I have tons of self-control. Really. Except about books. And plants. And, okay, a really good peanut butter cookie.
This morning, I took the children to the library. While they poured over the shelves for their next reads, I skimmed the openings of the four books I’d had on hold, Louis Bayard’s Endangered Species, Nicola Griffith’s The Blue Place, Jason Pinter’s debut The Mark, and Charles Todd’s Wings of Fire.
Wow! Now all I want to do is sit myself down on the sofa and read and read and read. Pinter’s opening is so powerful that it even inspired me about what I need to do in upcoming revisions of my novel, THE QUETZAL’S TALE. Thank you, Jason!
And that’s not the worst of it. My friend Sherry Thomas’s second book, Delicious, hit the shelves this week, and my copy is burning a hole on my desk, beckoning, waiting for me to come lose myself in it. I loved her first book, Private Arrangements, and I’ve been counting the days for the new one.
Here’s where the self-control comes in. I’m on a new deadline for my script, “The Blue Jay’s Egg,” which I’m revising to enter in three more screenplay competitions. And I’m scheduled to post my script to my writer’s group Sunday. So I’m here, rear in chair, getting back to it. As soon as I finish this post. Really. So I can reward myself with a great read. And maybe a really good cookie.
August 01 2008 | Books | No Comments »
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Andrew Marvell. Those of you who didn’t major in English are probably asking who the heck Andrew Marvel is. Why, he’s the English metaphysical poet (1621-1678) who looks kind of like Eric Idle of Monty Python fame. See?
Marvell wrote “To His Coy Mistress,” a carpe diem-themed poem I’ve always particularly liked, perhaps because there are several lines I can remember easily and can drop into conversations at those times that it’s fun to be able to quote poetry. Here are the lines that have been running through my mind of late:
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near
Marvell was right–he lived only to 57. My birthday was last month, so I’ve been pondering time. There’s never enough of it. Seize-the-day poems are great for writers because they’re about deadlines, and we always have them. And that’s good. Without them, we might fool around looking for pictures of Andrew Marvell and Eric Idle and never actually do anything. There’s still so much I want to do.
It has been a busy year. We finally got the remodeling done on our house. I finished my first novel, THE QUETZAL’S TALE, and sent it out into the world. This month I’ve been writing a screenplay to submit for the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, the mailing deadline for which is May 1st, this Thursday. This is my first screenplay, and I have had a great time writing it and learning as I go. Now the deadline is upon me, and it’s not finished. But I will complete “The Bluejay’s Egg” and mail it off and be proud of myself for accomplishing another thing I’ve always dreamed of doing. Meanwhile, it’s back to work. I hear Time’s winged chariot.
April 28 2008 | Stuff | 3 Comments »
This is my 79-year-old retired-physician mother walking the picket line in Los Angeles during the recent writers’ strike. She picketed for my screenwriter sister, my comedy-writer brother-in-law, and everyone else toiling over keyboards and typewriters to feed the movies and television. For all of us who might like to write for the movies one day.
Mama–my siblings and I and most of our friends always call her that–has always inspired me to go after what I really want. Not that I’ve always done it, mind you, but the example was there.
When my mother entered medical school in 1950, there was only one other woman in her class. It wasn’t easy for a woman to become a doctor. Everyone down to the dean of the school tried to talk Mama out of studying medicine. “You’ll marry and have children and leave your practice, and you’ll take a spot in medical school that a man could have,” they said. On the first day, one of her male classmates said to her, “So, you think you want to be a doctor?” “I’ve thought so all my life. ” “You won’t last a week.”
Well, Mama graduated second in her class and practiced medicine for more than 40 years. A true healer, she is the most gifted diagnostician I have ever known. And that smart-mouth who told her she wouldn’t last a week? He fainted the first time the class observed surgery, and he graduated a semester behind my mother.
So, no matter what the odds against you are, never let anyone tell you no. That’s what I learned from my mother, my first hero.
March 01 2008 | Heroes | 1 Comment »
Several years ago, my mother and I took the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle. Walking through L.A.’s lovely old Union Station, I imagined Hedy Lamar, resplendent in furs and a smart hat, hurrying to catch a train. Or Tyrone Power, all masculine beauty and elegance, doing his patriotic duty and heading to Marine boot camp in San Diego in 1942. Movie stars. Hollywood history. Glamour. I felt positively gorgeous myself.
The 80th Academy Awards are on this Sunday ( 8 p.m. ET on ABC, if you’re interested), and I’ll be glued to my television. And that’s not just because my man George Clooney is nominated for Best Actor this year. I never miss the Oscars if I can help it, even if I haven’t had a chance to see most of the movies. All those beautiful people in fabulous clothes and jewels. Seeing the cinematographers and the directors and–yes!–the writers who make movies happen. Getting teary-eyed when they flash the photos of all the movie people who’ve died since the last Academy Awards. I even like the dance numbers. For a little while, I’m part of Hollywood, almost an insider.
So I’m starstruck. Yep, shamelessly so. It’s fun to see actors I recognize. Once, Jackie Chan was on my flight to Los Angeles. I smiled at him as I passed through first class to steerage, and he smiled back. I passed Tony Shaloub walking along in L.A.’s Larchmont Village. In “X-Files” days, a friend who worked on the show introduced me to David Duchovny. In Park Slope, Brooklyn, I saw John Turturro eating a bagel and reading the paper in a coffee shop. It was even thrilling to see Paul Winfield come out of a store in the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, clad in a yellow caftan.
And it’s all because I love movies. Hollywood may be artifice, but the movies, they’re magic. There’s nothing profound or original about saying it, but it’s true. And that’s why I love the Oscars. They honor the magic and the magicians.
February 21 2008 | Movies | 4 Comments »
I decided to try building a website, so here we are. My website, under construction.
February 18 2008 | Stuff | 1 Comment »
