What If You Could Not Fail

What is Not Said is Just as Important

I am on vacation and once again the next couple of days are occupied with travel, or I anticipate we will be places with no internet access. In the meantime, I have pulled up a post from last year. This one is especially interesting in light of a recent quote by Stephen Chbosky about how you should develop characters to about two-and-a-half dimensions. If the reader helps create the rest of the character, then they will be much more vested in your novel. See you in a few days.

 There are some novels and other books I have lying around my house, in my car, my office. Books I have read, sometimes more than once. Their placement is deliberate. They have just come to occupy
strategic locations over the years. When I have a spare minute and I am not doing anything else, I will pick them up and flip through to a random passage.

One of those novels is No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is nearing the end of his career, getting ready to retire, and he is trying to protect one of his citizens who discovered $2.4 million in drug money and is on the run from a psychopathic hit man hired by the cartel. Mostly, though, it is a story of the sheriff and his recognition that the world is changing and he doesn’t want to change with it any more.

McCarthy is a genius of style and storytelling, but mostly it is his dialog. His characters are plainspoken and often what is not said is as important as what is said. Witness this conversation between the sheriff and his wife at the end of the novel, after most of the bad stuff has happened. NOTE: McCarthy’s style also includes a very loose affiliation with the rules of punctuation. His keyboard does not have any quote mark keys, and the rest of the punctuation keys only work some of the time.

 

   Driving back to Sanderson it began to snow. He went to the courthouse and did some paperwork and left just before dark. When he pulled in the driveway behind the house his wife was looking out from the kitchen window. She smiled at him. The falling snow drifted and turned in the warm yellow light.

   They sat in the little diningroom and ate. She’d put on music, a violin concerto. The phone didn’t ring.

   Did you take it off the hook?

   No, she said.

   Wires must be down.

   She smiled. I think it’s just the snow. It makes people stop and think.

   Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

   Do you remember the last time it snowed here?

   No, I cant say as I do. Do you?

   Yes I do.

   When was it.

   It’ll come to you.

   Oh.

   She smiled. They ate.

   That’s nice, Bell said.

   What is?

   The music. Supper. Bein home.

There is nothing else to say. This writing is pure genius.

See ya’ later

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Hello from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference

Charles Bukowski

“Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”--Charles Bukowski

Is Your Bad Guy Just in Over His Head?

Several years ago I got into a random conversation with a criminal defense attorney. He told me something I have always remembered. “Many of my clients,” he said, “are not criminals. They are ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances. They get desperate and they make bad choices.”

This conversation came back to me a few days ago at a book signing when Diana Wagman, taking questions before she signed copies of her latest novel, the Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets, described her villains.

“Most of my villains,” she said, “are people in over their head.”

 Ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances.

There are plenty of examples.

I knew a woman who embezzled almost $100,000 dollars from her place of employment to cover for thefts committed by her drug-addicted son. Among other things, she was trying to hide his stealing from her husband because she knew he would call the police.

The everyday guy who is coming home one evening after a few beers and hits a bicyclist with no lights. The driver, afraid of what will happen, drives away.

A police officer friend of mine who got into an argument with his drunken, pregnant girlfriend. To control her, he handcuffed her to a post in the carport of their apartment. The police showed up and it went downhill from there.

These examples, and many more, are ordinary people trying to make a living, raise a family, and pay taxes. They are your neighbors, maybe even your relatives, maybe even you. The problem is that after that first bad decision, the next one is easier. They become increasingly desperate. As villains in a novel, though, you can sometimes empathize with them. They are in over their heads.  

The recent brouhaha with David Petraeus was a good example. He was infatuated and he got sucked in. He even realized the error of his ways and broke off the relationship. By that time it was too late. A few emails were exchanged between his former mistress and another woman, the FBI got involved, another general was receiving emails and it got out of control. Every time I opened the newspaper the story got worse.

The best part is that if you developed this from your own imagination, as a plot to a novel, people would not have believed it.  You almost felt sorry for Petraeus.

Head of the CIA, a four-star general, and he was in over his head. It can happen to anyone.

See ya’ later

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Get Your Tarzan Coffee Table Book

As a kid growing up, I always thought Johnny Weissmuller was a great Tarzan. Then I read Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and realized the reality was quite different. It was also my first exposure to literary writing. Who knew the Lord of the Jungle would guide me in how to put together words in ways I did not know existed. If you are in Santa Monica, CA, this Saturday, check this out and maybe get your signed copy. Unfortunately, I am booked this weekend. 

See ya’ later. 

WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com by Tim Sunderland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

 

I Play Hookey from My Critique Group and Learn Something from Diana Wagman

Last night I punked out on my critique group and went to a book signing by Diana Wagman, a novelist who lives in Los Angeles. I have sat in on two panel discussions at the Los Angeles Times Festival of
Books in which Diana was a panel member and enjoyed both of them. Her latest novel, The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets, came out in the last month or so and has received some good reviews (click here and here).

I have been to book signings before, both times for authors that I enjoy reading. They were both disappointing. The authors signed books and that was it. This is the first time the author did a reading and took questions from the audience. It was well worth the time, and I feel only a little guilty about the critique group.

A member of the audience asked Diana why she gave the villain in her latest novel a pet iguana. She answered, in part, that it was a way of humanizing him. This piqued my interest because I have been unable to add some human aspect to my own villain in Rules for Giving. I want to give her some sort of redeeming trait so that she doesn’t come off as a total bitch. I followed up with another question about humanizing villains and she encouraged me to look a little deeper.

Then, as I was watching Diana sign copies of her novel, it occurred to me. My villain is a hard-nosed businesswoman. She is not above using anything at her disposal—ethics be damned—to get what she wants. I am going to give her the handwriting of a teenage girl, kind of loopy, with little hearts to dot her Is. I might even give her a propensity for using girlie pens with feathers or designs.

At first I thought it was out of character, but I know a woman who is a horse trainer (actually it is more like she trains the riders) and most of her time is spent wearing pointed boots and a cowboy hat. She drives a big-ass pickup truck to haul her horse trailer. She is a real hayseed. When she is away from the stables, though, she wears little girlie golf hats adorned with sequins.  She has a collection of them. She explains that it is her way of reclaiming her femininity.

Diana’s comment about her villains often being in over their head game me some other things to think about in relation to bad guys. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.

See ya’ later.

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The Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon Would be Pleased

I had planned to go to a presentation last night at the Huntington Library in San Marino, twenty-five miles or so from my house. The topic of the lecture was the Robben Island Shakespeare.

There is a vibrant online community of writers from South Africa on Facebook and other social media.  They occasionally read my blog and others. They will know about Robben Island, a small piece of rock off the western coast of Cape Town, South Africa. Since the 17^th century it has served as home to political prisoners, although now it is a museum. It’s most notable resident as of late was Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela. Mandela and at least two other residents or Robben Island went on to serve as president of South Africa, including Jacob Zuma, the current president.

This past Sunday an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times tells the story of the Robben Island Shakespeare, a 1970 paperback edition of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. One of the inmates, Sonny Venkatrathnam, was able to get it onto the island, convincing the warden that it was a Hindu religious text (really?). It was passed from prisoner to prisoner, and Venkatrathnam asked each one to sign their name next to a text that had particular meaning for them. Nelson Madela’s signature is in the book, as are the names of thirty-four other prisoners.

What I find interesting is that Shakespeare’s words—some three-hundred years old—reached across cultures and centuries, and had meaning for these men. It makes sense. When you are being housed in the most mind-numbing conditions, you can find meaning in a cockroach crawling across the floor, let alone the words of one of the most famous English-speaking authors.

“Somehow Shakespeare always had something to say to us,” said Ahmed Kathrada, one of the prisoners.

Unfortunately the lecture was postponed because the presenter, David Schalkwyk, director of research at the Folger Shakespeare Library, had his flight cancelled. I will be looking for the event when it is rescheduled. I will let you know about it. In the meantime, I am going to try and write something that will have meaning to someone in three-hundred years.

P.S.: Check out the most recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine for their article on the horrors of solitary confinement. You’ll have to get a copy. I can’t figure out a way to link to it.

See ya’ later.

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What You Need to Know to Enjoy Lincoln

Last week I saw the movie Lincoln, and I am currently reading Team of Rivals, the book by Doris Kearns Goodwin upon which much of the movie is based. I’m a history junkie, but even I got lost. If you have
not yet seen the movie, there are some things you should know beforehand. It will enhance your understanding of what is going on. After all, not only was Lincoln a great president, but he was also a great thinker and writer. If we were half as wise as he was, we would all be geniuses.

Lincoln was the smartest man in any room he was in. He could quote Shakespeare, the Bible and many of the Greek and Roman classics at length. He taught himself the geometry of Euclid. He had a mind like a steel trap. He was also homespun, which served to mask his great intellect. He was often underestimated as a country bumpkin.

He was also a master politician. He was great at analyzing people and he knew how to handle them. He was not above getting his hands dirty, but he always made sure someone else’s hands were dirtier, and they did it gladly for him. He also had an immense ability to look beyond differences and work with people who had treated him badly in the past. Mary Todd Lincoln was not on speaking terms with several members of his staff, but they came to respect Lincoln. 

Lincoln was also a prisoner of his times. He knew slavery was wrong, but he was stumped on the question of what would happen to the emancipated slaves. At one point he advocated sending the freed slaves to a colony in Africa or South America. He feared the races would not blend into American society.

Presidential security was virtually nothing in those days. Lincoln went on daily carriage rides unprotected. It amazes me he was not assassinated much earlier.

Mary Todd Lincoln might have been batshit crazy, but mostly she was a woman under a lot of pressure. She was high-strung to begin with. She came from a wealthy Kentucky family and when she met Lincoln, she married down a rung or two. It was not until Lincoln became president that she felt she was at equal station with her sisters, and even then she spent money her husband did not have so she would look good. She was under barrage by Washington society who viewed the Lincolns as hicks. She also had family members fighting in the Confederacy and was accused of being a Southern sympathizer and even a spy.

The Lincolns lost a child while they were in the White House. The Lincolns had four sons. Robert was the oldest and was in Harvard for most of his father’s presidency. Eddie died of tuberculosis in the late 1840s. Willie and Tad were ten and eight when Lincoln was inaugurated, and Willie was dead within a year of typhoid. Both mother and father took his death extremely hard. Mary, overcome with grief, all but abandoned her role has mother to Tad. This caused Lincoln and his youngest son to be extremely close. Set aside the presidency and the Civil War, the Lincolns were a family in crisis.

Not all slave states seceded from the Union. Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri remained in the Union, even though they still maintained slavery. This made things weird. In 1863 a chunk of Virginia broke away and became West Virginia and was admitted to the Union.

It was the Republicans and Democrats in those days, too. The Democrats were sympathetic to the cause of slavery. The middle-of the-road Republicans were concerned with keeping the Union together, and the Radical Republicans wanted slavery abolished and wanted the South impoverished after the war was over. Part of Lincoln’s challenge was to keep the Republicans and the Radical Republicans together. They were his base.

Look up Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens, played by Tommy Lee Jones in the movie, was a member of the House of Representatives, head of the Ways and Means Committee, and a principal member of the Radical Republicans.

Also look up Elizabeth Keckley and Lydia Hamilton Smith. Elizabeth Keckley was a former slave, a dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. Lydia Hamilton Smith was bi-racial, born a free woman, and was the long-time housekeeper for Thaddeus Stevens. You have to see the movie to find out the rest of the story. Her character was played by S. Epatha Merkerson.  

Lincoln was a great movie, but understanding a little about the Civil War and the characters that played a role in it makes it even better. Liam Neeson was supposed to play the role of Lincoln, but by the time the script was ready to go, he had other commitments. He had to pass. Sally Field is purported to have gotten in Spielberg’s face and demanded an audition when it was remarked that she was too old for the role of Mary Todd (Mary Todd was twenty years younger than Field during the action depicted in the movie). There were other fine performances. It will be interesting to see what happens to this movie in awards season.

See ya’ later.

WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com by Tim Sunderland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

My Night with the Stones

This has nothing to do with writing, but it does involve a Thanksgiving Eve in 2006. My sister had recently been in the audience of the Ellen Degeneres Show when Ellen handed everyone tickets to an upcoming Roilling Stones Concert at Dodger Stadium. My brother and I were handed some tickets, and here is the story of that night. 

Sorry it took me a few days to get this post up, but I have been busy working out.  You see, I’ve seen the convalescent homes of the future and I want to stay out of them!

They will look like a Rolling Stones concert.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but I couldn’t resist the joke.

It was a lesson, in part, on how rock concerts are milking the cash cow for as much as possible these days.The event was at Dodger Stadium – capacity 56,000. If everyone paid the $120 my ticket was worth, that’s $6.7 million.  My seat was one level below nose bleed, so you know many people paid more.  It was probably closer to $10 million for the gate. It was $20 a car to park. There’s another $320,000. It cost $12.50 for a beer, $6 for peanuts, and the least expensive Rolling Stone t-shirt went for $35 (I bought mine from a hawker out on the street for $20). Add to this that Radio Shack sponsored the event. 

Rock ‘n Roll is still making a lot of money. And I am acting like an old fart. complaining about how much money it cost, and my tickets were free.

The concert was great. Bonnie Raitt was the opening act and she went on right at 7:00 pm. Her voice and guitar are enough to make anyone convert to country music. I had no idea she was opening for the Stones, so it was an extra treat. 

Bonnie was off the stage before 8:00, a little bit of a disappointment, considering that the Stones were not out for a while. The stadium was less than half full. Thanksgiving traffic was taking its toll. You could see lines of cars snaking through the parking lot. My sister, who brought her son, didn’t make it in until 9:00 pm. As it turned out, the band held off coming on in order to allow fans to get through the tangled freeways. Another reason these guys are great.

In the meantime, I pondered the four-story structure in the outfield. It was a huge television screen–40 feet high, flanked by large wings. As a Southern California native, I have been to Dodger Stadium countless times–although this was the first time it was for anything other than a Dodger’s game–so I knew this structure was not permanent.

The audience was as you might predict–a lot of middle-aged folks from all walks of life. A few had broken out their tie-dye t-shirts, but most of them were dressed for their age, and dancing in the aisles like they were teenagers, clutching purses and teetering on wallets bulging with pictures of grandchildren. There were also some Gen-Xers and some Gen Ys, many of them were there with their parents. You could almost hear the older folks saying ,“This is what rock ‘n roll is all about.”

Just after 9:00, the bottom two levels of the structure in the outfield began filling up with people.  Those seats were probably upwards of $500. At 9:20, Keith Richards walked out, followed by Mick Jagger and the rest of the Stones.  Jumpin’ Jack Flash blasted throughout the stadium, and the mysterious structure in the outfield turned into a huge lightshow, comparable to anything you would see in Las Vegas or anyplace else. 

They have been playing concerts for better than 40 years, but the Rolling Stones are a class act.  Mick Jagger, north of 60, still moves like a teenager.  He never stopped.  He reminds me of an old Afro American blues musician who has been filled with religion at a tent revival. I got tired just watching him.  Thanks to the giant TV screen we got up close views.  Keith Richards never stopped smiling.  It was a lot of energy. 

Three songs into the concert Bonnie Raitt joined the Stones for a country song–Dead Flowers.  It was classic.  So was the The Midnight Rider and a version of Sympathy for the Devil that was worthy of any MTV performance.

I could see the scene around many Thanksgiving tables the next day: Grandpa in a $35 Rolling Stones t-shirt showing anyone who would look the fuzzy pictures he took the night before at the concert with his cell phone.  Pretty much described me.

The last song before the encore was Satisfaction.  This is where I turned into the old fogey that I  I am.  My brother and I knew the encore was coming, and after it, 56,000 people were going to pour into their cars in the parking lot. Judging by the heavy smell of marijuana wafting through the stadium, it was going to be an adventure. It would take hours to get out. 

We hit the exit and were on the Harbor Freeway ten minutes later, before the encore was probably done.  We were at a Stones concert, but we didn’t have the patience for the traffic.

O.Henry

"There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American." --O. Henry

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Thanksgiving

I am Just Like That with Martha Stewart

Thanksgiving always reminds me of Martha Stewart. It must be a grand affair at her home. Today’s blog tells the story of my personal experience with Martha.

In 1995 I was working for an advertising agency and we had run some print ads in Martha Stewart Living for a client, with some success. We were looking at expanding the campaign to another client in the same industry. We contacted the magazine and discussed some programs.

True to my status as a guy in the mid-90’s, I had only the most vague appreciation for who Martha Stewart was.

A week later we got a call back from the magazine. Martha was going to be appearing at a luncheon not far from our offices in Southern California, they explained. Would we like to be her guests?  Of course, we accepted. We assembled an entourage from both the agency and client side.

Little did I know what was in store for me.

We arrived at the convention center on the appointed day. Prior to the luncheon there was a crafts fair. Martha was signing books in an adjoining room, ensconced like a queen under an elaborate canopy. A line of women snaked throughout the exhibit hall, all clutching books they wanted her to autograph. The hall was packed, mostly with women.  The best I could do was catch glimpses of Martha through the throngs—an occasional flash of her blond hair or her smile. I felt not unlike a small child trying to sneak a peek at Santa Claus. Around me there were booths of table decorations and cooking accessories and knick knacks of all sorts. Definitely a chick hangout.

There were also a number of Martha wannabes at this event.  Women who dressed like Martha, did their hair like Martha, and obviously took pains to look like Martha.  Were they part of a gang, plotting to kidnap Martha and hold her hostage at some cooking school, or was it some sort of hero worship. I kept my eye on them.

The announcement came.  Lunch was to be served.  We all moved into the dining hall.  Me, Martha and a thousand other women.  The rep from Martha Stewart gave me a ticket for table #31.

It took some time to find my seat. Women were everywhere. There were a few men, too, all relegated to holding their wife’s purse. I was looking for my boss, also a woman, figuring I might as well hold her purse. I finally found my seat. The crowds were even thicker.  A few bodies parted and I was able to better view of the table where I was sitting. 

There, sitting at table #31, was Martha. I was going to have lunch at the same table with Martha Stewart. We took our seats. I sat next to my boss, and she sat next to Martha. I was one seat away from the woman.

The first course of lunch was a turkey breast salad. A rather large portion for a salad, I thought. I finished and waited for the main course. Then I realized—that was the main course. Perhaps when I got back to the office I could slip out to the burger joint on the corner.

While we worked on our anorexia, Martha gave her presentation. Mostly it was about marzipan—a must-have for serious kitchen folk made from almonds and powdered confectioner’s sugar and egg white.  Halfway through the slide show I was convinced that I needed a store of marzipan in my toolbox for the next time I changed the oil in my car.  That stuff is handy.

Martha’s presentation was winding down. I panicked. The only thing I had done was mumble a few comments, laugh at a few jokes, and tried not to look too obvious as I speared the remnants of the salads of the people sitting on either side of me.  I had done nothing to distinguish myself to Martha Stewart. Nothing!

She finished and glided back towards our table. What could I do? This was my moment.  Suddenly, it flashed on me.

I stood, careful to catch my linen napkin before it fell to the floor.  She was approaching.  I stepped around my boss’s chair, and turned towards Martha, who was a mere three feet way—and I held chair for her. She made eye contact and smiled.

As she sat down, my hand brushed against her shoulder. She thanked me. I told her she was welcome. Martha Stewart and I had a moment.

See ya’ later, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

 

WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com by Tim Sunderland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Photo of crossed fingers by Evan-Amos (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo of Martha Stewart by David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.