the knob theory of the universe

I have a theory of the universe. And that theory is, apparently, that if I change the butt-ugly doorknobs on my kitchen cabinets, the entire universe as I know it will somehow have to be remodeled. I am not exaggerating here. I’ve been knowing this since the year 2000, and I have been killing myself to not change them to save you all time and expense.

You’re welcome.

Here’s how it goes: Every so often, my husband will forget that he’s married to a relatively introverted person and, without warning me ahead of time, he will volunteer our house for a party—usually a big one which entails about sixty or so people all in our living-room and kitchen area. Now, individually, I like all of the people. And, individually, I like having them over. I’m just not so great at the whole crowd thing, though I can do it from practice now. He typically announces that he has already volunteered the house for the time and date (usually within two weeks of his pronouncement—he doesn’t like giving me much warning because the head spinning might get a little intimidating… short notice means I have to suck it up and deal). (After twenty-five years, he’s unreasonably confident that I’m not going to kill him.)

At any rate, this announcement of a party starts a dead panic for me because (a) I typically haven’t visited the kitchen for anything except for diet cokes and to use the microwave (I think I used the stove top twice this year, and that was only because the microwave was busy) and (b) since I am usually buried in writing or reading, I have no clue what the house looks like and am appropriately appalled at all of the projects that didn’t magically finish themselves. (To hell with the tooth fairy, why can’t there be construction elves?)

About this point in the process, I start worrying about how the house looks and I want to get it back up to speed. What I can see in my head—its potential—is sadly lacking in the reality and I know that I could make a few small changes and it would be greatly improved. We’re contractors, after all. We should have a finished house (you’d think). This is when I zero in on one of the main offenders: the kitchen knobs. (These are some of the ugliest knobs on the planet. I swear to you, the people who built this house went to the Ugly Store and picked out the cheapest looking crap knobs in the place and then thought, “Hey, why just ruin the kitchen! Let’s make the bathrooms as ugly as we can, too!”) I typically focus on them because I think, “easy fix!” and inevitably, my husband sees me looking at them and sighs, because he knows what’s coming next: the knob theory of the universe.

Or, better known as, “When Toni loses her mind.”

Because in spite of the fact that there will be sixty or so guests showing up at our house about two weeks from the point of the discussion, I decide I can go buy new knobs. But I don’t want cheap knobs, I want something pretty. Something that will make a statement. Something stylish and current, I think, and then I go find knobs that I like (online, because I hate to shop) and that’s about the point that I realize that the knobs I like are $10 each. Which wouldn’t be bad if there weren’t 78 knobs. This is when the adrenaline has started to pump (because there are PEOPLE coming OVER and the house is a WRECK) but I am ignoring the adrenaline, happily skipping into denial because this is an opportunity to fix the damned knobs. This is the part where Delusion piles on… I really look at the kitchen cabinets and think, “Gee, you know… if I’m going to spend that much money on knobs, I don’t want to put them on these doors the way they look. They need to be painted. I could paint them.” Then, because I am very good at painting, I think, “And age them! A couple of layers of paint, sand one off a bit to make them look like old furniture!” (Yeah, because that’s a lot simpler.) Which then leads to, “I also need new hinges, because these look out-dated.” About five seconds later, up pops the, “But those countertops are ugly and won’t go with the new knobs or the new color of paint (which I haven’t picked out yet, but I CAN because I am INSANE)” which of course leads to me saying, “but if we’re going to put in new countertops, we’ve really GOT to replace that stove top because two of the burners can no longer be resuscitated,” and almost immediately, next, is “that oven has got to go because it’s just too damned small for anything bigger than a postage stamp” which then has me scampering down the road of insanity to “but if we’re going to get new appliances, we might as well go with the range option with the six-burner top instead of the four burner top, seeing how we’re always having people over here for parties” which THEN leads to “but that means we have to enlarge the opening in the cabinets to fit the range, which means some demo and construction,” which then further leads to “but if we’re going to go ahead and do the range, we might as well redesign the kitchen and put the pantry over there and the range over here so that we can put an opening in this section, which means chipping up and replacing the tile floor” which forces the next idea of “but if we’re going to have an opening there, we might as well go ahead and build the porch off the side of the house that we’ve always been wanting,” (which then means changing the roof and the driveway and the back door entrance) at which point my eyes have gone glassy and my head is spinning and I am probably frothing at the mouth because I am somehow trying to figure out how to get it ALL done in two weeks before people arrive. Not to mention the minor little detail that instead of spending $780 for knobs (which is, I will admit, nuts), I am now contemplating work that will cost upwards of fifty grand and I am, at this point, COMPLETELY CONVINCED it can be done in two weeks before the party. It has to be all or nothing, because my entire identity is wrapped up in those fucking knobs and how my kitchen looks (when everyone who’s coming to visit knows me and knows I don’t use the damned thing) and when my husband tries to point out that I could just go get knobs, it’s as if he’s yanked the rug out from under my demented little world and I’m usually furious with him that he won’t go along with this terrific plan. How dare he be practical and pragmatic when there are PEOPLE coming OVER.

This is about the time he makes me margaritas and I calm down.

(Okay, there may be a little more ranting on my part about how I never ever get the stupid knobs I want, which we now refer to as the “great knob debate,” the reference of which cuts off about two days of me being annoyed.)

Here’s the thing I will tell you: it’s dumb. The whole process of stalling out and not doing anything because I can’t instantly have the whole thing is dumb, and luckily, confined mostly to the knob argument.

The thing is, as dumb as this example is, it’s not that far off from what a lot of people do when they’re trying to write. I see the parallel in people every day who hope to accomplish something with their writing, who feel overwhelmed, and as a result, they don’t move forward. They are deeply fearful of something (people coming over)(or the writing equivalent, worried about what people will think of the finished project) and so they sidetrack themselves (construction projects)(or the writing equivalent, listing all of the reasons they can’t write “right now.”) I’ve watched over the years as people have discussed online why they’re having trouble writing and there are always some good reasons mixed in there: work constraints, kids, family, tragedy, depression, financial… There are always obstacles. Big obstacles. You can let them stop you or you can find a solution. The solution is rarely, if ever, magically done in a moment. It’s step by step, bit by bit, or as Anne Lamott would say, bird by bird.

Books don’t happen overnight. Careers don’t happen in one move. It takes whittling away at it, a little each day, to create something like a book or a script or a career. Every single day you don’t do a little bit toward your dream is a day you lose.

We aren’t getting these days back. They aren’t a dress rehearsal.

I realized early on that in spite of my frothing over the whole knobs issue, that the bottom line was, I didn’t really care. The knobs aren’t important to me because if they were, I’d have done something about them long ago. I recognized the whole debate over them was really over fear; focusing on the construction was a way of keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t have to face the reality, that having a crowd here made me a little apprehensive and wanting to flee until it was over. Ultimately, though, the only real choice I can make is to deal with what’s at hand: clean up the house, do what I can, get ready for the party.

Then enjoy. And no matter how traumatized and fearful I am prior to a party, I always end up enjoying the people, once they’re here. Not a single one of them cares about the knobs or the countertops or the kitchen; they’re typically having fun, eating great food. As much as I feared these times, I look back on them now and know my husband was really the smart one: he kept our friends and family together through these events. He kept us all interacting and part of a bigger family unit than my introverted self would have managed. These memories I have of everyone laughing around the table, people eager to come over… would have been lost, if I had waited until the kitchen was “just right” for guests. These people would have been absent from my life. And I am glad to have been pushed a bit out of my comfort zone, to have these memories.

It’s the same thing with the writing. Sure, there’s the Platonic ideal in my head that I fear I’ll never live up to, but there would never be anything to show if I don’t start somewhere, keep working and strive to improve. No matter how afraid I am for the reception of my writing, I am always glad I did it, that I stuck it out, gritty detail after gritty detail. I do what I can, to the best of my ability, day by day. I’ve been lucky in the reception of it, for the most part, but the bottom line is, I love what I do. I wouldn’t have accomplished it if I had waited to have enough “time” to write, or the right office or money or work circumstance or calm and quiet or lack of pain in my life. Maybe it’s insane to plug along every day, not knowing what the outcome can be, but I’d rather think of it as tenacity. I know sometimes new writers sort of look at published authors, wondering what the secret is to getting from there to here. Maybe tenacity is a big part of the answer. Maybe, though, the secret lies also in recognizing that we all have fear, and we do it anyway.

So tell me, what accomplishment are you glad to have (besides writing), in spite of what it took to get there?

Angel Line Contemporary Baby Crib

By Louise Ure

We all have things we keep – holding them close to our heart. Other things we sell or give away, their meaning no longer important to us. But then there are the things we’ve lost. Things that define us even though we don’t have them anymore. And those are the ones that hurt the most.

It was a humid August afternoon in Austin, Texas, and I’d just finished lunch with the account team at GSD&M Advertising. It is only coincidence that I usually associate those initials with Greed, Sex, Drugs & Money – the four best reasons to commit a crime.

I was working on something that would make no difference in anyone’s life … a new feature on a cell phone, a new long distance pricing plan. Whatever it was, I cared deeply about it at the time, and the conversation was heated. Tempers flared and hands flew.

I knocked over my coffee, spilling it on my hands and lap and strewing those little packets of mysterious whitener like starter kits of cocaine across the table.

It wasn’t until I was back in the hotel room several hours later that I realized the loss.

There was an airy space where my wedding ring should have been.

In a moment of pure photographic recall, I remembered taking off my ring, wiping the coffee from my hands, cleaning the ring, bundling everything up in paper napkins and throwing it all away.

My arm ached with the sense memory of trying to call back that toss.

I drove back to the agency, where a stooped, sixty-five year old Mexican man met me at the door with a bucket in his hand.

“Ayúdame … por favor.”

The night cleaning crew took pity on me. We pawed through the trashcans in the conference room. We got down on our hands and knees and searched the floor. We emptied the vacuum cleaner bags. We stood shoulder to shoulder in the dumpster out back and went through every plastic bag with flashlights.

It was gone.

I wasn’t dreading telling my husband. Hell, he’d left his wedding ring in three different hotel rooms around the world and had to have it mailed back to him.

No, the diamond belonged to Mimi.

Mimi was my grandmother, Leonora Bianca Cosamini, born in the mountain town of Lucca per Barga in Tuscany in 1896 and carried to America as a baby. Unlike many Italian immigrants, they came west. West to a land still punctuated with gunfire and cattle rustling and barefoot Papago Indians making daily treks to market down the middle of a dirt road grandly named Broadway.

She was as intrepid and independent as her new land, running away at thirteen from the convent where she’d been in training, and eloping with a thirty-three year-old man with bright blue eyes. Her parents had him arrested for kidnapping and sent her back to Italy.

Fat lot of good that did. Jimmy Counter found her in Lucca and kidnapped her all over again.

Thus began their short, hot life together. Only three years later, Jimmy died in a plane crash while trying to strew rose petals over the house in apology for a spat the night before.

He left her with two children … and that diamond ring.

It was an Old Miner’s Cut stone, more cushion-shaped than today’s brilliant cuts, with a smaller table on the top and greater depth than diamonds carved today. A cut like that doesn’t reflect much light; it holds it close and keeps the joy inside.

Mimi died in 1971. The ring is what I had of her.

I need to know what happened to it.

In my mind’s eye, it was found the next day in the city dump by a young Latina named Genoveva, whose pregnancy demanded a marriage ceremony, but whose young lover could not afford a ring.

They consider it a miracle, just like the child growing inside her.

They thank the Virgin Mary every night in their prayers and the guardian angels who left heaven to drop the ring at their feet.

They lived happily ever after.

Well, that’s the way it should have been anyway.

I hold the memory of that ring inside me. And the love behind it.

What, my friends, defines you, even in its absence? What have you ever lost that you would give your heart to get back?

P.S. Check out this terrific half-day seminar on "How to Create Killer Openings," sponsored by MWA Norcal. September 8, in San Mateo, California. Details are here.

LCU

How Television Shows Are Created – Part One

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
Michael Corleone

“Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.”
Emerson, Lake and Palmer

“What the hell is HE doing here?”
Robert Gregory Browne

“Huh?”
David J. Montgomery

Yes, it’s me again. But don’t fret, it’s a very limited engagement. X asked me to speak a little about the TV world, and having just returned from a crazy four weeks of it in LA, well, timing is everything.

NOTE: What follows is exclusively my personal info/experience in writing one-hour dramas. Half-hour comedies – sitcoms and single-camera – are worlds away, and if that’s your little red wagon, go read Ken Levine’s fine blog about that world: kenlevine.typepad.com.

Part One: HOW TELEVISION SERIES ARE CREATED

Unless you’ve won an Emmy within the past 15 years, and can get the heads of studios and networks on the phone – writers with Emmys can do this – what follows is how a television series winds up on the air.

You (meaning the writer, though there are other non-writing entities that do this) have an idea for a TV series. Stop Guyot. You forgot the checklist. Ah, yes. Before we continue, there’s a checklist of things that are REQUIRED for you to move beyond simply having an idea for a TV series.

Item 1 – You must have a place of residence in Southern California. You may be able to swing a NY residence, but if you are truly starting out, it’s SoCal or nothing. X has covered this. Look it up, people.

Item 2 – You must have an agent. A legitimate agent. “Bob’s Talent & Pet Agency” in Pacoima is not legit. Your cousin acting as your agent is not legit. Some guy you met online who claims to be a manager is not legit… unless he can show you at least three working clients. Having 17 unemployed clients does not count. Besides, managers are for actors, or people who can’t get real agents. I know exactly one working screenwriter who has a manager (along with an agent), and that writer hates the manager. You don’t need to be with Endeavor (though it helps), but you must have an agent that is capable of having their calls returned.

Item 3 – You must have NO LESS than two samples of your writing. And I mean samples of one-hour episodic television writing. Three is really how many you should have, but you can get away with two if both are brilliant. Nowadays they should be original specs – meaning, they should be pilot episodes of some idea of your own. It used to be you needed specs of shows currently on the air (hit shows), but that’s more about getting a staff job, and we’re talking about how series are created. Oh, and it’s a good idea that neither of your samples are the show you are trying to sell. They can be, but it’s a slippery slope.

Item 4 – You must have the ability to check your ego. It’s okay to have an ego, but you must be able to sit across from an idiot who is telling you what’s wrong with the thing you wrote and, while you know with every fiber of your being that what is being said is complete horsepucky, you must be able to nod your head and say, “That’s interesting. I’ll take a look at that.” If you cannot do this, sell your SoCal residence, fire your agent, and burn your two specs. You will not make it.

Okay, you’ve got the checklist covered. So, here’s how a television series winds up on the air.

You have your great idea for a series. You tell your agents about it, and if they’re good agents, they say they love it regardless of their real feelings. See, agents don’t know shit about anything but agenting, and they can be deadly to the creative process. If your agent ever wants to give you notes on something you’ve written, or tells you it’s not a good idea, or that there are already three ideas in town just like it, don’t listen to them. Just tell them to set up the meetings.

So, your agents get you “pitch” meetings at the studios. Sony, Lions Gate, and Warner Television are examples studios lacking the vertical integration X spoke of. Studios having meaningful sex with networks include: Paramount (which is now CBS-Paramount), Universal (which is now NUTS. I’m not kidding. It’s: NBC-Universal-Television-Studios), Touchstone (which is now ABC Studios), 20th Century Fox, and HBO Studios.

THE STUDIO PITCH

This is where you walk in and tell the black-clad assistant with the tiny headset that you’re there to see so-and-so. Regardless of whether you are there thirty minutes early, or thirty minutes late, the assistant will always says, “So-and-so is running a little behind. He/she will be with you in a few minutes.” Then the assistant asks if they can get you a bottled water. If you say yes, they ask if you want it cold or room temperature. If you’re at a really fancy POD (more on PODs in the coming weeks), they may offer you a latte or even a Red Bull. Though, I don’t recommend the latter right before you walk into a pitch meeting.

So, you sit there, either in an uncomfortably upright chair, or on a leather couch so soft that you feel like you’re being swallowed by a jellyfish. There is always something to read while you wait, and it’s always the same thing: the Trades. VARIETY and the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, daily publications listing all the business dealings going on in Hollywood.

DON’T READ THESE.

DON’T EVEN OPEN THEM. It will kill your pitch. Why? Because you will either get so depressed by reading about the hacks doing so much better than you, or you will read about some network already developing the exact same idea you’re about to pitch, or you’ll read about how the networks are looking for anything BUT the type of idea that you’re about to pitch. The Trades… it takes you five minutes to read them, and five days to get over them.

Finally, the assistant walks over and says, “So-and-so is ready for you.” You follow the assistant back through a Habitrail of cubicles – unless you’re at Sony, in which case you’ve been waiting in the foyer of Tara – the GONE WITH THE WIND mansion – and you follow the assistant back down a long corridor – to an office where two to four people (no matter how many you were supposed to meet with), all younger and prettier than you, greet you like you’re their favorite uncle at a family reunion. And then they offer you that same bottled water thing the assistant already did… even if you’re holding one.

Then you have to make the BIG CHOICE… where to sit. They always let you choose, and choosing right is critical. NEVER sit with a window at your back – you don’t want them distracted by a passing bird, or helicopter, or cloud if your pitch is really sucking. NEVER sit in the lowest chair in the room. If you’re looking up at them during your pitch, it’ll screw with your head, and if they’re looking down at you the whole time, they’ll subconsciously feel like you’re unworthy.

So, you choose your seat, and then the small talk begins. Everyone makes small talk for five or ten minutes. Complete bullshit-nobody cares-pointless-fake small talk. Why? God only knows. Probably because they hate being there – they hear about twenty pitches a day for several weeks – and you hate being there because you’re a writer, not a freaking car salesman. So, you make small talk, trying to get the nerves out, and then someone in the room awkwardly segues into why you’re all sitting there.

And then you pitch. What the hell does that mean? A pitch is where you, a writer, a person used to working long hours all by yourself, a person usually socially awkward with bizarre idiosyncrasies, a person who chose writing for a living because you can’t express yourself in words, a person who is the furthest and farthest thing from any type of salesperson, must now sell your idea. You sit there, across from two to four people that you know are not writers, are not artists, and are envious of you, and you must sell them on your idea. Convince them to put their jobs on the line by going to their boss and saying, “This is the idea and the writer we should put millions of dollars behind.”

Pitching sucks. Even if you’re good at it, and I know some folks who are freaking geniuses at the art of pitching, it still sucks. It is so counter to the creative process. The closest thing to it is an actor doing a cold reading for a role. The actor may be perfect for the role, but because their cold read was weak, or not exactly what the people in the room were looking for, they didn’t get it. There’s a great old Hollywood story about a female actor that was horrible at auditions. Would go in and freeze up, or just be awful, and got a rep as a horrible actor, and couldn’t get any work for the longest time, so she started doing theater and some people saw her, and she got a job or two without having to audition. Her name: Meryl Streep. Probably not true, but a good story.

So, you sit there and, if you know what’s good for you, you pitch for about seven to ten minutes max. If you’re an idiot, you pitch for fifteen or twenty minutes. If you are in dire need of a lobotomy, you pitch for more than twenty minutes. You’re saying things like, “This is a show about…” and “Then there’s this character Joe, an everyman, but good looking…” and “And he’s in love with this woman named Maggie and she’s totally unaware of her natural beauty…” and on and on. And during this verbal diarrhea, the young beauties are nodding, wearing their interested look masks, and they will occasionally write something down on their little notepads that they’re all holding. If you laugh at something in your pitch – indicating a funny part of the idea – they will laugh, too. The young beauties are very polite.

When you’re done with the pitch, they ask questions. If they start asking questions during your pitch, it’s best to just stop, thank them all, and go home. You’re sunk. But if you can get to the end without interruption, then they’ll ask a series of questions about character motivations, relationships, machinations, story points, arcs, or whatever else it was that they all talked about at their last corporate retreat. Remember, they ain’t writers for a reason. And after everything has been asked and answered, they will tell you that they loved it. Or that it sounds great. Or, and this is the kiss of death, “Sounds interesting.” Then they’ll say, “So, let us talk internally and we’ll get back to you.” Then they tell you what a great job you did with the pitch. As I said, they are nothing if not polite.

You walk out of every pitch meeting thinking you hit a homerun. Thinking that they’re gonna be on the phone with your agents before you have your parking validated. As you take the elevator down to the parking garage, you’re trying to decide if you’ll buy property in Sun Valley or Martha’s Vineyard, once season five airs and your backend starts kicking in.

Don’t call the real estate people. Because you’re wrong. No matter how many years you pitch, and I’ve done it quite a few, your ego is so tweaked as a writer, that you always think THIS TIME they really did love it. So, then, a day or so later, when your agent calls and says they passed, you want to kill yourself.

But, let’s say you heard the kiss of life in the studio pitch. That’s where someone in the room says, “You know, this could be perfect for [insert network here] or [insert second network here].” If the studio thinks your idea might be right for more than one network, there’s a good chance they’ll buy it. If they ask you in the pitch what networks you were thinking of, it means they don’t have a clue, and you’re dead.

The young beauties have a tough job. Their job is to say no. They are required to say no to about 95% of everything they hear. Which means they must say yes to 5% of it. Ah, but which five percent? And what if they say no to an idea that some other studio says yes to, and it becomes THE SOPRANOS? Then they’re working at Bob’s Talent & Pet Agency. So, without an “element” – oh, did I mention elements? An element is when you go into pitch and you already have a big name director attached, or a big name actor, or sometimes a big name producer. The young beauties are taught to say yes to pitches with fancy elements attached. Despite the fact that very few – read it again: VERY FEW – shows ever succeed with big names attached from the beginning. So, for them to say yes to you and your silly idea, well, let’s just say it’s akin to buying a lottery ticket.

But let’s be positive here. Say you hit a homerun and the young beauties loved your pitch, and have decided that one of the twenty or so pitches they buy out of the, oh, three to four hundred pitches they hear that development season, is yours. Woohoo! Pop the champagne, right? Uh, no… because chances are the deal they make with you is an IF-COME deal. That means that the studio agrees to pay you a certain price to write the pilot ONLY IF it is sold to a network. If/come deals are the hot thing right now because of the pending strike, and for some other boring reasons which I won’t go into here. The deal you want is a Blind deal. That means the studio loves you enough, or your idea enough that they will gamble and pay you to write the pilot whether you sell it or not. Meaning, if you don’t sell it to a network, then you are contractually obligated to write some pilot for them that year. Either another idea of yours they like, or they can tell you what to write. It can often end up being a lot of work for one set fee, but to me, money in the bank is always better than money promised.

So, now you have a pilot deal. Sony (or whomever) has agreed to pay you $150,000 to write your pilot script… IF they – meaning you and the young beauties – sell it to a network. The next thing that happens is you go into the outline phase. This is a sieve of time where you write up who the characters are, what the show is, how it will be structured, and anything else you want, and then the studio’s young beauties give you notes. During this process you may or may not discuss and develop the actually story for the actual pilot episode. It depends on the studio. Either way, once the young beauties are happy with your pages, you move on to which networks would be good possibilities, which networks would never buy an idea like this, and so on. The studios have strong opinions about exactly what the networks are looking for, because they meet with them and they ask them.

But here’s one of the hee-larious things about the TV biz: they’re always wrong. The studios have no idea what the networks will or won’t buy because the freaking networks themselves have no idea. Take this development season as an example – ABC and NBC both made it very clear to Hollywood that they were only developing “Blue sky” shows, meaning they only wanted feel good, happy, light, dramas. Everywhere I went I heard this, as did my agents, the studios, everyone.

And guess what? The first few things bought by those two networks? Not blue sky, not light and happy.

So, you and your studio figure out just what networks you’re going to pitch to, and during the two to three weeks it takes for a studio to schedule a freaking pitch meeting with a network, you all hone the pitch within an inch of its life. This is the network pitch, and though you might think it should be the same as the studio pitch, think again. See, the young beauties must get their fingerprints all over it. So, you discuss and discuss and practice and practice the pitch so much, that by the time the network meeting is set, you hate your own idea.

And, another hee-larious aspect of all this is when the studio has you alter your pitch depending on which network you’re going to. “So-and-so at NBC hates blah-blah-blah, so we need to say blah, blah, blah, instead of blah-blah-blah.” Or… “So-and-so at ABC loves it when blah-blah-blah, so make sure you blah-blah-blah.” Now, I know you smart ‘Rati readers are going, “yeah, but what about the show? The idea?” Nope, has nothing to do with the idea.

Next week, I’ll take you through Phase Two: THE NETWORK PITCH.

Lat Bar

Hi! You’ve reached Simon’s Thursday blog. He’s not in town at the moment, so the lovely Robin Burcell is standing in for him.

PRICE CHECK ON REGISTER FOUR

By Robin Burcell

As a writer, I love the computer age. I’m not sure I would ever have had the attention span to type out a full novel on a real typewriter. But as a shopper, sometimes I find computers frustrating. Especially those moments when the cashier isn’t smart enough to handle a transaction out of the norm, like the time I was filling prescriptions for my infant twins, trying not to have a meltdown, because the computer wouldn’t let the clerk enter the same birth date for different family members. (I would have dismissed this as a case of idiot computer programmers, up until I realized that the clerk couldn’t figure out that my twins were the same age.) I’ve actually stopped shopping at certain department stores, because they missed that whole spiel that most retailers subscribe to, that the customer is king (or queen as the case may be).

There is one segment of retail that didn’t miss the talk. The grocery stores. They know that if they don’t treat you right, you’re going to shop across the street. It’s capitalism at its finest. Hand them your ATM card, or your Club Card, and your name comes up on the receipt.

I don’t regularly shop at these stores, even with the Buy One-Get One Free deals, mostly because I can’t stand that whole fake sincerity thing as they circle my savings on the receipt with their pen. No doubt they’re instructed to do this so they can discreetly look at my name, then chirp, “You saved nine dollars and sixty-two cents today, Ms. Burcell,” as if they actually know my name. It’s the so-called personal touch that some marketing whiz in some boardroom thought of. What these whizzes don’t realize is that it comes across so fake, no one in their right mind can possibly believe these cashiers really care about you. And we won’t even talk about what happens if you use your club card on Bad Hair Days, or any other day when you’d rather be anonymous. You know darn well as you’re standing there in your throw-down clothes, hiding behind your oversized sunglasses, they’re going to say at the top of their lungs: “You saved thirty-eight cents today, Ms. Burcell.” And it will be that moment that everyone will turn and look in your direction, see the six-pack of beer and nothing else in your cart, and one of those people will be the guy you dated before you married your husband. You know, the guy that you never run into when you look good. Or worse yet, it’s your kid’s teacher, who looks at the beer and thinks she knows exactly why your kid didn’t turn in her last assignment.

Of course, this fake know-and-care-about-your-customer routine isn’t done just at the club card stores. They do this at my usual grocery store as well. I think they realize there is a competition to bring back that old “neighborhood grocery store” feel, where the grocer knew his customers and interacted with them. Since my usual store has “no club card required” in its advertising, the publicity department has come up with a different way of making you feel at home. And they have it down to a science. I’m just not sure they’re applying it properly, though I like it a tad better than the fake-know-your-name-because-it’s-on-the-receipt scenario. My grocery store guys don’t need no stinkin’ computer receipt to come up with my name, because they greet me with Extreme Enthusiasm.

Cashier: “How are you today?”

Me: “Fine, thank you.”

Cashier: “Did you find everything you’re looking for?”

Me: (looking down at full cart as cashier is unloading and blithely running each item over the computer scanner as the subtotal surpasses the hundred mark. “More than enough. I just came in for a carton of milk.”

Cashier: “Anything else we can get for you?”

Me (If I dare ask him to run to the back of the store for eggs, would he really do it? Actually I’m certain he would. I’m also certain the ten people in line behind me would take those eggs and smash them over my head.): “No, thank you.”

In truth, sometimes I feel sorry for the cashiers, because in their Extreme Enthusiasm, they overlook the obvious, perhaps too dependent on the scanner, not really paying attention to what they’re scanning, because the computer is doing all the work.

Cashier (scanning a bottle of Motrin, a box of tampons, and a chocolate bar): “How are you today?”

Me (looking down at what he’s scanning and glad I’m not at the club card store where they “know” my name, tempted to say: Hello? How do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to figure out how to finance a car for my daughter, pay the life insurance, pay off the new roof, help the twins with their science project, not worry about my father’s failing health, or my latest debacle at work, and somehow meet my deadline. I won’t even go into the whole Motrin, time of month and chocolate thing. Instead, I take pity on him and simply mutter): “ I’m fine, thank you.”

Cashier (dropping Motrin, etc., into bag.): “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I’ll admit it’s rare, but it’s days like this when the Extreme Enthusiasm approach brings out the worst in me, and I think fondly of a magnet I had mounted on the control panel in my patrol car at one time: “I have PMS and a gun. Any questions?” Being a rational person, I know it’s a far, far better thing to simply smile, and say, “I’ve got it covered, thank you.”

Anybody else shop at these stores?

Guest Blogger Robin Burcell

by Robin Burcell

When
I was first sworn in, a rookie officer fresh out of the academy (maybe
even a year or two after that), I harbored a secret: I thought it was
cool when someone found out I was a cop–especially when I didn’t
tell them. Almost like a voyeurism of sorts. But more exciting
to me was the thrill of the conversation that followed.
Sounds weird, but bear with me.

Each
night, after I peeled off that uniform, I unpinned my badge and carefully
pinned it inside my wallet, which had a little flap that covered the
badge, so that when you took out the wallet at the grocery store, the
badge wasn’t being flashed to everyone. Even so, if you happened to
be looking at the right angle, you could see the finished edge of the
brass and silver badge, and there was no mistaking what that was, at
least not to me. I loved pulling out that wallet out and seeing the
gleaming metal. But that thrill was nothing in comparison to the conversation
that usually took place when someone else saw it, say the cashier at
the grocery store.

“Oh, you’re a cop?”

“Yes.”

“You
don’t look like one.”

And
that’s where the thrill came. To me, that was the ultimate compliment.
I’m sure there’s some psychoanalytical mumbo jumbo to explain this–something
I’m sure I don’t want to hear. But to me it was like someone
discovering I had superpowers, when in fact I really resembled the mild-mannered
bookkeeper that I was before I changed professions.

After
a number of years on the job, I stopped carrying the badge in my wallet.
I left it pinned to the shirt in my locker. I no longer wanted anyone
to know what I did for a living, and that special little thrill of seeing
the gleaming metal in the wallet faded. I much preferred my private
life being separate from my professional life. Cleaner that way.
Looking back at most of the officers I’ve known over the years, same
is true for them. The excitement wears off and reality sets in. You
can always tell a rookie because he’s the one wearing his basket weave
belt home on his jeans, because he knows that anyone who is up on their
TV watching will know what he does for a living. The veterans simply
shake their heads, reminisce a bit, knowing they were once there, though
few will admit it.

I
have since moved on in my life. My honorary framed badge, name plate
and patch given to me when I left my first department after eighteen
years is tucked away in a cupboard, no longer displayed. I have other
mementoes on my shelves now. Awards proudly displayed next to mugs sporting
one of my book covers, each given to me by a local bookseller when I
signed at her store. It’s not a blatant in-your-face display, but
it’s much like the badge in the wallet, where I hope someone will
notice when they walk into my house and pass my office. These days,
the only folks who pass my office on their way down the hall are neighborhood
kids, who would probably be more excited if those mugs sported Gossip
Girl covers, assuming they noticed them in the first place.

I
admit to getting that same thrill, when someone asks if I write. And,
still being a rookie in the book business, I’ll enjoy it as long as
I can. Though a part of me would like to get so big that hiding my profession
is the next thing, another part of me enjoys the minor celebrity status,
just as I did when someone noticed the gleaming edge of that badge in
my wallet.

So,
‘fess up. What’s your badge-in-the-wallet thrill?

Where’d My Safety Net Go?

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. But isn’t every day. What a silly phrase.

But today is different for me. Today is my first day without a day job. I left mine yesterday.

Julie made the decision a few weeks ago that I needed to leave my day job (even though I only work a 3 day week anyway). She said, “You’re not getting any younger. Your best years are behind you.” I believe in a previous life Julie gave pep talks on the Titanic.

I railed against the idea. My day job doesn’t identify me as a person, though I’m mad keen on the benefits and pension schemes that come with it, but I got to thinking about what was important to me and my day job didn’t really feature. I really want to write. At the moment, I’m lucky enough to have more than a full plate in that department and I still have room for a little more. Unfortunately, that pesky 9 to 5 thing keeps getting in the way. Something had to give, so I handed in my notice. Obviously I prepared myself for my boss’ denial and the offers to double my salary if I would reconsider. To my boss’ credit, she held herself in check and said, “So when would your last day be?” That woman is a trooper. Brave to the bitter end.

I have to admit it took a little getting used to the idea of leaving my day job security blanket behind. I’m a very pragmatic person. I need my food and shelter requirements squared away before I can go crazy, but as Julie says, I’m not getting any younger and I could run out of time before I get to do all the things I want to do. So, I’m going for it. I’m quite fortunate to be in a position to do this. We live comfortably off Julie’s salary and mine goes towards vacations, investments, the house, etc. For the first time in my writing career, I’ll earn something close to what I earned at my day job. In addition, I have secondary income from some very nice investments and added to that I have a second job. It’s very non-traditional, super secret job and is the reason Robin Burcell stood in for me last week. So financially, I won’t be struggling for food.

So as of this morning, my job title is writer. It’s a little scary. It jars with my pragmatic sensibilities. Writer. It’s such an intangible profession and in the same leagues as cloud wrangler and attorney general. But my pragmatic sensibilities drive me to make this work. Not because I want a new car every other year, but because I like being a writer. I like being a professional liar. I want to make people believe in something I made up. I think I can do it and I hope I can pull it off. I’m going to give it my best shot.

Naturally, I’ll have to make adjustments. Some of my priorities will change. If this is my job then I have to treat it as a job. I’ll have to get my act together in some respects and work damn hard to nail down some projects I want to do. Julie has expectations as the sponsor of this adventure. Someone is going to have to look pretty for her and better have the dinner on the table when she gets home. And that someone isn’t going to be the dog or one of the cats. On the plus side, I will have certain freedoms. How many of us out there can go to work in their underpants and not have the boss complain?

So, I’ve dispensed with the safety net. I’m not sure how it’ll go. I don’t have catlike abilities where I always land on my feet, but I tend to fall on my arse and not my face, so I’m hopeful. Now please turn away, I have to scratch.

Yours flying high and not looking down,
Simon Wood

Next month will be a special month as I’m going to make it things that I survived. I have a small talent for calamity, so I’ll be sharing some of mine.

All That You Dream

by J.D. Rhoades

All, all that you
dream,
Comes through shining,
silver lining
-Little Feat

This past weekend,
some friends of mine came to town. The local library hosted a “Women of Mystery”
panel featuring my old friend (and early inspiration) Katy Munger, along with Sarah
Shaber, Diane Chamberlain, Brynn Bonner, and Murderati’s own Alexandra
Sokoloff. They were all doing a stint as
Writers in Residence at local arts retreat The Weymouth Center. I had met
everyone but Brynn before, and it was great to make her acquaintance, as well
as touch base with the folks I already knew. The big news is that we can expect
to see some long awaited new work from Katy soon. Stay tuned.

During the
discussion, the panelists touched on something that’s always been a particular interest
of mine, namely dreams and their effect on the creative process. Diane
mentioned that she sometimes liked to take what she called a “creative nap”,
where, if she was stuck at some point in the creative process, she’d lie down
with a pad and pen next to her and jot down ideas that came to her just as she
was falling asleep or waking up. She related a story about Thomas
Edison, who used to
nap in his chair with a ball bearing held
loosely in each hand, and a pair of metal pie plates on the floor
beneath his
hands. As he fell asleep, his hands
would relax, the bearings would hit the plates and wake him, whereupon Edison would write down whatever came to him in the
twilight between sleep and wakefulness.

Later, Sarah mentioned that she wrote best in
the mornings and Katy suggested that perhaps that was because she was closer to
the “dream state.”

***

Sweet dreams are made
of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something

-The Eurythmics

Many artists
report drawing inspiration from dreams. Salvador Dali springs immediately to
mind. Robert Louis Stevenson apparently said that the idea for the story “The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”
came to him in a dream in which he saw himself morphing from one character into
another. Paul McCartney supposedly heard the melody to “Yesterday” in a dream.

Perhaps my favorite example comes from an interview I saw with Swedish actress
Liv Ullman, who was
talking about living with the late
director Ingmar Bergman. “He
would come down to breakfast and describe one of his nightmares to me, “ Ullman
deadpanned, “and I would think, ‘Oh, Lord, I suppose I’m going to be starring in this
next year.”

I’ve always been
fascinated by dreams. Why do we do it? What really goes on? Are dreams actually
your subconscious speaking to you? Are they suppressed sexual fantasies expressed symbolically? Why
do dreams that seem so vivid upon waking up fade away during the day so you don’t
remember them unless you write them down?

And yes, I do write
mine down, fairly often. I keep my notebook by the bed and jot down a few brief
notes after a particularly vivid or disturbing dream.

I’m not sure why I do it; it just seems important.

So how about you?
Has anything that ever came to you in a dream turned into actual writing? How’d
it turn out? Do you find that writing in the morning is more effective because
of its proximity to the “dream state”? What do you think dreams really are, anyway?

I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours…
-Bob Dylan

I’d Rather Be In Croydon

By Ken Bruen

Someone close to me has been in hospital for the last 2 weeks and is in an open ward….private rooms are not so much expensive as just impossible to get

And ok………..they do cost

We have the trolley situation here, that means, if you can be admitted to a hospital, you’re on a trolley for 2 days , in a public corridor and lucky to have it

The new Ireland, just after we’d been declared the 2nd richest country after Japan, we treat our nurses and hospitals like total shite

Most days, I sit by her bed and am ……….just there, as she is heavily sedated and I dunno if she even knows I’m there

I know

So, I’m a writer, I do what writers do

I listen

Wish I didn’t

There is a woman across from us, aged 80……….I know, she told me

And she has had two strokes

She doesn’t know that

She tells me, as I hold her beautiful weathered, worked line hands

“Amac ( son), you have ferocious cold hands”

I say

Cold hands……………..

And let her finish

Her whole face lit up

“Warm heart.”

Every day, I try to bring her some small trivial item and she grabs my hand when I bring the Claddagh angel, says

“You’re a lovely man.”

I look at my friend opposite and wish she could have heard that

Better, probably, she didn’t…………..she’d have said, in the way only Irish women can

“And you’d have believed that?”

The woman, of the strokes?

She spent 50 years working in Croydon as a bar lady and said

“Tis a wicked place, I hated every moment of it.”

But she did it

Paid to put her family through college and she smiles, that Irish melancholy, not one trace of bitterness, adds

“They don’t talk to me now”

Now Croydon is a bad Detroit and if you live in Detroit, I mean no offence, it’s just a place where they chew you up and spit you out, the English version is worse, all cement and coldness and as I don’t expect to be doing a reading there anytime soon, that’s how it is

Her husband Larry…………I swear, on me child’s head is ninety, and looks like an Irish Clint Eastwood, all lined face, gravitas, and dignity and he is going deaf, so he has a hearing aid

He sits by her bed, I think, nine hours a day and holds her hand and she’s yapping away, he can’t hear much but looks at her as if he is hanging on her every single word

Now fuckit…………….that is love

What do I know about it?

Indeed……….when you’ve lost your marriage, you’re hardly the expert on the topic

I do know when I see such care, warmth and affection, I’m seeing something rare, I look at them, with ok, yearning and

They kill me

I’m downstairs in the coffeeshop, grabbing some respite when Larry comes along, sees me and adjusting his hearing aid, asks if he might have the honor to join me?

Aw fook

Honor?

I say of course and go and get him a cup of tea…………..I just know he’d never have drank coffee his whole life and I add a slice of Danish

He looks at it when I put it down and reaches for his wallet

I say, not shouting , but clearly

“My treat.”

He nods

Tries the tea and I know he thinks it’s shite, a weak tea bag and piss poor water……….he says

“Isn’t this grand”

No irony

He really means it

He has the most amazing blue eyes I ever saw, full of knowledge, and deep, deep sorrow.

He’s wearing an impeccably white shirt, not a speck on it, a carefully knotted tie, blue blazer, a little the worse for wear, and grey pants with a crease you could shave yer own

self with

I’m wearing a t-shirt with the logo Head Games

And me faded blue jeans

Guess how I feel?

He says, adjusting his hearing aid to max

“You were very kind to Mairead”.

I mutter she is easy to be………..kind to

He tries the Danish, his false teeth having trouble with all the sugar, say’s

“She thinks she is going back to Croydon.”

And I say nothing…………..not one word

He adds

“She hated the feckin place.”

After my friend is released from hospital, I buy a large bunch of flowers, go to see Mairead and her bed is vacant, I ask the nurse where they moved her, she says, her whole body screaming

knackered !

from too many shifts and without any malice or bitterness, just the facts, the words

“Oh she died.”

She is too tired to be nice

Moves on

I stand there

The flowers in me dead hand

Tom Russell’s rendition of Bukowski’s Crucifix in a Dead Hand unreeling like a slow snake in me mind

I remember when Craig Mc first introduced me to TR………..and how blown away I was by him…………without music, there is no heart, only the void

Think of Mairead, think of that smile when she saw the tiny angel

Thank god she’s not in Croydon

I give the flowers to another nurse who says

“I have a boyfriend.”

Right

Let’s hope he has half the stuff of Larry

I get outside of the hospital and it’s pissing down, like teeming, I have me hat but you know, for one moment, I just stand there, the rain lashing down and I’m not going to go deep…………..say………gee…….it was cleansing or I felt I knew the answer

Mainly I was thinking

Now and again, you get the chance to meet people like them………….is it a blessing or a curse?

Base a whole doctorate on that.

A man passing says

“You’re getting fucking drenched there”

I give him the look, say

“What’s it to you?”

Wonderful man……………right, I’m so relieved that Mairead never got to know me, the temper, the insecurity, the depression…….yada yada………..who I really am…………. she saw a simple surface , I’m so glad she never knew I was a writer and all that entails …………… Maybe I’ll move to Detroit

And yes, me hands are cold

Seems fitting

On Sight

by Pari Noskin Taichert

Near the southern edge of New Mexico sits the state’s second largest city. Las Cruces — "The Crosses" — is a solid four hours from Albuquerque even if your foot hits the acclerator too hard for most of the time.

I went down there a few weeks ago with my two school-age children to do more research for my fourth book in the Sasha Solomon series. I’d been in the area earlier in the year to attend an international chile pepper conference, but that trip had been limited to sessions about plant DNA, pesticides and fertilizers, and how the local industry was faring against competitors in South America and China.

This time, I didn’t expect to accomplish much with kids in tow. I wouldn’t have the freedom of spontaneity.

It just goes to show how wrong a person can be.

My trip was one of those blessed adventures when everything comes together. I met the right people — the ones who read mysteries, who work at the library, who offered to be my eyes and ears in the town after I left. They told me about great restaurants and marvelous blue highways. I went to the farmers’ market and talked with an old woman who grew and sold medicinal herbs. I met a food processor who allowed me to come back to his business and see how his family makes their products (highly proprietary information). His wife opened their business files so that I could see what the EPA and FDA demand during their annual inspections. For more than an hour, his wife answered every one of my questions.

I got to see the New Mexico Chile Pepper Institute and its demonstration garden in full fruit.

I love doing on-site research. I adore having an excuse to be an observer in a different location, to be able to take notes and veer off the road well traveled. It’s part of the joy of writing my New Mexico series.

But what am I going to do for my new series? How will I reconcile myself with being forced to depend on the internet and my imagination rather than on-site visits? It’s going to be frustrating as hell. Believe me, if I could spend weeks away from home in places like Malibu, Tahiti and Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat, I would.

I keep telling myself that it’s going to be all right. For my first book in series #2, I’ve met some people who live in Houston and who are sending me pictures of River Oaks detailing the plants and animals a person might find there. They’re and telling me about restaurants and stores that the wealthy residents of that area might patronize, what they might wear on a July day there.

Still, a part of me screams. How will I get the details that I notice — the smells, the exact color of the heavy humid sky, my first sighting of a palmetto bug — when I’m not there to experience them myself? What if I don’t ask these people the right questions? Will I ever be able to make the places believable to my readers?

So here’s what I want to know from writers: How do you handle putting your books in locations away from home? Have you ever completed a manuscript without visiting the places you mention? How do you get the feel and details that make these descriptive sections real?

And, for readers, what interests you most about the locations where mysteries are set? Of course, I’m talking about real places — not made up towns or villages — the ones you might actually visit some day.

COLOR ME BADD

By Bryon Quertermous

When Simon first asked me to guest blog here at Murderati I was pleased and since I don’t know Simon all that well I wanted to put on a good show and not make him regret asking me. I think that went well.

And then Mike MacLean asked me to fill in for him.

I know Mike. I reeeeeaaaally know Mike. But we’ll keep it nice here anyway, because we’re mostly nice people (Jim Born’s not here is he?). The characters we create though are not always nice. I’m well into the manuscript of a new novel and I’ve been thinking a lot about the "tone" and "color" of the novel. Another well-respected writer read the manuscript for my last novel and mentioned that my style is more in line with Robert Parker and not as dark as many current practitioners of the field. I agree with that assessment, but it makes me think.

My books have always had a lighter tone to them while my short stories are almost entirely dark (see Donkey Show or Alter Road). I’ve tried writing darker books, but it doesn’t work. I just turn my brain off and my writing subconscious on and inevitably what comes out every time is "light." That doesn’t mean everybody is always joking and there’s lots of scenes with exploding whoopie cushions, but in general there is an optimistic tone and I don’t dig too deep into the really dark parts of my characters. Why is this?

Laura Lippman is famously quoted as saying she wanted to be more hardboiled but, like Jessica Rabbitt, she just wasn’t drawn that way. Now Laura’s recent short story work has gone a long way to redrawing her, but her books still lean more toward the lighter side of the spectrum and it certainly hasn’t hurt her sales. Are some writers just drawn lighter than others? Is it easier to write darker characters and themes in short works instead of novels?

So here’s the question for the day: What color are you? Do you mix lighter and darker styles? And if you do write dark and long, how do you look at yourself in the morning?

Discuss…

Next week: The talented Toni McGee Causey takes over the Sunday spot!