Rambles

Our 14th anniversary! Here's a writing exercise for you: What are we doing in the hard-to-see photo?



Travis' window










JoJo wants to come in.










I'm curious...do you become impatient when the bloggers you visit post infrequently? Take me, for example. I'm so sporadic, I admit. Does it bug you? Or do you have a ton of blogs you visit and so it doesn't matter?

I visit blogs--not often, but I do. Some I wish would post more, others it doesn't matter.

If you would like me to post more often, send some topics this way that you'd like to read about, and I'll do my best.

Snow, and St. Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I just went to Writers Almanac and not only read a lovely poem about one of my favorite things--snow--but also the history of St. Patrick's Day.

Are you wearing green? I am. I also spiked my son's milk this morning with green food coloring--about the only time all year I use food coloring in food. How do you celebrate the day?

Also learned that on this day, in something like 1901, Vincent Van Gogh had his first major show--and he was 11 years dead. Yes, I know. Fame after death is a depressing thought, but hey, it's better than nothing, right?

So much for rituals

Just when you think you're in a routine, your routine is blown to bits.

I exaggerate. But only a little.

My goldfish and the tank they live in have been looking sad. So this morning, I decide I'm going to do a quick clean, then write. (I've been putting it off for days.)

I clean the filter and put it all back together but now the filter doesn't work. I end up taking the filter apart and finally, many minutes and attempts to fix it later, get it to work. I go to refill the tank and water sprays everywhere. Now, an hour and a half have gone by, the tank is clean, refilled, and the fish are happy. And the water has been mopped up off the floor.

I think I'll go shower and try to salvage the morning. The day sits before me, splayed out, ready and waiting.

(But I should call Toyota, too, something else I keep putting off.....)

Memoirs are booming

Interesting story in USA Today on the memoir genre.

Rituals

Monday morning. Weekend's over. Time to get serious again. Time to write.

My ritual is (after I get my son to school, walk with Kim, and clean up for my cleaning expert Cornelia who comes every so often) I shower, dress, and stop somewhere for a latte. Regrettably, that "somewhere" is most often than not Starbucks. I've tried all the lattes in my neighborhood and they make the best.

"A grande nonfat latte, extra foam."
"Name?"
"Babette."
When the barista calls my name, she says, Babbit. The one who took my order heard the mispronunciation and says, "Have a good day, Miss," and I think he's also shooting me a look that says, "Sorry...."

If the variant form of "Barbara" were actually my name, I would be more delicate, sweeter, maybe even French!

Barbara has 53 variant forms: Bab, Baba, Babara, Babb, Babbett, Babbette, Babbie, Babe, Babett, Babette, Babita, Babs, Baibin, Barabara, Barb, Barbar, Barbarella, Barbarit, Barbarita, Barbeeleen, Barbel, Barbera, Barbette, Barbey, Barbi, Barbie, Barbora, Barbra, Barbro, Barby, Barra, Basha, Basia, Baubie, Bauby, Beba, Bebe, Berbera, Berberia, Berberya, Berbya, Bibi, Bobbe, Bobbee, Bobbi, Bobbie, Bobby, Bonni, Bonnie, Bonny, Borbala, Varvara and Varina.

Hmm... Barbeeleen. I'd have to live in the South to use that one.

Anyway, so then I drive to the library and find a table upstairs, where mostly what I hear is the ventilation system. As quiet as a church.

I turn on the computer. While it's booting up, I look to my right and see that today I'm sitting beside the fiction stacks. Fiction: DO-ER. Farther to the right: DA-DO. I go to see where my novel will sit. A little above my head, between DelVecchio and Kathleen DeMarco (no relation, not that I know of), above DeLillo.

Now I'm back to it. Done with this blog (thanks for bugging me, Jordan--I think). Time to write.

What were your pre-writing rituals today?

Working in the car

Does anyone else work in their car? More and more it seems I am. When Mary Rakow (The Memory Room) came on the show, she said she often wrote in her car and I thought, Hmmm. I wasn't sure what to think of it. Now I find myself doing just that. It's pod-like. Fewer distractions than the library. I still work at the library, at home, and elsewhere, but now the car is one more place that works for me.

Today, after I dropped Trav at school, I went to Tully's for a grande nonfat latte, extra foam ("How much extra foam? A lot or just a little?" said the naughty sounding barristo who made me feel San Francisco was right here in Newport Beach ... yay!) and then drove to UCI, parked in a radio station space, and worked up until it was time to go in and do the show.

Dennis McDougal (Five Easy Decades), on the show, said, Carry a pen and paper wherever you go. Always.

Because you forget. You think you'll remember that snippet of conversation but you never do. Not as you heard it.

As I sat working on "A Peeping Tom Comes to Call," two young women got in their car beside me. As they did they said something with a particular inflection, and I meant to memorize it exactly the way they said it, but I was caught up in my essay and I didn't write it down.

But that was before Dennis came on and reminded me of what I thought I knew.

The show will be podcast in the next week or so. If you have current technology, it'll be easy for you to listen.

So...does anyone else work in their car?

A sad day for bookstores: Dutton's closing

A cover story in the Los Angeles Times: "For Dutton's books, it's the end."

I love this bookstore. My friend and author Diane Leslie has been a part of it for years. I had a book release party there (and at Book Soup, South Coast Plaza, now closed, too) when Pen on Fire came out.

Is NY and the Bay Area the only places where indy bookstores stay alive? Sheesh.

Here's the story. (You can read the Times story, but you have to register first.)

Homeward bound

Trav and I hated to leave Mammoth this morning. Already we're planning on where to go next, for more snow.

Icicles in the morning....the drive south....the temperature outside--a rarity for these Southern Californians....

A perfect Mammoth day

Morning view














Travis on the gondola







It's just coming down. We could spend many more days here.



Snow has been coming down the last couple of days. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.

Mammoth morning

snow

my favorite
color, on the ground, in the
sky, through glass, divine snow

snow

“The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.” -- Lao Tzu

“To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color, is like living in Alaska and being against snow” -- William Faulkner

Y'all know I love snow, right? Travis and I are in Mammoth. He's snowboarding and I'm back into my book (and loving the snow). If you don't love snow, you might as well stop reading now, because what you will find are links to poems with snow in them, and photos of my morning.

Billy Collins' on snow here and here.

Happy?

A wonderful piece in Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

Obama

Did anyone see Larry King Live last night with Michelle Obama? I liked her--very much, actually. She said something I so agreed with, and it's that if Obama was elected, the world would look at the U.S. so differently. So very differently.

I just visited his web site and donated.

So, who're y'all for, and why?

Perks of publishing

One of the major perks of getting my book published is meeting nice people, many via email.

Here's one blog started on account of my book. The woman who started it says my book not only changed the way she writes, it's changed her life.

So gratifying.....

five poems for you on this day

Poems

Billy Collins' Litany. Man.

Robert Creeley's The Rain. Listen to the reading. Slays me.

Christina Rosetti's Echo

Sharon Olds' I Go Back to May 1937

Oh, and The Lanyard by Billy Collins.

happy valentine's day!

Distractions

I was starting to ask the question, "Do distractions take anyone else away from writing like they do me?" and then I deleted it. Of course they do! Distractions are the bane of a writer's life. Health and money distractions are the worst. How can you argue with someone to write when they have pressing concerns? You can't. Although I have one friend who's having trouble at home and she finds that the more she has trouble, the more she is obsessed with writing.

How nice! I said.

Nice? she said.

Yes, nice! You're writing!

Oh, well, I guess I am, she said.

The last couple of weeks for me have been a bit nerve-racking. Waiting for results to medical tests (everything's fine, it seems). But the waiting has been very distracting. So distracting, in fact, that I've done so little on my novel. Other work, yes. But fiction, no. Thinking about it, planning, plotting--yes. Writing--no.

What a waste.

When I'm distracted in that way, I do other things. Work I have to do, and I knit. I knit so much in the last couple of weeks that my thumbs hurt.

I think of writers I know who've encountered terrifically difficult challenges and got their writing done anyway. One such writer will be on my show tomorrow--T. Jefferson Parker.

What about all of you out there? Time to stop lurking. Post here. Tell me (us) what you do when faced with health and money distractions.

That's enough about me; what do you think about me?

I have at least one blog reader who is a terror at letting me know when it's time to post again or berates me (lovingly, I hope!) for letting too many days go by without posting.

So here's something new, and hopefully not too terribly self-promoting: an interview by Sujatha Samy-Randy, a journalism student from France. We talked recently by telephone. Listening to her lovely French accent and soft timbre, I very much wanted to go to Europe--again.

You should come here, she said. You would like it.

I might never leave, I said.

What do you see out your window?

Of course on Superbowl Sunday someone just had to have a Big Screen brought in before the game. This image sat outside of our house for an hour at least until Travis finally said how strange it was and I looked and saw the teeth.

A good writing prompt is to begin with where you are and what you see. If you have a digital camera, take a picture of what you see and write about it. And if you don't wanna, write about this one.

One of our faithful blog readers says, "Once again I have awakened to disappointment in your refusal to change your blog. So, in my efforts to move your blogging career along, I call your attention to the Calendar Section of todays LA Times and the article on Bi Polarism. Since Bi Polarism seems to be the common connective between artists, musicians and writers you might like to poll your readers who are mostly writers to see how many of them have Bi Polar disorder or if they don't have it would like to have it in order to further their careers. I think this would be a noble public service on your part. No thanks is necessary."

I think this is the story J. is talking about.

So, to please J., I must ask you .... what do you think?

Newpages.com and great first lines

I've talked about NewPages.com before but it's been a while, and who looks at archived blog posts, anyway? It's hard enough keeping current on new blog posts.

Newpages.com is a clearing house of sorts for print and online magazines and journals. Check it out if you're researching publications.

And talk about a first line that'll grab your attention. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, offers one up right here.

I have grown addicted...

...to the quiet of the library. It doesn't look like much here, and mostly you can't hear the quiet--the blizzard of quiet--which is what I love most.














I also like sitting where I can look out into a patch of wild.

Where do you write, and do you love it there?

More on creating a written photo

The other thing is, in a photograph, you get what you see, but you don't get what you don't see.

In other words, in yesterday's post, if that were a photograph (and I know I have photos of the kitchen circa 1998), you wouldn't get the sounds of the car outside. You wouldn't get the history of the table that Brian and I painted, and you wouldn't get the Rampalski's house across the street (they have long moved away). You wouldn't get Travis' dialogue and my supposed verbal abuse (according to Brian). You only get what you see. And most likely it wouldn't be a panoramic vision.

So right now, where you sit, create a written photograph. Look up from your computer, and straight ahead, what do you see? If all you see is a wall, turn your head a bit. Now what do you see? Or take your pen and paper and go into another room. Go on the front porch. Look out a window. If someone's sleeping, go into their room and take a written photo.

I try to take my own advice. So here's mine:

...

Our younger cat, Rosie, sits on the table beside the front window and sticks her head through the curtains, looking outside at the dark morning sky. It is 6:39 and the sky is periwinkle, with swaths of white. It looks like rain. Through another window a branches stir.

I pull back. The 25-gallon aquarium that sits in the fireplace--the house filled with smoke when during our last few fires so our aquarium took up permanent residence there--sounds like a tiny stream, reminds me of Vermont and the last place I lived there, with the creek behind it. In the winter the creek would freeze over and in the spring you would hear loud thuds and creaks as the ice flows broke apart and the water rushed downstream.

Travis likes noise. He doesn't like it to be too quiet. He misses the sound of the aquarium in his room and at night turns on a miniature electric volcano, for the sound, as he goes to sleep. He blames his desire for sound on me. He says it's because I vacuumed when he was a baby, getting him used to sound so he could sleep anywhere and not need quiet, as I usually do unless I'm exhausted.

Now Rosie turns this way and washes herself, sitting back like a cartoon cat, her legs splayed this way and that, her white-tipped paws pointed at me.

....

Creating a written photograph gets you accustomed to paying attention to the details and gets you writing visually and viscerally.

If you feel like it, post your written photo.

Create a written photo

A long time ago Andrea Schulz, my editor at Harcourt, suggested I post chapters or sections that didn't make it into Pen on Fire. I've been meaning to. So let this be the premiere entry!

..........

The kitchen clock, with the watercolor painting of a blue-eyed sun and his full dark lips, ticks loudly. The green wicker chair on which I sit creaks as I shift my position. Clean dinner dishes crowd the red dish drainer.

The retro high chair with chrome arms and legs and duct-taped vinyl is pulled close to our small round kitchen table. Brian and I painted it with acrylics and lacquer. Its sides go down. And hanging from a white cabinet knob is a vintage red fabric heart that my student Robin gave me for Christmas that first year she took my class. January 1998.

Does the past exist if you neglect to record it?

A year later I wrote this:

It is nine o’clock on a balmy June night. Travis, almost four, took a late nap and is still sleeping. Knowing him, he will wake at midnight, kick up his heels, and be ready to party.

The front door is open, and Leao, our Portuguese water dog who has webbed feet but hates going in the water, lies on the carpet midway between the open door and me. The houses in this beach town sit so close to one another I occasionally hear the shake and shimmy of a neighbor’s washing machine.

Strains of jazz from somebody’s stereo drift across the fence along with the rumble of voices, and the computer I work on which is usually rather quiet now sounds loud. Someone's phone rings, a car whishes by, and someone else parks and slams the car door. I’m sitting in a direct line with the front door, and it’s dark out, getting late, so I get up and ease it shut.

Before I do, I look outside. Across the street, the Rampalski’s porch light is on, and in the corner house Jordan’s room throbs and changes colors from the TV.

When I sit back down, the refrigerator motor kicks in. The noise distracts me but Brian likes it. For him, a quiet fridge when he returns from a gig in the wee small hours of the night makes for a too-quiet house. For me, the fridge, plus the hum of the laptop, makes the room a prime source of noise pollution.

On a day last week when my nerves felt particularly jangled, Travis was yelling, and I said, “You’re creating some real noise pollution, honey.” In his low key style, Brian said he wasn’t sure, but I may have just committed verbal abuse.

Of course the past exists if you don't record it. But its details drift away. You strain to remember.

Writing down the details can evoke a scene more than a photograph can. And I've been a photographer for a lot of my life!


Set the timer (an exercise)

Record a scene with words (instead of, or in addition to, taking a picture). Note the details--what it sounds like, smells like, looks like. Include snippets of dialogue.

I'm in love ...

...all over again, with the library. I tried renting an office in town but so far they're so expensive, and not quite right. So the last two days went to the library to work on Starletta (I'm deeply enmeshed in the refining stage, which is difficult, and also a gas). Yesterday I arrived at the library early enough to nab a study room, but today I was too late. So I found a quiet corner and loved the ceiling, with it's white painted exposed pipes and hoses, and how the wall at the opposite end of the structure was farther away than the farthest area in our cottage (ha! easily!) or a Starbucks or anywhere else I could work about now. So quiet, too. I strained to listen and heard little. Love it love it love it.

Saroyan Prize

Just came in....deadline is soon....

Re: Call for Submissions.
Deadline for Entries: January 31, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

Nominations are now being accepted for the third William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. This award, given by Stanford University Libraries in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation, recognizes newly published works of fiction and non-fiction with a $12,500 award for the winner in each category. The prize is designed to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation. While normally biennial, this third round of the award is on a triennial schedule, having been timed to coincide with the Saroyan Centennial celebrations taking place in 2008. For entry forms and more information on the prize, including entry forms and rules, visit the Saroyan website for prize info..

Entries must be received on or before January 31, 2008.
(Scroll down for a press release on the prize.)

Best regards,
Sam Petersen, for Stanford University Libraries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
**Ms. Sam Petersen, Sam Petersen Associates:
(650) 854-5575, sampetersenpr@aol.com

William Saroyan International Prize for Writing to be Awarded in 2008
Award coincides with Saroyan Centennial celebrations

Stanford University Libraries, in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation, announced today the launch of the third William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Saroyan Prize). Intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation, the Saroyan Prize recognizes newly published works of both fiction and non-fiction. A prize of $12,500 will be awarded in each of these categories, and the prize winners will be recognized publicly during Stanford’s Saroyan Centennial celebrations on September 5, 2008.

Literary fiction, including novels, short story collections, and drama, will be eligible for consideration for the Saroyan Fiction Prize. Literary non-fiction of any length is eligible for consideration for the Saroyan Non-fiction Prize, most particularly writing in the Saroyan tradition: memoirs, portraits and excursions into neighborhood and community. Entries in either category are limited to English language publications that are available for individual purchase by the general public. Entries must be received on or before January 31, 2008. Official entry forms and rules are available at http://saroyanprize.stanford.edu .

“The Saroyan Prize is an integral part of the library’s ongoing and active involvement with the Saroyan archive, but it also provides a wonderful opportunity for Stanford students and alumni, as well as literati everywhere, to interact actively with the emerging literary figures of our time.” said Michael A. Keller, Stanford University Librarian. “Such interaction is a distinguishing feature of a Stanford education. We are particularly pleased to be offering the prize during this centennial celebration of Saroyan’s birth, when so much attention is being given to Saroyan’s life and work.”

“The Saroyan Foundation is pleased to be involved in fulfilling Saroyan’s dream of establishing a writing prize to encourage and perpetuate the art he so loved,” said Haig Mardikian, President of the William Saroyan Foundation. “Saroyan not only had a great passion for writing, he was also an accomplished visual abstract artist; so it is particularly fitting that this award is being granted during the Saroyan Centennial celebrations where we are commemorating many of Saroyan's artistic achievements.”

The first William Saroyan International Prize for Writing was awarded in 2003 to Jonathan Safran Foer for his novel Everything is Illuminated (Houghton Mifflin, 2002). The second Saroyan Prize, awarded in 2005, was the first to be offered for both fiction and non-fiction. The fiction prize was awarded to George Hagen for his novel The Laments (Random House, 2004); the non-fiction prize went to Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman for The King of California (Public Affairs, 2005).

William Saroyan, an American writer and playwright, is a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner best known for his short stories about humorous experiences of immigrant families and children in California. Much of Saroyan’s other work is clearly autobiographical, although similar in style and technique to fiction. Saroyan was the fourth child of Armenian immigrants. He battled his way through poverty and rose to literary prominence in the early 1930s when national magazines began publishing his short stories, such as The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze, My Name Is Aram, Inhale & Exhale, Three Times Three, and Peace, It’s Wonderful. Saroyan soon moved on to writing plays for Broadway and screenplays for Hollywood, including: My Heart’s in the Highlands, The Time of Your Life, The Beautiful People, and The Human Comedy.

The William Saroyan Foundation was officially founded by the author on December 30, 1966. Since then, distinguished professors, business executives and high-ranking government officials have accepted appointments to the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Commencing in 1990, the Trustees set a goal of bringing together into one single archive his entire literary estate. A decision was finally made by the Trustees to offer Stanford University the assembled Saroyan Literary Collection with provisions that would safeguard in perpetuity one of the rare treasure troves in American literature, carrying on the legacy of Fresno, California’s own native son, William Saroyan.

Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources supports the teaching, learning and research mandates of the University through delivery of bibliographic and other information resources and services to faculty, students and staff. It is tackling the challenges of the digital age while continuing the development, preservation and conservation of its extensive print, media and manuscript collections.

# # #

Books

So...a survey....

1 - What's the best book you read in 2007?

2 - What's the best book you read in 2007 that was published prior to 2007?

3 - What's the one book you read in 2007 that you wanted to like--that the critics liked, or loved--but you didn't?

4 - What's the best movie made from a book that you saw in 2007? (Didn't have to be made in 2007...)

5 - Any books you received as gifts recently that you want to read, are reading, or tried to read (and couldn't)?

Answer any or all......

Back to Starletta's Kitchen

I love holidays and like to prolong the holiday as long as possible--obviously. Our tree is still up, blue lights still line are yar and front of the house. Yesterday was the Epiphany, which is a signal to us to take down the tree, dagnabbit, but not yet. Not yet....

But Travis is back at school, and as promised, I'm back to Starletta, mostly reviewing notes and reading the first chapters, making notes. It's good to be back.

I'm also looking for office space--just the teeniest space is all I need--in town, within a 10 minute walk. Somewhere outside of the house (know of one?). I have one lead which I'll check out today. All of my work is pretty much home-based, so I'd love a place nearby where there's no internet, no phone, no nuttin' except my novel to work on.

If you work at home, how do you stay focused on your work and refuse to be distracted by email, cleaning, phone, etc., and if you have an office outside the house, when did you get it and has it helped?

Happy New Year 2008!

Okay, ante up those resolutions, guys and goils.

My resolutions are the same as they are every morning of my life--be sweeter, more generous, more productive, smarter, eat healthier--with one additional resolution: finish Starletta's Kitchen by the time I go to New York in April.

What about yours?

Along the lines of eating healthier, on tomorrow's show my guest will be Melissa Clark, a food writer, who has a fun diet book called The Skinny. We'll talk about food writing, writing essays, writing process, and what writers can do to stop or decrease zee writers'--ahem--spread.

Speaking of writer's spread, here's a recipe for muffins that's in the oven as we speak--as I speak, anyhoo. Not sure how great it is for decreasing writers' spread, but the muffins are among our faves.

I wrote a piece for the old Westways magazine some years back (the column was called Food Souvenir) and included this recipe. (It's adapted from a recipe from the Willows Palm Springs Historic Inn, which I wrote about for the Los Angeles Times Weekend Escape.) We love it. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Crazy for Cardomom Muffins

(Makes 15 regular muffins or 30 mini-muffins, or mix them up, as I do.)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or a cup of w/w and cup of unbleached white, or all white, depending on your inclination)

1/2 cup, plus 2/3 cup sugar

3/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts

2 large cage free organic eggs (or equivalent egg replacer)

1/2 cup nonfat yogurt (or if you like rich muffins, use sour cream. I used to use sour cream, when I didn't gain weight just by looking at fatty delicious foods....)

1/2 stick of butter, melted

1 1/2 cup peeled and grated tart apples

1 tsp. ground allspice

3/4 tsp. powdered cardamom

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, 2/3 cup sugar, 3/4 tsp. allspice and 1/2 tsp. cardamom. Set the mixture aside. Lightly toast the walnuts in a frying pan.

Whisk eggs, sour cream, melted butter. Mix in the apples. Add the dry mixture to the wet. Add 1/2 cup of the walnuts. The remaining sugar, walnuts, allspice and cardomom will make the topping.

Fill muffin pans with paper liners or spray with oil. Fill muffin tins and top with the remaining spice and sugar mixture. Bake for 20 minutes or so, until brown (bake for less if you make the mini muffins).

Restless without a book you're sunk into?

I'm reading a couple of books (always, a couple of books, it seems) I'm enjoying (The Artful Edit and Claire Davis' Labors of the Heart), but when I'm not deep into a book, I feel ... restless.

I came across Marisa de Los Santos' Love Walked In at my local Barnes & Noble. I wrote down the title and contacted the publicity department. I wanted to talk to Santos on my show. This week I've been restless without a book I'm crazy about and today her book arrived (she's on the show next month). And now that I have a book I feel I may love, I feel more relaxed.

Do you go through this, too? Without a book you're mad about, you feel at loose ends?

Bookstore report

People are not reading as much as they use to--or at all--so say the reports on reading and the Internet and book sales, but I'll tell ya, I've been to my local Barnes & Noble a few times in the last couple of weeks and it's busy! It's New York busy! Lots of people milling about, looking at books, buying books, and hanging around. I love it.

What's your bookstore like? C'mon....time for bookstore reports! (And I hope books are making up at least a portion of your holiday gifts.)

Have a great holiday...!

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach

Seems I pick up so many books these days--for the show, mostly--that I just can get into. I don't know if it's me or the book. Probably a combination of both.

But I have read one that I loved: On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan's new book. It's received mixed reviews, and I think part of the problem is that it's a book for older readers who've made choices that in retrospect may not have been the best choice.

If you haven't read the book and plan to, then don't read on. What's to come is a SPOILER of sorts.

But the main character, Edward, makes a decision on Chesil Beach that changes the course of his life, that he regrets to his dying day, and realizes if he hadn't been stubborn, if he'd reached out to Florence, if he'd been more patient and loving, he might have lived out his days with the girl of his dreams. But he wasn't.

I don't think younger readers can relate to that and maybe that was the problem. When you're young, you think you'll live your life with no regrets, that the choices you make are all valid, good ones. And later you find that perhaps not all of them were.

So what are you reading that you love? I ask this question a lot, don't I?

Too busy to write?

I love the holidays but I'm with everyone else: Things become so busy and accelerated that it's hard to find time to write. Not to write emails, of course, and Christmas cards and this invitation and that, but to work on fiction--it's the last thing I put time into doing. After my ongoing deadlines--The ASJA Monthly and teaching, there are cookies to bake, shopping to do and costumes to construct. (Tonight my one class is having our annual party, and this year we're going as literary characters. Brian and I rented costumes yesterday so I think we're going as characters from a Dickens novel or The Count of Monte Christo.)

So this is one more thing I love about the holidays, this year, anyway: I'm too busy to work on my book. So Starletta awaits me, and I dwell on what I want to do with her and the story when I return to it. Which is good because I've hit another wall and need to figure some things out.

Are you finding time to write?

Grammar/style guides

One of my online students feels she's lacking in the basics and asked me which books I recommended she read.

Here's my short list:

Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Spunk & Bite by Art Plotnik, a great follow-up to Elements

Woe is I and Words Fail Me by Patricia O'Connor

And if you're interested in writing fiction, Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway and Ron Carlson's Ron Carlson Writes a Story would make for a great beginning.

What are your recommendations?

Books into movies

Interesting article in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review on how Hollywood is affecting novels.

Some worry that movies and the desire to have your book made into a movie negatively influences the writing, but Diane Johnson said screenwriting has helped her sense of structure.

And Tom Perrotta said, "Writing screenplays has the paradoxical effect of making me a more literary writer, much more conscious of what I can do in a novel that I can’t do in a script: the ease of a flashback within a flashback, how you can have immediate access to any event in your character’s life.”

A movie just came out about a novelist that I want to see: Starting Out in the Evening.

But movies made from books: Accidental Tourist worked well. I can't say I finished The English Patient, but I'm thinking the movie worked better than the book (don't hit me, all you readers who loved the book; I loved the writing, but I just wasn't compelled to finish). I liked Wonder Boys very much. I didn't like Perrotta's Little Children as a film, though I loved it as a book. What other movies translated well--or didn't?

Writerly links

A few sites to peruse to eat up your writing time. Kidding! You should only visit web sites and waste time when you've doneyour writing. (Uh-huh...)

The Quality Paperback Book Club. I used to belong and I'm thinking of joining again (like I really need more books). I found editions of books I didn't see anywhere else. A little compendium of Hemingway quotes which I still use.

A Los Angeles Times story about the graying of protagonists in fiction (thanks, Elle, for the tip).

And a blog with writers' tips (submitted by Allison Johnson).

That's all for today. Time to get out of these PJs and go to an event at a Barnes & Noble in Covina. Other speakers will be Susan Kandel and Lisa Fugard. Maybe see some of you there?

Book proposals: a question

Rob says....

"One more question, if I can. I am also looking at a non-fiction work. How much information will I need in my proposal before sending it off? Is there a good on-line resource for putting together the proposal/query?"

My book proposal for Pen on Fire ran around 50 pages. Parts include the overview of the project, a bio, marketing plan, comparison survey, chapter outline and three chapters or 30 pages or so of text from the book.

I don't know if there are online resources but I'll tell you what book served me well: Michael Larsen's How to Write a Book Proposal. I followed it pretty much to a T and my agent garnered a great deal for me. There may be other good books on writing book proposals but this one worked for me. (Larsen is an agent in San Francisco.)

Novel revision

My Goodreads.com buddy said, But what if you don't want to change the story, what if you want to remain loyal to your original premise or the characters/people you're writing about?

It's a dangerous thing, to want to control the show, if you ask me. I tend to follow the story and not try to remain loyal to what really happened. As someone who likes to base fiction on real life, for me, that's just a starting point. My original draft looks far different than what my 7th draft looks like. For me, this is a good thing.

I know authors, though, who say they don't put their projects through a zillion drafts, who say they work to get the sentence, paragraph, page perfect before moving on and then do minor revision. Interesting way to work, but it's not me.

Revision styles are as individual as voice. How do you revise? (Post here, for others to benefit from. I love getting your private emails, but then everyone here can't benefit....)

A question from a listener re: novels....

An email from a podcast listener (who gave me permission to post it here):

Barbara,

I discovered your podcast about a month ago and I have been listening to the old ones first. I am still in September but I am absolutely loving the show!! It is so refreshing to hear writers talk about their writing process. When I first thought about writing, I took up a conversation with a "writing" friend of mine. The friend said I needed to sit down and outline my story, define my characters and so on. The very process became frustrating such that I put my pen down for nearly three years. Then, I decided I would just sit and write--with no idea where the journey would take me--I found this process exciting and I could write and write and write. And now, after hearing some of your interviews, I find that I am not alone--many of your writers have said they use the same process--how exciting!!!

So, thank you. The interviews with agents has also been very illuminating. I am really getting excited about the novel writing process.

I have a question; From some of the interviews you've had with agents, I am thinking that it is possible to sell a novel without even having a completed book to show--is that true? In other words, I can write the query, maybe an outline and a few chapters. If this is true, and a sale is made, then how much time does the author have to produce the entire manuscript? And, is any money disbursed before the entire manuscript is delivered?

Thank you so much for the Podcast!

Rob Rainey

.....

Okay, an answer for you, Rob...
These days, even for most published novelists, partials are no longer possible. Just about all novelists I talk with must write the entire book and before submitting it to their agent. Nonfiction books are most always purchased without being finished, but with a book proposal. Even many memoirs. But novels, no. I wish! It's so hard to know how the writer will pull of the story and characters and ending, without reading it in full.

If any authors reading this have a different experience, please, post it here.

The 7th draft

A friend on Goodreads.com sent me an email and said, "I'm fascinated. Tell me about the sixth draft of a novel. How does that process work? When can you decide that you've said what you wanted to say? Why didn't you say that the first time? What changes between drafts, when is it finished and, when it is, is it the same novel?"

Great questions. I'll see if I can answer them.

For me, the process of writing a novel is a matter of finding the story, chipping away. I'm not an outliner. The one time I actually tried outlining a novel, by the time the outline was done, I was so bored with the story. So now I write to discover what I'm trying to say. An instructor of mine, Judith Beth Cohen, once said this, that she didn't write because she had answers but because she had questions.

So the first draft is the discovery draft. I kept about 30 pages--the last 30!--of the very first draft of Starletta's Kitchen (working title). The next draft had all sorts of things going on in it that I later realized didn't belong, or were story lines, or characters, that bored me. If I'm bored, then my readers will be bored. Chris Bohjalian has said this, that he'll stop writing 100 pages into a book if he's bored.

A couple of my drafts were read-throughs. Another draft was comprised of carving. And now this draft....I'm cutting, streamlining. The story is coming into focus. I doubt that this is the final draft.

So many of the novelists I respect go through many, many drafts. First (and second and often third) novels are on the shelf, in storage. The novel I end up with will not be the same one I started. But...why should it be? A novel is written over a few years. You're not the same person you were when you started it. A novel will change as you change.

When is it done? Someone said a project is never finished, but abandoned. Or published. I could tweak my first published book, Pen on Fire, still. It can be painful, seeing things you'd like to change but it's published! So you know you're done when you feel you've done the best you can do or you have no energy left or an agent likes it and shops it and it sells.

A way to keep organized, by the way, is to type subsequent drafts on different colored paper. My 7th draft is on blue. I'm going to buy pink paper for the 8th draft. Maybe it will be a happy draft...pink...happy...finished! But who can say?

James Frey

Every so often I listen to an old show of mine and yesterday I listened to the James Frey show when he was for My Friend Leonard. (He shared the hour with Roxana Robinson, one of my favorite essayists who also writes short stories and novels.)

Frey talked about how he was doing what Kerouac and Kesey and others had done before him--taking their life and embellishing a bit. He talked about how he had come to his own voice. As I was listening I was thinking how I liked him and liked what he had to say, and how no one would have ever lanced him over A Million Little Pieces had it not become such a mega-seller.

I wondered then--and I wonder now--how his publisher might have saved him (and themselves) a ton of tears had they simply classified his book as a novel. But of course the fever for true stories was festering, and he went along with whatever they wanted. A big mistake. When I listen to him on this recording, I think: He was an innocent guy who was grateful for a publishing deal and would have said it was a cookbook if that's what they had wanted.

What's wrong with a novel based on truth? Often that's how you have to do it, and for me, I enjoy these types of novels--sometimes even more than memoirs. And how many authors make it all up, anyway?

Tomorrow's show: Emily Listfield and Tom Perrotta

On "Writers on Writing" tomorrow, Marrie Stone and I will talk to Emily Listfield, author of Waiting to Surface and Tom Perrotta, author of The Abstinence Teacher. You can listen at iTunes (go to Public Radio, look for KUCI-FM) or go to www.kuci.org and listen live. If you're in the O.C., it's at 88.9 FM.

Listfield based her novel on her husband's disappearance. Perrotta did some research into abstinence at a Christian church or community in NJ, and is author of Little Children, so he should be interesting as well.

You can hear a ton of shows at http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com.
.......

Vegetable plagiarism and Nanowrimo

Did Jessica Seinfeld crib recipes or not? Mr. Seinfeld, on the David Letterman show, seems to be a bit wacky over the whole thing.

I don't know about anyone else out there, but when Travis was a wee tot, I mushed up vegetables, too. I haven't seen the cookbooks so I don't know how close the recipes are, but the books came out at the same time, so I don't see how Ms. Seinfeld could have cribbed--unless the publisher cribbed for her. Now the casserole thickens....

What do you think?

....

Also it's Nov. 1 and that means it's Nanowrimo month. Who's writing a novel this month? Only have to hit 50,000 words, a book the size of Brave New World or 1984. On your mark, get set, go!

Happy Halloween

I don't think a Halloween has gone by when I didn't dress up. Well, maybe in college (but why not??).

A couple of years ago I was a pirate and looked like Johnny Depp. Last year a plastic surgeon (surgeon's aqua costume, wrapped plastic wrap about my head, waist.....). This year a repeat of the silver siren with a black wig, silver makeup, black and silver big drapey costume with a high collar. (I'll post a pic tomorrow.)

When I was a kid, I'd start trick or treating three days before Halloween. My mother would drive me. We’d begin with the far reaches of the neighborhood. I had three costumes, one for each night.

People would open their front doors and look at their watches, look at each other and say, Is it Halloween??

Just about, I’d say.

They mostly gave me money and apples. I didn’t know that you should confine Halloween to just one night and apparently neither did my mother.

Who has Halloween anecdotes out there? Let's hear them!

Voice, and Maira Kalman

If you get the Los Angeles Times, then this morning you most likely read the book review and perhaps noticed the review of Maira Kalman's new book, The Principles of Uncertainty. I love Maira Kalman--her voice, her art. I discovered her way before Travis was born when I worked at Rizzoli bookstore at South Coast Plaza and saw Max Makes a Million about a dog who longs to be a poet and ends up getting a million dollar contract. (Uh-huh, right, you say.) The artwork was fabulous--Matisse/Chagall like--and the voice of the writing was singular.

Voice...it's what impresses me, in the end, more than plotting, I must say (but this could be because plotting is not a virtue of mine).

So, for your Sunday entertainment, here's a little video from Kalman's site. It's so Kalman.

James Baldwin

I'm reading the Paris Review Interviews, Part II, the interview with James Baldwin and about the essay, he says, "....An essay is essentially an argument. The writer's point of view in an essay is always absolutely clear. The writer is trying to make the readers see something, trying to convince them of something. In a novel or play you're trying to show them something..."

So true. When I'm compelled to write an essay, I need to convince the reader (and myself) of something.

Essayists, and those studying the form, what do you think? Why do you write essays? Any essayists you love?

And of talent, Baldwin says, "Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance."

I love the Paris Review Interviews.... All of the collections....

Arthur Plotnik Q&A

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Art Plotnik, his columns in The Writer and his book, Spunk & Bite.

So the other day I emailed him and asked him to be a guest blogger.

BDB: I'm known as someone who advises against using adverbs but now that I've read Spunk & Bite, the right adverb can make all the difference. Where did we get this idea that adverbs were bad?

AP: It’s the old story--a few rotten apples putting the reek on whole adverbial barrel. Among the rotten pomes are these: the tired and limp (really good); redundant (cleanly laundered), the cliché (greatly exaggerated), the hedgey (somewhat terrifying, differently abled) and the excessive (marvelously, gorgeously attired).

Such stinkers obscure the point of adverbs; for, you see, vee must haff vays to get more information out of adjectives and verbs. Adverbs are the best means of doing so. For example, in a story by Antonya Nelson, the teeth of a homeless girl are described as “flawless.” But here comes more information: They were “orthodontically flawless”--an important clue that the girl was from a high-society family.

BDB: Your writing is so liquid and lively and has such voice. Do the words pour out of you effortlessly?

AP: Excuse me while I slurp up that bubble drink of praise. Ahh. But word flow? About as effortless as breaking out of San Quentin. Writing! All those trite and tired habits of expression to escape, all that tunneling between too much and too little, all those police to circumvent--grammar police, PC police, thought police, trend police. Most people can gab effortlessly, but gab is the antithesis of writing. Writing is the gift you give of agonizingly crafted language in a thrillingly felicitous assemblage that somehow sounds effortless.

BDB: Have you always had a distinct voice or did you work to develop it?

AP: I’m not sure that, outside acting, you can work at voice. Okay, maybe I’ve always gone for the odd yok, and maybe I’ve habitually mixed my dictions. But what I’ve worked at is being liked (which I suppose can influence voice) and getting heard. I think that most writers, as they read, get a ton of stylish voices in their heads--the voices that say “literature” or “journalism” to them. Into this mix come the diction and locutions acquired from family, certain teachers and peers, pop culture, and assorted role models. This melange, if one is not too self-conscious about it, can give rise to a distinctive voice, a personality, even as one concentrates on the fundamentals of writing.

BDB: If someone wants to strengthen their voice, what do you advise?

AP: A good start is to jettison all hackneyed expression, especially clichés, catch phrases, and trendy locutions that make writing sound like cellphone patois. When you replace generic expression with something inventive, your particular brand of inventiveness will help distinguish your voice. Consider how Michael Chabon invents a fresh way of saying “Landsman wakes up and smells the coffee” in his novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union: "The coffeemaker begins its expectorations around seven. A few thousand molecules of coffee vapor tumble into the bedroom and worry the hairs inside Landsman’s beak." And there you have that personifying, comic-bookish- yet-literary Chabon voice.

BDB: How do you revise--or do you?

AP: All I do is revise. Write three words, revise two, and revise all three the next day. Why? Because, in writing (as opposed to speech) I can do so! Because opportunities are always out there for more concise, more evocative turns of phrase. Because when I’m finished with a piece of writing, I don’t always have to feel “I shoulda said this, or I should said that,” as I so often do after opening my mouth.

I revise as I go along, which may be a deadly method for anyone who hasn’t been a career editor. Editing--questioning how something will strike an audience--has made me the compulsive reviser I am. I revise e-mails, notes to my wife on who telephoned, everything I write. But an editing/writing career has enabled me to work right and left brains in tandem, like walking a pair of rambunctious terriers. The better way for most people, of course, is to write freely, tell their story; then, donning the merciless-editor’s hat, go back and revise.

BDB: Tell me, and everyone who visits this blog, one thing they shouldn't forget.

AP: To writers: Either tell your readers something they don’t know, or tell them something they know in a marrow-churningly inventive way.

.......

I love this guy....

Voice

My friend and former student Jordan, who goes by many names here (don'tcha, J?), keeps bugging me for a new post. Seems a few days go by and he needs something new. When I tell him to start a blog, he says he has nothing to say electronically. But he has lots to say in the comments portion of my blog. Okay. Whatever.

So I'll talk about voice, because that's how I knew it was him, commenting, just under a new screen name. I always know when it's him. Because of his voice.

I've talked about voice before, but it seems you can never say too much about voice. Voice is the writer's fingerprint. Take away the name of the writer and if you still know who wrote the piece or the book, that writer has got a strong voice.

Ron Carlson has a strong voice. So does T. Jefferson Parker. And Hemingway. And Melissa Bank. And...and...and...

Who do you think has a strong voice? Names...we want names!

The leaf blowers....

...are making a racket next door. Can't the gardeners just use a broom? Are leaf blowers prevalent in other areas of the country, or just here in the O.C. where autumn leaves aren't seen as beautiful but seen as a mess on the sidewalk and yard? You won't find O.C. kids jumping off swings into piles of leaves because there are none!

I'm really not in a bad mood.

It's just that Jordan (I'm gonna out you, J., and tell everyone you're "Sweetness" in the comments section) just wrote to me accusing me of laziness for not blogging lately. But I've been working on an essay this last week, J.! That doesn't matter to J.; he's just sick of checking back here and seeing the post on the Helen Schulman podcast (he doesn't listen to podcasts but wants me to transcribe. Uh-huh, right....). I understand, though. When I check blogs and it's the same old stuff, I become frustrated and if I knew the blogger, I'd do just what Jordan did, and I'd write to him or her and say, Whassup?

Just so this blog post isn't complete nonsense, I have one discovery for you. As I said, I've been working on an essay the last week and when I started the essay, I didn't know what it was about. I just knew I'd been wanting to write about this thing that happened about 15 years ago. And I had a first line. But I didn't know where it was going.

The piece started out as a five page sketch, swelled to a 12 piece essay, and shrunk to eight pages, and in the meantime, I discovered what it was about and found my ending. So my tip for you is, regarding essays, don't wait until you know exactly what it's about to begin writing your piece. The discovery is in the writing. I love essays and I love discovering along the way what I mean to say.

Okay, Jordan, happy?

Helen Schulman show is up now

My podcast expert Rob Roy just posted last week's interview with Helen Schulman, author of A Day at the Beach. Click here for the link.

Also, just so my friend, J., won't think I completely lost my mind and am lost to baseball, as well as teaching and editing and working on articles, I've been working on a piece (an essay? a story? depends on how much I embellish....). And yesterday I punched holes in every page of my novel and put the pages in a big white binder with the cover that says Starletta's Kitchen, so now I can easily go through the pages and continue my revision. (Okay, J.???)

One more thing: If you've been visiting this blog for a while, you know I categorize some books according to color. Check this out (thanks to Lacy, who sent it to me).

West Hollywood Book Fair

Always a fun literary way to spend a Sunday: The West Hollywood Book Fair. I'll be on a panel at 3:00, moderated by the wonderful book publicist (and person) Kim Dower, called something like, "Making a Book a Success."

Say hi if you're there...

Angels clinch American League West title

This has nothing to do with writing, or does it? It does and it doesn't. What I mean is, lots of male writers are sports fans but what about female writers? Joyce Carol Oates is into boxing--or used to be, a sport I Just Do Not Get At All. Male writers wear baseball caps, write about sports in their fiction (The Sportswriter, etc.) but what about women? Where are the stories and novels in which sports play a part?

That's not what I meant to write when I started this post. What I meant to say is, I encourage my students to read the sports page. Even before I was so deeply into baseball, I read the page now and then, to refresh my approach to verbs. Sports writing has to move, can't get bogged down in passive verbs. But when I became an Angels fan(atic) this past spring, my sports page reading progressed from once in a while to every day, first thing, the first part of the paper I look at. I love Bill Plaschke's commentary and Helene Elliot's, too.

When baseball season is over, I imagine I'll enter a state of withdrawal, like I did with Diet Coke and coffee (both of which I drink again; all those headaches for for nothing). I will look at the sports section for any mention of my Angels. And my TV watching will decline by a ton of hours a week. The upside: More time for writing (although I rarely write at night anyway). Actually, there will just be more time with a hole in it where a baseball flew through. Until April 2008 when baseball season begins again. (I looked on the Angels web site; it doesn't say....)

So I keep thinking I need to incorporate baseball into my writing. Justify all the time I spend on the game. As if it needs justification.

Book autopsies

These are incredible....

Raymond Carver

An article about walking where Raymond Carver walked.

A conference, a dilemma

Just returned from a writers' conference in San Luis Obispo, on the coast midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco where I did a couple of workshops. What an interesting group of writers I found, and nice people, too. (Eric Maisel was the keynote; I also sat in on literary agent Laura Rennert's workshop on YA novels.) And the central coast is a dream, the way I imagine California used to be, lots of sensuous hills with only nubby bushes and occasional trees. Lovely.

This is definitely one to remember for next year, this time. And quite affordable for attendees, too.

What's on your list of conferences--to do or to recommend?

(I tried to post a link and Blogger isn't accepting the URL. Just Google Central Coast Writers Conference, San Luis Obispo, and you'll easily find it.)

....................................

Also, what you would do ...

There's an author represented by an agent I quite like a lot. If I wasn't with my current wonderful agent, I would want this agent; that's how much I like him/her. This agent told me a story about an author who, if the story's true, acted unethically toward my colleague. (I'm assuming the story is true because I've never known this agent to lie, and he/she has a good rep in the publishing biz.)

Okay. The author's publicist sent me the author's book for my show. I had been musing over inviting this author on--until I heard the story. My interest vanished--because of my agent friend.

So, my question is, do you let loyalties influence the interactions you have with others?

On the one hand, it's so high school.

On the other, the opinions and experiences of the people you know help you make decisions. This agent didn't say, I'll be upset with you if you have her on the show. He/she would never do that. In that way, it's so not high school.

And on the other, when you let your emotions and loyalties color your decisions, you're never approaching anything or anyone fresh.

9/11

I published the following op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times following 9/11/01:

"Out of Sight, but Never Out of Mind"

In the weeks since the Sept. 11 attacks, a few New Yorkers have complained that the rest of the country has forgotten about them and no longer cares.

We may live 3,000 miles away, yet how could we ever forget? Granted, we don't have the glaring reminder New Yorkers have: That space where the Twin Towers once stood must shock them daily. So while the attack may no longer be a major topic of conversation for some, our hearts remain broken.

Since Sept. 11, most everyone I know has experienced two--rather than six--degrees of separation: Everyone knows someone who knew someone who died or whose life was changed in untold ways.

As we drive the streets and freeways of our county, flags continue to fly from car antennas and houses. People wear flag pins and clothing with flag designs, and plaster their car windows and briefcases with flag decals.

They're flocking to blood banks and donating auction items on eBay. It's enough to choke up the most formerly nonpatriotic person.

Surely, the children remember.

Since Sept. 11, at daily opening ceremonies at my 7-year-old son's school, groups of children hold flags high as everyone recites the pledge of allegiance. They sing patriotic songs. And when I asked Travis what he did at school one day, he said his class drew pictures. His was of a beach in Hawaii. "A plane flew into the sand, but sand doesn't burn, so there wasn't a fire," said Travis.

Later he asked how we would know if his dad were bombed where he works.

"If he's not home by his usual time, I'll call," I said.

"What if they don't answer?"

"Then I'll call the police. But it's unlikely Daddy will get bombed at work. We're lucky that way."

At least for now, I thought.

Travis appeared satisfied with my answer, yet I couldn't help wondering how parents--or relatives and social workers--told those children who lost a parent in the attack that their mommy or daddy wouldn't be coming home because something horrible happened at work.

Often, it's the simple things that serve as sad reminders of what others have lost.

For me, my intact family reminds me of too many families who are no longer together. Since Sept. 11, our prayer before dinner now includes the words: "And God, please take care of all those people who need your help now, more than ever."

In a picture my husband took of Travis and me in New York last May, the Twin Towers stand in the distance, directly behind our heads. That image is now the desktop on my computer, the first thing I see when I turn it on in the morning, and the last thing I see when it goes off at night. It's my own personal reminder.

The Sept. 11 events inextricably bind everyone in this nation together. Someone from Illinois said, "We are all New Yorkers now."

I would say it better if I could.

......................

coffee, again, and what you did this summer

Last week Brian accidentally brought home flavored coffee. Brian hates flavored coffee. I tried it. I liked it. I made some for me. He bought his favored French roast, leaving almost a pound of hazelnut-flavored coffee beans. Of course I don't want to waste it? So every morning, after a modest breakfast of a slice of wheat toast and jam, and maybe a fried egg, I make a cup. Black. Love it. I still have tea first thing, though. So far.

Switching topics...a piece in today's Wall Street Journal about summer vacation and what folks did or did not do.

I had grand plans. I made a list on a legal size piece of paper. We were going to go to the East Coast and go to a Mets game. We were going to go on a road trip to San Francisco and maybe Portland. We talked about Tuscany and New Zealand. I kept cutting travel pieces out about Iceland. We were going to go to the Getty and the La Brea tar pits and Julian. We were going to do a bunch of things.

Some friends and relatives did. They went to Hawaii, St. Barts, Italy, France. They saw the world.

So what did we do?

We went to Sea World, went to Angels games ("and sometimes had really good seats," said Travis) and hung out a bunch. We had fun, a good summer. A summer of days with no alarm clock, late nights, a lot of laughs.

I think I'll keep the list for next summer and plan early.

What did you do? Did you fulfill your goals for the summer (and what's your morning drink of choice)?

Reclusive authors

Did anyone see the story in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday about reclusive authors?

Sometimes I think I'm too public, other times not public enough.

What do you think? Are you more interested in authors whose lives are a secret, who don't tour, who are hard to find, or do you like authors who--ahem--have blogs, tour, go on radio, etc.?

Or is it ultimately about the writing anyway, so it matters not whether an author is reclusive or public?

I feel the earth move under my feet

We were just jolted. I moved toward the doorway. Then that was it. Just one big bump.

Brian, getting up, said, "Well, it's earthquake weather."

Hot, muggy, the sun almost too bright.

So I went here and read that a 4.7 quake was epicentered in Lake Elsinore.

I thought, I'm glad I'm dressed, in case I have to leave the house. But I should wash my face and brush my teeth, too, put on a little make-up, just in case.

Now Brian's in the shower. Soon as he's done, I'll get in there and make myself presentable, just in case.

Do you eat alone and read?

Brian is off to a gig and Travis is with a friend, so I made dinner for one.

Dinner was:

Basmati rice
One sheet of nori seaweed, toasted
Edamame
Green salad with Aunt Teresa's house dressing (wine, olive oil, spices)
Zucchini broiled with grated parmesan and butter
A glass of Estancia chardonnay

Divine!

This is a meal that Brian would like. Travis would like the nori and rice. I loved it all.

And I read, fittingly, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone by Jenni Ferrari-Adler, who is going to be on my show next week. I love the essays in this anthology, and I loved my meal.

For dessert, mini peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's.

What was the last meal you ate alone and did you read? If so, what was it?

Myspace.com for writers

Seems all I'm doing these days is posting links here, or pictures. (That's okay, right?)

Here's a link to a New York Times article on how myspace works for writers.

It prompted me to work on my myspace page, which is myspace.com/penonfire.

I don't even know if the link works! But I did a search on my name and my book title on myspace and found someone listed me as their hero. Me! And at least one other person was alternating reading my book and James Patterson. And that also prompted me to work on my page.

Then I went to foodcandy.com and signed up there. There's no end to networking as an author, and it seems it could very easily take over doing any actual writing.

Travis is back in school next week, which is when I dust off the cobwebs from Starletta's Kitchen and get back to work.

Writers Block Party

My Thursday night critique group, in the front yard. So many of my students here have been with the group for a long time, progressing with their work. A really bright, fun, bawdy group. Tonight was Peter's birthday and Holly's last night (Holly's in the pink sweater). She's going back to NY/CT for the fall/winter/spring and will return next year. We will miss you, Holly!

Annie Dillard

Grete Semb Kempton sent me this link to a New York Times essay by Annie Dillard on writing till you drop.