Bad Jokes and Relationships

By Patricia Smiley

On Friday evening I went to a screening of the new Robert Altman film “A Prairie Home Companion” at the Director’s Guild in West Hollywood. The action takes place at an old St. Paul, Minnesota theater during the final performance of a live radio show that has enjoyed a long run but is about to end because the theater is going to be torn down to make way for a parking lot.

The film features an ensemble cast, including Kevin Kline as Guy Noir, the theater's VP of Security, and Virginia Madsen as the mysterious and deadly woman in the white raincoat. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are the singing Johnson sisters. Garrison Keillor plays himself. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are the hilarious and bawdy singing cowboy duo, Dusty and Lefty. They do a knee-slapping number called “Bad Jokes” that includes the following Minnesotan humor:

Sven: “Ole, I think my wife died.”
Ole: “That’s terrible, Sven, but how do you know for sure?”
Sven: “Well, the sex is the same, but the dishes keep piling up.”

When the movie was over and the lights went up, the following conversation occurred:

He: “What was THAT all about?”
Me: “Which part?”
He: “The whole thing. I don’t get it.”
Me: “It's about death. The writer is saying that the death of old people or old traditions is not a tragedy. Life goes on.”
He: “Okaaaaaay.”

I can generally state the theme of movies I see in a sentence of two. “The death of an old man is not a tragedy” was actually a line from the film. It didn’t happen on page three, but I knew the words were thematic as soon as I heard Garrison Keillor say them. After that I began to look for words and actions that supported by hypothesis.

I’m doing revisions on my third book at the moment and themes are emerging that I hadn’t planned, one of which is about relationships and how tricky they can be. All of this analytical thinking got me asking questions about themes in crime novels. Do they pop up unexpectedly for other novelists, as well, or are they planned from the get-go? Do they even matter? Other than “crime doesn’t pay,” can you state the theme of the last crime novel you read?

If this discussion is too heavy for a Monday, may I recommend something less taxing? Hint: make sure the sound on your computer is turned on.

Thematically yours,
Patty

p.s. The photos of my Westie PJ and my Scottish Fold cat Tigger-boo aren't thematic. I just don't want to be the only NakedAuthor who doesnt't have pictures in her post.

Travels With Glenda

from Jacqueline

I had another email from my friend Glenda this week, along with some photos taken high up in the mountains of Darjeeling, where she is working at a school run by an elderly Jesuit priest. The photos are gorgeous, with Glenda standing on the terraced gardens she and the children are creating on a steep hillside surrounded by a clinging mist. It’s almost like one of those old sepia photographs, except that she’s holding a flowerpot with a bright orange bloom of something that looks like a marigold.



There’s another photo with Glenda standing by a bus. This is an important shot, as the funding for that bus had dried up when she first arrived back at the school a month or so ago, so she and the children had to walk about 10 kilometers each way up and down the mountain, and Glenda had to put in a full day’s work as both head gardener and art teacher.



Glenda’s pilgrimage began in the spring of 2004 – no, that’s wrong, it actually began a few years earlier, when she realized how much her job as a real estate agent in California was driving her crazy. Sure, she was doing well, and sure she had managed to set up her grown children in their own homes, but something was missing. Something akin to having her her soul touched every day.

In her past lives, Glenda has been a teacher and actress, has traded in vintage clothing, and lived in places as far flung as Afghanistan and Alberta, and even had a cross burned in her garden in Alabama for daring to produce a play for African American kids – she must have been all of twenty-three at the time. I met Glenda when I lived in England, where she spent most of her adult life before returning to the States so that her son could experience living in the country where she was born and raised. Then she stepped onto the real estate merry-go-round.

With her 60th birthday looming, Glenda knew she wanted to do something big, to discover some new things about herself, perhaps – and she knew that such learning can only come with pilgrimage. Now, we all know that a pilgrimage doesn’t have to take you far from home, but she’d had a yearning all her life to travel the route of the Old Silk Road. Of course she wavered, so as I had my own plans for that year – a trip to the Great War battlefields of The Somme and Ypres – I suggested that we set off together so that she’d have someone to take that first step with.

After London, we went to Sicily with our friend Vicki and her friend Stephane, then when I left the group to go on my way, Glenda returned to London to start the process of gathering the necessary visas. And off she went. With her one suitcase and a lot of courage, over the course of a year Glenda traveled through 14 countries, braving hours on buses teetering on the edge of cliff-faces in Turkey, four hour walks between visa checkpoints in Uzbekistan, monsoons in Vietnam and severe sickness in Thailand. Her emails – often hilariously funny – spoke of a journey of the soul, and I can still remember that email from India when she said that she was on her way up to a school-orphanage in the hills of Darjeeling, which she heard had been founded by a Jesuit priest who was now old, so he needed help. She stayed there for weeks, leaving only when the rains came. She returned to the States to welcome new grandchildren into the world, then went back to India, and that’s where she is now, undertaking back-breaking work to create gardens for the children.

I have no idea why I’ve written about Glenda today, though those photos from India have remained in my mind’s eye since I received them. Her communiqués have captivated a very long list of recipients since she embarked upon the journey to find out who she might find herself to be as a woman reaching a certain age. And this whole posting has absolutely nothing to do with the literary, though it has much to do with life – because that’s what I can see in my friend’s eyes as she plants marigolds while surrounded by kids at a school in Darjeeling.

I am a Doughnut: Hello from Berlin

From James

"I am a Berliner" -- Kennedy's famous speech from 1963 -- literally translates to "I am a Doughnut." To anyone not from Berlin, a Berliner is a doughnut. One of the many fascinating bits of trivia I'v learned on my trip to Berlin.

I'm here to speak to the Direct Group/Bertelsman conference today about my book "Lying with Strangers." I'm on in about 2 hours, my chin is bleeding profusely from a shaving cut, I'm still jag lagged and it feels like 4:30 a.m. to me, and I have no idea what I'm going to say because the monitor likes "spontaneity" and doesn't want to give me the topic or the questions in advance. If I were Cornelia, I'd be hurling big time right about now. So this will be quick!

Berlin has been great. I was here in 1983 before the wall fell, and it is fascinating to see the changes. I did go to East Berlin back then, and it was a gray, dead city. Last night we were at a sidewalk cafe in a place that was in the old "border" zone, and it was a lively and vibrant as you can imagine. It made me feel very happy for Berliners (the people, not the doughnuts) to see such change.

Tuesday was an interesting day. I went to the Berlin Cathedral, which of course has been totally rebuilt, as it was part of the 60% of Berlin that was totally destroyed by WW II. But they've done an amazing job of rebuilding it. And it is quintessential Berlin in every sense of the word. I arrived when a wedding had just completed. The bride and groom were standing on the front steps for photographs. It was definitely one of those "Why didn't I bring my camera" moments. The groom had long black hair down to the middle of his back. He was wearing all black, except for a silver jacket. The bride was dressed completely in a black gown. The sides of her head were shaved, and there was just one long strip of black hair down the center of her head that trailed down to her waist. This seemed odd to me, but them I realized the date: 6/6/06.

I come from a place where we often see strange things and simply say "Only in Miami." Maybe Berlin is one of those places too. I'll let you know when I get back next week. Right now, I need a doughnut.

James Grippando

The Ring-Around-the-Rosy Rag...

By Cornelia

Okay, so I have to say that I figured when I went on the road, I would be staying in damp dark little rooms with coin-op “Magic Fingers” beds at some Motel 6 across from the bus station, if not at some Motel Four-and-a-Half. Because, really, who the hell am I to expect luxury? And besides I am kind of inured to road trips that involve lots of KOA Kampgrounds during freakish thunderstorms outside Des Moines at three a.m. in 1972 when you’re driving across the country in an ancient $150 station wagon with no brakes and stuff, with maybe a couple of dented cans of Dinty Moore beef slop heated over the Kampfire for dinner on a good day, after which everybody splits the last sliver of Pecan-Maple Log Roll from that Stuckey’s near the Grand Canyon, and Glad to Get it, even though the thing’s all kind of melty and warped from having been in the glove compartment for days--it being July and everything.



SO, imagine my surprise when I am not only Met At The Airport by the lovely articulate kind funny Janine, (who brings me my very own dayglo-green plastic beach bucket, for those times when I feel it necessary to barf before signings, with an email from Joshilyn Jackson tucked inside), but she drives me and the amazing Rae to the Alexis Hotel in Seattle.

The Alexis is subtitled “A Work of Art” on its sidewalk awnings, and they are NOT kidding. Like, they have brioche French toast with caramel sauce on it for breakfast, and the rooms look like something out of one of those schmancy “five-figure Egyptian thread count” bed linen catalogs.

So me and Janine and the amazing Rae are sitting in the high-ceilinged butter-yellow salle de threadcount, and suddenly there’s this discreet knock on the door. I of course figure it’s someone who’s been dispatched to tell me to get my butt down the block to Motel Four-and-a-Half, but NO, it’s a staffer with an ice-‘n’-wine bucket and a book…. MY book, which the lovely note from the manager explains was purchased by the hotel and would I please sign it at checkout so they can cherish it in their “Author Suite,” for posterity.

And I’m all like, “CHA! Dude, gotta pen?” But of course totally thinking to myself, “I am REALLY going to miss these hallucinations when they comes to their sad-but-inevitable close…”

Next day was the actual signing at the actual Seattle Mystery Bookshop with the actual Mr. Child. I got to have breakfast first with my splendid and far wittier twin, Andi Shechter, which is why I know the Alexis’s French toast comes with caramel sauce--even though I had the bagel. Andi and I hit the signing together, which was an awesome experience. Janine, Fran, and Tammy at the store are a total riot together, and they all admired my little green bucket, of course (and I'm wondering if Andi has figured out her "tequila preference" yet?).

Janine, Rae, Lee and I then got to go see the Mariners play Kansas City at Safeco Park—GREAT seats, and very very fine beer and hot dogs, but as Lee commented afterwards, “if there’d been a bit of talent and artistry tonight, it would have looked a LOT more like baseball.”



Yankees fans, they’re a little full of themselves, eh?

We then returned to the Alexis’s blistering splendor to hang out in my room drinking champagne and eating local Dilettante Chocolates--which totally rule--until around one in the morning (I ate the “Madame X,” which was white with a dark chocolate X on it, because, hey, I totally adore John Singer Sargent’s painting of the same name—see below).



This was to celebrate Lee’s having come out as #3 on the New York Times Bestseller list with his latest book, The Hard Way. GO LEE!!!!!

It was off to LA for me and my bucket the following morning, picked up at LAX by splendid media escort Lisa Becker, who rocks EVEN MORE than Dilettante Chocolates, which is saying something. We did a killer round of drop-in signings while Lisa told me great LA industry stories, and then went to The (magnificent!) Mystery Bookstore on Broxton Ave. in LA, to meet charming and gracious hosts Bobby and Linda. WHAT A STORE!!!!

So so so cool, and I got to sign their ancient prisoner register from the Sacramento Jail, which was TOTALLY intimidating because of all the groovy authors who’d signed before me and were infinitely funnier. I relied on Arlo Guthrie to see me through, giving “Officer Obie” as my arresting agency, saying I’d been accused of “littering… and creating a nuisance,” and talking about the Group W bench along with the whole, “Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?” thing, in four-part harmony, WITH FEELING.



The beauty part was discovering that the inimitably charming and talented Stephen Blackmoore was stoked to recite that whole riff about the “twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us…” along with me, which was when I knew fer shur that I was hangin’ with the Cool Kids.

Not that I wasn’t pretty much fully aware of that ALREADY, because, I mean, to be in such a great store and get to hug the ever-stunningly babe-alicious Patty Smiley AND her debonairly swashbuckling husband, AND the suave and rakish Aldo Calcagno, PLUS Stephen Blackmoore AND the fabulous Brett Battles, along with, most especially, Brett’s trio of stalwart, good lookin’, and *astonishingly* well-behaved pint-sized crime-fighting sidekicks… well, you don’t get hugging partners like THAT every day, tell you WHUT. PLUS I got to hang with fellow Dobbs chick Sue Seide AND the newly doctor-ified Kathleen Donegan (gentlewoman and scholar) AND her husband David “Doovie” Goldsmith, the guy who first introduced me to Jim Thompson.



The next day was another whirlwind of drop-in signings with Frau Lisa, and then a welcome sit-down stint of same at Book Carnival in Fashionable Orange with Gayle Lynds and Barry Eisler. Now I gotta tell you that Gayle Lynds is not only one of the world’s most gracious women, she is also the chick whose picture you find accompanying Webster’s definition of “willowy.” And then of course Barry’s glorious mane is the stuff of legend, so I was struggling with feelings of stupid-haired frumpy lumpen/zaftig-ness there while they signed truckloads of their outrageously better-written-than-mine books… BUT, despite my neophyte-ness and NON-willowy/NON-Barry-haired lumpy-zaft-ness, store owners Pat and Ed Thomas were indeed so wonderful to me that I agree with Dean Koontz’s observation about how they cannot possibly have originated on this planet, even if they have the same first names as my in-laws.

Which (OhMyGod FINALLY, I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself), brings us to Monday, the day I’d been dreading because it was to be A) the very last joint appearance with my hero, Lee Child, and B) the gig at which my Dad was maybe going to show up. Ahem.

And as a result of course I woke up at five a.m. in my schmancy crib in West Hollywood, fretting myself into a total frenzy of family angst and stuff and trying to breathe and write thank-you notes while waiting for eight a.m. to roll around so I could do a radio interview by phone for Elizabeth Foxwell’s It’s a Mystery radio program, out of Virginia… LIVE.

So I’m doing the whole, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Cornelia, Begging You To Help Me Not Inadvertently Swear Or Puke Or Otherwise Sound Like Some Total Doof on the Radio, pretty please, and I will be your best friend 4ever (not that you need friends because you’re, like, GOD and stuff already, so I would never suggest you are in NEED of more best friends, O Most Gnarly Divine Deity Dude)” nine yards. Amen. Ramen…

Whereupon Ms. Foxwell asked whether I’d like to read an excerpt from FIELD—reminding me I couldn’t do one with obscenities, which we both agreed might be A LEETLE hard to find, considering—but she said it would be okay to say “hell” so I just read the first page, but otherwise I have NO RECOLLECTION of anything we said the entire time, except that she was great.

So I walk out of the lobby in a blur sometime later to meet the fabulous Ken Wilson, media-escort-par-excellence-du-jour,--with whom I completely agree that it's kind of sick to use Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" to advertise a family cruise ship thing...



...unless it's for a vacation on the S.S. I Wanna Be Your Smack-Shooting Dog or whatever--and we do some more blurry stuff and then it’s the moment of truth out in Thousand Oaks at Mysteries to Die For. And Lee is there, and Maggie Griffin his amazing publicist/wrangler is there, and Paul Levine who will be Lee's defense counsel at the upcoming Thrillerfest, and Hillary Huber who’s the brilliant audio-book voice of FIELD is there, and kindly Sky from Epinions.com, too, but no Dad. Which kind of seems like a relief, plus it means I can tell my usual Dad stories during the talk with impunity and everything.

Twenty minutes into our schtick, Dad slips into the store and stands just inside the front door, because the place is already jammed with Lee fans. I had the pleasure of thinking to myself, “Self, if you gotta do the first-meeting-after-long-estrangement thing with your eccentric muttonchop-sideburned hippie father, it DOESN’T SUCK to have it occur when you’re the sidekick of Mr. Lankypants-Charming-#3-on-the-NYT- Bestseller-List Dude, especially when the SRO roomful of said Mr. Lankypants’s extremely kind and enthusiastic fans are actually laughing at your jokes and stuff.”

And you know what? It turned out okay. Really. And I didn’t even need to avail myself of Janine’s little green plastic bucket ONCE.

So thank you for that, O Most Gnarly Divine Deity Dude, and I totally meant it about the BFF thing, too—even though you’ll have to take second place to Mr. Lankypants (and Arlo).

Walter Mitty, John D., the Kinkster... and me.

From Paul

John D. MacDonald (right) once said that writing is like dropping feathers down a well. “Any echo is appreciated.” Today, I’m happy to share some recent reverberations.

Just heard that SOLOMON vs. LORD, my battle-of-the-sexes courtroom tale, is a semi-finalist for the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor. The prize is named for James Thurber (below right), the writer and cartoonist perhaps best known for “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” Last year’s winner was Jon Stewart and his Daily Show writers for AMERICA (THE BOOK): A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO DEMOCRACY INACTION.

The winner gets $5,000 and dinner at New York’s Algonquin Hotel, home of the famed Roundtable of quipsters and weisenheimers. I’m hoping Harold Ross, Edna Ferber, and Robert Benchley show up. And, of course, Dorothy Parker, arguably the wittiest dishmeister of all time. One of her classic put-downs: “That woman speaks 18 languages and can’t say ‘no’ in any of them.”

I do not expect to win. There are six other semi-finalists, including Kinky Friedman for TEXAS HOLD 'EM: HOW I WAS BORN IN A MANGER, DIED IN THE SADDLE, AND CAME BACK AS A HORNY TOAD. Now, how do you compete with a title like that?

I’m humbled by another echo, this one from the Fort Myers (FL) News-Press, which just published its all-time Florida summer reading list. Three of my favorites are there: John D. MacDonald’s THE LONELY SILVER RAIN, Carl Hiaasen’s TOURIST SEASON, and Charles Willeford's MIAMI BLUES. And there, too, is SOLOMON vs. LORD. Here's what the News-Press says: “Steve Solomon is the rakish Key West hedonist; Victoria Lord is the down-on-her-heels Yale blueblood. Together, this legal odd couple cracks wise as they solve a Miami-sized mystery in ‘Moonlighting’ style. More fun than should be legal.”

The Yale reference reminds me of yet another Dorothy Parker line. “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end-to-end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

And...finally...congrats to Pat Riley and the Miami Humidity, for making it to the NBA Finals. I shared season tickets the first couple seasons – can you believe $50 for first row – and now I follow the team from afar. Go Shaq! Go D. Wade. Eat your hearts out, Laker fans!



By Paul Levine

The Pantzer Syndrome

By Patricia Smiley

As I mentioned in last Monday’s post, I recently signed books with Denise Hamilton and Susan McBride at Lee Booksellers in Lincoln, Nebraska. The three of us regaled the audience with our wit and wisdom and answered questions. Somebody asked if we outlined our books.

My dirty little secret was about to be exposed.

We looked at each other to see who would comment first. After a long pause, I finally confessed that I’d written several pithy outlines that could have been turned into brilliant novels by somebody, just not me. As it turned out, Susan and Denise don’t outline, either. Ms. McB calls us “pantzers,” which I believe is loosely defined as authors who write by the seat of their pants and without a parachute.

When I began writing, I listened to authors talk about their “process.” There seemed to be a sharp division between those who outlined and those who wrote “organically.” At the time, I didn’t know under which category I fell, but I made a faulty assumption that outliners were more organized and perhaps more serious writers. I wanted to be a serious writer, too. I thought about all those things-to-do lists I compulsively filled out each day and my hard-and-fast Wednesday-is-laundry-day rule and decided that I was an organized person. I must be an outliner.

Writing outlines is easy. Following them is hard.

Let’s face it. In writing as in life detours happen. Here’s a mundane example. Let’s say your character is going to Westwood Village to see a movie. From where she is, driving north on Westwood Boulevard is the most direct route. But what if Caltrans is still doing roadwork on Santa Monica Boulevard? Nobody in her right mind would go that way. She’d have to wait through at least five red lights. Your character is a reasonable person. She says no to the intersection of Santa Monica and Westwood Boulevards. Instead she races down Veteran like she’s running with the bulls of Pamplona. What now? She’ll get to the movie, but she’s totally screwed up your outline. You fume and think about adding a scene with a sniper and a Kalashnikov rifle.

The first time a character ruined a perfectly good outline, I rewrote the bloody thing, but it only happened again. How many times do you have to bang your head against the proverbial brick wall before you realize that it’s not for you?

Outlining is not for me.

Here’s what I know when I start a novel: who the victim is, how he/she was killed and by whom. I also have an idea where I want my subplots to go. Before I start writing I create detailed back-stories for all of my characters, so I know in advance if they like movies and under what circumstances they could be persuaded to see one. Once I've established that information, sketchy ideas for scenes begin to emerge. That’s it, folks. Then I start writing.

If any of you out there can actually write an outline and make it work, I’d like to know how you do it. Until then...

I remain a Pantzer.

Like A Rolling Stone ....

From Jacqueline

This is going to be one of my round-about stories, but what the heck, it’s Friday, and I’m late, as usual.

The last house I owned in the UK before I emigrated to America, was a beamed cottage built in 1450. The town was something of a draw for tourists, who would walk up and down our street looking at the houses, many of which were “protected” (try to get your guttering replaced, and you virtually had to apply to Parliament!) or had a smugglers’ tunnel tucked away behind an inglenook fireplace. The house was a town house in the traditional sense, in that the front door opened onto the sidewalk, so people who walked by could see into the house if they looked hard enough, though it was difficult, because those houses were built to be dark inside – warm in winter, cool in summer. On one occasion I was watching the rugby world cup when I heard a voice outside yelling, “Look here, they’ve got television in this house!” I rolled my eyes. The truth of the way we lived did not reflect the perceived notion of how we should live – the onlookers were expecting the lady of the house to be wearing a long dress and turning a roast suckling pig over the fire, while the husband knocked back a tankard of mead and smoked a clay pipe. This sort of expectation is the sort of thing that happens to authors all the time, only I think it’s more likely to be experienced by those of us in the crime/mystery genre. Let me give an example:

I was a guest speaker at a very big, prestigious literary festival in June of last year, one of those events where there’s a formal lunch followed by speakers and break-out groups. There were many, many fans of my books there, which made it a delight, and which also meant I would be pretty busy. At an opportune moment, I whipped into the ladies’ room, and joined the line to use the facilities. This was one of those posh ladies’ rooms where you walk into a mini lounge area with chairs and a table, mirrors and all the fixings to repair one’s appearance. Someone had left a newspaper on the table and as I read the open page I all but shrieked, “Oh my God, the Stones in concert.” I whipped up the paper to read the instructions for procuring tickets, then – aware that there was now silence - looked up. Everyone in the line was staring at me, and it took one person to give voice to the collective thought: “I would never have taken the creator of Maisie Dobbs for a Rolling Stones fan.” Ah, there it was, the preconceived idea of the author as akin to the character they’ve created. I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve grown out my hair since then. It was in a neat bob - not to appear similar to my character, but because it was easier to look after while on the 2-flights-a-day intense book tour that I was about to embark upon. That neat bob, and my “at a convention” clothes marked me as a woman not unlike my character.

Of course, I have not been immune from jumping to conclusions myself. Last year I was a guest at the Glasgow Literary Festival in Scotland. I love Glasgow, and was just thrilled to be invited. Denise Mina was to interview me and Meg Gardiner. I hadn’t read Denise’s books before, so set about familiarizing myself with her work. Now Denise writes dark, gritty novels set in Scotland, novels that seem to pierce the underbelly of city life. They’re choc full of discomfort, and you know as soon as you open the first page that you will be drawn deep into the psyche of personal despair. I imagined that I would be meeting Annie Lennox in black. I had the surprise of my life when this wee lassie with big eyes and a broad smile tapped me on the shoulder and introduced herself. It was this delightful, petite woman, more Enya than Annie, who had taken me on a journey so uncomfortable that I could only read a few pages at a time.

The fact is that when you meet fellow authors in the genre, people who research, for example, the inner workings of a Magnum for a living (I mean the gun, not a measure of champagne – although they might also do that), or search out forensic scientists to find out about what happens to a body when the knife goes in this way or that, or delve deep into the wounded psyche, you find out that they are – for the most part – just ordinary folk. Strange, but ordinary ....

By the way, interesting factoid: Mick Jagger’s dad was one of my profs in college.

And a question: Just what the heck was Keith Richards doing up a palm tree in New Zealand?

PS: I am now trying to channel my inner Chrissie Hynde more than Coco Chanel.