artistic parents, the three enormous dogs and the house in Topanga. I’ve seen photos of him at work in his art studio and playing piano and drums…and he’s two years old. You and Boti are giving him the best that can be given.

Thanks for giving us a peek into your life, Blair. We’re all waiting to see your next creative endeavor!

Blair – Thank you, Steve! It was fun!

When The Sky Falls In

By Tania Carver

Unless you’ve been living in the far reaches of the solar system, you’re no doubt aware that there’s a new James Bond film out. You’re probably also aware it’s called Skyfall, it stars Daniel Craig, it’s directed by Sam Mendes, Adele’s done the theme tune and the final third is a bit Marmite, dividing the audience between lovers and haters. There are other things you may not know (or not particularly want to know, come to that). The bar at the beginning where Bond avoids the scorpion and the beach he’s living on was where we went for our holidays this year. It’s in Turkey. And it’s lovely. There you go, a scoop. You heard it here first. No, you’re welcome.

You’re probably aware of other things about it too. The Aston Martin DB5 is back (and looking gorgeous), Judy Dench is brilliant as M and it’s officially fifty years of James Bond movies. Yes, Doctor No, the first Bond film, was released on 5 October 1962. Before I was born, he said coyly. It’s also fifty years since the Beatles released their first single. Another landmark. Next year it’s fifty years of Doctor Who. Our cultural icons are getting old.

Or perhaps not. The Bond franchise has constantly renewed itself. Daniel Craig is, as we all know, the sixth actor to play Bond. Judy Dench the third M, Ben Wishaw the third Q. One of the themes of the movie is whether Bond’s too old to still be doing what he’s doing. And the answer – well, what do you think? I’m not giving too much away to say Craig’s signed for two more films. But still. It’s a fine fifty year celebration and the ending I thought was exceptionally clever. It not only finished everything off that had gone before and provided a coda, (as one reviewer said) but it sent the franchise full circle to start again. Acknowledging the past, playing to it, and renewing itself for another half century all at the same time. Like I said, very cleverly done.

However, while it is renewing itself – and has done, if you see the end of the new one – what it can’t do is use the same cast. Sean Connery, the first Bond is way too old to do it now. Some would say he was way too old when he did it in the early Eighties in the non-canonical Never Say Never Again. Ditto for Roger Moore and George Lazenby. The rest of the original supporting cast are all dead. So it’s renewal and rebirth for a new age.

Doctor Who does the same thing. Matt Smith turned thirty last week. He’s the youngest actor to play the thousand year old Time Lord (yet, I think, the best at carrying the character’s age), and the eleventh incarnation. The change of a lead actor is less surprising in the case of Doctor Who, it’s a show that thrives on change, in fact actively welcomes it. It could easily run for another fifty years.  Another hundred, even, because the premise – time travelling madman in a box – is so brilliantly versatile. It’s probably the one idea in fiction I wish I’d thought of. And yet I’m sure I would have rejected it for being too massively, stupidly unworkable. Which, of course, shows what I know.

But my point is the same for both franchises. Our culture constantly renews itself, retelling the same stories over and over in ways that we can currently recognise or that mean something to our lives now. Yet while they’re doing that, these cultural monoliths also have one eye on the past. They acknowledge their history and build on it. They’re creating next generation nostalgia while providing it for the original audience. They can do that. It’s in their natures.

A writer once told me that Marvel Comics would retell the same stories every five years. It was market economics: their target audience would grow up by then and move on and the comics had to be ready for the next one. He did tell me this before the nostalgia boom hit and middle aged men who should know better still kept reading them (and some of them – mentioning no names – still wear the t-shirts), but the point is a valid one. For instance, how old is Peter Parker? He was a teenager in 1962 when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Now, given the fact that he didn’t die of leukaemia and went on to develop super powers, he doesn’t look much older now. Likewise characters who repeatedly die to be reborn. Captain America and the Human Torch are two of the latest examples while over at DC they’ve killed and resurrected both Batman and Superman. (In fact they’ve just killed off the whole of the DC universe and rebooted it. That takes some doing.) This is fine. This is in the nature of us. We need constant renewal in our culture.

Why? Because, as I said, we need to retell the same stories to ourselves in ways we’ll understand. But there’s something else, I think. It keeps us young. Well, up to a point.

We don’t notice that we’re aging. Well, yes we do, when our knees give out and we start to forget things, but on a day to day basis we don’t notice. That’s because we live most of our lives inside our own heads and we only get to see the way other people view us when we happen to look in a mirror. And then we usually wonder who that old bloke is grinning back at us. Or I do anyway.

Inside our heads we don’t age.  We don’t get older. We’re the same in our forties as we were in our twenties. Or at least we tell ourselves that – the truth is probably different. But we still think we feel the same as we did then. And we want our culture to reflect that.

We don’t want to see an old Sean Connery being Bond. We want the younger, fitter model. Because that’s who we identify with. We want Matt Smith as Doctor Who, a young man in an old man’s body. We don’t want a tired old Batman. We want a fearless hero who knows that criminals are a cowardly lot and is prepared to take them on. Why? Because when we read, when we look at a screen, we want to see ourselves reflected back at us. Not the boring, tired old selves that we really are, but the stylised, idealised versions. The heroes we want to be and believe we are. We want our heroes to not get old. Because if they don’t we might stay young too.

But as I said earlier, it’s also the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles releasing their first single. And that’s when mortality hits us.

For a start, there are only two of them left. Cancer took one, a mental gunman took the other. And the two that are left are old. Admittedly they’re trying not to be and not to look it, but they are. And I’m sure that inside they don’t feel any different to the young men who recorded ‘Love Me Do’. I’m sure they’re just the same as the rest of us. They can’t renew themselves. They can’t cast younger versions to continue on as the Beatles. They can’t reinvent themselves and stay young because we want them to. And that’s sad, really.

I felt something similar when Doctor Who came back on TV in 2005. Here was something I used to watch as a kid, and love. I read the books, bought the merchandise, even went to a couple of conventions. Loved it. And now it was back. But it was still a great show, in many ways much better than the one I’d enjoyed as a kid. But there was one big difference. I was sitting there watching it with my own children. And that was one of the biggest intimations of mortality I’ve ever felt.

So yes. Our culture can renew itself. Up to a point. And we can try to do the same. Up to a point. So what do we do? How do we respond? Enjoy it, I suppose. Even the getting older bit.

Because as my mother (a huge Bond fan herself, incidentally) always says, ‘It’s better than the alternative’.

DAILY FORECAST

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

My life is run by two lists. One is the day job list, which cannot be set aside. I run a thirteen-state Western Region for my sales job and my travel and daily activities are dependent upon the schedules and daily lists of dozens of other sales reps and distributor representatives. This list weighs me down.

List Two is the everything else list, which includes ALL of my writing endeavors and obligations, as well as my personal business issues, medical, housing, kids’ school obligations, bills to pay, and the never-ending “honey-do” list. This list weighs me down.

In addition to these two enormous lists, which I keep as separate computer files, I generally write a Daily To-Do List, which combines the twenty or so most important things that must be done each day, culled from List One and List Two.

I used to experience great joy crossing things off these lists, but the trick has grown old. I no longer find happiness in the process.

I’m over-committed and I have no idea when it’s going to end. I will have to experience a complete lifestyle change for the deluge to stop, and I don’t see this happening for a long, long time.

I used to be able to juggle a week’s worth of commitments in my head. Each week I’d do a quick review and prepare for everything that would happen in the next seven days.

Now I focus on what’s supposed to happen today only. I see exactly what’s in front of me and nothing more. I’ll go through my entire Monday without realizing that Tuesday morning I’m boarding a flight to Minnesota. And that ain’t good, because sometimes I need an extra couple hours in my day to launder the underwear. God forbid I should need a little dry-cleaning done.

My creative commitments are insane. Judging two major competitions simultaneously (aka, reading hundreds of novels and short stories), researching and writing a new Hayden Glass novel, writing a short story on assignment, doing panels and speaking engagements…it’s crazy. And I know I’m not alone – most authors I know are just as busy, and most of them are juggling day jobs, as well.

At a recent sales meeting I learned that when people focus on more than three goals their chances of succeeding at anyone of these goals falls dramatically. When you have more than seven goals you might as well give up. You can’t do everything and do everything well.

Point in case – what the fuck is going on with my writing? Where is my third novel?

When I wrote Boulevard and Beat I had two major commitments. The day job and the book. That’s where my head was. Worked during the day, wrote at night. I finished two good, solid books that way. Since I’ve been published I’ve allowed myself to be torn in a hundred directions and the end result is…no book.

I have made one major addition to my commitment bucket, however. I’ve decided to make my family a priority. So now I have three major responsibilities – the day job, the current novel, and spending time with my family.

So, what happens next? I fill my schedule with so many commitments that one of my three important goals gets axed. I’ve learned from experience that I cannot risk endangering the day job, so that one stays. I’ve also learned that taking on any new responsibilities is not worth alienating my wife and kids.

And thus the thing that gets the shaft is my writing. Because, when I’m REALLY working on a novel I spend four or five hours at it every night, after the day job. Another eight to ten hours each day of the weekend. Which means there’s no time for anything else, except work and whatever I can schedule with the family.

Like many of you, I don’t like to say no. I love being available for all the cool things that being an author affords us. I love being the guest speaker at an event, even though it means I’ll spend two weeks preparing for it. I love being part of the committee responsible for bestowing one of the great writing awards to one of my fellow authors, even though it means I’ll be reading five hundred novels in four months. I love being asked to contribute to publications with original short stories or poetry, even though the process will take valuable hours and days away from the work I put into my novel. I always want to say YES to these opportunities.

But there’s only one me, and the gap between when my last novel came out and when my next one launches is growing ever wide.

These are good problems to have, I concede. I’m fortunate for the good fortune. But I’m scattered, and I wonder if the process has caused the good work to suffer. I wonder if focusing on twenty goals is killing the potential for success of goals one-two-three.

No wonder the years are passing by. There’s no time left to contemplate, to think, to reminisce. Not when there’s so much to do.

There. Blog done. Check that off the list.

 

Eating the elephant

Zoë Sharp

Ever get the feeling that a job always expands to fill the time available for the task? In fact, in most cases it expands to overflow the time available, and ends with some desperate floundering to make up for lost time, or giving up because the whole task seems simply too large to tackle.

Sometimes you have to accept that eating the elephant has to be done one bite at a time.

The subject of goals—setting them and achieving them—is very much on my mind today. For one thing, this month is NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month. For those of you unaware of this program, it promotes the writing of a 50,000-word novel (or a 50k part of a novel) during November. And it certainly works, with millions of collective words written by the participants every year.

But why does it work?

  1. Safety in numbers. Knowing that there are others facing the same challenge acts to spur you on both to compete and to complete your work. The herd instinct, where being left behind means being picked off by the predators, and also the companionship of knowing that you may have chosen to travel a difficult road, but at least you are not alone on your journey. Some people can really benefit from that online community of support and encouragement, like joining an exercise class as opposed to working out at home.
  2. Making it real. As soon as you write down a dream, it becomes more solid and more of a reality. Successful people tend to write down their aim and then plan ways to achieve it. Without that planning, it may remain an unfulfilled dream forever. The hazy dream of one day “writing a novel” suddenly starts to take shape.
  3. Timing. At first glance, the prospect of writing 50,000 words in a month may seem very daunting, and it IS a big commitment in time and effort. But being held in early winter, with the days still shortening on their way down towards the winter solstice, makes the prospect of sitting inside in the warm creating stories seem all the more attractive. Not too close to Christmas, but not pushed into the New Year either, when other resolutions may get in the way.
  4. Bite-size chunks. Perhaps there’s a reason why NaNo takes place in a 30-day month like November instead of February. Those two extra days (and I’m not counting leap years) make a huge difference to the task at hand. If you break down those 50k words into a daily target, it’s the difference between facing a little over 1650 words a day, or nearly 1800. Even if you have a full-time job, breaking that target down further into, say 500 words first thing in the morning, another 400 in the lunch hour, then 750 in the evening, is not out of reach. You just have to want it enough.
  5. Finite time scale. Yes, this might involve getting up an hour earlier, and maybe staying up that little bit later. It may involve giving up your lunch break from a relaxing hour with friends to a snatched sandwich with your eyes glued to the page or screen, but it’s not forever. It’s one month out of twelve to achieve something you may have wanted to do for years.

In case you were wondering, no, I won’t be taking part in NaNo this year, although I think it’s a great idea. That’s not a cop-out, I promise. As I go into November, I have my own elephant to eat, although I may well have my own NoWriMo (note the lack of ‘National’). Instead of being able to work on my new project, I’m working on edits and re-writes, which is not so much about getting words on the page as swapping the existing words for the RIGHT words. And that is a slower process altogether.

But I still need to set out my goals between now and the end of the year, with realistic deadlines attached to each stage. Writing them down in order of priority helps me organise what I should be working on first. Urgent jobs tend not to be the most important, and important jobs are often not the most urgent—until the deadline looms, that is.

I need to work out WHY do I want to achieve these goals? Keeping in mind the benefits and advantages will act as a motivational factor. I work much better for the carrot rather than the stick, so looking at the plus-side of getting it done is far less de-motivating than worrying about the consequences of NOT getting it done.

What are the actual steps I need to take to achieve my goal? In particular, what’s the first step? Do I need to make changes to my lifestyle in order to achieve them? At the moment I’m doing edits, so I’ve gone through my editor’s notes and listed the main problem areas, then printed out my summary of the book to see where I can make the necessary changes. Facing the whole book as a lump seemed like an overwhelming task. Breaking it down into containable steps makes it far easier.

Setting intermediate deadlines is my next step. OK, I have a chunk of stuff that needs to be done before the end of the year, but getting the edits on the first book out of the way this month is not unrealistic. (I hope.) That’s my contingency deadline. If I can get it done inside three weeks, so much the better, because that gives me extra time to work on the next set of edits. But already I’m trying to squeeze myself into a more pressurised situation. I have no idea why I do that, when I know it may lead to disappointment.

The final thing will be to look back honestly at how it’s gone. If I achieved all I set out to do, great. Rinse and repeat. But if I didn’t get it done, why not? Unexpected interference? Well, life is full of unexpected problems and surprises. I should be used to that by now and allow for it when I’m setting my original deadline for the job.

Meanwhile, just to prove that I do occasionally get things done, I’m very pleased to announce that the latest series novel, DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten, is now out for Kindle everywhere except the US and Canada, with a print edition coming soon. Included is a bonus excerpt from Joel Goldman’s new thriller series, STONE COLD.

DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten

‘Sean didn’t remember finding out that I wasn’t to blame for ruining both our careers – that I’d nearly died for him. He certainly didn’t know that I’d killed for him.’

In the sweating heat of Louisiana, former Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, faces her toughest challenge yet.

Professionally, she’s at the top of her game, but her personal life is in ruins. Her lover, bodyguard Sean Meyer, has woken from a gunshot-induced coma with his memory in tatters. It seems that piecing back together the relationship they shared is proving harder for him than relearning the intricacies of the close-protection business.

Working with Sean again was never going to be easy for Charlie, either, but a celebrity fundraising event in aid of still-ravaged areas of New Orleans should have been the ideal opportunity for them both to take things nice and slow.

Until, that is, they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone.        

When an ambitious robbery explodes into a deadly hostage situation, the motive may be far more complex than simple greed. Somebody has a major score to settle and Sean is part of the reason. Only trouble is, he doesn’t remember why.

And when Charlie finds herself facing a nightmare from her own past, she realises she can’t rely on Sean to watch her back. This time, she’s got to fight it out on her own.

One thing’s for sure—no matter how overwhelming the odds stacked against her, Charlie Fox is never going to die easy …

‘Zoë Sharp is one of the sharpest, coolest, and most intriguing writers I know. She delivers dramatic, action-packed novels with characters we really care about. And once again, in DIE EASY, Zoë Sharp is at the top of her game.’ New York Times bestselling author, Harlan Coben

‘To sum up DIE EASY, I would have to say that I have waited a year for a great book, only for a brilliant one to be delivered with all the style and panache you would expect from Sharp and Fox. An exceptional novel.’ Graham Smith, CrimeSquad.com five-star review

You can read the opening chapter here.

And also, I’ve brought out as an individual standalone short story The Night Butterflies, which first appeared in ACTION: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol1. This is the story of a retired ‘insurance’ man, Tommy Renshaw who is enjoying his dream retirement on the north side of Bali, until a figure from his past arrives to remind him you can never outrun the past. You can only hope to outlive it.

This week’s Word of the Week is hamartia, meaning the flaw or defect in the character of the hero which leads to his downfall, originally (and especially) in Greek tragedy, from the Greek hamartia, failure, error of judgement, sin, and also hamartiology, the section of theology dealing with sin.

Masterpiece or Mishmash? Talking Cloud Atlas

By David Corbett

There’s an old saying: Critics are the kind of people who go out after a battle’s been fought and shoot the wounded.

That little chestnut came back with a vengeance when I read some of the reviews for Cloud Atlas.

Briefly #1: If you’re unacquainted with the novel by David Mitchell on which the film is based, or the basic outline of the six nested stories that make up the narrative, this summary by Wikipedia is serviceable.

Briefly #2: I was amazed by the film, touched to the point of tears more than once. I left the theater in a kind of marvelous daze, like I was walking on fog, something that rarely happens at the movies any more.

Apparently, this isn’t the consensus view, at least among the illuminati.

I may be one of the few people on earth who went into the theater expecting next to nothing. I’d not seen a trailer, I’d read no reviews, imbibed no other media hype, and I’d not yet managed to read the book. (I intend to correct that last limitation as soon as I can.)

My sole pre-viewing opinion came from a writer friend, Tom Barbash, who’d seen an advance screening and said the film rivaled Citizen Kane in its importance to American cinema—this from a Stegner fellow and Stanford professor who didn’t merely love the book, he read it four times.

But after viewing the film—more on that in a moment (don’t worry, no spoilers)—I was hungry for more information, especially when a friend informed me the reviews were “all over the map”—a phrase, interestingly, often used to describe the film.

And so I went to the ever-informative Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic websites to see what the wise ones were saying.

I’m sorry I bothered. I compare the experience to overhearing a circle of gossips carp and snipe about what’s oh so obviously hideous about your sweetheart.

On reflection, I too can see many less-than-successful aspects of the film. But I found little merit delving in to the orgy of self-congratulatory bile that in too many cases tried to pass itself off as legitimate criticism.

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, and I see movies and books from the inside, looking at what was attempted, not just what’s there. I’ve learned to both enjoy the decor while also checking out the plumbing. And I was seduced by the ambition of Cloud Atlas. More than once, I sat there wondering: How are they getting away with this?

Clearly, many believed they got away with little or nothing. And they can’t say it spitefully enough.

Some of this I suspect is the usual professionalized envy that too often masquerades as criticism. Some of it is political—the Wachowskis are deemed “radical.” Some of it is the kneejerk railing against anything ambitious as “pretentious” or “pompous”—an opinion often expressed in flamingly pompous fashion.

But what I experienced over and over and over again while watching this film was the magic of the movies. I had a blast. There’s a just a visual, experiential joy to the film that I found not just inviting or seductive or infectious but engulfing.

The actors play multiple roles, crossing gender and color lines and playing a variety of ages. Is the makeup unconvincing in places? I’m enthusiastic, not blind.

Are some of the performances overly broad? You mean as in opera? So?

Is the theme delivered in ham-handed fashion or in leaden dialog?

At times. And I don’t minimize this fault. If you need to announce your theme, you’re doing something wrong. But the theme was also brought home so often by the visuals and the structure that I decided to overlook this limitation. Yes, I think the theme the filmmakers chose to emphasize is a bit simplistic, and that oversimplification created a somewhat cartoonish evil—The weak are meat, and the strong will eat—opposed by a less cartoonish but still unconvincing good—boundaries are illusions, we are all one. But the interplay of this theme in its various manifestations—some witty, some tragic, some melodramatic, some potboilerish, some hip—helped mitigate the simplicity by adding texture and contrast.

Is the movie as subtle, thematically suggestive or structurally ambitious as the book? Oh, please.

This last question seems to go to the heart of some of the most withering criticism. In just the sections I’ve managed to read so far, the prize of subtlety so clearly belongs to the book as to render the question irrelevant.

This isn’t the book. It doesn’t try to be, nor should it.

It’s a big budget ($100 million) film that needs to do well in many markets to earn back its investment. That means it has to honor the intent of the original while also playing to the cheap seats, not just here but around the world. For my money, it does so not just well, but marvelously.

However, despite earning a ten-minute standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival, it appears to be stalling at the domestic box office. The middling reviews are creating a downward drag; those who might have gone to see it are reconsidering. (How can I shout this loudly enough: Screw the reviews, go see it for yourself!)

Argo stole this past weekend’s top receipts, and Those in the Know opine that Cloud Atlas may continue languishing and lose out not just in receipts but at the Oscars to Argo, The Hobbit, and other weighty fall fare.

That’s a shame. Because I think it’s pretty cool that a literary novel can be turned into a great visual feast and a daring cinematic event that also induces that childlike wonder that reminds us of why we go to the movies.

And I think some of the criticism against Cloud Atlas results precisely from the fact it’s not as much of a “film” as some wanted, but rather a movie.

And that’s what I call shooting the wounded.

* * * * *

So, my readers: If you’ve seen the film, feel free to chime in.

If you haven’t, what criticism have you read lately that raised your hackles—or resonated with the truth?

Do you believe in a clear bright line between “movies” and “films”?

* * * * *

This is a repeat of information I provided yesterday concerning my upcoming class through LitReactor, starting Thursday. We still have a few seats available so sign up now.

NEW ONLINE 4-WEEK CLASS — BEGINNING NOVEMBER 1ST!

The Spine of Crime: Setting, Suspense, and Structure

in Detective, Crime, and Thriller Stories

Online at Litreactor

Building on my preceding course, The Character of Crime, I move from the Who of crime writing to the Where, What and How. (The prior class is not a prerequisite for this course. The subject matter to be covered here stands alone.)

In this 4-week course and workshop, you’ll learn the crucial role of setting in crime stories—perhaps the most setting-dependent genre in literature. You’ll learn how to let suspense emerge not from coincidence but as a natural extension of character, context, and conflict. Last, you’ll learn how to construct the “spine” of your story through structure, finishing up with an examination of the unique plot elements that characterize stories in the detective, crime, and thriller sub-genres.

SIGN UP HERE

The Classes:

Week 1 — Setting: How to Ground your Theme, Characters, and Structure in Place

Whether your story takes place in a pastoral village or a skyscraper jungle, how people live in a specific place and time will define the nature and limits of what’s deemed a crime, who gets called a criminal, and what stands for justice.

Week 2 — Techniques of Suspense: Character, Conflict, and Context—not Coincidence

The trick is always to make the reader keep turning pages. Creating suspense always requires a bit of legerdemain, but to do it well, you need to look deep inside your story, not rely on chance.

Week 3 — Structure: Letting the Conflict Shape Your Story

Three-Act structure too often strands the writer in a meandering second act. By understanding structure as an outgrowth of character, plot points become meaningful events in your story’s growing conflict, not just turnstiles in the plot.

Week 4 — Structural Beats for Specific Sub-genre Types: Detective, Crime, Thriller

Each sub-genre has its own unique thematic emphasis, and that’s reflected in the nature of the adversaries and the conflict they generate. Those variations result in unique structural emphases and expectations.

SIGN UP NOW!

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: One of the themes of Cloud Music concerns the seemingly recurring, perhaps even eternal nature of certain patterns of behavior–and musical refrains. My vote for timeless, in the realm of music at least:

 

Jonathan Lethem’s Promiscuous Materials Project

By David Corbett

Note: In one of those timing anomolies we encounter from time to time, my current rendezvous with Wildcard Tuesday falls one day before my usually scheduled blog posting.

So I’ll be up here tomorrow as well. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)


I had the good fortune to attend a City Arts & Lectures interview with Jonathan Lethem last Thursday, with author Robert Mailer Anderson providing the Q’s for Lethem’s A’s.

It’s evenings like this that remind you just how little you’re accomplishing.

On the plus side, I was dazzled.

Lethem has such a fundamentally curious, protean, sprawling mind that he managed to discuss everything from his passion for music—the one art form to which he can truly surrender as a pure fan, since he has no talent in that realm—to life with his painter father, the death of his mother when he was thirteen, and the enduring influence of Raymond Chandler and Don DeLillo on his writing.

But what really intrigued me was his Promiscuous Materials Project. This is where he offers certain of his stories to screenwriters and dramatists at a nominal ($1) fee to adapt as they wish. (He does the same for certain song lyrics he’s written over the years, offering them basically gratis to songwriters.)

He admits to being influenced by Open Source Theory, the Free Culture Movement, and Lewis Hyde’s book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property.

But the real impetus for this particular promiscuity came when both a filmmaker and a dramatist simultaneously sought the rights to adapt his novel Fortress of Solitude.

Normally, multiple adaptations are impractical, especially in film, given the need to secure all rights to attract investors. But Lethem did everything he could to make sure both artists had a chance to proceed. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen.

But he’d been similarly approached by multiple parties for some of his shorter work, and the idea of multiple versions of his stories, like different cover versions of a song, intrigued him so much he decided to put some of his stories out there to see what happened.

Due to contractual obligations with his publishers, he doesn’t allow the stories to be used as the basis for other written projects, i.e., as the source for other stories or novels.

But by making the stories available in this way, for films or stage performances, he hopes not only that more people will read the actual stories, but that those stories will acquire innumerable new lives in whatever artistic form their new creators see fit.

This is part of a larger movement, much of it currently restricted to digital or web-based art. But with Facebook entering the publishing world—with text available for open social comment and in some cases even revision—the world of the story as we know it is changing rapidly. The individual storyteller is leaving his solitary garret to become part of a virtual tribe, with the word on the page never fixed, but open to constant reworking, not just by the artist but the reader.

This is no doubt perplexing to many, terrifying to some, and appalling to not a few. Some may think it’s nothing but a vanity project. It smacks of piracy, and I’m sure some people fear it’s one more step toward the total impoverishment of working artists. It challenges our notions of individual responsibility, talent, and imagination. It’s also, apparently, inevitable in one form or another in arts across the board.

So, dear readers—what say you on promiscuous literature? An intriguing creative frontier, or the edge of the pit of doom?

* * * * *

Time for a little promotion. I’m teaching another online class through LitReactor, starting Thursday. We still have a few seats available so sign up now.

Here’s the skinny:

NEW ONLINE 4-WEEK CLASS — BEGINNING NOVEMBER 1ST!

The Spine of Crime: Setting, Suspense, and Structure

in Detective, Crime, and Thriller Stories

Online at Litreactor

Building on my preceding course, The Character of Crime, I move from the Who of crime writing to the Where, What and How. (The prior class is not a prerequisite for this course. The subject matter to be covered here stands alone.)

In this 4-week course and workshop, you’ll learn the crucial role of setting in crime stories—perhaps the most setting-dependent genre in literature. You’ll learn how to let suspense emerge not from coincidence but as a natural extension of character, context, and conflict. Last, you’ll learn how to construct the “spine” of your story through structure, finishing up with an examination of the unique plot elements that characterize stories in the detective, crime, and thriller sub-genres.

SIGN UP HERE 

The Classes:

Week 1 — Setting: How to Ground your Theme, Characters, and Structure in Place

Whether your story takes place in a pastoral village or a skyscraper jungle, how people live in a specific place and time will define the nature and limits of what’s deemed a crime, who gets called a criminal, and what stands for justice.

Week 2 — Techniques of Suspense: Character, Conflict, and Context—not Coincidence

The trick is always to make the reader keep turning pages. Creating suspense always requires a bit of legerdemain, but to do it well, you need to look deep inside your story, not rely on chance.

Week 3 — Structure: Letting the Conflict Shape Your Story

Three-Act structure too often strands the writer in a meandering second act. By understanding structure as an outgrowth of character, plot points become meaningful events in your story’s growing conflict, not just turnstiles in the plot.

Week 4 — Structural Beats for Specific Sub-genre Types: Detective, Crime, Thriller

Each sub-genre has its own unique thematic emphasis, and that’s reflected in the nature of the adversaries and the conflict they generate. Those variations result in unique structural emphases and expectations.

SIGN UP NOW!

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: On the subject of the inevitability of change, here’s They Might Be Giants, with their anthem to impermanence, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”:

 

Traps

by Pari

You’d think I’d have learned by now.
You’d think it’d be second nature.
Pause. Wait. Think!

That’d be the wise thing to do. But it’s difficult to be wise when you’re the parent of teenagers.

Before I continue, a few disclaimers:
my kids are
wonderful
bright
intelligent
interesting and,
generally, really fun and enjoyable to be around.
So it’s easy to fall into traps I should know to avoid.

Today it was the seemingly innocuous request to edit an essay. Because I respect the process — and my children’s intellects — I approached it with the same diligence and attention to detail that I would for any other writer I also respect. When my teen came into the office to hear my comments, I began to critique the way I’ve learned from years of experience.

“You’re a wonderful writer. You’re working with major concepts and go into them in excellent –“
“Don’t give me all of that stuff.  Just tell me what you found,” said my teen.
“This is what I found. And I’d like to give you an overview of –“
“That’s not what I asked for. Just tell me what’s wrong.” Blue-green eyes tearing up now.
“Okay. Well . . . there’s this problem with tenses. You shift between present and past in sentences and it doesn’t always make –“
“I do that on purpose. ” A foot stomping the wooden floor for emphasis.
“Okay, well, it doesn’t always work. It confuses the reader and –“
“I know what I mean. My teacher knows what I mean.”
By now, I had started to feel like an idiot. A well-meaning idiot suffering an external perception of malice. “But . . . but the reader –“
“It’s my paper. Don’t tell me how to write it!”

And we were off . . . hurt feelings all around. Anger. Misunderstanding. All this right before I had to take the kids back to their father for the week. My child stormed out of the office, a tsunami of unhappiness crashing through the door. I, being the mature woman we all know, slammed that door and locked it. Truth was, I felt incredibly offended that I’d been asked to help, spent time taking the task seriously, and got shut down so quickly. Wah!

There are so many of these instances in life, the traps that are achingly apparent but which we ignore. Why? I don’t know if it’s because we get lulled into the assumption that this time it might be different or if we simply forget all the times when it wasn’t.

Two questions today:
1. What traps do you fall into with distressing frequency?
2. What traps do you recognize now and manage to avoid?