My Dinner with Russ

So I went to dinner one Wednesday last August at Russ Parson’s house because he’s my cousin and I adore him, and because I was in LA and that’s where he lives. And also because he’s married to one of the best women I know; there is nobody in the world better to laugh with than Kathy Parsons. And also because his gorgeous daughter, Sarah, had just graduated from college, so she should get jewelry, which I needed to hand deliver so I could also hug. And also because Russ is the other writer in the family (How To Read A French Fry, great book, you should read it) and we can talk publishing, except we never do. Mostly with the Parsons, you just laugh a lot.

It was my turn to buy dinner because the last time we’d been together it had been Russ’s birthday and we were in New York and they took to me to Per Se where we had a seventeen-course meal that lasted six hours and will always be one of the best memories of my life, both for the food and for the company, plus Thomas Keller showed us around the kitchens and it was amazing, so I definitely owed them. But Russ is one of the great foodies of our time—the guy has James Beard medals strung around his kitchen like Christmas lights—so when I said, “Let me take you out to dinner,” and he said, “No, come here, I’ll cook,” I did not argue. Nor did I argue with the champagne he poured as soon as we got there so we could toast the fact that we were all together again, and then Sarah’s graduation, and then the finished Don’t Look Down, and then his deadline extension, and then the sunset, and then I forget what else, but we toasted it. And we sat around the big table in his backyard and ate--my God, we ate--goat cheese and peppers, pasta tossed with fresh tomatoes, gorgeous glistening fresh cucumber with cracked pepper, thick grilled steaks with garlic butter, and amazing homemade peach-almond ice cream, all under trees strung with tiny white lights. And while I am a snarky, cynical bitch, I have to tell you, there is nothing better than eating great food in a beautiful garden with wonderful people you love while the sun sets. And laughing. After a lot of good champagne.

And of course we talked about food. Well, sort of. Russ said the original artichoke was some kind of weapon. Bob said, “Did you ever wonder who first looked at a squid and said, ‘I could eat that’?” (Russ said, “Squid is good if it’s fresh and well-prepared,” but Russ never met a food he wouldn’t defend.) Sarah said that she’d met one of the survivors from that Alive! plane crash when she was in Brazil.

And then we started talking about Brazilian waxes.

This is probably where I should mention that my critique partner, the lovely Valerie Taylor, got me a Brazilian wax for Christmas last year. I opened up the envelope, and it was a gift certificate for our local spa for, yep, one Brazilian wax. I looked at her and said, “Thank you so much. WHY?” And she said, “Because I want to know what it’s like. You go find out and tell me.” So now it’s Christmas again and I still have this certificate because even if the technician buys me a drink and tells me I have nice eyes, I am not letting anybody do that to me. Probably.

So we’re talking about it—well, Kathy and Sarah and I are talking about it, Russ has his hands over his ears and is saying “Lalalalalalalalala” which shows you can have a lot of James Beard medals and be internationally famous and still be immature, and Bob is saying, “I don’t want to know what that is” which shows you can be a former Green Beret and know how to kill people with your little finger and still be a wuss—and Kathy says, “Who the hell thought that up anyway?”

And I realize it’s the Squid Question. At some point, somebody said, “You know what would be a good idea?” and then ran with it. And whether it remained squid or became calamari depended on what he did with it, but the point is, he ran with it.

Which leads me to my own life because, as my daughter once put it, “Mom, it’s always all about you.” Some of my Squid Questions have been unmitigated disasters—going platinum in college is not a good memory, and there was that time I dove into cold surf and had an asthma attack that almost killed me, and I definitely shouldn’t have shown my tattoo to my therapist—but I can’t honestly say I regret any of them. If nothing else, they made me smarter. (Haven’t see me as a platinum blonde lately, have you? And one of my tattoos is the Chinese symbol that means "to risk" which I did on impulse along with the one I'd come for, and it only occurred to me later that the flash at Mother's Tattoos probably wasn't done by anybody who actually reads Chinese, and that for all I know that symbol means "This Space For Rent" or "Skanky Ho." Which is all part of the risk, so the symbol still works. But I digress.) And some were necessary disasters, like getting married at twenty-one which was really stupid, but if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have Mollie now, so it was a good thing. And then there are those that were brilliant. Quitting my teaching job when I was neck-deep in debt to go back to grad school and write romance novels was a dumb plan that turned out smart. Buying the ugliest house I’d ever seen because it was on the most beautiful land I’d ever seen is working out well. Collaborating with a writer of violent military thrillers was a terrible career move except that it resulted in the one of the best books I’ve ever done and you should see the one we’re working on now, as our agent says, “This is a riot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (That’s a direct quote from her e-mail. Well, she’s our agent so she has to love us, but trust me, she’d tell us if she hated it.)

So I’m thinking Russ is right (well, Russ is usually right) and that the point isn’t that squid is intrinsically bad, that it’s that you take the risk and then concentrate on the execution and voila! calamari. So I think maybe it’s a good idea to periodically say “yes” to the Squid Questions with great enthusiasm and no regrets, even while all those about you are saying, “Are you out of your mind?” And that maybe I should go for that Brazilian wax. Not now, of course, but maybe some day.

And I should definitely always have dinner with the Parsons because those people know food and laughter and love.

Trudy 12: What Have We Learned From This, Dorothy?

And here it is, the Twelfth Day of Trudy. This has been a valuable experiment and I have learned many things.

1. I should plan to write about a thousand words a day. That I can do without any trouble. (I did 1500 tonight, which gives me about 13,500 words.)

2. Forget me writng to an outline. I really do need to just write what's in my head and figure out where it goes later. All you linear people, go yell at somebody else. I tried it. I hated it. :p

3. But I do like writing what I hear in my head and then going back to the white board to see where it goes and what it does for the story. So I think working out turning points and listing scenes on the board in a kind of organic outline as I go is a good compromise.

4. The collage is crucial, and putting it together during the first push of the first draft is essential. (I actually found the pink kid's nail file yesterday at Kroger's. I couldn't believe it, they actually do put nail files in kid's toy manicure sets. So much for "no sharp objects in children's toys." Which is great because there's a pink nail file from a kid's manicure set in the story. Well, you have to be there to enjoy this as much as I do. Never mind.)

5. When things go really wrong outside the book, don't even try to write, just deal. Tomorrow is another thousand words.

So I'm pretty pleased even if I didn't get to 20,000. I'll do Trudy updates as I get it finished, but this forced march gave me what I needed and I'm happy. And it's looking as if there might be another novella on the horizon, so I may try this again with that one--her name's Mariposa--if it pans out. Having to report here kept me honest, and that's a good thing.

Although I realise this was probably not exactly riveting. Argh. Well, it's good to set the bar low. Let's lower those expectations, shall we? Thank you.

Just Like Cheerios

You know, the business part of writing never fails to amaze me. There's so much to it, even if you're not insane about it the way I am. My latest insanity, which I have thoughtfully inflicted on Bob, is branding the collaboration so we can sell it just like General Mills sells Cherrios. Or whoever it is that sells Cherrios.

Branding is the new buzzword in publishing. (Well, not that new. I'm never cutting edge.) The idea is to sell an author as someone who produces a certain kind of book, a product if you will. I kind of hate it because it does hem a writer in, but for the collaboration, I think it's necessary. We're trying to sell an idea here, the idea that a book with a man writing all the male points of view and a female writing all the female points of view, each writer coming from a distinctly different tradition, is fun and classy and well worth $24.95 or whatever the sucker is going to sell for. Plus Bob and I really like to teach and we want to do a five-day writing workshop in the spring, so we needed a look to market that, too. And then there's the collab website which will also need a graphic. Basically, what we needed was a logo that summed up the partnership in a clean, not-too-detailed image that we could use anywhere, in one or two colors, and that would work large or small. Not an easy design project.

So we called on the brilliant Mara Lubelle, and said, "He's a little bit violent military thriller, she's a little bit hot romantic comedy, together they solve crime," and Mara came up with four logos. And they were all good, but we're only using one, so this is the only chance to see all of them.

The first one was good, but it didn't capture the off-the-wall quality of the collboration. Nice type face, though:

The second one was better--I particularly like that bullet--but it seemed too busy and it was a little too detailed to reduce down well:

The third one I really liked and so did Bob: very clean and simple. But it was a little more violent than I was comfortable with: after all that's me in the crosshairs, or at least that's my symbol:

Which brings us to the last one, which we both liked because it made us both laugh and because it really does sum up our partnership:

No, you don't get to vote, the last one is it. But isn't it great?

Thank you, Mara Lubelle, genius logo designer.