I Love You Just the Way You Are

I met Teri on Friday night here in New Haven. She was here for a writer’s conference and looked me up. She was here last year, too, and got in touch. But I successfully avoided her then. I couldn’t do it again. I have not relished the idea of meeting anyone who reads the blog, even those I’ve come to love through their comments. First, it scary. Second, I know I can’t possibly live up to any expectations. Third, like most writers I’m the fraud behind the curtain. I send out these the sentences with the hope of a fortune in a stale cookie. I’ve got this persona and the one I bring to my work as agent fairly well developed by now, but it doesn’t make me okay, or any more real. Or at least not more real than sitting behind a computer or with a notebook at a cafe describing the girl across the way, her wool socks on a summer day.

Teri was more than lovely, she was smart and psychologically astute. I could tell she was a generous friend, and I loved hearing about the people from the blog she met on her many travels. I’d like to be a little more like her, including the fact that the bitch just lost twenty pounds. But I’m me. Fuck it.

I’m Trying To Beat Life Cause I Can’t Cheat Death

Dear Readers of this Blog: I couldn’t be happier than to congratulate Sheri Booker on the publication of her first book Nine Years Under (notice I am not saying “debut” because I think it’s pretentious) about her experiences working in an inner city funeral home, coming of age there, amid the corpses, inside the embalming room, and among the mourners who looked to her, a teenager, for comfort and tissues. There was a lot to learn about death; there was even more to learn about life.

I have copies to give away to the top three funeral stories.  I’ll see if I can get Sheri to judge.

And here’s some great early press: NPR: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/01/187086911/nine-years-in-a-baltimore-funeral-home  Baltimore Sun Interview: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-ae-book-funeral-20130601,0,4451923.story  Washington Post:  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-29/entertainment/39591099_1_funeral-business-viewing-west-baltimor   NPR news http://www.wypr.org/podcast/how-working-deadaffects-your-view-living

Could It Be That It Was All So Simple Then

Guys, guys, guys, guys. It’s Book Expo in New York. I just tripped over Scott Turow. I didn’t get invited to the Malcolm Gladwell party. I didn’t get invited to my own publisher’s party. That I take as a badge of pride. I ran into a book rep I haven’t seen since the Fifties, but he’s still wearing that bolo and I still remember Miami. I saw a machine that makes books on demand.  I saw a vampire in broad daylight. I saw my beloved Japanese agent and she was wearing a gorgeous floral skirt that she bought at thrift shop, then corrected herself: Vintage. I met with a mother-daughter team who sell audio books. When I told the daughter she looked like Kim Kardashian she seemed to be insulted. I wandered through the booths thinking about all the publishing jobs I had, all the bosses I didn’t blow, all the massive excitement I used to feel helping books come into the world and learning how to galvanize my passion.  Or how I could get high off the smell of books fresh out of the carton. Or the party I once threw for a first collection of stories, decorating my apartment with candles and peaches.

Were those the days?

So I TUrned Myself To Face Me

Dear Friends of this blog: Remember Sherry Stanfa-Stanley? She was one of the nutters who regularly showed up  here at the mental institution. Well, it looks like ECT may be in order. SSS is embarking on a project called THe 52/52 project wherein she attempts to defy life’s all around go fuck yourselfness and, um, break free? Break down? Break out? Get a book deal? C’mon, friend her. Or at least do an intervention. How can you not love SSS? I do. By the way, she wins an eating contest? BFD, I do that every day. (Is it me or does that hot dog look 3-D?)

My name is Sherry, and I am changing my life.

As I whimpered past the age of 50, I realized I’d spent the last 30 years doing the same ordinary things. Every. Single. Day. I know many people, especially my female friends, who are in a similar rut: those who spend more than their share of evenings folding clothes in front of the TV, daydreaming about the world out there while they contemplate having that second bowl of ice cream. So, in the last three months, I sold my house, bought a condo, and lost nearly 30 pounds (with more than a few to go). And then I started pondering how I might shake up my life in a number of smaller ways. Thus was born, The 52/52 Project

As I turn 52 this year, I am embarking on a list of 52 things I’ve never before done—experiences well outside my comfort zone. They range from taking belly-dancing classes (already begun and soon-to-be ended for humane reasons) to spending the night in a haunted house (I do believe in spooks, I do, I DO), to getting a Brazilian wax (just shoot me now). Join me in jumping the curb, taking a detour from the cul-de-sac to visit personally unexplored territories.

Follow along at: https://www.facebook.com/The52at52Project

Sooner or Later It All Gets Real**

Just in case you missed it, Martin Short has signed with HarperCollins to write his memoir. The comic shared the following: “Although I’ve never read a book all the way through, I’m sure excited to write one.  Mr. Short added: “I haven’t named my book yet, but I’m toying with the title ‘If I’d Saved, I Wouldn’t Be Writing This.’ ”

Can anyone top that?

**Neil Young lyrics in honor of fellow countryman Mr. Short.

I Thought That I Heard You Sing

The other day I read a quote in the NYT that stopped me. It was from William Zinsser, who wrote the classic “On Writing Well.” He’s nearly blind at 90 and still coaches students, who read their work aloud to him. “People read with their ears, whether they know it or not,” Mr. Zinsser says. I totally get that. I mean I hear everything I read. Am I being too literal? I think it’s a profound observation about reading. And, by the way, still having the interest and stamina to help writers at 90. That’s just crazy for loco. God bless you, Mr. Zinsser.

What do you read with?

And Four White Mice Will Never Be Four White Horses

I got a nibble on my screenplay. It’s just a nibble. One of the producers has written back. Has to show it to producing partner. He said he liked it. Said it had promise. Promise!  And that was all. I’m not going to go crazy, not going to start dieting for the Oscars or put a down payment on my Porsche. A big producer took me through a summer of rewrites on my first script and then showed it to the one actor he had in mind for the lead, Kevin Kleine, who declined. Game over. Cinderella story gone in an email. I promised not to get bitter. Better to have loved and been swiftly dropped than never to have been swiftly dropped at all. I’m sober. I’m not casting the movie. There isn’t a director’s chair with my name on it, a baseball cap with the name of the movie on it, a baseball jacket with the name of the movie on the back and my name in gold thread stiched into the front. None of it. Fuck me dead.

What is your fantasy?