The Naked Truth about Literature and Life

And How Do You Noodle?

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:02:00 +0000

from Jacqueline

With a deadline fast approaching, it’s a wonder I can do anything but use my writing time to add to my manuscript, racing forth towards the magic 100,000 words from which – with a bit of luck, my sixth novel will be hewn. But here I am, at Naked Authors, grateful for the interruption in my train of thought.

Aw, heck, why don’t I just admit it – at this stage in the game, my so-called creative mind seeks out distractions like a forest seeks out fire after forty years of drought. And it’s amazing what I can come up with.

Cleaning the keyboard is a favorite distraction. Ever since I took a painting class a few years ago and discovered that one of those flat brushes was just the right size to skim between the keys to collect fluff, breadcrumbs, chocolate fragments and even splinters of walnut, I have had that brush close to hand so that I can get down to some serious computerwork at a second’s notice.

Walking the dog doubles as “thinking time” and ever since I read in The Tao of Equus, that time spent with horses jump-starts creativity, I have justified every moment spent in the saddle, no matter how close that deadline.

Washing the dog is a good one. There I am, working away, crafting my sentences, bringing the movie in my head to the blank page, when ... what was that whiff that just caught the end of my nose? Sally, the senior citizen of the house has just walked into my office and is clearly in need of a bath. Never mind that no one else can smell “dog” and she’s never been one of those whiffy dogs anyway, it’s as good a time as any to get out the bucket, hose, shampoo and towels and lather the old girl into submission – oh, what deadline?

On Tuesday my folks arrived from England to stay, and decided to stay at my brother’s house because they knew I had a deadline looming. Nice of them. I should add that my brother lives around the corner, so it’s important, because they’ve come all this way, for me to drop in on them, just to check, after all, you never know, do you?

I have used excuse after excuse not to write when I know I should be writing, when it’s the thing I most want to do but for some reason noodling around in the depths of prevarication seems to be the only thing I can accomplish with any level of expertise.
Now, why is that? Why do we fart around when we should be working?

And here’s the interesting thing: When I had a full-time job and only dreamed of what it must be like to be a full-time writer, I never wasted one second. There was no setting aside that moment before I hit the page running, there was no excuse for not settling at my desk – I had so little precious writing time, that I wasted not one second.

My saving grace is that, ages ago I read the best book on writing on the market – in my humble opinion: On Writing by Stephen King. It’s the only book I have ever read by Mr. King, because I can’t read horror – it scares me too much – but to my mind, it is the best. You’ve probably heard me quote this before, but Mr. King maintains that a writer can complete the first draft of a novel in twelve weeks, based on a minimum daily output of 1200 words. Right there and then, my output goal became 1200 words, and seeing as I wrote my last novel in two months, sometimes I write a bit more. So, I noodle and I brush the keyboard, and I ride a horse and I wash/walk the dog – but I always feel as if I have to answer to Mr. King if I write less than my daily due.

And right now, because I clocked up the magic number today, I’m off for a cup of tea. Oh, that’s another one – stopping for yet another cup of tea ....

What’s your favorite writerly method of prevarication? (And Paul, that shoulder is way too painful to count – hope it heals soon.)

Happy Mother's Day. Ooops, better stop writing and nip out for a card ....

A Good Book and Bad Reviews --- Take the Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:56:00 +0000

James O. Born

I’ve been on a good fiction reading binge lately. When I say “good”, I mean a wide range of different genres and authors. I don’t mean it was all good fiction. In fact, some of it was difficult to slog through so I chucked the books and moved on through by TBR pile with an occasional manuscript or ARC someone sent me thrown in. I covered a lot o ground. It’s like when I skim through shows I’ve recorded on my DVR and erase many without watching them. It’s a feeling of satisfaction to have cleared up something you intended to do. In my case, read one of the many books I have on a bookcase now dedicated to only to books I want to read.

One book in this recent orgy of reading (I have to make it sound at least a little interesting) really stuck out in my mind and came to my attention in the most important and common way: a friend’s recommendation. Jay Lake, noted fantasy writer whom I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past told me about a science fiction writer named John Scalzi who’s books he thought I’d like. My love of science fiction is no secret and an easy enough habit to feed.

I picked up Ghost Brigades, Scalzi’s second novel and the second in a trilogy that starts with Old Man’s War. The first thing that stood out for me is that the novel, despite being the second in a series, really stands on its own well. The next thing I realized was that the novel sucked me in completely from setting to characters.

A true science fiction, set far in the future, Ghost Brigades is at once a story of man’s adaptation of technology that straddles the line of God’s and man’s domain and the story of the conflict between humans and other aliens interested in the inhabitable planets of the universe. The intrigue and military operations could be enough to make this book fun and riveting but it is the relationships and fates of the many alien and human characters that make it stand out in the crowded world of novels.

I know some crime fiction fans look down on science fiction fans the way literary writers look with distaste at crime writers. Ghost Brigades is another example of that flawed thinking. I wish I read more crime fiction written as well as this novel. Just as I advocate punching snooty literary writers I now proclaim that snooty crime writers should be beaten as well.

Scalzi has an interesting blog . A week or so back he posted some of his negative Amazon reviews and challenged other authors to follow suit. He believes we should show we can get past bad reviews. He offered a great graphic:

I will take him up and offer this:

From Amazon for Field of Fire :
This book had a good set of blurbs, from Michael Connelly and John Camp, so I bought it. The premise had some promise, but it doesn't pan out at all, and frankly as I got further into the book, I was waiting for it to end. When it did finish, the ending was pretty much what you would expect, improbable and not very satisfying.

Ouch. Gotta move on.

I extend Mr. Scalzi’s offer as well. If you’re an author, let’s see some bad reviews. C'mon, it'll feel good.

The Naked Quiz

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:01:00 +0000

By Cornelia Read

Still deadlining like crazy. So I've been thinking of some questions to throw at you guys.

1. You have been assigned to buy a baseball cap for the Dalai Lama. Which team's hat do you feel would be most appropriate, and why?

2. If mechanical dependency were no object, would you rather own this VW:

Or this woodie?:

(Is dependency even a word, outside the drug world? I'm so confused.)

3. If you could find out what really happened in the case of one single true crime, which crime would it be?

4. A tiny genie shows up on the beach while you're napping. She pokes you in the shoulder and wakes you up. You are offered a million dollars, but you must give it to a single charity (magically, every dollar will actually go toward helping those whom the charity was founded to help). Which cause do you support?

5. Tiny Genie is pleased with your choice. She allows you to pick one of the following, which will run perfectly and never need any expensive mechanical support.

Do you want the Porsche 356A:

Or the Jaguar XK 150?

6. You can banish one song from all radio stations forever. Which song is it?

7. Which do you generally find the most annoying:

Poets

Or clowns?

8. If you could choose one book to read all over again, for the very first time, which book would it be?

9. Two men want to date your teenage daughter:

Keith Richards

and Dick Cheney.

Which one do you shoot first?

Naked Scribbler Benched

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Paul here, sort of...

Maybe it was throwing all those sliders. (No, Jim Born, not the little burgers you ate at White Castle).

Maybe it was swimming, by conservative count, 900,000 strokes since college.

Maybe it was just my aging tendons and muscles saying, ala Roberto Duran, "No, mas."

Anyway, I tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder, the body part I use to pitch, bowl, type the word "poop," shoot the bird, and rattle a cocktail shaker full of Pisco sours.

Hurts to type.

Hurts to mouse.

Going on hiatus.

Paul

Cheeseburger in Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:13:00 +0000

Patty here...

I've only been to New York City twice before and never alone. Last Wednesday morning I arrived in Manhattan to attend the Edgars. Thursday, I was presenting the award for Best Paperback Original. For details on the winners, check here.

There were pre and post parties to attend, of course. I schmoozed with my agent and sat at my editor's table at the awards banquet. But on Thursday morning after having coffee with my friend Louise Ure, I set out to explore the city. I tried to blend in, walking briskly and with purpose, ignoring red lights, because that's what New Yorkers do. I brushed off the presence of the NYPD, even though they were everywhere and, at times, sirens trumped all street noise.

A cosmetics huckster at Saks 5th Avenue talked me into a free facial. She promised that if I dropped a grand I'd never have to feel bad about my neck. If the number of shoppers crowding the store was any indicator, the economy is in great shape. Necks, too.

I fell in love with a gold necklace in the window of H Stern and stopped to ask the price even though I knew it was beyond my means. $11,500.00. Falling in love can be expensive.

I dallied at the Plaza where I'd once stayed, but on this visit the Tea Room seemed to have lost some of its mojo. Maybe having tea is an adventure you shouldn't experience alone.

Tulips were everywhere. People wore scarves. I love tulips. I love scarves.

Lunchtime found me at the outdoor cafe at Rockefeller Center among pigeons and accented conversations. I wrote my impressions on the back of charge slips until I ran out of paper. In a moment of sheer contentment, I raised a glass of Pinot Grigio in a silent toast. Here's to me alone in New York City eating a cheeseburger in the crisp spring air with the sun toasting a new crop of freckles on my face.

Sometimes I wonder if traveling alone allows you greater freedom to absorb the essence of a place without having to filter your impressions through someone else's sensibilities. What say you?

Happy New Yorkers

Happy Monday!

Putting A Price On Life

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:33:00 +0000

from Jacqueline

Sometimes you learn something that just gets you going, or has you thinking for days, weeks afterwards. Cornelia’s post on the link between the preservative added to childhood vaccinations and the rise in autism did that for me a few weeks ago, for example. This week it had to do with money. Yes, the filthy lucre we all need to make the world go round.

I was chatting to one of the women I ride with – let’s call her “L” in case anyone from her company is reading this, not that it’s likely, and not that she’d worry about it anyway. “L” is a paramedic. She saves lives for a living, and she is really good at her job – a five-foot nothing powerhouse, she will get you to a hospital, alive, within twenty-five minutes of getting the call that you’ve had an altercation with a big-rig on the freeway or you’re in cardiac arrest. She is all business when she’s working – and pretty much all business when she’s riding, too. Her almost seventeen-hand warmblood even hides behind her when he hears something that scares him. That’s the warmblood she fell in love with and is paying for over time.

At our usual burger and fries luncheon destination of choice this week (training in dressage makes you really, really hungry), “L” happened to tell us that paramedics from her company working in LA were on strike over a pay deal (I hasten to add that she does not work in that area, and is not on strike). Emergency services coverage would continue, because the company brought in people from other areas, but as a private company they had the right to strike. Now, it had never occurred to ask how much paramedics and other emergency workers earn, so I asked “L” – who is a senior member of the team so you would think is doing really well. If you call thirteen bucks an hour “doing really well.” Last week she worked a 72-hour-week, because that’s what you have to do to make the world go around, and the company needs its workers to do the overtime anyway. Of course there are those who argue that in a 24-hour shift, she might only be called out once, and there are certainly days like that, however, sometimes it’s just one wreck after another. Twenty-five minutes – max – from the time the call comes in, until the time she hands over her patient to the emergency room doctor. That works out at just over six bucks. For a life.

Take that a bit further and you can bring in the men and women who are security checking at our airports, upon whose shoulders sits a responsibility to prevent more 9-11’s and keep the skies friendly – on minimum wage.

I am sure our Jim will weigh in on how we remunerate the men and women who try to keep the streets safe, and let’s spare a thought for the nurses, the firefighters and so many others out there who should be millionaires, if we paid a person according to their worth to society. And sorry, it’s just me, but I can’t help thinking about the fat cats who are currently raking it in – let’s start with the petroleum industry, shall we?

Of course, you could say that our “L” could make things easier for herself by not indulging in her equine-based passion – it’s not a cheap sport by any means. She skimps and scrapes in every other aspect of her life and heck, if that’s what you need to blow off steam after keeping a kid alive in a car wreck, or saving someone’s father in the midst of a heart attack, then you deserve every moment of lightness you can lay your hands on.

Oh, and to end on a bit of whimsy: My brother thought he had a grand idea this week - Stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for a few days and use the money saved to give everyone in the country one million dollars. “That’s what you call an economic stimulus package,” said John.

May you have a lovely weekend.

Funny Police Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:17:00 +0000

By James O. Born

Okay, the title pretty much says it all. I know, I know, I’m supposed to be a writer and use the blog to express my views but I wanted to change up. The title is to catch people’s eye and attract web hits and it is accurate.

Everyday I get e-mails from cops I work with, cops that like my books, and cops that like to e-mail funny things. It’s a nice departure from the daily grind of e-mails about equipment inspections, range days and interview scheduling. I get a lot of short videos. Most are okay. A few are great, if not inappropriate and every once in a while one is awesome. You get to know certain senders with good taste in movies and watch those attachments.

This first clip is one compiled by Jay Leno but has some funny moments.

http://www.lemonzoo.com/funny_videos/15105/Jay_Leno___Funny_Police_Stops.html

This is one of my favorite clips from the subset of “Drunks”. Notice little things like the time of the booking and the wall.

This was just sent to me. It is the best example of cop humor I’ve seen. Someone asked me if they got in trouble for this. Who cares, it was worth it.

Let me know how you like the clips. Now that Cornelia showed me how to load them I’m not intimidated.

Next week I’ll get back to writing but I had to prove to myself I could set up a few videos.

Other People's Words

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:12:00 +0000

By Cornelia Read

I've kept a quote book since I was about eighteen. My main one has a glossy egg-yolk-yellow cover, with a billiard-felt green rectangle set into its center. The inside has paler green lined pages, and I've been writing down snippets from novels, articles, pamphlets--whatever--for almost thirty years now.

I posted a selection of them in the first year we were doing this blog, and as I'm on deadline until June 12th, I'm firing up a second round for your delectation.

Here goes:

"When I say I'm writing a piece, a piece is a gun."

--Rene Ricard, "Pledge of Allegiance," Art Forum

"I have known what it is to be hungry, but I always went right to a restaurant."

--Ring Lardner

"I remember one time, when his meds were working, joking around with him: 'How come God never tells you to just go shopping? How come it's always "That water is poisoned, there's a chip in your brain, the aliens are coming"?'"

--Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy

"Always behind you stands waiting something immense and black, something fresh and brilliant, and within one bound you are in it."

--Romola Nijinksy, foreword to
Paul Claudel's Nijinsky

"'Believe me, my dear fellow,' he went on after a pause, 'there'll be none of this damned equality in heaven.'"

--W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge

"The Master said, 'I have yet to meet the man who is as fond of virtue as he is of beauty in women.'"

--Confucius, IX.18

"If repetition is a virtue, Walt Whitman is a saint."

--Arnold Krupat, during an American literature
seminar at Sarah Lawrence College, November, 1986

"For obviously, under all he says, lie three convictions: that wealth is the greatest good, and the more of it the better (tanta est animi beatitudo), that the good things of life are simply a superfluity of articles of the best quality and the opportunity to enjoy them in the most vulgar manner possible, and that, in this sense, everyone quite naturally acts for his own material advantage."

--Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation
of Reality in Western Literature

"Even as a child, when I lacked for nothing, I wanted to die: I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for. Everyone around me was a failure, or if not a failure, ridiculous. Especially the successful ones. The successful ones bored me to tears."

--Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

"Fortunately, what Sarah Lawrence teaches is a lesson called 'How to be shocked and dismayed but not lie down and die,' and those of you who have learned this lesson will never regret it, because there will be ample time and opportunity to use it."

--Alice Walker, speech given at the 1972
graduation ceremony, Sarah Lawrence College

"The world taught women nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public, and said the sex had no orators. It denied her the schools, and said the sex had no genius. It robbed her of every vestige of responsibility and then called her weak. It taught her that every pleasure must come as a favor from men, and when to gain it she decked herself in paint and fine feathers, as she had been taught to do, it called her vain."

--Carrie Chapman Catt, 1902

"The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not pastime and recreation. But moral. The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality. One which changes the blood, rather than the mind."

--D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

"I'd had dull stupid jobs but this appeared to be the dullest and most stupid of them all. The idea, I decided, is not to think. But how do you stop thinking? Why was I chosen to polish this rail? Why couldn't I be inside writing editorials about municipal corruption? Well, it could be worse. I could be in China working in a rice paddy."

--Charles Bukowski, Factotum

"There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort. For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive, grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden."

--Saki, "Reginald at the Theatre"

"Poets like this will exist! When the unending servitude of women is broken, when she lives by and for herself, when man--hitherto abominable--has given her her freedom, she too will be a poet! Woman will discover part of the unknown! Will her world of ideas be different from ours? She will discover things strange and unfathomable, repulsive and delicious. We shall take them unto ourselves, we shall understand them."

--Rimbaud, in a letter to Paul Demeny

"What matters is talk, family, cheap wine in the open air, the wresting of minimal sweetness out of the long-known bitterness of living."

--Anthony Burgess, "Is America Falling Apart?"

"I'd like to clear up one last thing before I go off and eat an entire banana cream pie by myself: men and women do not get stuck together when they screw. Oh, sure, you can beat her at arm wrestling, throw her across the room, mow her down in the line for Bruce Springsteen tickets, but you're no match for her vagina? Come on.

"If a woman could keep you inside her by clamping her vaginal muscles in an inextricable viselike grip, you'd be there now."

--Sherry Flenniken, National Lampoon

"This was the fatal flaw in Timothy Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling 'consciousness expansion' without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for those who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him... but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him.

"Not that they didn't deserve it; No doubt they Got What Was Coming To Them. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But this loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped to create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumptions that somebody--or at least some force--is tending that light at the end of the tunnel."

--Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

"Don't tell me that making a quiche can be equally fun, and that cheese is no dinner, because even monkeys know this. It's just that when the ball is bouncing, or everyone's leaving to go swimming--in the dark, when you're stunned and splashing in the bracing ink, and you are the ink, and you find yourself going 'oh, my God, oh, my God" like in that Chekov story--you want your kitchen time to be brief."

--Chris Colin, "Ancient Yet Edible," Salon

And now, my nakeds, tell me your favorite quote...

Quick Takes

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Scattered thoughts from Paul's brain...

WRIGHT IS SO WRONG

Can we just agree that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a weirdo, an egomaniac, and a visitor from a strange planet...and Barack Obama is too nice a guy to tell him to shut the hell up?
**********************

JUDICIAL QUOTE OF THE WEEK

In a tax case in which Wesley Snipes and friends were convicted in federal court in Florida...Judge Terrell Hodges sentenced co-defendant Eddie Ray Kahn to ten years. Here's the exchange:

Kahn: "For the record, Your Honor, I don't accept that."

Judge Hodges: "You may not accept it, Mr. Kahn, but you will serve it."

**************************
THE BRIDGES OF DUMBSHIT COUNTY

Have you ever broken off a relationship or refused to enter one because the party-of-the-second part wasn't a reader? Or, he/she read what you considered to be crap?

Take a look at Rachel Donadio's New York Times Book review piece, "It's Not You, It's Your Books

Here's the lead:

Some years ago, I was awakened early one morning by a phone call from a friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend she still loved and was desperate to justify her decision. “Can you believe it!” she shouted into the phone. “He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!”

When I was single, I dated some women who had trouble reading the menu at Joe's Stone Crab.

What about you? Are you a literary snob? Do you know people who are?
**********************************
DO ACTORS HAVE A DUTY TO YOU & ME?

Do writers? Sculptors? Baseball players?

Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times takes great umbrage at movie stars who appear in crap films. In "How the Mighty Have Fallen: Pacino and De Niro are embarrassing, if enriching, themselves with film choices.".

Goldstein argues that these great actors should reject the big paychecks for lousy movies (Pacino in "88 Minutes," De Nior in (Meet the Fockers") and confine themselves to quality projects.

In an amazingly similar article (media conspiracy!), Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post writes: "My Career Has Fallen But It Can Get Up: If They Make the Right Choices, There's Still Plenty of Time for Older Stars to Shine". She, too slams DeNiro, Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and throws in Diane Keaton and Cher for good measure. (Don't know about you, but I've been anguished about Cher's career choices lately).

My view is that actors owe me nothing. If I'm going to see a piece of dreck like "Meet the Fockers," shame on me if I don't realize in advance that it's a lowbrow ripoff sequel of a lame movie. And maybe, just maybe, De Niro, Hoffman, and Barbra Streisand did the picture to hang out and have fun.

I don't think artists or athletes owe us anything, other than always trying their best. Yes, I understand how embarrassing it was to watch Willie Mays in his last days with the Mets. He couldn't get around on a fast ball. In center field, the once sublime fielder, stumbled and bumbled. He made us cry. But maybe Willie, who loved the game, still enjoyed playing. His choice, not ours. What do you think?

ONE MORE DEAR ABBY

Another absolutely true letter:

Dear Abby,
My mother is mean and short-tempered. I think she is going through mental pause.
**************************

Have a good day and read whatever the hell you want...
Paul

If it’s Monday, it must be…

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:35:00 +0000

Patty here…

I arrived home this morning at 3:00 a.m., which means I’m midway through my marathon zigzag tour between the left and right coasts of the United States. Romantic Times in Pittsburgh a week ago. Malice Domestic in Washington, D.C. this past weekend. I’ll be home for two days, and then I’m off to New York to present an award at the Edgars in New York, returning in time to attend the Palm Springs Book Fair on Sunday. ( I know, I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

This was only my second Malice. I know more people now, including my new BFFs at The Mystery Chix, including Lois Greiman, Roberta Islieb, CJ Lyons, and Hank Phillippi Ryan who won the Agatha for Best First Mystery. I also met some diehard Naked Authors fans who could recite their favorite posts and a few readers who actually knew who I was. In this business, the best moments are when a fan says, “I LOVE your books. Thank you for writing.” It makes everything seem worth the effort.

In my recent travels, I’ve made some observations:

Hotel bars close too early at conventions, leaving me with the impression that the capitalistic spirit is dead in the hotel industry.

Authors seem to be giving away a lot more promotional items than ever before.

When my first book came out, I gave away book bags with my book cover on them. My publisher printed bookmarks. At Romantic Times, I gave away little bags of My M&Ms with my book names printed on each one. I thought I was being oh-so clever, but as it turned out, my little gifts seemed underwhelming compared to those of other authors, especially romance writers who make a science out of marketing.

For those of you who have been in this business longer than I, were promotional giveaways always part of the landscape or is this something new? Do giveaways nudge you toward an author you may not have considered before? Just asking.

Happy Monday!

Seeds of Thought ...

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:59:00 +0000

from Jacqueline

I come from a long line of gardeners, but I confess, although I love gardening, I think I am the least knowledgeable and proficient. From my grandmother and her postage-stamp gardens in London, to my landscaping brother and the huge estates he has managed, our lot have proven their mettle with anything that grows. And we care very much about how things are grown and the land underneath our feet.

Moving right along – last weekend I was one of four women writers speaking at the Bay Area Bluestocking Festival of Authors in Pleasant Hill, California. I love this sort of event – I always learn something new, or am reminded of something I knew, but hadn’t given sufficient thought to. And if you are wondering about the link between my greenish fingers and writing, stay with me, folks, there is a route through the undergrowth here. One of the authors – who sadly, I was not able to stay to listen to, but had a great conversation with her – was Claire Hope Cummings, a former environmental lawyer turned journalist. Claire has been honored for her coverage of food and farming and herself has farmed in both California and Vietnam. She was a 2001 Food and Society Policy Fellow. She knows her apples and oranges.

Claire’s book, “Uncertain Peril, Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds,” caught my interest straightaway. In Britain and the rest of Europe, any foodstuff containing Genetically Modified Food (GMO) has to be labeled, so we know what we’re buying. Some years ago, I heard an expert on GMO (why can I never remember these people’s names?) talking on public radio about GMO, and he likened it to lead in gasoline or nicotine in cigarettes – it’s the next big thing to be really, really worried about. At the time the US was getting bent out of shape because that new labeling law had just been passed in Europe, and if US companies wanted to sell their food in Europe, they had to get with the program. GMO is very, very big American business.

So, here’s the thing, one interesting point in Claire’s book, that I knew and had forgotten, and that – years after the start of the war in Iraq – is giving food for thought: If you didn’t already know this, in terms of agriculture, Iraq was like California and the Bread Basket states rolled into one, bearing fruit in the “Fertile Crescent” of Middle Eastern legend. The Garden of Eden is thought to have been located in southern Iraq.

Given this bounty, Iraq had a priceless seed heritage, with all manner or cereals, vegetables, herbs, fruits and medicinal plants grown on its land, and keeping the integrity of the seeds were the farmers, who harvested their own seeds or bought seeds from other farmers in the many markets of Iraq. To further protect the environment, in the 1970’s the Ministry of Agriculture gathered seeds from all over the country and established a seed bank (1400 varieties), a plant-breeding institute and botanical garden in a suburb of a town called Abu Ghraib. In March 2003 that seed bank was destroyed in the invasion of Baghdad.

In her book, Claire describes the way in which Paul Bremner (remember him? The guy who was given the job of restoring Iraq’s infrastructure?) and Donald Rumsfeld spent $12 billion ($9 billion of which was never accounted for) and issued over one hundred orders to create a market economy tailored to American interests – agriculture being a major interest. The ability of the farmers to provide for themselves was all but destroyed, leaving the path clear for the Monsanto-type companies to move in with their GMO products. As Claire states in the book, “What is clear is that the United States intends to use the occupation as an opportunity to remold Iraqi agriculture to fit American agribusiness interests.” And we know what those interests have done for American farming don’t we?

I could go on, make my comments (I know, as usual) about the various interests behind the march to war, but I’ll leave that to you. In the wake of the usual beat-your-head-against-the-wall fury that comes with each new revelation about the power of big-business and the connection to war, lies a deep sadness. There is something achingly tragic about the thought of seeds so genetically modified that the plants they produce are effectively barren, unable to reseed in the way Mother Earth intended.

When I was a child, my parents grew all our vegetables. OK, so we had the occasional can of peas – ironically, my brother and I really looked forward to eating anything that came in a can! I remember my dad drying seeds in the greenhouse and keeping them for the following year, and the flavor of those vegetables. There was a wonder there, for a child, watching as he emptied the dried pods, then began planting seeds that would soon bear a small shoot that would grow and grow, then be planted in the garden ... and the cycle would begin again.

“History celebrates the battle-fields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the ploughed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of the king’s bastards, but cannot tell the origin of wheat. That is the way of human folly.” (J.H. Fabre from The Wonders of Instinct. Quoted from Uncertain Peril, by Claire Hope Cummings).

See you at the farmer’s market!

Good Books by Good People

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:38:00 +0000

James O. Born

I have a few friends with books coming out or just released that I’d like to mention on the blog today.

Julia Spencer-Fleming’s I Shall Not Want is due out June 10th from St. Martins. I like Julia’s unusual protagonist, Episcopal Priest Clare Fergusson and the setting, Millers Kill, New York. This novel concerns the migrant community where Claire is involved.

I like Julia and her books. This is one to look forward to.

Another friend who happens to be published by St Martins is Jim Sheehan, whose Law of Second Chances is a great legal thriller with a number of other elements. I love the death row races but this one has a style all it’s own. I liked it a lot.

I attended his book signing at Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach last week and found his talk interesting, intelligent and compelling. A lot like his book.

He’ll be visiting California this weekend. On Sunday he’ll be on a panel at 1:00Pm with John Lescroat and Catherine Coulter. Is she related to Ann? Drop by and see him if you get the chance.

Our own Patricia Smiley’s Cool Cache is due June 8th. This time out Tucker Sinclair gets involved in murder at a chocolate shop. Patty never disappoints and as always she gets great covers.

Also in June, my friends W.E.B. Griffin and Bill Butterworth IV add another book in the great Honor Bound series. Death and Honor continues the story of the OSS in World War II. Argentina, Nazis, spies and family issues, what else do you want in a book?

I try to read in every area, it just happens that many of my friends are crime writers. I could tell you about the alternative history I just read. 1901 by Robert Conroy was a lot of fun about a German invasion of New York in 1901. I love that kind of stuff. Harry Turtledove is the king of this genre.

What about you guys? Any books coming out that interest you?

Me and My Little Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:00:00 +0000

By Cornelia Read

I have a condition I like to think of as "sticky brain." I never know where my car keys are, unless they are physically attached to me, but I remember small bits of trivia I read eons ago.

I was reminded of this in the Dallas Fort Worth airport this past Friday, when I bought a copy of Vanity Fair (as The New Yorker is apparently banned throughout DFW) with which to pass the time on my way back to San Francisco following the extra-fabulous Texas Library Association Conference.

There was a profile of Doris Day in my magazine, which was pretty much the only thing I wanted to read since it was The "Green" Issue, and who really gives a crap what Madonna thinks about global warming?

Here is something I already knew about Doris Day: once a week, she slathers herself from head to toe in Vaseline and then puts on footie pajamas and sleeps in it. I think I read that in the National Enquirer when I was about twelve.

The Vanity Fair article said (paraphrasing here, as I left the magazine on the plane), "once a week, Doris Day rubs herself down with Vaseline before she goes to sleep.

This makes her maid unhappy as she also sleeps with several dogs in the bed, and it's a big hairy mess in the morning."

And I thought to myself, "oh great, now I'm going to have that image stuck in my head for the rest of my life."

Here's another thing I remember from eons ago--a beauty tip from Brooke Shields, who claimed that after she brushed her teeth, she went on to brush her lips, to make them soft. That one was probably from Seventeen, back in the day. Oddly enough, it's a factoid I've found about 80% of women in my age cohort also remember.

I remember odd little lines and giblets from books I've read, too--for some reason especially well from those old Scholastic paperbacks they used to stock my elementary-school shelves with.

Here's one that always comes to mind whenever I'm faced with riding in a crowded car: an explanation given about how many people fit into a certain wagon when the crowd wants to ride into town together, from a book about an East Coast girl who spends her summer on an old West fort: "Six if you're particular, but eight if you're sociable."

This is why I love my friend Ariel: I told her about that phrase one day, and said, "I don't remember the name of the book, but it had a yellow cover with a really ugly Fifties illustration."

And Ariel looked at me and replied, "Blue Ribbons for Meg."

So at least I have the comfort of knowing I am not the only person in the world to suffer from the Scholastic variant of Sticky Brain.

But I don't just remember thing's I've read, I remember things OTHER people have read. Like the paragraph about how Shackleton's crew spent so much time playing cards in their tents in the Antarctic after the Endurance was trapped in the ice that they couldn't read the faces, anymore, and were finally forced to clean them off with blubber so they could continue their games.

I heard a boyfriend of my mother's read that bit out loud from a book one evening in Aspen, in 1972. I didn't remember it was Shackleton, I only remembered the cards and the blubber, until I randomly read the same book myself about five years ago.

It was during that Aspen trip that I also heard the guy read a paragraph from a novel in which some dude was racing across the snowy outback of Russia in a sleigh, but the wolves were gaining on him so he threw his chick-of-the-moment over the side. To my astonishment, I ran across that exact passage about twenty years later in a Flashman novel.

The strangest occurence of this was the morning I first took the SATs, when I realized the passage we'd been set for the reading comprehension portion of the test was a page a stepfather of mine (mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my vaccine post) had read aloud at the breakfast table about five years earlier from a book about the health benefits of wheat bran.

It was about Victorian-era British orphans who were healthier than their wealthier parented counterparts because they weren't fed white bread, which was more expensive than the whole-wheat version at the time.

My Aunt Julie once asked me, "Cornelia, how do you remember all this shit?" and I told her I figured the part of my brain that was supposed to be devoted to remembering where my car keys are had instead been programmed as an extra trivia receptacle.

In school, this condition (the car-keys part) extended to pens and binder paper and textbooks, in that I never remembered where they were, either. Like I had some sort of negative electrical charge which made essential academic supplies jump away from my body at random intervals, a dozen or so times an hour.

After everyone I knew got sick of lending me pencils and paper and what-have-you in class, I fell back on a tried-and-true method of studying: just remember what the teacher said, because I was never, ever going to have the implements necessary for writing it down, and besides which I'd then lose the piece of paper.

It actually worked okay, though Judith Goldiner once got really pissed at me in chemistry class when everyone else was getting their binders out, and I just sat there, which prompted her to say "yeah, you and your photogenic memory."

Q. What did the signers of the Declaration
of Independence all have in common?
A. They remembered to bring pens.

Apparently, several years after I'd moved on to college, there was another girl in Mrs. Laupheimer's AP American history class one day who had forgotten her pen and paper.

Mrs. Laupheimer looked at her, it was later reported to me, and said, "There was only one kid who could do that, and her name is Nicky Read, and she's already graduated. Borrow something."

And I have another weird thing that happens in my head--well, okay, several, but let's just say this one is the second-most striking weird thing to me.

It happens when my "front" brain is engaged in some mundane task--say, driving a route I'm familiar with. I get these weird chunks of language that just emerge from the fog. Verbal images, lines of dialogue, little jokes, &c.

I remember one, specifically, that I ended up using in A Field of Darkness... I was driving back home from dropping my daughter off at school and was just passing the Claremont Hotel on the border of Oakland and Berkeley, in my husband's old Benz wagon with the broken radio.

I'd been thinking vaguely about heredity and weirdness amongst my ancestral strain, and suddenly got this word-image plopped into my head from God knows where, which summed up the practice of moneyed WASPs inter-breeding with Eurotrash in the Hamptons as being likely to produce "Dobermans with the Hapsburg lip."

Which is exactly the sort of darkly twisted semantical fillip that most appeals to me.

What's started happening lately, however, is that I get entire paragraphs, usually things that are the start of a short story. The strangest thing about this is that I'm not trying to work on any short stories, I'm trying to work on a novel. But these whole little worlds appear in my head in one stroke--with voice and place and premise locked into them--like involuntarily tuning into some crazy radio show in my head.

They just start to spin out and add to themselves, and I do my best to remember a key phrase so that I can write down the bones of them later.

Here is one from Saturday, which emerged as I was waiting for the light to change under the elevated BART rails down on MLK, on my way to Rae's house:

We killed Santa on the nineteenth day.

Trust me, you would’ve done the same. I mean, you’ve got eight reindeer and five elves and one morbidly obese self-important prick of a management type stranded on a desert fucking island two hundred miles off Tierra del Fuego… which one would YOU take out?

If nothing else, we figured we’d get more meals out of his ass than ours. God knows it hadn’t actually fit down a chimney since 1952. Elves haul your crap down the damn things, and elves haul your cookies and milk back up them, too. You’d think he’d give us a taste.

And don’t give me any shit about how reindeer don’t eat meat. Like you’d know. How the hell do you think our guys fly? They’re carnivorous, that’s how they goddamn fly. With a double row of pointy-ass teeth to use for ripping flesh. No meat, no altitude.

Santa’d run us and the boys into the ground that Christmas, literally. Doubling back twice to the Cote D’Ivoire, because he screwed up the list? We barely made landfall that last time over the Atlantic.

You should’ve heard him screaming when we jumped him: “Off Dancer! Off Prancer! Jesus H. CHRIST, that’s my bad leg…”

Yeah, that *was* your bad leg…

Fat fuck had it coming.

Okay now, seriously, how weird is THAT?

I mean, I kind of like it, as short story openings go, but it's still seriously freaky to have some psycho elf dictating the Piers-Paul-Read-Alive mashup with The Night Before Christmas to you as you're driving, you know?

I'm hoping this is just an advanced case of Writerly Neurochemistry, not some brain tumor possessed by the shade of Roald Dahl.

Anybody else get this kind of unprompted brainwave weirdness? If so, please share...

p.s. This week's Snack o' Thought:

Of Discourse, Intercourse, and Drinks with Papa

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:45:00 +0000

From Paul

LITERARY TRAVEL

Do you want to drink in one of Ernest Hemingway's old watering holes?

There's a new book with info on six of Papa's favorite saloons. What? Only six?

It's "Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West."

Written by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon, "Novel Destinations" (National Geographic, $25) is a great guide for the literary traveler. Okay, here are the six places Hemingway liked. Obviously there are more, but these still exist, and whoa, not one is a Hard Rock Cafe:

La Closerie Des Lilas, Paris;
Hotel Ritz, Paris;
Casa Botin, Madrid
Cafe Iruna, Pamplona
El Floridita, Havana
La Bodeguita del Medio, Havana

I've sipped cocktails at the two Havana places, plus one joint not mentioned, Sloppy Joe's in Key West, which no longer exists. (Yes, there's a saloon in Key West with that name and Hemingway memorabilia nailed to the walls, but it's in a different location from the original Joe's).

***********************
PRESIDENT BUSH: TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

Who can forget when our Commander-in-Chief posed heroically on the deck of the USS Lincoln, the "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him? Well, isn't it time for truth in advertising?

**********************************
MORE BUSH: THE POWER OF THE SPOKEN WORD

Is there anything as inspiring as an eloquent leader in wartime?

"The folks who conducted to act on our country on September 11 made a big mistake...They misunderestimated the fact that we love a neighbor in need. They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the commander-in-chief, too."
---President George W. Bush, September 26, 2001

Yes, the Doofus-in-Chief says the darndest things. Kind of makes you yearn for a real wordmeister.

How about Winston Churchill's legendary 1940 speech:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France; we shall fight on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air; we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

Cheers to all as I offer my blood, toil, tears and sweat...
Paul

A Romantic Times Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:29:00 +0000

Patty here...

I'm writing this post from the 21st floor of the Pittsburgh Hilton, where the Allegheny and Monongahela merge to form the Ohio River. The Romantic Times Booklovers Convention is in it's final throes and even though my suitcase is 48 bags of My M&Ms and seven books lighter, I still can't getting the bloody thing to close. My two roommates—Harley Jane Kozak and Alexandra Sokoloff—have left for the airport and for the first time in four days, the room is devoid of laughter and smart conversation.

Approximately three hundred fifty authors attended this event, along with 900 plus readers. Trust me. Romance folks know how to party hardy—the Fairy Ball, the Blood and Steel Monster Mash, hunky, bare-chested guys in tight jeans, strutting down the runway competing for Mr. Romance. Mystery conventions seem staid by comparison.

I was part of the "Mystery Chix and Private Dix" mystery panel track. Aside from my fellow Naked Authors, I have not encountered a group of more intelligent and interesting people. I had the opportunity to spend quality time with many of them, discussing politics, family sagas, and the agony and ecstasy of the writer's life. When the convention was over, I felt as if I'd not only made connections, but I'd also made friends. Here are a few shots from the weekend.

Left to right: Hank Phillippi Ryan, Lori Andrews, Toni McGee Causey, Lois Greiman, Roberta Isleib, Lori Avocato, Lillian Stewart Carl, Sandra Hill, Harley Jane Kozak, Carole Nelson Douglas, Nancy Martin, CJ Lyons, and Shane Gericke kneeling

Here's Lois Greiman with the newly crowned Mr. Romance

Me, Lori Andrews, and Hank Phillippi Ryan who won the award for Best First Mystery
(Yay Hank!)

Me, Lori Andrews, Lori Avocato, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Shane Gericke, Lois Greiman, and CJ Lyons kicking butt after one of our panels

For a hilarious take on the convention, check out Me, Margie's April 17 post on the Lipstick Chronicles.

What's the most fun you've ever had at a convention?

Happy Monday!

The Spirit of Place

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:38:00 +0000

from Jacqueline

I bet you think I've been missing in action this past few weeks. But here I am, the old book tour campaigner, back at base and trying to get back to normal - though seeing as "situation normal" has eluded me for most of my life, there's probably no good reason to find it now! So, sorry for last week's non appearance. I arrived back from the UK on Thursday night and was in the help-me-out-of-the-fog stage of jet-lag for a good 48 hours, listing to starboard around the house with one cup of tea or another, the trouble being that I kept putting that cup of tea down and forgetting where I left it, so had to make "another."

Travel brings me to thoughts of place, and one thing that has always fascinated me is the way in which the people who have been in that place - who have loved or hated that place - leave something of themselves behind. I think that's something we try to communicate as writers, not only the look and feel of a place, but the essence. Because my books are set in an historic time period, when I am in London, I try to shut out the teeming city it is today, and try to imagine the teeming city it was years ago. But I do the same thing in New York or New Orleans. In fact, I've done it all my life, looked for the spirit, tried to hear the ghosts who linger, as if asking them to tell me their story so that I can hear their voices rattling down the corridor that leads up from past.

Two well-known places come to mind as examples of the past being a place to which we can pilgrimage with our imaginations. I first visited Ellis Island about eight years ago. My friend, Corinne, and I made it down to the ferry as early as we could and were the first people stepping onto the island on that cool April morning. Most of the passengers were going to the Statue of Liberty first, so there was hardly a soul around - except the ghosts, of course. The interesting thing was the impact that the place had on me, I think because I am an immigrant to this country, and Ellis Island is a metaphor for all the hopes and dreams that we, the immigrants, hope for when we come to America, whether that journey is via Air New Zealand or with a coyote crossing the border. Today the average immigration building is like a cross between a DMV and Stassi Headquarters, and you don't get a bowl of porridge to keep you going.

As we walked around the building, almost alone, stepping in and out of interview rooms, the rooms where medical inspections took place, you could touch those walls where immigrants past etched their names while they waited with a sickness of fear in the gut, and you can feel the emotion just seeping out, as if there was so much hope, so much exhaustion, so much worry inside them that their human frame was too small a container, so it just leeched into the plaster, the tiles and the concrete. I remember touching a wall and feeling that ache of hope brush against my fingertips.

The Imperial War Museum, where I spend a lot of time when I am in London, is housed in a building that was once the Bethlem Lunatic Asylum, the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world, though it wasn't always on the Lambeth site. You've heard of "Bedlam" haven't you? That's where the word comes from, because Bethlem was spoken as Bedlam in the local dialect. As I often say, a former lunatic asylum is a perfect place for a museum of war. For the most part, the museum holds no great sense of the madness that was once incarcerated within the walls, except when you go up to the reading room, which is only available by appointment. I have been there many times, sitting at my wooden desk in silence while reading through letters sent from the western front during the war to end all wars - reading about a kind of madness, if you like. But the reading room is situated in a dome that once housed the chapel, and still has the ten commandments on wooden plaques high on the walls. I have closed my eyes in that room and almost heard the prayers echoing down the years, and felt, again, some sort of hope that came forth from those who knelt in that place, their hands pressed together as they petitioned God to deliver them from their plight.

As writers we endeavor to touch that spirit of place. Whether we are walking the streets of Miami, of Los Angeles, of New York, London, or a deserted old oil town somewhere in the desert, we are reaching out with our senses and, ultimately, our words so that ghosts can echo down the years. Even if our story is set in the here and now, and not the deep or more recent past, our understanding comes through between the lines, enabling the reader to see more than simply words on a page.

Have a lovely weekend, all.

The Edgar Week

noreply@blogger.com (Naked Authors) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:31:00 +0000

The Real Edgar Winners

James O. Born

In two weeks the annual MWA Edgar Awards take place in New York. I’ve been twice. The first time was just before my first novel was even released and the second time two years ago. Each time was an absolute blast.

But it was that first visit in 2004 that really set the standard by which all my trips have been measured. While attending a party at Partners in Crime on the night

Me, Reed, Ken and C.J Box at the 2006 Edgars

before the actual awards, a friendly bald guy and thin Irish guy asked me if I wanted to go for a drink with them and a couple of their friends. Having no plans and a certain attraction to alcohol, I agreed. The bald guy was Reed Coleman and the Irish guy Ken Bruen. We made a night of throwing back beer and a few shots while learning just what a good sport Jason Starr really was. In fact, Bruen and I forged a lasting bond by walking back to our hotels together just as the sun rose over the Big Apple the next day. I remember my agent asking me later in the day why I “looked like shit”. I mumbled something about the flu.

Bruen was nominated for best novel that year and was gracious when the award went to Ian Rankin. Later that year I spent another late night in Toronto with him and Reed celebrating his Shamus win at Bouchercon.

Little did I know back then that Reed and Ken would become two of my best friends and people I sometimes use as a sounding board for publishing matters. And in two weeks they are both Edgar nominees for best novel.

Reed’s fourth Moe Prager book, Soul Patch and Ken’s fifth Jack Taylor novel, Priest should both win. How’s that for staying neutral? I’ll throw in Megan Abbott’s excellent Queenpin as best paperback original. It should be a great night.

The night before this year’s awards I will also miss a book signing for Michael Connelly’s Blue Religion anthology to which I contributed a story. The Drought is partially on an officer-involved shooting I once investigated. Mr. Connelly is another gracious writer I will miss seeing. But he lives in Florida not Ireland or Long Island. At least I run into him occasionally.

This may be the trip I most regret missing but I’ll be there in spirit and no matter which one of these fine writers win the Edgar I’ll be just as proud of the other. I also like the idea of “quality by association”.

It’ll be one hell of a week.

What's your take ont this year's nominees?