Out with the old, in with the new

Patty here...

RECYCLE THAT

We Angelenos are faithful recyclers. Each week we separate our trash into three bins. Black for garbage. Green for grass and leaves. Blue for recyclables. We do such a good job that the city hasn’t had to create a new landfill in years. Go team!


I just finished my latest book, so Saturday I fired up the shredder and cleaned out my office. What a mess. There were stacks of paper and sections of the Los Angeles Times that I’m sure held pithy articles that I planned to use as inspiration for a future book. The only problem was I couldn’t remember why I’d saved most of them. I also shredded numerous drafts of SHORT CHANGE, enough to fill my blue recycling bin. Hint: As you can see, the bins are quite voluminous.


My friend the environmentalist tells me that shredding paper isn’t a good thing. She says it takes up too much space. Despite her admonition, once I’ve turned in the last draft of a novel to my editor, I shred all of the previous ones.

I shred those pages because I’m paranoid—hey, I’ve lived in Los Angeles a long time. I have the right—but my caution comes from experience. After I finished my first novel, I had what seemed like a gazillion manuscripts lying around. My house is on the small side, so I had only two choices. Get rid of all that paper or buy a machete to hack my way to the front door.

So I started shredding.

My Main Man watched as I toiled over the Fellows.

“Why don’t you just throw that stuff in the recycling bin?” he said.

“What if somebody steals it?”

“You’re being paranoid. Nobody is going to steal your marked up manuscript pages.”

It did seem unlikely, but this was L.A. Strange things happen here. On the other hand, shredding took a lot of time, time that could be spent writing books. So I took his advice and dumped all of the copies of my Great American Novel into the blue bin. I felt sheepish, but at the last minute I caved in to my misgivings and mixed up all of the pages. If somebody wanted to read that puppy, they'd have to be committed.

Thursday night I rolled the bin out to the curb for pick-up. Friday morning I went outside, opened the lid, and found that every single solitary page of every manuscript was missing—stolen in the dead of night.

“Think of it this way,” MM said. “Thanks to you some homeless guy has wallpaper.”

Yeah, that or my novel was on its way to New York with a nice cover letter.

I’ll admit that I don’t shred all of the pages of my manuscripts. I save the ones that have critique notes penned by members of my writing group. Brilliant Tish. Effervescent Barb. Too-cool Elaine. Insightful Steve. TM who always writes “funny” by the sentences that make him chuckle. I live for those “funny”s. I keep all of those notes, because there are some things you just can’t bear to part with. Our group disbanded last fall. People moved away. I miss them. And I’m sorry to say that in the future I’ll have more paper to shred.

WEHO BOOK FAIR

And now—tah dah—the photos you've been waiting for. On Sunday I attended the 5th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair along with fellow NakedAuthor and bon vivant, Paul Levine. Paul moderated a panel called "Writers Who Thrill," which included Andrew Klavan, Gayle Lynds, Thomas Perry, and Theresa Schwegel.



Afterwards he signed books at the Mysterious Galaxy booth.



I was on a panel called "Funny Ladies" with Jerrilyn Farmer, Harley Jane Kozak, Sue Ann Jaffarian, and moderated by Bob Levinson. Here we are trying to look cool in the sweltering heat.



Some of the other authors who attended—

Marissa Batt, Rochelle Krich, Gary Phillips



Dick Lochte and Denise Hamilton



Steven Hodel and James Lincoln Warren



Susan Kandel with her pup



And congrats to Our Jacqueline. Her MESSENGER OF TRUTH was once again on the Los Angeles Times Bestsellers List on Sunday.

And congrats to Tom whose picture was featured in the "Calender" section. Yeah!