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(randomly scattered thoughts & issues)
Ladies, save your poison!
posted September 3, 2010
Are writers jealous of other writers? Of course we are; we’re not immune. Especially if that writer’s novel seems to have garnered an unfair portion of critical praise. This makes us berserk.
I personally stood in my front yard, when the whole “Twilight” thing took off, and cursed the fickle Publishing gods. You see, I should have Stephanie Meyer’s book deal, and she should have a wart on her coccyx. And every time she scratches it, the gas tank on my hypothetical Mercedes Benz SL550 Roadster should fill up.
But we don’t sling such things over Twitter, or on Facebook, in the New York Times or across the Huffington Post so that the entire social media world can see our inner five-year old throwing a tantrum.
This is why I read with great curiosity the recent tirade launched by popular writers Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner against fellow writer Jonathan Franzen, and the furor surrounding his latest novel “Freedom” (which isn’t even out yet).
The girls are very publicly crying foul over the fact that Franzen has been featured twice in seven days in the New York Times, and has helped himself to a gluttonous slice of the literary review pie. Their charge: female novelists are unfairly overlooked by critics, and Franzen is somehow propelling this along. It’s nothing short of a shit fit.
Never mind that their less-than-good natured Twitter jabs are adding to the Franzen buzz. And he doesn’t need any help; “Freedom” got an invariable executive push towards the bestseller list this week after President Obama scored an advanced copy from a Martha’s Vineyard retailer.
Weiner is known for her snark. The chick-lit author of fluffy books like “Good in Bed” and “In Her Shoes,” both of which I loved, has long been a foe of what her website describes as the “entrenched sexism in the literary world.” (Oh yes, I did call her stuff chick-lit. Her beach-reads are almost soft-core porn for the iGeneration.) So God forbid a boy write better than her.
And Franzen’s works are pure literary fiction, with compelling settings and characters so lush and ripe you could eat them. No fluff here. Weiner, though, has still labeled all the hoopla “Franzenfreude.”
But Jodi Picoult? Perish the thought! Her novels are richly written, the issues unique and usually controversial. As one reviewer put it, “it’s hard to exaggerate how well Picoult writes.” She can wield a courtroom drama better than the almighty Grisham. Hell, even Stephen King is a big fan.
So why all the noise? I would expect better behavior from two bestselling authors like Weiner and Picoult, who can both boast fiercely loyal readerships. Less crap has been smeared in the recent Florida political primaries.
Ladies, save your poison. There’s enough buzz out there for all of us. And, there are much better targets. Like all those “Twilight” fans …
Blame it on Bernadette ...
posted July 8, 2010
I did something this week that I swore on a stack of bibles would never happen: I got an iPhone.
Well, sort of. I got an iPhone thrust upon me by my well-meaning best friend. She herself has had Apple’s favorite child – sibling to the iPod – for eight months. Listening to her endless eager commercial on apps and productivity was a lot like hearing people talk about a great party that you didn’t get invited to. I sat on the periphery with a vague smile, pretending to be in on it, but still harboring a bit of resentment.
I’m a PC, and Bernadette’s a Mac. The line in the sand has been drawn, and although I do own an iPod (it’s 5 years old), that in no way forces me to join Apple’s fiercely loyal ranks. Seriously. Damn their shiny, gluttonous technology.
I also live in the Kingdom of BlackBerry. I don’t give a you-know-what through a rolling doughnut WHAT people say about their Droids or Envys or what have you: the BlackBerry is the Queen Mother of smart phones.
Or so I thought.
Bernadette ran out and obtained the much-trumpeted new iPhone 4, the only recent techie unveiling with enough oomph to dwarf the iPad. She insisted I take her old iPhone and upgrade myself; stop living in the dark ages! Of course I hemmed and hawed. How the hell was I going to get my entire life from my dependable, sturdy BlackBerry into this sleek, black Corvette of a phone?
Easy-peasy, she told me. I’ll talk you through it. How do I set it up and keep my phone number? I’ll talk you through it. Where do these apps come from and how do they get on there?! Relax. I’ll talk you through it.
She predicted that the second I started using the iPhone that I would fall so far in love that I would send that BlackBerry sailing off the back steps like a dead Easter chick. I’d be completely addicted, completely distracted (to the point of turning down really good sex with my husband to cruise the app store), and completely obsessed.
I hate it when she’s right.
I can’t put this stupid thing down! Everything is slippery-fast, the touch screen like digital ganja for visceral people like me. And the things it can do border on the ridiculous. Can’t sleep? There’s an app for that. Air traffic control in Japan? There’s an app for that. Want to find the cleanest public restrooms on Fifth Avenuein NYC? There’s an app for that. Need a laser leveler? Yep. There’s an app for that.
Even as I sit here writing this, the thing is blinging away with Facebook updates and emails. I can’t not check it. It’s in my left hand, right now, a permanent appendage.
Of course, my husband is mad that he’s been effectively trumped by a phone. He’s offered Bernadette cash money to take it back, or else a divorce might be coming down the pike.
Hmmm. Maybe there’s an app for that.
The Ambien made me do it
posted May 1, 2010
I have followed with affable curiosity the plight of Mr. Derek Stansberry, the Hillsborough County lad who grounded an entire plane full of folks earlier this week after he claimed he had a bunch of explosives.
And I say “plight” because Mr. Stansberry, predictably, has dodged responsibility and blamed his freakish behavior on an outside influence: Ambien.
Ah, Ambien. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the sedative/hypnotic, let me explain. It’s what most of the free world is taking right now for sleep. Imagine the effects of a really good tequila bender (with none of the vomiting), the euphoria that comes from an unbelievable orgasm, and the feeling of driving a finely made German sports car up the Autobahn at 180 kph.
Now grind all that into a pill. That’s Ambien. Those of us that take it religiously (yes, I’m one of them), are fiercely loyal to its zombie-like coma. Eight hours of pure, uninterrupted blissful sleep. Especially if you take the CR.
Unless, of course, that sleep is fractured by the announcement that you have big boom-booms in your laptop and your shoes.
Poor Mr. Stansberry. It wasn’t his fault, really; it was the Ambien, you see. The Evil Ambien strikes again. It’s the same thing that made Rep. Patrick Kennedy go for a 2006 joyride through D.C. police barricades and nearly skewer a Capitol cop or two on his antenna.
Since then, people all over have used the crafty Ambien Defense instead of taking responsibility for their ludicrous behavior. The Ambien made them do it. It’s created a large headache for the already-crippled justice system.
I’ll advocate the P.M.S. Defense. I’ll beat the drum for the Crime of Passion Defense. These are plausible. But the Ambien Defense? Come on, guys.
Admittedly, I’ve done some crazy things on Ambien. Like eat an entire jar of peanut butter, send questionable text messages to my boss and order things online that show up days later (think $5,000 purses).
But threaten a plane full of people with imaginary explosives? From a pill? Really?
Hope Mr. Stansberry has an equally creative lawyer. Because I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but there is no Ambien in the federal clink.
Gonna be some long nights for him.
Not a kept woman
posted April 12, 2010
For awhile, I had an untreatable addiction to buying those how-to writing books. As writers, haven’t we all? That siren call is hard to resist.
One of my favorites is Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.” I’ve read him since I was about 10, sneaking his gruesome books into Catholic school, where they were surely contraband. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I was without a good Stephen King book. (I’m face-deep in “Under the Dome” right now, and I can’t find my way home.)
“On Writing” is more like a memoir of King’s booze-soaked, cocaine-laced marathon writing sessions rather than a true instruction on craft. Good. That’s the way he meant it. At times hazy and at other points brutal in its clarity, the book does have some writing tips embedded along the way, but you have to skip through the primordial soup of King’s brilliant imagination to separate them.
At the end, though, you’ve got a good little virtual toolbox. Amazing what’s in there. Even more amazing what’s not: journaling. Uncle Stevie doesn’t recommend keeping a journal.
Really? I don’t have to keep a journal? But I have so many lying around, because I buy them obsessively. Lined, unlined, spirals, macramé covers, sketch books, fine parchment paper, even three-by-five jotters. They’re in the car, my purse, my laptop bag, under the couch, in the bathroom, and by my bedside so that I can wake up abruptly out of an Ambien-induced coma and scribble something that I will later find frightening and incoherent.
The entries that are scattered in these journals aren’t entries at all, but disjointed bits of lint and wrappers and such, like the bottom of a really big purse (or the floor of a 1981 Dodge Dart after a road trip with family). One-liners and pencil sketches of people with funny heads; recipes for things I’ll never cook. Dialogue with no characters attached to them. Titles of novels I may someday write. A suicide note. Things I’m positive my dog would say if he could speak.
I use all those journals in no particular order, wherever I happen to be at the time. There are even leaves pressed in them from the grand finale of Rhode Island’s yearly fall foliage, sent to me by my 92 year-old grandmother, so that every time I crack a spine the heady smell of my childhood drifts out. (In the back of one with a pink fabric cover, I have a list of every lover I’ve ever had.)
But no where in any of them are the clinical, cold writing exercises so revered by these how-to books; or pages of fanatical diatribe “from the heart” based on some pretentious writing prompt. Tedious obfuscation and drudgery.
That’s the kind of thing that makes me feel like the journal is keeping me, instead of the other way around. Useless. And I refuse to be a kept woman (don’t tell my husband). Why have one more daily obligation to dread, like the gym or laundry? Where’s the inspiration in that?
But still, I get pangs of guilt when I don’t scribble something proper in there. Like some alarm somewhere is going to sound off, and everyone will figure out that I’m an interloper.
So to hear Stephen King, arguably THE master of the modern novel, say that it’s OK to throw the journals out the car window just bathes me with relief. Guess I can still keep filling pages with descriptions of things that may get me labeled as disturbed, the random inventories of junk in my drawers, and countdowns to meaningless events like big sales at Office Depot, none of which have any bearing on anything I write. (At least, I don’t think so, anyway.)
Thanks, Uncle Stevie!
Maybe he thought it was a money tree ...
posted March 24, 2010
Here’s a great little Florida tidbit:
A man in Spring Hill was arrested last week for stealing a palm tree in the middle of the night. He drove under the cover of darkness to a gynecologist’s office, threw a rope around the tree, tied it to the back of his SUV, and stomped on the gas until he worked it loose. Surveillance cameras caught the whole thing.
Now let’s consider this for a moment. That’s a lot of effort to steal a $1,000 tree, isn’t it? The video is almost painful to watch; that tree put up one hell of a fight. Yet you have to give the man a bit of credit for his diligence. In a world today where we always seem to find the easy way out of doing the hard things, it’s almost refreshing to see someone put a little elbow grease into getting a project done. Too bad that project happened to be a felony.
And here’s where that credit ends. Mr. Louis Perri of Spring Hill was nabbed after a particularly keen Hernando County Deputy followed the trail of sand to his door. I’d like to repeat that, because it sounds vaguely important: the cops followed the trail of sand to his door.
He of course initially denied stealing the tree. Don’t ask me where he tried to hide it.
So Mr. Perri went off to the Hernando County clink on a $2,000 bond for a $1,000 tree, and left the folks at the My Gynecologist office on County Line Road scratching their heads, wondering why he wanted that tree so badly in the first place. What could possibly be the reason?
My theory? There is no reason. It’s Florida. Enjoy.
The James Frey debate is back for more
posted July 10, 2009
I recently read with interest the whispers circulating around controversial author James Frey, and the possibility he is partnering up with another writer to pen a young adult novel. Hot buzz from bored people.
And I describe Mr. Frey as controversial not because he wrinkles my own nose, but because such a large faction of the American reading world believes him to be a fraud.
You remember James Frey. He’s the author of the (initially) celebrated “A Million Little Pieces,” a dark, cheese-grater raw autobiographical journey through addiction and recovery. It was released in April, 2003 by Double Day to mixed reviews; it gave us the gruesome reality of narcotic addiction in gritty, frank language made all the more stultifying because it really happened.
Or so Mr. Frey contends. Oprah Winfrey picked it in 2005 as an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and as a result, “A Million Little Pieces” shot straight up to the top of the illustrious New York Times best seller list. None of us were surprised. After all, that’s what happens when the mighty Oprah pulls you into her circle. The endearing banter between Mr. Frey and Ms. Winfrey on her show was the typical emotional ratings-suck, with Oprah clutching her chest and keeping those tears just shy of all that black mascara.
She bought into it that every word was true. A factual memoir, they called it.
Then it came out (on the Smoking Gun website, I’m sure) that Frey’s masterpiece was a fraud, because he embellished a few details, conversations, scenarios to make the book a bit more toe-curling. And of course, with nothing more controversial happening in the world at that particular moment, all hell broke loose on him.
Oprah denounced her little golden boy both on her own show and on Larry King Live, in an attempt to save face and smooth her own ruffled uber ego. Readers wanted their money back. Wanted their money back! Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? I’ve read lots of terrible books; not once ever did I think it appropriate to storm the gates at Barnes & Noble and demand my account be credited.
So here’s my take: Frey stretched the truth a bit. So what? Isn’t that the freedom of writing? To instill in the reader such a willing suspension of disbelief that they lose reality and go with you on your journey?
And just what hell is a factual memoir, anyway? Who has a memory to recall every little detail, article of clothing, tone of voice? Transactions and exchanges in our past become whatever our brain defrags them into … frankly, into “A Million Little Pieces.”
Mr. Frey’s response to Oprah that he duped millions of readers was simply to remind everyone of the fact that he never denied altering small details. He’s right.
Nonetheless, “A Million Little Pieces” was a fantastic read. Sure, it had some stylistic errors, but who cares? I’m probably making some right now myself. I give kudos to any book that I absolutely cannot put down until I find out what happens at the end lest I die. And that book and its sequel “My Friend Leonard” both resoundingly qualify.
Its embellishments do not detract from the either story, and do not rob from the fact that James Frey is an excellent writer who knows his craft. So he’s going to write a couple of young adult novels? I say, “Good for you!” We could use a bit of shaking up in this beige world of vampire escapades and Jodi Picoult dramas.
The death-rattle of the press release?
posted July 7, 2009
I come from old school journalism, the era of "who, what, when, where & why" and a good, craftily written lead. I pounded a beat for years, surviving on my investigative skills to scoop the other daily papers.
And as the business of journalism has shifted due to our digital society, I flowed with it. I know the idea of the scoop is obsolete; no such thing when the info is spinning the Web moments after it is released.
I can remember the days when press releases were our meat and potatoes, especially when a 5 p.m. deadline is looming and an editor is peering over your shoulder. In my freelance business, I have written many, many press releases for clients, aiming that arrow at the usual print sources. They have always a been a great tool to get the word out.
I wasn't ready for the NY Times article I read today in the Sunday Business section. It seems the press release is dead. And I didn't even get to go to the wake.
We live our lives online, and more often than not that's where we obtain our news. (I still read the newspapers, too, call me kooky.) And those broadcasting the news online aren't journalists in the traditional sense, but just as savvy at disseminating the breaking news. So with this, PR has morphed.
Press releases are no more. Not when we can send the same tidbit out in 140 characters or less on Twitter, or post it on Facebook or Digg. Or blog about it, as I am doing now. PR has turned a sharp corner, bypassing the old media and courting the online pundits instead, where potentially millions of people can be reached in mere nanoseconds. The seduction is obvious.
And while I mourn the loss of the old ways, I have to also celebrate the information superhighway we travel on. When anything big happens in the world, we know about it instantly, and of course, we've become addicts.
It has changed the way I run my small business. Marketing and PR have become paperless, in lieu of our e-world. A couple of clicks and I can tweet my own horn; no need to write those pesky press releases anymore.
Social media has become vital to business, almost overnight. I have rolled with the punches. And who knows? Maybe tomorrow the medium will change. But the messages will stay the same. And hopefully, our communications will still be based on relationships.
However virtual they may be.