When is an idea too weird?

I've been working on a new novel when out of the blue, two other ideas sprang up. One is really grabbing me, and I'm too superstitious to talk about it here, but it's very, very odd. Think odd in the sense of Time Traveler's Wife (except I may be the only person on the planet who didn't love that novel.) I don't know if I can pull it off. I don't know if my agent will like it--or any editor. I've written novels before that bridge the gap between reality and a curiosity about what is and isn't real (Lifelines was about the struggle of a daughter to come to terms with her mother's being a medium--hey, it got starred PW and Kirkus because it was really about one of my favorite themes--identity. Are we who we think we are? I bridged that sense of strangeness in writing Lifelines by making it never quite clear whether or not the mother had a real gift or not--though she certainly felt she did and lived her life that way.)

I think I'm going out of my comfort zone and I'm a little unnerved and scared, which is probably the right way to feel. But what if that unease means this is not a path I should be taking?

creativity and its contents and oh baby

First, here is a detail of the brass with inlaid bugs and jewels switchplate in jeff's office (the paint needs to be cleaned off the top a bit, but this is a very cool switch plate. His office is this mustard color which isn't showing up. Above is the alcove under the skylight with a cool black ladder and Miles Davis poster.

I'm just coming out of bronchitus and I've been doing nothing but working on my novel and juggling some new novel ideas and rewriting a script. Last night I couldn't sleep at at four in the morning I began thinking of quantum physics and different universes and how there really is no time and made myself panicked. And--In the midst of this flurry of activity and this creative and hallucinatory work, Max has composed the music and lyrics for a song, and we painted the inside of our 1865 rowhouse. So, of course, the final creative yearning for me is.....for a baby.

I know, I know.

I can't have any more kids because I'm too old now and anyway my first pregnancy jumpstarted a deadly one in a million blood disorder (see my novel Coming Back to Me and numerous articles--and it's all resolved and won't ever come back unless I need a million transfusions all at once) and we tried to adopt a few years ago (See my novel Girls in Trouble) so I think my best shot is for someone to deposit a baby on our doorstep. I know we can't possibly afford this, I know it's not a great idea, and I know if we had a baby here I'd be way too exhausted. I still remember 5 AM feedings, night terrors, and having mashed banana on everything I own, including in my mop of hair. But, but, but, there is something intoxicating about the idea.

But wait, there's more! I also want to cook all day today, and knit and rearrange everything in my office. One bit of creative spark is starting a fire. Does this happen to others?

I think I'm going to go to the bookstore with Max and give and get extra kid-sized hugs from him. And a brownie.

Let's hear it for the boy take 400

Guess who got his first cell phone and knows how to use it?

Me and my bronchitis on the radio tonight

I'm thrilled to announce that I am going to be on Calling All Authors tonight, along with authors Barbara Abecrombie, Victoria Zackheim, Margot Duxler and Aimee Liu to talk about our essays in Victoria Zackheim's anthology, For Keeps.

The call-in number for listeners is:1(605) 475-6006 ACCESS CODE 763624#
The show is on the air today at:7PM Central time.

To listen to it later, go to www.globaltalkradio.com/shows/callingallauthors

Firefighter writer

Holly Volz is amazing. She's a firefighter and a writer and she's just completed a manuscript about her life called Going In that is truly fascinating. "Fire does whatever the hell it wants," Holly says, and reading her book made me think about flames (and firefighters) a whole lot differently than I did before. The haunting photo on the left is from her website, which also has an excerpt from her book.

All I can say is I wish Holly lived closer than Indiana because I'd love to travel along with her for a day.

cough cough

Bronchitus has struck. Antibiotic city. Working on scripts, novel, class. Can't even write a full sentence, but I feel disjointed and dizzy like the photo on the left. But the good news is the house is gorgeous and after four days with the TV out and all four computers stuck on dial-up, things are back in order.

I'm going to get ginger tea and watch a movie. See you later alligators.

House-a-rama

The house is done! To the left is the bedroom which actually is about five shades darker than this picture, but at least you can see some of the details--the house is from 1865, and when we bought it, it was covered in wood paneling (the tackiest kind imaginable), all the ceilings were lowered, and all the fireplaces were hidden. This particular room was covered in orange shag carpeting, which we ripped out immediately and revealed wide plank wood floors. The light is actually a brass chandelier (the previous owners painted it black. Don't ask me why. We were about to toss it when we got a bit of ZipStrip on it, and suddenly there was brass) The intricate mouldings (you can't see the big rosette in this photo but you can see the openwork mouldings along the ceiling) were the one thing that the previous owners left alone. Oh, and above the marble fireplace? The old owners had installed a totally mirrored surface--the kind with webs of faux gold. We took that off immediately, too.

I keep wandering the rooms and I love the colors so much I want to marry them. I've never had a home that I've cared for so much. When I lived in Manhattan, I loved my postage stamp apartment but I never decorated or cared for it, and never kept anything other than a tin of yogurt and water in the fridge. I feared moving to a house, too, even one in as urban an environment as Hoboken. I didn't want to be a domesticated person (oh fool that I was!) and for a long time I couldn't call it a house. I had to call it a brickstone, or a rowstone. Now, of course, I am no longer foolish--at least not about that--and our next project is new blinds, which will probably cost as much as going to dental school.

A while ago I was bemoaning how rapidly the letters on my keyboards fade. Someone wrote in and told me it was probably the acid in my skin. I ordered these press on letters, which look cool, but they are so large and so bright that it is a tad annoying. Worse, once on, they don't come off. Has anyone used these? If they stay on, then it's absolutely worth it. But will they?

The lost diaries

Moving a desk for the painters (three more days to go), I found three diaries that I had been keeping for a woman who was my first friend when I moved to NYC. She had an even tinier apartment than I did, right across the hall and I spent most of my time camped out on her couch until I got my bearings. She took care of me when I arrived, crumbled from my divorce. She took care of me when my fiance died. We leaned on each other for support. But oh, what great times we had! She always found cheap tickets to Broadway, to the ballet, to any sold out show and she and I crashed the parties that turned out to be revelations rather than just fun.

She was funny and smart.

She was amazing.

And then, five years into our friendship, she had a full blown psychotic breakdown. Diagnosed late onset schizophrenic. She attacked a child, demanding to see his ID. She punched a professor in the face and drew blood. She thought the government had spies out after her and she nearly caused an accident on the California freeway because she thought spies were trying to drive her off the road. And then she was hospitalized and medicated.

She's been in and out of hospitals for years now and the last I saw her, she was delusional and paranoid, sure people were following her. She blamed me. She yelled at me and then stepped out into NYC traffic while I, screaming, tried to grab at her. She jumped into a cab and that night called me to tell me that she didn't want to talk to me anymore. I was so upset I went to a shrink myself to figure out how I could help her. ("You can't," was the answer.)

So yesterday, I sat on the floor among all my boxes and read her journals (she always said I could) and it was an ache in my heart.

I don't know where she is anymore. I don't know how she is.

I've been wanting to write about her for years, which is something she always wanted. I suppose I want to do this to try and heal that wound, but I can't find the way into the story. Maybe it's just too soon or maybe I just want to still protect her. Maybe I feel guilty that I couldn't save her. Maybe it's my next novel or maybe I should mind my own business and be silent.

Does writing heal? Writers want to write about what is often a thorn in the heart, but what if it involves someone else's pain (as well as your own)? What do you do then?

A paint break!

There's Rod Serling Conference! Don't you want to go? And they are having a Twilight Zone marathon!

Ack! The painters are here!

1. Take deep breath.
2. Don't panic. The colors chosen are great.
3. Breathe paint fumes. Think about four days of this, six if you count the weekend.
4. Panic at the amount of dirt and dust behind book shelves that haven't been moved in 14 years.
5. Worry that the feng shui is all messed up.
6. Worry that I won't be able to write.
7. Think about going out for every single meal which perks me up immeasurably.

Another cool paint job

Isn't this fantastic? This is from one of the writers in my UCLA class, Viva Barkowski. She says it was painted for a nursery, but she loved it so much (how inspirational can you get?) that she's kept it. I would love to write in a space like this!

Please, do NOT think pink--we need beauty in this bath

Ok, we have three gorgeous blue swatches in the bedroom, I chose for my office, Max's room is this buttery yellow and Jeff's office is beachy. But this second tiny bathroom is making me crazy. It's got an old fashioned pedestal sink with cool handles, a gorgeous wood framed medicine chest, and the tiles are sort of peach, the stuff with the three paint samples is textured--sort of wainscotting. We can't change those tiles, but the pink has got to go. Any suggestions? Obviously the three samples painted on are not working.

Five Chapters

Several years ago I did tag team fiction for the fabulous David Daley which was in The Journal News. Tag team was an innovative idea where two writers were paired and one wrote the first half of a story and one wrote the other. The story I wrote with Rochelle Shapiro is on my website.

Now, David's doing something even more spectacular. Five Chapters rolls out a short story in serial form through the week. He's got an incredible roster of writers, and I was invited to submit. (OK, I emailed him and begged, but still--)

Go check it out.

One writer's very cool office

Rachel Rappaport sent me this really cool photo of her workspace, which really ramped up my desire to throw some color on my walls. Many, many thanks, Rachel! The green is so refreshingly wild and I also really love the lamp. I could write a novel in this space!

Rachel also runs a really fantastic food blog, Coconut & Lime . You can find all sorts of incredible and inventive recipes, from Japanese to vegan to Korean, and everything has a delectable edge.

And photographer and pal Susan Benjamin just told me that she has the same problem with her keyboards. It has something to do with the acid or alkaline properties of your skin and she swears that if I paint the keys with some sort of plastic coating, I should be able to hang onto my keyboard for more than three weeks. (As i type, my H is gone and my I, and my N has just said sayonara.) I'm trying this.

Color confusion

There are four shades of blue in my office. Our bedroom has four shades of a different blue dabbed on the wall. The bathroom is a riot of try-out shades and none of the colors Jeff liked work in his office. I have paint on my fingernails and probably in my hair. I wish an interior decorator would show up and say, "Yes! This is the perfect color!"

I think I've lived in a white wall environment for far too long.

My friend Jimmy, an architect, has two bits of wisdom he's been repeating to me since we were 18:
1. Don't be afraid of color. (He's right on this.)
2. Don't destroy the natural beauty of the hand with rings. (He's wrong on this one.)

Does anyone know how you can tell from a swatch on the wall what the full-room color is really going to look like? Also, if anyone wants to come over and choose the colors for us, I'll cook dinner and that includes chocolate mousse for dessert.

On a related problem. I seem to be destroying my keyboards at a tremendous rate. I type so fast and so hard that I wear out the letters on the keyboard in weeks. Does anyone else have this problem?

READ THIS BOOK

My friend Leslie Lehr has written a fabulous new novel, Wife Goes On. The novel is as wonderful as Leslie is, (both brim with character) and I decided Leslie had to talk about her book here.

Wife Goes On is the story of four women with nothing in common except divorce, who find that it’s more than enough to be friends.

Leslie, why did you write this particular novel?
I wanted to write something funny and romantic, but with all the drama of real life, so these women run the gamut from Diane, an MBA turned PTA Supermom, whose husband gambled away their home, and a former homecoming queen with two babies and an abusive ex jock husband, to a recovering actress hiding in plain sight following the public humiliation of her superstar husband’s affair, and a hotshot divorce lawyer who lost custody of her daughter and has to pay alimony as well. The word “divorcee” is as false a cliché as the term “Chick lit.” This is the story of complex women searching for happiness – and finding it.

I want to paint a positive face on divorce, lose the stigma. Despite the numbers, there is still a stigma - if only from that fear of failure inside us. Who doesn’t dream of the white dress and the fairy tale ending? My parents had an ugly divorce and I didn’t want to follow in their footsteps, so I spent a good ten years resisting the “D” word. No matter how easy the statistics make it look, when you have children, it’s not remotely easy. It’s heartbreaking. I wrote an essay about how hard it was to make the decision, (“Welcome to the Club”) for an anthology called, The Honeymoon’s Over. Then one day, I woke up so happy – it was like I got a Do Over card. I recognized the old me in the mirror. Maybe I made some poor decisions early on, but this is my life! I get to try again!

I did some research and found statistics that implied that women are happier after divorce mainly because we are better educated and have work experience – but I didn’t buy it. It’s really tough financially for most women. The laws have caught up with our professional degrees in terms of potential earnings, but most of us have been too busy running home for softball games to make that kind of money. I was no exception. So there had to be another reason. Then I realized that my mom’s generation, often still bitter, was ashamed to talk about it, to air their dirty laundry Now we wash it together. Going through this with my friends made all the difference in the world. I felt so strong, I wished I hadn’t been so afraid for so long. Instead of crying to my friends, I wanted to celebrate with them. And I want people to see there is a light at the end of the tunnel – and it’s not another train. It’s the bright sun in a blue sky.


So what's the deep down message in your book?
That you are not alone. Sometimes you feel so alone when you are married that it seems like that feeling will never go away. But it does. You just have to allow yourself to get through the grief process – a dream has died, after all - and friends can help you do that. You know that rule of wing-walking: don’t let go of one airplane until you have hold on another? A lot of women do that, go from one man to another. But I think it’s really important to find out who you are and be happy with yourself, to free fall a bit and look around. Later, there will be so many airplanes to choose from, you’ll make a better decision.

So let your friends give you that vital emotional connection. They can help you define yourself and gain the confidence that you have value. Often they are waiting for a signal, so reach out for help. It doesn’t have to be one group of friends, either. The characters in Wife Goes On would never be friends if not for this emotional connection of recognizing the mutual experience. Different women provide different kinds of friendship, from a hiking buddy, to a crying buddy, to a talk about sex buddy, to a single one who wants to go dancing, or a married one who can go to a matinee. Also, the legal process has such a huge learning curve. Often, you need a simple answer that doesn’t cost a million dollars an hour. Then the information is wasted - unless you help the next person along. You begin to recognize other women who need you. As you gain friends, you learn how to be one. Like the Girl Scout song, “make new friends but keep the old; some are silver and the others gold.” I like to put it another way: Husbands may come and go, but friends are forever.

What's the buzz on the book?
I’m celebrating all over the country. Cake and champagne on my book tour! My new website, www.wife-goes-on.com, has questions for book clubs, a contest, a joke of the week, and a place for women to share success stories. Friends are helping me put on a benefit at this great spa in Ventura to help women starting over. My brother-in-law made a cute no-budget video, and my kids are teaching me how do MySpace. Plus, I’ll be on panels at places like the LA Times Festival of Books.


How did the writers’ strike affect you?
I had to stop working on an original movie for Lifetime. It was my first union job, so I was hugely in favor of the strike, but this was a really funny second draft, so it was awful to work so hard and not be able to turn it in. Or get paid. It was right before Christmas, so the timing was bad, but in another way, the timing was good, because I had time to enjoy my family and to focus on Wife Goes On.

You, lucky one, have a movie, Welcome to Club Divorce.
It’s the story of one women, a really current take on what its like today, in 2008, to have a sizzling second act. It’s a custom story for Lifetime, who, as you can see from their new shows, is expanding from being the number one cable channel for women to being a source of original programming with a rich sense of story telling. My project will evolve as everyone gets back to work, but for comparison sake, the reviewer who said that Wife Goes On is an updated version of First Wives Club meets Sex in the City, would say that “Welcome to Club Divorce” is Lifetime’s response to “Starter Wife.”

Do you have another novel in the pipeline?
Yes, a novel called, The Long Way Home, about a mother who goes to such lengths to protect her teenage daughter that she loses her – and everything else. I actually started this novel earlier, but when Wife Goes On bubbled up, I had to put that aside. I’m excited to go back and give it a happy ending.

What’s the best tip you could give a person starting out as a writer?
Read. When I teach in the Writers Program at UCLA, I’m always amazed at how little people read. You don’t have to be limited to the classics, read everything: books, newspapers, cereal boxes. Don’t be afraid to not finish a book, there’s plenty more out there and something is bound to speak to you, be it for the characters or the story or the voice. The more you read, the easier it will be to learn the ebb and flow of storytelling and find your own style.
And read a ton of books on writing. Every artist constantly hones her craft. Anatomy of Story is my current fave; the author is brilliant. Besides, what’s more fun than reading about what you love to do?

What’s the best thing and worst thing about being a writer?
The best thing is: you can always be working.
The worst thing is: you can always be working.

Let's hear it for the Boy!

My accomplishments pale next to those of my son, Max's. Now 11, he is heading on the directorial trail. He and his friend Mike have just started M and M Productions and they are beginning their first film. My friend, screenwriter and story guru Jeff Lyons (storygeeks.com) suggests that this high octane team should do all our movies, and if he refuses, I can play the mom card and send him to his room! (Max, I won't do that! I promise!)

Anyway, here is his very first video for Youtube, a picture paraody of one of his fave songs. I hope everyone will go see it and support young talent and even post a comment.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NDzggGp2B9U

Breaking news, sort of

I'm excited to report that I have some events coming up. Ya hoo!

1. Calling All Authors Radio Show
Wednesday, March 26th7:55 Eastern Time
I will be talking about my essay, Belly Wars from the anthology For Keeps. The essay, first published in Salon, is about a year of terror for me when I was critically ill and looked horrific--and how I discovered the real meaning and depth of beauty. No, I will not be posting photographs of what I looked like for that one terrifying year, so please don't keep asking.

2. Canadian TV, CTVglobemedia
Filming in May, Show date to be announced-stay tuned. They are going to film in my home, so this means I won't have to dress up and I can get away without having to do Today Show hair and makeup (even though that was fun, mind you.) It will be a portrait of the artist as a neurotic and I'll be talking about the above essay and my infamous Cassandra essay which was in The Other Woman, New York Magazine, staged with other essays at the NYC Player's Club, and now has film interest.

3. Backspace Writers Conference
August 9, 9-9:45 I'll be speaking along with novelist Leora Skolkin-Smith, Details to follow when we figure out/firm up what we are going to talk about.

Office Politics

I've made the huge decision to paint my office! This has been 14 years without paint and the white is going and I think it's going to be icy blue.


I'm fascinated by writers workspaces. Are their office neat, messy? Do they have talismans? My office is on the top floor and used to look out on the World Trade Center towers. I've got about 75 snowdomes on a file cabinet, a huge bulletin board stuffed with picture, books everywhere on every surface. Most of the books have post-its so I can tell what their pub date is and when I need to read them for review. There's a clock whose face is a Halloween shot of Jeff, Max and I in costume, which doesn't work (I love it, and refuse to take it down), A Malibu Barbie with a broken leg, and various plastic purses from the 50s that my mother-in-law gave me. are wedged into one of my two big bookshelves. I have an old rocker that I bought and love, a couch I nap on when I'm overwhelmed, an eliptical trainer so I can stay skinny and two of my favorite things. One is a picture Max drew when he was in kindergarten that says, "That's Mommy! She's telling me a secret! It's a surprise! I can't tell you!" And one is a photograph of me when I was six, sitting on the stoop with my mother on my way to camp. I have bangs and a little ponytail and I don't look happy (I hated camp) and the caption, in my six-year-old squiggle says, "Here I am (caroline) raddy to go to camp with Mommy."

So what does your workspace look like? Are you neat? Messy like me? If anyone sends in photos, I will post them. (Of course now I risk embarrassment because if no one sends anything in, it means no one is reading this post!) Oh well, what's a little risk? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

The way to a girl's heart is Peeps

We've just come back from a weekend at our friends' country house, complete with fireplace, kids, videos, snow, wine at dinner (not for the kids), and Peeps.

Ok, let me clarify. The way to MY heart is with Peeps, those sugary delectable marshmallow candies that come in all varieties of colors (none found in nature, mind you.) I am so dedicated to these candies that we went to visit a Peeps show (no, not a PEEP show, that's something different.) I'm a purist so these cocoa bunnies (Just Born! says the label) are not as cool as the chicks, but I've already polished two.

The only other candy that compares is SkyBars, which can be found only in Boston.

Writing fever

I'm lost in work. Rewriting a script, working on a new novel, and editing manuscripts for clients, plus we are going away this weekend because it is Hoboken's annual drunkfest, um, I mean pre St. Paddy's holiday. The city opens the bars at six in the morning and lots of clueless idiots from the suburbs or NYC take the subway in to line up so they can be the first one to have fisticuffs, vomit in the street, terrorize the store owners, get nastily sexually agressive or stupid, and clot up the streets. It's single digit IQ time. Why does the city allow this even though they say they have zero tolerance? Betcha it's because they made thousands in revenue from tickets last year.

I'm really having trouble with this script. It's from a story I wrote which everyone seemed to love, but the script is hanging me up. I've been told I wrote it like a novelist. I've been told it doesn't have a world view (but that was quickly disabused by none other than my hero John Truby whose book The Anatomy of Story everyone should read.) All this got me thinking about how things adapt, especially after reading the script for The Other Boleyn Girl, which It hought was a great script, and then reading the reviews for the film, which aren't very good. How can you ensure that things transfer well from one medium to another? Or is it just impossible to know until you do it?

Feed Me!

I am thrilled to report that my essay "The Grief Diet" is going to be part of Harriet Brown's new anthology, Feed Me! due out from Random House December 2008. My essay is about an ex-boyfriend who wouldn't let me eat because he felt I was fat (even though I was 5'4" and 95 pounds and my friends were ready to do an intervention) and how I stayed with him for a while because otherwise I would have had to grieve for someone I had loved who had died.

With that mouthful of a sentence, I'm off to look at all the snow.

See you later, alligators.

Read This Book! Rachel Cline, My Liar

Rachel Cline's terrific novel, My Liar, explores the complex, thorny relationship between two women--a Hollywood film editor and a director. Like her fabulous debut, What To Keep, this novel is complex, gorgeously written and absolutely addictive. That's her, by the way, in the winsome photo. Isn't the flash of gold light great?

I loved the book so much that I emailed Rachel and asked her if she'd let me ask her a thousand questions (okay, just five) and she graciously agreed.

1. What's the difference between being a part of the film community and now being the toast of a literary one?

First off, the only thing I'm the toast of is my small circle of old, weird friends, which is not a complaint just a clarification. But the differences between the life of a movie-worker on the road and that of a fiction writer in New York are almost uncountable. Writing is truly a solitary activity, and even when I have a "day job," which I usually do, I still find it requires a lot of self-discipline to tolerate the silence, and to persist when there is no-particular-end in sight, and to remind myself that this is the only thing that has ever come close to making me happy so it's got to be a better use of my time than whatever it is that wants to yank me away from the desk. It's funny, because the thing I liked least about Los Angeles was the suburban-ness of it, living on a street where the only people I ever saw were the mail carrier and the neighbor kid on his Big Wheel. And now I live in the hive of all hives and I can barely tell you who lives in the apartment next door.

Right, but you were asking about the film community. I guess I never found the "community" part. I hated working on location--I missed my cats and my favorite New York foods (egg creams, hot dogs, pizza) and though I liked to drive I hated never being able to just walk. I was ultimately fairly happy in Los Angeles for several years, but only after I gave up on my career in the entertainment business and got a regular job where the same people showed up every day and eventually started to get my jokes. And I started to get theirs, too. It's a beautiful place, full of interesting people and great smells (unlike New York), but I grew up in Brooklyn and I don't think I'll ever be truly at home anywhere else.

2. What's your writing day like? Your process?

When I know what I'm doing, which is about 30% of the time, I try to get to my desk as soon as possible after opening my eyes in the morning. And I try to get up in the morning at least 3 hours before I have to be at work. The rule is: 2 hours of sitting or 1000 words of writing, and then I'm allowed to do other things, like shower and dress.
The rest of the time, I'm either choosing a new notebook/pen/talismanic photo, reading something tangentially related to what I want to do next, or worrying about being broke and never being able to write again.

3. At the heart of this terrific novel (well beside many other stellar ideas) is the idea of how work can affect friendships, in both good and not so good ways. Can you talk a bit about that? Do you think it's possible to have a great working relationship with a great friend, or do you think the balance of power shape shifts too much and too often?

I've actually had a lot of great and lasting friendships with coworkers, so no I don't think it's inherently problematic. But there are certain people in my life, usually--but not always--women, with whom I am just ferociously competitive. And it's not as though there's any overt confrontation or conflict--I've never been up for the same promotion, or compared bonuses, or anything like that. It's much subtler and more unsettling because I can never tell how much I'm imagining and how much I'm creating the situation out of my own squelched feelings. It's as though something in me triggers something in her and we wind up acting out all our childhood resentments, narcissistic fantasies, and plots for world domination while ostensibly sharing fairly innocent office gossip and fashion tips. So the key relationship in My Liar, between Annabeth, the film editor, and Laura, the director she works for, is a portrait of that kind of dynamic.
It's hardly the most important thing in the book, but one of the things I'm most proud of is a little subplot about an expensive blazer that Laura buys and later gives to Annabeth, and which comes to mean more than it should. To me, that's exactly how these things get acted out: through weirdly insincere compliments, exploitative requests for help, inappropriately expensive (or cheap) gifts... And Hollywood is like the world capital of all those things.
The other aspect of this competitive-yet-exploitative friendship that I think is really interesting is how storytelling fits into it. How the way the two people present information to one another is really unconsciously strategic, and the dramatization and plotting that go into the way we exchange histories with new friends. So, in My Liar, versions of that storytelling behavior wind up having consequences for all of the characters.

4. What's your next project?

I'm supposed to be working on a memoir, which is more than half complete, but I'm dying to get going on another novel and I have an idea that requires research in the form of a road trip through the Southwest. So my goal is to be able to do that next summer. My boyfriend lives in Chicago, and we often spend time together traveling somewhere else (usually somewhere like Cleveland or Buffalo), so I'm hoping we can expand our horizons a little more, next year.

5.What's your life like?

It varies a lot. Sometimes, I teach writing, which I love but of course doesn't pay the bills. Other times, I do various consulting jobs having to do with internet "content" and faceless corporations. The funny thing is, the older I get, the less I mind the corporate thing. I finally have more than one pair of dress pants and I actually kind of like it that the place I go to is silent, and airless, and utterly without drama. Plus, I love getting off the subway in Grand Central Station. To me, that's like visiting the Grand Canyon every day.

Essay at Redroom.com

Hey, please go read my essay at the fabulous Redroom.com. I wrote about why it's just as important to read in front of three as it is to read in front of 300 (Even though the humiliation factor is certainly different!)

Let us now praise Roy Scheider

Ok, I'm really upset about Roy Scheider's death.

Forget Jaws, though he was certainly good in that. The photo on the left is Scheider in All That Jazz. Written and directed by the great Bob Fosse, this film was and is one of the most innovative, astonishing films of all times, and next to Blade Runner, one of my favorite films.

I saw it when I was living in Pittsburgh, truly unhappily married, yearning for New York City, unsure how to escape, miserable. I wandered into a revival house (by myself, of course, which was my usual state in Pittsburgh) and was immediately transfixed. As Joe Gideon, the self-destructive womanizer-slash-genius-slash-choreographer-slash-Fosse alter ego, Scheider tore up the screen and inhabited the part. The film's brilliant and sly and ferocious and he's just knockout in it, and though he never did anything as spectacular after that, I fell in love with him and always kept hoping he might. (By the way, he was nominated for his performance and didn't win--a travesty if you ask me.)

If you haven't seen the film, go rent it immediately. And if you have, go watch it again in tribute. I swear it's perfect from first frame to last and Scheider saying, "It's show time folks," gets me every time.

Writers' Strike is OVER!!

The strike is over! This is fabulous news! I lost a few opportunities because of it, but I stayed solid and now I am back to work pitching, writing, and generally making a pest of myself.

That's Dana Herko, producer and writer on the left on her last day of strike. She's a fabulous producer and also the co-author of the upcoming The Tao of Fertility. (She's also a wonderful friend.)

On the other news front, Barack Obama is now a member of Redroom.com, this writers' site I belong to. Bet that drives a whole lot of traffic there!

first chapter!

Oh it's bliss to have a good first chapter. I'm deep into the beginnings of my new novel and I'm at that incredibly hopeful stage where all seems as though it's going to go well. Having that chapter is my lifeline because I know the waters are going to go murky and full of writer-eating sharks very fast indeed. I'm also working on a script that I want to send to the Nichols (hey, I won quarter finalist at Fade in! And I was Nickelodeon finalist! That counts, doesn't it?)

But now what I have to do is find photographs of my characters so I can stare at them while I write, which means going through magazines, but actually, I just emailed an actress/writer friend and I think I'm going to use her as my image of one of my characters. She has this really intelligent sort of beauty (think Cate Blanchett) as opposed to the generic Kate Hudson. Which leads me to another question, how does everyone out there see their characters? Do you use photographs? Do you do a whole list of everything about the character the way Richard Price does?

Writers' communities

OK, I know this is embarrassing, but I am on myspace and facebook and I still don't quite know what I'm doing there or how to proceed. I feel like I'm the odd girl out there somehow and whenever I get emails to be someone's friend or contact, I'm always happy and surprised! If anyone knows the intricacies of either of those places and how I should or could be on there, please let me know.

So where else do I hang out?

I like Backspace (see a few entries down), which I've just discovered, a lot. I also like Hybrid Fiction at first glance. I'm a rabid fan of Linked In, too. And I love redroom. Mostly, though, I'm at my computer writing and if I break it's to get to my real online community--I email other writers to talk about our latest projects, offer and receive encouragement and support and bad jokes.

Smart, savvy women's forum about to launch

Seal press does these really smart, quirky books about all sorts of women's issues, (Ah Hem, I'm in one of them, For Keeps, edited by Victoria Zackheim, about how women view their bodies) and they now have a forum for women to talk to other women and build a community.

Go join. And say hi to me when you see me there!

Writing, writing

OK, I have a new first chapter of a new novel. And no title. Sometimes titles just come. Traveling Angels was from a John Truby story structure lecture and the image just stuck. Two novels back, my novel Coming Back to Me was renamed in England Come Back To Me, because it sounded stronger to them. But does it?

How does anyone find a great title? I'd love to hear from people on how they find their titles or on what titles grab them in bookstores, because every title I'm coming up with just sounds....well not like a good fit.

Sky Pilots

Jack Bordon (he's a former Boston TV newsman) is the famous founder of this very cool organization called For Spacies Skies, a nonprofit based in Massachusettes, which I just love. Dedicated to fostering awareness of the sky (Come on, what could be more fantastic?), he urges millions to look up and gain access to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "the ultimate art gallery above." Borden has stamps that he calls skyscapes (they're gorgeous) and his work has been the subject of Smithsonian Magazine, the New York Times, and more.

Says Jack, "How do I get turned on looking at the sky? I just say keep looking at it, and sooner or later it will happen to you, too."

Bordon's sky program goes from the sublime (a look at the sky in great art) to the inspirational, where he gets inner city kids to write poems about the sky. Sky awareness, Bordon also believes, can be a crimestopper, because the sky is just so soothing!

For more info contact, For Spacious Skies, BOX 191, Dept S.A. Lexington , MA 02173

By the way, I have my own copy of his cloud chart, and it's breathtaking. "The sky is a show that you are mising," says Jack Borden. And admission is free.

Coffee, tea and me

When I was writing my first novel, I lived in fear that I wouldn't finish in time for my deadline. I lived on these lifesavers called Eat a Cup of Coffee. Each one was supposed to power-pack as much jolt as six cups of coffee. Wired to the gills, I wrote and panicked at warp speed, and of course, since all good things must come to an end, the company stopped making the lifesavers. (But I did finish my novel way ahead of schedule.)

Sigh and alas.

Though I love caffeine (I know, I know, it's not healthy, but sometimes you really need it), I'm more of a tea fanatic than a coffee one. But Laurel at the fabulous mediabistro alerted me to a brand new coffee joint opening in Soho, the all-new Gimme! Coffee bar at 228 Mott Street (between Prince and Spring.) All I have to know is that a. she loves it and b. they have pastries from Balthazar, to know this might be my new home away from home. (Though I am partial to Hoboken's Frozen Monkey Cafe.)

Oh and another fun coffee fact: For years now, when I sign books, I always draw a coffee cup, spoon and fork beside my name.

Come on, you know you love Chip Kidd!

You can tell a book by its cover, especially if it's one of the flat out fabulous covers by Chip Kidd. Case in point, the cover of his new novel THE LEARNERS actually has the red part as a kind of overleaf. It's smashing to look at and to touch (I dare you not to.)

The great news is that cover designer and novelist Chip Kidd will be coming to Boston for an event at the Art Institute and to read at Borders Back Bay on Thursday, February 21.

Not only is Chip Kidd the man who singlehandedly changed the world of book design, but he is a clever and thoughtful novelist in his own right. His new book, THE LEARNERS is out February 19 and it brings the advertising culture of the 1960s to life. The main character, Happy – who is, well, happy -- becomes part of the 1961 Milgram experiments (faithfully recreated here by Kidd) which measure just how far people will go to inflict pain on another person when under orders from an authority figure. His life is changed forever.

Augusten Burroughs says “This gleefully roguish satire of 1960’s advertising-gone-mad is delightfully shrewd, droll and urbane. And any novel that includes the phrase ‘bloated dirtpig’ and features the beloved Milgram Experiments earns a place on my shelf. A must-read for the ambitious, creative, or chemically unbalanced.”

I say (I just got the book) "Genius outside. Genius inside."

Is it true? The Writers Strike may be over this week? And pint-sized politics

Oh God, would this be FANTASTIC if the writers strike were over! I cannot wait, I cannot wait. I have all these ideas for scripts I want to do.

But on the political front, yesterday we drove two 9th grade boys along with our 6th grade son to a chess tournament. The whole ride, the big boys were arguing about politics (Max quietly listened as they shouted over his head--he was sitting in the middle) and boy, was it polarized and strange.

Both boys go to a top notch private school and are really bright, by the way. Both have really smart parents. The Republican boy announced (scarily) that he wants to join the army as soon as possible, that every person should own a gun, abortion clinics should be bombed if it were possible not to harm the picketers, and he insisted that the reason why George Bush failed was because of democratic interference.

The Democrat boy debated him on every point (yeah, yeah, of course I sided with him, but outside of one, "You're a little delusional on that point," I kept my mouth shut and just listened. ) It was truly fascinating. First, because I was so happy that young people are so intensely interested in politics now, but also because I couldn't fathom how a 14-year-old could be so, rigid! He believed there absolutely were weapons of mass destruction and even if there weren't, "there could have been." Absolutely pro-war, he believes we are fighting for freedom. He believes, most frighteningly, that there is no such thing as global warming, but it is a Democratic plot and "a bunch of crap" and he knows for a fact that the footage on George Bush reading My Pet Goat for seven minutes after 9/11 was doctored, maybe even by Michael Moore, whom he insisted was the anti-christ. (He insisted this with a straight face.) Hillary was the spawn of Satan and anytime any criticized Obama, he said it was racism, so therefore you couldn't really tell where he stood and you wouldn't want "soeone like that" as a president.

More bon mots he came out with:
Jimmy Carter and Clinton were the worst presidents ever.
Bush was the best. And of course he adores Reagan.
The sixties were a time of civil war and produced nothing of value.
Democrats produce nothing of value and Clinton is responsible for the fiscal mess that we are in, and it doesn't matter that Clinton produced a surplus after the Bush bust years, and that that surplus was quickly depleted by George W. because Clinton orchestrated it that way so Republicans could get blamed.
Everyone should own a gun because it's in the Constitution.

What was also fascinating was how well these kids debated. No one got so furious they were calling names, no fists were flying, tempers were in check, and there was a real dialogue going on here, and it was great. Freedom of speech rules! It's just great to hear kids talking! A few weeks ago, we were driving Max's friend home (another 6th grader) and he started saying, "Let me tell you what I think about same sex marriage," but he had to run home before he could answer the question for us! (Later, we found out he was against it, but he didn't know why.)

It also made me now think that I may vote for Obama simply because if he's the one firing up the youth who may be Democrat, than I want to fuel that flame, too.

Writer's Voices_Who's LIstening

From Jeff Lyon's great blog,

In these dangerous, polarizing, and sometimes too politically correct times, writers who bravely tackle issues of international or homeland security, or U.S. involvement in you-know-where, and who are not sufficiently cautious to keep at least one creative foot firmly planted in God-Bless-America territory, are quick to grow bullseyes on key body parts.

Just ask George Larkin, a Los Angeles writer, developer, and producer of award winning film, theater, and television. For the past five (or more) years, Larkin has been trying to get his play, Baghdad Prom, produced and the reception of the project has been other than embracing; even in liberal-land L.A. The play is a weaving of an American writer’s life and family, with five Iraqi writers and their lives and families; people who have lived through the invasion and occupation, and who are doing the only thing they can to deal with the horrors of that life—write about it. In the play, the main character “talks” with the Iraqi writers through e-mail and these e-mails act as the source material of vignettes from the writers' lives, which are acted out.At one point, Larkin tried to gather help for the production and contacted the main Yahoo bulletin board for Los Angeles-based actors, some 1,200 members strong.

Here’s what Larkin wrote on the bulletin board:"For the past three years, I've been getting in touch with writers and artists in Baghdad and getting their stories about what's going on now. We've heard from our media, government, pundits and even soldiers, but we've heard almost nothing from the Iraqis themselves. I've gotten amazing stories of life there, both fiction and nonfiction, of kidnapping, robbery, murder and forbidden love. They've also written to me what it was and what it is now like to be an artist there, and how dangerous that was and still is. I think we have a real chance to have our artists working with theirs. If you're interested in helping, or think your theater group would be, let me know."“Smart boy,” you say. “Artists helping artists,” you say. “This is a no-brainer. He’ll have to turn actors away!” Well, the result? "I got nothing," he says. "Not a peep."

I read this and my jaw fell open. For the past three months I’ve been reading how militant, and activist, and committed actors are (and have been) to union activism supporting the writer’s strike, and I have a hard time reconciling this image with the deafening silence Larkin received in his appeal for help. When it comes to Iraq and the war, people get weird, and it becomes easy to slough off the indifference to, “L.A. isn’t a political town.” Well, tell that to the Democratic front-runners! They’re banking on just the opposite come Super Tuesday.But, it’s not just L.A. that sees the world through narrow, self-interest-colored lenses. I suspect Larkin has had similar responses in other parts of the country, and not just from actors, from everyone. How does someone create a sense of urgency about something like this? How do you shake people awake or distract them from their mortgage worries, or their daycare problems, or general life-stuff that in the moment seems (and is) so important, and get them to care about five pissed off writers from a country we’re all sick and tired of hearing about?

Sadly, I don’t have the answer to that question. If I did, Baghdad Prom would be at the Geffen Playhouse.Now, granted, I haven't seen the play and don't know if it's good or bad as art, but I'd sure like the opportunity to see it, and make up my mind. What Larkin is doing is heroic, important, and uncomfortable. You don’t have to even like what all these Iraqi writers have to say—because these guys (yes, they’re all men) don’t sugar coat anything. But, as one of them (Safa Saad) stated so eloquently, “If they [his stories] can reach the American reader, I will write all these stories and I will never be tired. All the people in the world are brothers."

Baghdad Prom recently had a reading at a theater in Massachusetts, and they were overjoyed 45 enthusiastic people attended. What’s next? They don’t know. No one has stepped up to take this project under his or her wing. This play has no home. It is one more Iraqi refugee.So, the next time you're browsing through Yahoo bulletin boards looking for a job, just remember: writers helping writers, artists helping artists, and like the man said, “All the people in the world are brothers."

How do we know how our reading affects others

The AWP was fantastic. I mean it. 7,000 writers, editors and booklovers all in the fabulous Hilton. Within ten minutes of milling around, I ran into the wonderful writer Jo-Ann Mapson, who told me she had run into someone who said he had seen me. (We never figured out who he was, though.) Of course I was anxious, but armed with my tips and my mantra, I went to my reading. The room held about 70 people and by the time I got up to read it was packed! People were standing up! Best of all, writers Masha Hamilton (The Camel Book Mobile) and Susan Ito (A Ghost at Heart's Edge, fiction co-editor of Literary Mama ) were there to offer support to me! Afterwards, I met with Edges's author Leora Skolkin-Smith.

I read from Traveling Angels, the novel I just finished, a passage where the weary mother of a chronically ill son has just reached her tipping point, gets in a car with a small suitcase and is about to leave for destinations mysterious. Her son, coming home early from school, sees the car (she's inside the house) and the suitcase and hides under a blanket. When he wakes, they've been on the road for hours and she discovers his presence and something terrible happens.

I read and read (you could read for 15 minutes), really getting so lost in the story I forgot the audience, but then I looked up and I felt sort of stunned because everyone was so silent. I thought, oh God, was this too intense to read? Do they hate me? Do they want me to go away or die? But I kept reading, propelled and when I finished I looked up again, and the room was dead quiet. I felt sick to my stomach at that point because usually people are talking or picking at their nails or smiling encouragingly, but this was absolute quiet and no seemed to be moving and everyone was looking at me sort of shocked. I went to my seat and listened to the other two writers who were funny and everyone was laughing and I thought, great, the story of my life, too intense for the planet once again, and I've failed here.

But when it was question time, I got a barrage of questions and people began to tell me how knocked out they were by my story and my reading and how much they had loved it! One woman afterwards (thank you, thank you, I don't remember your name) came up and grabbed my arm and told me she had never heard anything like it, and she was amazed and dazzled. I was astonished! How could I have not known that they all liked the reading?

I think the answer is, that as a writer, you never know how people are going to respond to your work. You do it alone. So your clues to what works are often from your own gut, or from readers or your agent or your editor, but they know you, and you know them, so there's already a sort of sacred covenant going on. But somehow that eerie audience silence and stillness, which I thought was the worst thing I had ever heard turned out yesterday to be the best.

I'd be really curious to know others' stories about readings. How do you take the temperature of your audience reaction? Has this ever happened to you? And has anyone ever read before an audience that didn't like your work? (You can be anonymous on this.)

Read, they said

Ok, so tomorrow I'm reading at the AWP which fills me with a mix of excitement, honor at the invitation, and, oh okay, a little terror. One on one I'm gregarious and happy, but put me in a big crowd and my heart starts to stutter. I love giving readings when I'm lost in the story and then I can use all my 9th grade drama club skills. I love making eye contact with people who are listening. LOVE hearing laughter (bliss!) or intakes of breath (double bliss!) and of course I am a slave to applause because who is more insecure than I am on this planet? To my surprise, I'm told I'm a great reader, too, and unless that is just people being lovely to me, (and thank you, if it is), that's really wonderful to know. But before I get up there, I am a quivering mass of stage fright? What if no one shows up? What if 600 people show up?

I should be better by now. I've done zillions of readings, some wonderful, and my all time worse, on a bright sunny Sunday afternoon where NO ONE showed up. No one! The staff was very kind and three of them, wearing bookstore nametags sat in the audience for my reading (I went ahead and read because I was too mortified not to), and they told me that the day before a local celeb had had a reading and no one came, but they were probably just being nice.

But truely, writers are a solitary bunch, yes? I mean, I used to tell the people at the horrible video club corp. where I once worked a thousand years ago, when they asked why I never went to the company picnics or parties or after work drinkifests, that if I had wanted to be a social butterfly, I wouldn't have been a writer. But getting out there and charming the pants off the world is now part of the writer's job description, and so, get out there I do, with radio, TV, print, and yup, readings.

All this leads to my favorite reading story of all time. Michael Dorris, who usually got 500 people at his standing room only readings all the time, told me that once (actually it was after the three person reading I gave on that sunny Sunday) that he gave a reading and only 4 people were there. He loved to read so he figured, well why not? But halfway through the reading, cops arrived and to his shock, arrested three of the audience members. Turns out they were bank robbers on the lam and they figured no one would look for them in a reading!

So tomorrow, armed with my mantra (thanks JL), and my favorite black velvet dress (it's lucky) and my lucky earrings, I'm going to read.

Hey. Wish me luck. And if anyone has any great tips, well here I am....

In Praise of Patry: Liar's Diary Blog

Writers are a solitary bunch. We live in our heads and in our work, and come out to do readings. But when one of our own is in trouble, we all band together as a community and help out. Case in point: Patry Francis.

Patry’s Francis’s debut THE LIAR’S DIARY came out in hardcover from Dutton last spring. The trade paper release is set for January 29th, but a few weeks ago, Patry was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. She’s had several surgeries, and her prognosis is good, but given that she won’t have much energy for promoting, ITW Debut Author members Laura Benedict and Karen Dionne, along with Susan Henderson and Jessica Keener, have banded together to do it for her with THE LIAR'S DIARY BLOG DAY.Brilliance Audio has also put together a special audio clip with excerpts from Patry’s novel, and Circle of Seven Productions is producing a promotional video.This is no ordinary blog day. Rallied by ITW members Laura Benedict and Karen Dionne, along with Susan Henderson and Jessica Keener, over 300 people from the publishing community have agreed to mention her book online on release day.

Liar's Diary has an irresistible premise. Suburban school secretary Jeanne Cross has a loveless marriage with a slickly creepy husband, and a secretive son. But when new teacher Ali Mather comes to the school, the two women begin to bond. But what are the secrets in Ali's diary and who is breaking into her house? and stalking her? And what secrets of her own is Jeanne harboring that could shatter them both?

Patry's book makes me want to use all the best adjectives: seductive, dark, thorny, mesmerizing. What I also loved was the way the novel twists, turns and comes to a razor sharp finale. Patry's psychological portraits of these two women are tense, acute and unforgettable. Nothing is what it seems (oh, how I love that) and the last chapter is truly shattering. So Patry, you wrote a gorgeous book that gets under your skin and stays there and I urge everyone to go on out and snap it up. Read Patry's blog. And when you're up at three in the morning because you can't stop reading the book, feel free to email me because I know the feeling.

Now get well fast, Patry, because we need you to write more books. And more importantly, because we need you.

More AWP news

OK, I am officially getting excited and nervous about reading at the AWP. They have so many writers there, and parties and all sorts of wonderful things, and that means I have to get out of my jeans and into some sort of dress! The good thing about the conference is that it's right here in NYC so I don't have to take a plane or a train and I can still get my work done (I'm starting writing a new novel ...) but the bad thing is that it's right here in NYC which means I still need to attend to the needs of my son, my students, my clients, my work so I won't get to see as much as I would really like to. (So everyone please forgive me if I whisk in and whisk out.)

Besides me, me, me, AWP is also host to my friend Susan Ito, so I'm putting her details here. She's a fantastic writer (and a fabulous person) so please go check out her reading, which looks fascinating.

Mercury Ballroom
Hilton, 3rd Floor
Friday, 10:30am, February 1st
F131. "Any Number of Old Ladies": Writers Revealing Family. (Joy Castro, Bich Minh Nguyen, Lorraine Lopez, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Susan Ito) Drawing on Faulkner's line about a real writer's being willing to rob his mother for good work ("the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies"), our panel investigates the impact that writing about family members has had upon writers's relationships with their own. Where and how do we draw boundaries? When and why have we chosen to write about family--and when have we refrained? How have we negotiated ethical dilemmas? What fallout and benefits have we experienced as a result?
Susan's blog is www.readingwritingliving.wordpress.com
and her column at Literary Mama is: http://www.literarymama.com/columns/sandwich/

The Best of Bellevue Literary Review

I am honored to announce that my story "Breathe", which won a literary prize, and which is also part of my just-finished novel Traveling Angels, is going to be part of The Best of Bellevue Literary Review, available now on Amazon.

I'm also honored, thrilled and exited to be reading from that piece at the AWP conference on Thursday, January 31. (Best of all, I get to read first, so I can relax sooner and enjoy the other readings instead of worrying.) So if anyone is going to be there, please come say hello to me. I'll be the one with the mop of hair wearing all black, except for my earrings which will probably be garish!