A day late and a dollar short

The title accurately sums up my mental state lately. Why? That's a good question. And I don't have much of an answer. I made it through another draft, but the ending is just not coming together yet. So I'm working, going to the gym (and I've started taking a running class, which I am enjoying), editing some articles freelance, and that's about it. And yet I feel like I can't get a handle on my life. Why? Is watching the Olympics really that taxing? Keeping my bedroom clean? Curious. I did get sick again this weekend, though I think I managed to stave off something much worse by taking Friday off work, sleeping nearly the entire day (literally 7 hours BETWEEN 8 am and 6 pm, after having gotten an okay-even-if-interrupted-by-a-sore-throat night's sleep) and much of Saturday and Sunday. I didn't feel 100% Monday but had to come in because I was the only assistant on the floor that day. But boy, that only took four days. Why has the rest of my time felt so harried?

There are a few publicity plans in the works for the book, but I haven't thrown myself into them fully yet. There is an upcoming blog tour (excitement!) in September and a few other things I'm planning. I mentioned before that this is a mountain to climb (the explanation for the picture) and I had decided to have a picnic at the bottom in the shade before starting the ascent; well, now I've taken two steps up and decided to rest. But I remain committed to scaling this mountain. It is probably the closest thing I will ever have to a real mountain climb. Freezing cold temperatures and oxygen tanks don't appeal to me.

I am now trying to import the cover of "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer, the tale of an Everest expedition gone horribly wrong, culminating in frostbite, amputations, and death. Blogspot will only import into the top of this post, however, not right here, where I want it. So much for the rest of my metaphor.


Anyway. My solemn goals: 1) more running. That does seem to give me more energy. 2) More writing. At the very least, I need to do some writing ABOUT the screenplay ending...hopefully to wriggle and twist myself into some kind of good ending. 3) More editing to get more money for 4) more publicity efforts.


I'll let you know how I do.

a quick note...

Wow, things are still kind of happening. August 24 is the first anniversary of my publication date. As I've mentioned, I was told that I have to keep pushing the book for at least a year after publication in order to make it do anything. I had planned to do just that, though my plan dictated that (a) if zero was happening, I would reassess, and at the one year mark, (b) if things were still happening, I would keep going. So the big oh-one is approaching, and small things continue to happen. Nothing has propelled DIEA to the best-seller list yet, obviously, but the little things that occur are enough to tell me to keep going. Hmm.

I checked my Amazon ranking again this evening. As you may recall, I'm slightly obsessed with this number; it's really the only way to see if I'm selling anything. And I can't tell how many I sell, just whether or not it sells at all. The pattern lately has been that the number floats up to about 700,000 and then someone buys a copy and I go back into the one hundred thousands. I've never been higher than 800,000, happily. (I have seen books at the 3 million mark.) So I check once or twice a day, and the number floats: 150,000, 200, 250, 300, 500, 700, back to 150. Every time it goes to 150 (or thereabouts) I am relieved, knowing it's still floating. yesterday I was in the five hundred thousands, so imagine my surprise when I checked this morning and it was 76,000. Hmm. This is more than one copy selling. Okay. Then I checked this evening, just for the heck of it (right after determining that the Yankees game is on, so I can go to the gym and watch it, since I'm too cheap for cable and the Yes Network--yes, dear reader, I'm missing it right now FOR YOU!) and had to do a double-take: 28,634. Crazy! Besides my brief stint under 10,000 (8,698 if I remember correctly) this is the lowest I've been. Woo-hoo!

I ask again (regular readers can repeat it with me): a one-time thing, or are we starting to catch on?

I'm going to be doing a blog tour in September, arranged by the lovely and wonderful Trish Browning Collins. Trish, as you may recall, was my terrifically enthusiastic blogger/reviewer, and she is starting a business called TLC Book Tours, which is an answer to my prayers. I had been looking for the right people to arrange a blog tour for me, and it only makes sense that it be Trish (and her friend Lisa), with whom I just feel a bond and for whom I have such great affection--and I've never even met her! (It just warms my heart to find readers who really like what I wrote. It's a very primal thing!) I will gush more and further as we get closer to the blog tour, but meanwhile I needed to mention it to my faithful (tiny) group of readers. Check out their website here.

I will go -- the Yankees beckon -- but I just wanted to check in. My screenplay is demanding a whole lot more of my time and energy, and I'm wrestling with the ending like I haven't had to do in a very long time. I'm tired and working hard (and haven't even finished the book I've been reading for, oh, a MONTH for Sunday Salon), but things are good. And more yet to come!

Monday Salon

Now, in an effort not to be too terribly irresponsible (though I have copped to that trait, fully), I am hereby posting my first Sunday Salon review, a mere one day late. And might I say, yesterday was not a good day for doing much of anything. I failed to take my sleeping pill Saturday night and therefore woke after four hours of sleep, at five a.m. I decided to get up, rather than wait it out (because it usually takes two and a half hours to wait it out), and worked on my screenplay. I actually finished this draft, through to the end, although the end still needs to be fixed. (Just a dangling plot thread that I have to figure out how to weave in. I suspect I'm close.) And then it was ten a.m. and I was at that point where I knew, if I went back to bed, I would actually sleep for several hours. But it was also time to get ready for church. It wasn't an automatic decision, sadly, but I did decide to go to church. Then I got home at 3 p.m. and went straight to bed. I went to a farewell party for a friend at 6 p.m., and normally I would stay for a long time but I was exhausted. Even though I had brought gym clothes with me, I did not go to the gym; I went home and worked on my TiVo list. I wanted to do my Sunday Salon review then, but my roommate was home and on her computer, which has a much higher-speed connection than mine. (I don't bother upgrading because I have a great high-speed connection at work; also, having dial-up is great when I'm writing; I have no desire to flip over to the internet to surf. Instead I get up and wander around and eat.)

So anyway. Here is my Sunday/Monday Salon review for:

MUSIC FOR TORCHING by A.M. Homes.

A.M. Homes is an author I have only recently discovered. I had heard of her for years, because she's an alumna/sometimes teacher of my undergrad writing program. I remember when this book came out, and the fact that it got great reviews. I read her latest novel, THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, and loved it. So, on my way to Virginia to visit the nephew, I decided to pick up another.

Interesting.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, there is a lot of dark comedy. I do like dark comedy--I can even veer toward twisted--but I had a hard time getting on board with this. I absolutely hated the two main characters, Paul and Elaine. They are self-involved in the worst way; they are mean; they are hateful. Was their marriage ever a good one? Have they always been such lousy schmucks? No idea. But they are now. The book begins when, almost on a whim, they try to burn their house down with their outdoor grill. Funny: they can't even do that. They see a flame snaking up the outside wall of the house and gather their two boys into the car and go for a long dinner, effectively leaving others to clean up the mess.

In a way, there's a long thread of cleaning up messes, and leaving others to do it for you. Their house, while not burned down, is rendered uninhabitable by the fire. They go stay with a neighbor couple, who take care of them (in all sorts of *interesting* ways). They farm their children out to two other families, and those families take care of the children in even *more* interesting ways, one leading to the novel's devastating conclusion. Their marriage, their lives, their foundations are all falling down around their ears, and rather than fixing anything, Paul and Elaine embrace that and drive if all farther down.

I hated Paul and Elaine. And since they are the core of this book, I have to say, I hated the book. And yet...

It is brilliant.

I mentioned the devastating conclusion earlier. In a way, it comes out of left field. And in a way, we've seen hints of it coming all along. No one deserves this kind of ending, but if anyone comes close to it, Paul and Elaine do. And Elaine's final words, the last line of the book, sum it all up in every possible way.

If you're easily offended, don't read this book. If you like dark humor, there's plenty to enjoy. If you don't mind being unsettled, and perhaps having extreme negative feelings for characters, check it out.

Call me irresponsible...

I'm adding a new item to my weekly "to-do" list: blogging for the Sunday Salon. Hopefully I will be able to do this with some kind of regularity, since I have become less and less responsible over the past year or so. However, I do love to read and several Sunday Salon bloggers have talked about my book, so it's a great community to join. They'd like you to review a book every Sunday, though they are flexible; they have enough members now that if you don't blog on a Sunday the world doesn't end. I doubt it ended before, but you know. I like to exaggerate.

So...the question is, where to start? I'm in the midst of a book now, but really I just started it and won't be done by Sunday, not if I want to get some writing done too. I've finished a couple of books over the past couple of weeks and I could blog about those. I have some favorites that I always enjoy talking about, so I could start with those. I also have a pile of to-be-read books surrounding my bed, some of which I've started and not yet gotten back to. This all is not a huge quandary, I know.

The Fourth of July was fun; I went to Virginia to see the baby nephew again. This child is precious. That's all I need to say, as much as I'd like to believe that he is unique and no other baby in the world is as wonderful as he is. Any of you with babies you love in your life, you know what I mean.

I've gotten the ball rolling with another publicity push. Well, a small ball. Bigger than a Superball, but not as big as a soccer ball. Maybe a soft ball. Many steps yet to go. You'll hear more about it in the coming days/weeks. Meanwhile I'm getting another ball rolling (this one perhaps the size of a big Playdoh ball, like three or four cans of it) with my new book. And the science screenplay is coming along quite nicely. That one I would classify as a snowball, because I hope it will quickly become bigger and bigger.

Yes, I can get obsessed with metaphors.

And it's a beautiful, non-humid summer day on which I get out of work early! Let's get THAT ball going, shall we??

Back from Nawlins

I just took an impromptu trip to New Orleans, city of beautiful antebellum homes, lush greenery, amazing food, and lots of mosquitoes. I have 21 mosquito bites on my left leg. Only 3 on my right; my right must somehow taste different.

I went down for work, strangely enough. My foundation is heavily involved in New Orleans reconstruction, and there was a party to honor the woman who has been the key player/liaison. another key player was organizing it, and she needed help. My foundation sent me.

This is the first "work" trip I've ever taken, and it was a glorious feeling to charge my meals and know they would be reimbursed. Of course, you also have to submit an itemized receipt, and there is a limit on what you can spend each day, but still -- this was a nice thing.

Being a Maughan (anyone who knows my dad will know what I'm talking about) I have to describe the food. It was amazing. Each time I looked at a menu, my first impression was that there wasn't anything on there I would want. Each time I ordered something, however, I was impressed beyond belief. There were the beignets, squares of fried dough mounded with powdered sugar. (Be careful when you inhale.) There were the crab claws in garlic butter. The seafood remoulade. The crab salad. The gumbo. Ah, me.

There was also the private jet. Now, I should state that my company did not pay for me to fly down on a private jet; our consultant is working closely with a woman who owns a private jet. This woman was in New York and flying home to new Orleans that same day, so it made sense I should "catch a ride." When Juliet (the consultant) first used that term I had a fleeting image of being picked up in a car, and thought, "But wait, we're not driving to New Orleans." Then she used the term "wheels up at four," and I thought, "Holy crap, this is a jet we're talking about!"
(and I want to point out that I was using the term "holy crap" long before the late Peter Boyle on Everybody Loves Raymond. This is my reputation we're talking about, here.)

Private jets come highly recommended. I have to add my recommendation to those. One thing that it does for you, though, is confirm a long-suspected but rarely voiced sentiment: air travel DOES NOT HAVE TO SUCK.

We arrived at the small airport in good time. We used the clean, fresh-smelling and lovely bathroom. We went into the waiting area and snacked on apples and popcorn (free) and eyed the selection of coffees and teas. No ID presentation, no security line, no body searches, just a friendly greeting. Then they motioned that the plane was ready, and we boarded a tiny bus that shuttled us the, oh, two blocks distance to the plane. We ascended a small flight of stairs and took our seats, each one of which was approximately four feet from another, in any direction. We could have sat on the couch, or even gone into the back room and reclined on the bed, but we were not that tired. Save that for international flights. Our hostess, the owner of the jet, gave us bottles or water or cans of soda, and candy bars or crackers. She offered us as much as we wanted, and pushed more on us after we'd each taken some. (She was a true Southern lady.) And we chatted pleasantly across the length of the United States until we landed, three hours later. My bag--which had been taken by the chauffeur before we went to the airport--reappeared right next to me in front of our car. Amazing.

All right, that's a long paragraph devoted to the trip down, but I don't anticipate flying privately again any time soon. I had to immortalize it. I flew back Jet Blue with a four hour delay, which promptly brought me back to reality.

I got a "destruction tour" of the areas that flooded and are in the proces of rebuilding. It was eerie to watch the water line get higher and higher as we went further into Jefferson Parish and Gentilly. Many lots are empty, and since this place was densely populated you know that each empty spot is a house that has been torn down and cleared away. Many homes were still boarded up, some with spray paint as to when the rescuers arrived (up to two weeks later) and who they were (eg the California National Guard or another unit) and what they found (one said "Five dead cats in back.") Other homes are destroyed and there's a trailer in the driveway; the trailer is where they are living. And then there are some nice, brand-new homes there too, fresly rebuilt.

I did not see the Lower Ninth Ward; we didn't have time. Jefferson and Gentilly are where the canals flooded and people drowned in their attics. Lower Ninth was destroyed by a storm surge that exploded through the levees; survivors said it sounded like a bomb. It wiped everything right off its foundation. I don't know how much has been cleaned up.

The higher-lying areas look pretty good. My friends said that you could tell there was a hurricane; immediately after roofs had been affected and trees were down, but that is relatively easy to clean. I stayed in the French Quarter, and you would never guess there was anything there. I also saw the Superdome, site of so much disastrousness. (not a word, I know.) And I was told the story of Amtrak calling Ray Nagin, informing him ahead of the hurricane that they were removing all their trains, and should he like to load those trains with those people who didn't have another means of escape, he was welcome...and him not responding to any of their calls. "Buffoonery," was how someone described it. Sigh.

But the New Orleans experience was great. I plan to go back some time relatively soon. It might be the site of a new work-in-progress. We'll see. Meanwhile I'll just entertain my memories of beignets.
I'll try to attach some pictures later. I didn't take very many.

Observations

There's a fine line between "low rise" and "falling off."

In praise of science

It was a fantastic weekend. New York City hosted the World Science Festival, and though I wasn't able to attend most of the events I did go to a play and a reading at Columbia University, my alma mater.

Saturday night's offering was QED by Peter Parnell (who wrote Sorrows of Stephen) about Richard Feynman, a famous physicist who worked on the atom bomb and figured out why the Challenger exploded. It was almost a one-man show (one other character showed up a couple of times, with a fairly limited interaction) starring the legendary Alan Alda. I'll tell you, when someone as distinctive as Alan Alda is onstage almost alone for an hour and a half and you don't think even once of his iconic Hawkeye Pierce character, you know that's good acting. (I saw him in a wonderful play called Art many years ago, and it was the same experience.)

I went to see this play because of the new screenplay I'm working on. I don't want to give a lot of details, but it is based on a famous scientist and a certain time period in that scientist's life. (There will be no "creation of the person" story, even though the childhood merits its own movie!) So while this screenplay focuses mostly on the interpersonal trials of the scientist, it absolutely has to integrate a lot of science in it; we can't have them talk purely about 'their issues,' because science is such a basic part of their everyday lives. The question we're facing, then, is how to go about it? How often, and how much detail? Scientists talking to each other aren't going to dumb it down for the audience; they'll be speaking in terrific, deep scientific jargon that the average person doesn't understand. How long can we do that before we turn the audience off? How much is needed to give it a feel of veracity?

Watching QED Saturday night answered quite a few of these questions. The scientist character, Richard Feynman, talked about many angles of his life: how he learned Russian to be able to travel to a tiny area called Tuva; his bongo playing; his work on the Challenger explosion and how he refused to append a "nice job, NASA" at the end of their report; his work on the atom bomb; the death of his wife; his own battle against cancer. I've only touched the tip here, because this was an incredible man with diverse and fascinating interests and talents. The office set was interesting. He had a messy desk, a couple of chairs, a radio, shelves, and two blackboards, which were covered with equations. I stared at them blankly. In the Q&A period after the play was over, Alan Alda said, "I'm sure most of you recognize this as a Feynman diagram," and the audience (made up mostly of scientists) murmured their assent. I thought, "Holy cow. This is a case in point right here." I understood literally nothing of these equations, but I trusted them. They're over my head, and that's a good thing. The equations need to be correct for the scientists, but they just need to be *there* for the rest of us.

Earlier in my scriptwriting process, I wrote a scene where one of the scientists is teaching calculus to children. As I wrote it by myself, I wrote "Math math math" as a placeholder. "Math question?" "Math answer." Then I went home for a break, and one day grabbed my brother, who's been through several semesters of calculus. He brought in his elementary calculus book (the kind that would be taught to children...very smart children, that is) and we found an equation that could go on the board and figured out the exact questions and answers for the scene. I admit, even after Christopher had explained it all to me, I didn't really get it. (I felt my brain forming a hard, protective shell as he talked.) But reading through the scene after I realized how great it is to have those facts and figures. Ground it in reality!

Okay, so back to the Science Festival. The second night I went to a reading called "Dear Albert," put together by Alan Alda, which was a collection of Einstein's letters to and from his wives and a couple of their friends. He'd had to edit and select sections and tie them together to form the story of Einstein's life. Small factoids: In 1905, Einstein wrote *three* groundbreaking papers, so revolutionary that each spawned its own branch of physics. Max Planck, another legendary physicist, read one of them and said, "The world as we know it has changed." (That may not be an exact quote, but it's close.) Einstein plays only a peripheral role in my screenplay, but again I wanted to see what was done to make him accessible to today's audiences.

It was a terrific piece. He had an unhappy first marriage and an unhappy first wife; both came through loud and clear. And then some of his letters mentioned, in the most offhand way, his earth-shattering work that would change the scientific world. Wow.

After the play was over, people were milling about and Mr. Alda was talking with the audience members who approached him. I generally don't talk to celebrities, figuring they want to be left alone more than they want to talk to me, but he was being kind and talking with anyone who wanted to, so I got brave. I mentioned my screenplay to him, and who it was about, and he got really excited, saying he'd been looking into this same scientist and working on a project of his own. Wow! He asked me what my research plans were, and what sources I've been using, and I told him and he got more excited. At this point, the house managers were getting antsy and asked us all to leave, so Mr. Alda asked for my card. I only had my book card on me (which leads him to my km website, which could lead him to this blog! Hi, Mr. Alda!), and I gave it to him, and then walked out of there thinking, "Alan Alda asked for my card!"

I work at The Rockefeller Foundation, which helped sponsor the Sunday night reading of Dear Albert. Monday I approached Joan, the woman in charge of that department, and told her how thrilled I was that RF was part of that great evening. I told her about my meeting Alan Alda, and she said something I had already figured out: "He's such a wonderful man. So kind and gracious." Yay for good people.

A quick personal note only peripherally about Alan Alda: I am very close to my dad, and this is in a small way due to our nightly viewings of MASH after the ten o'clock news. He and I watched it together almost every night on channel 5. My mom and my siblings never joined us; it was just the two of us together. We watched the entire syndicated schedule, from the earliest Henry Blake episodes to the latest Colonel Potter-and-Charles (and BJ in a pink shirt) ones. It got to the point where we could look at each other within two minutes and say, "Oh, this is the one where Colonel Flagg calls himself 'the wind,'" and then turn back to the TV and keep watching. So I know I'm close to my dad for other reasons than MASH, but the two are very closely linked in my mind.

I am figuring out a few more book promotions, but nothing concrete yet. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, vive la science!