Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Back at it










Okay, so we've been spending time getting the studio behind the house together and it's finally become a place where it's quiet and I can work (although new neighbors just moved in upstairs, single guys who work as bartenders, so who knows!).

Yesterday, I pulled out Starletta, with ideas about how to revamp, including changing the title--any ideas? I want to remove "Kitchen" from the title, in part, because it's not a restaurant book. She's a food writer and also because I don't want guys to shy away from the book as some do from Pen on Fire because of the subtitle, which wasn't my idea in the first place, but there you go.

So in the studio, yesterday, I found I wanted to sit here and spread out my stuff. And I did. I worked. And it was good. (I just need to finish getting the courtyard together ... deliver things to Goodwill....)

The long and the short of it is, place is very important. And you gotta like the place in which you're working to do good work. Or else you'll think of any reason to do something else--anything else.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a food writer Starletta would critique.....so... Starletta's Judgement, Starletta Reviews, Starletta Critiques, Starletta's Discourse, Judgement by Starletta's, Starletta Decides, Starletta Knows, Starletta's Decree, Starlett's Determination, Starletta's Statment, Starletta's Flavor,Starletta's Rule, etc......you get the idea.

BJK

Anonymous said...

Or...if she writes her column on a front porch...
Starletta's Porch or Starletta's View, Starletta's Vision, Starlett'a Way.......

BJK

Anonymous said...

I still like Starletta's Kitchen but maybe because that's how I've always known the book. I do not think it will stop men from picking it up. As Oprah said today, the kitchen is the heart of the house. This is so true, especially in literature. Let the ignorant passerby assume it is a cook book, but we all know that more than cooking happens in a kitchen. It is a place to be alone and cook, it is a place for family to gather, it is not only the heart but possibly the heart beat. You can get so literal that in fact the kitchen is where we are provided food and if we do not have food, the body does not sustain energy to live. For Starletta, from what I've gathered of the pieces I've heard you read, she is grasping at her identity. The kitchen helps her with this journey. Maybe I'm grasping at straws or I've been analyzing one too many short stories today, but I vote for Starletta's Kitchen. I love a title that can mean so many different things and can surprise you along the way with its meaning.