Today I tried The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher. I left at page 24 because of its stubbornly impenetrable nature. I skimmed through the rest of a flashback and found that the featured wedding lasted for a decent-sized chunk of pages. Some details were beautifully written, such as the family property in Provence, France, but the entire book felt like it was written out of reach. You can observe the events, but you can't feel them. And if you try, the book moves further and further out of your grasp.
Frustrated by it, I moved on to The Kitchen Congregation by Nora Seton. Beautiful writing here too, tapping into deep wells of emotion of family, of cooking, of the descriptions of kitchens and Seton's mother's friends, which take up the first part of the book. She tries for poetic descriptions and accomplishes that sporadically, with some other passages feeling workmanlike, just a way to get to the next part of the thought.
I lasted until page 176. The book ends at page 246, and it's a better average than The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, which ends at page 422. I just shuddered a bit while typing that, imagining trying to get through the rest of it, which I probably would have done if this book had been around in my teens (Although actually, I probably wouldn't have, because I checked out more movie history books than any other kind back then). But I don't have the time now. There's so many books in the world, so much to explore, that if a book doesn't work for me, even after page 20, away it goes for good. If a passage pops up that makes me want to give it a bit more of a go, then I read through the next few pages and decide. My reading list isn't finite, but my life is, and I want to make these decades most enjoyable in reading.
I considered giving up on The Kitchen Congregation during the chapter on Senta, who lived below Seton and her husband "on the first floor of a villa in Zurich." Seton's writing is heartfelt at times, but it feels so removed. You try to reach in and you can't get close enough, not because there's a secret password to declare, but because Seton is so deep into her memories, the emotions conjured up by those memories, that it feels like she forgets to look up and see those who are reading about her life. We are welcome, but please, don't get too close. These floors, these walls, are sacred. Look, but don't touch. Learn, but don't feel as much as she has. Sentimentality shouldn't be mawkish, but it shouldn't make you feel like you have to either learn the secret handshake or beg to know about someone's memories, especially with what they describe in food. Clearly Seton is a fine cook, and loves the life she lives in the kitchen, but everything else here doesn't have the same feeling.
I first skimmed past where I had stopped in the Senta chapter while considering whether to leave this book, finding the same writing style throughout. What's established at the beginning isn't going to change. But the next chapter, "Two in the Kitchen", starts with this:
"When I first saw my husband chopping green beans into uniform inches, I thought the marriage would never last. It was so precise, so painstaking. It was the way his mother did it. He liked his green beans cut small, but then he went and married a woman who manhandled green beans--no knife, no ruler."
"Ok, ok," I thought, "I'll stick with it to see the differences between her method of cooking and her husband's method. I want to know about that."
Seton is a careful writer, and she's thought about these various passages a great deal. She wants her words to be as well-cooked as the dishes she produces in her kitchen. But it feels like she holds onto them too tightly. She doesn't want any to slip out of place and upend the entire production. Most of the time, her writing feels too gentle. When she describes the actions of her children Hugh and baby Maddie while she and they visit Ida, an elderly lively friend, she hits upon the kind of writer she should have been throughout the entire book, including Maddie eating many things such as a pocketbook. It's a welcome shot of amusement that should have been suffused throughout the rest of the sentences here.
By page 176, I became disenchanted with it again and couldn't read any more pages. I appreciate the gentleness of Seton's words, but I wish she had looked up, beckoning the reader to get comfortable and settle in. I felt like I was standing up the entire time, smiling in parts, but mostly watching. Just watching. Never feeling.
After giving it up, I opened up Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West, which was the first in my "First Lines" series of entries (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/03/first-lines-from-books-i-love-1.html), even though I hadn't read any of it beyond that first paragraph. I like it already and I think it's going to bloom into love because West isn't self-conscious about her words. She writes well, but she wants the reader to come on in right away, to get to know how she became obsessed with food after her grandmother's funeral, because her grandmother's recipe for buttermilk biscuits would have disappeared had it not been for her, urged by her Aunt Tempe to write down the recipe since she remembered it. So far (and I suspect it'll last through the rest of the book), West's writing is warm and genial. And it is full of good-natured Southern life.
My plan for the weekend had been a double header of Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah and Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, since The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted hadn't arrived by Friday. It came on Saturday, and by that time, I had given up on Kitchen Chinese because despite the delicious descriptions of Asian food, the story became very boring. There's no other way to describe it but just that and move on. I devoured Angelina's Bachelors afterward, and then came The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted and the beginning of the entry you just read. So three books came into view this weekend, and only one survived. I'm never perpetually impatient with books, just those I absolutely cannot continue.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
First Lines from Books I Love #5: Angelina's Bachelors
Since becoming a writer at 11 years old, I've learned so much about writing, and surely still have much more to learn that will sustain me through the rest of my life.
I've learned not to be so prickly about language. People will end sentences with prepositions. It's not a heinous crime against humanity. (I'm not against this, but I have seen disturbing militancy from others about it.)
Contractions are ok; they help keep word counts low and prevent stuffiness.
And if you take away colloquialisms, you take away culture and how people live every day in language. I was born in South Florida, and grew up saying "Yes'm," and "No'm." I have not and will never say "Yes ma'am" and "No ma'am." That's not how I grew up, and I want to keep that part of my heritage.
But what I also learned is that I'm not the one to decide if my writing is impressive. I write because I want to, and however it turns out is because of the ideas I have of how it should be, along with assistance provided by editors. When I wrote my essays for What If They Lived?, I wasn't nervous about it being my first book, but my writing sure was. I overwrote the introduction to my James Dean essay, trying to tie in a visit to Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles, to a magnet store there with ones of Dean and Marilyn Monroe, to Dean's lasting appeal. Phil Hall, my co-author, thankfully looked over my essays and rewrote that introduction. I made sure it conformed to my writing style (Whatever that might be, but I make sure I'm comfortable with the words expressed), but was relieved, because in hindsight, it was an introduction more suited to a blog entry. In fact, I may post it here soon as a reminder of the time I spent writing that introduction, reading those paragraphs over and over, hoping that they clicked together without fighting it. I'm never embarassed by writing from years ago or writing I've scrapped. I always have to start somewhere, and that's where I did.
When I read The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte, I was excited at the thought of writing with that level of detail, resulting from so much research that I hope to undertake as well for my own projects. I'm passionate about these subjects, so that will be easy.
Reading Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, I want to write with that much care, that much love. And it's huge. This is not just the product of O'Reilly's experiences being surrounded by cooking for decades, with his wife Virginia O'Reilly having cooked since she was little, not just him being the creator of Dinner: Impossible on Food Network, but him having a true love for words and for reading. At the beginning, Angelina's husband Frank dies (There's no reason for a spoiler alert here because it's mentioned in the copy on the back of the book and it's the impetus for everything else here), and even though Frank is given only five and a half pages before his death, O'Reilly knows him so well that we're affected by this, not only because Angelina is going to lose a beloved husband, but he seems like a very good man.
After the funeral, and after a cooking spree that produces dishes and soups that are delivered to neighbors, as well as a lasagna to Dottie, her across-the-street neighbor, Dottie's brother Basil returns the empty lasagna pan and proposes to Angelina an arrangement whereby she'll cook him breakfast and dinner six days a week and he'll pay her for it, a sum to help her keep on living and not have to worry so much about future finances, as she is already.
I wish I had brought Angelina's Bachelors into Sprouts yesterday. I hadn't had lunch before my family and I left on afternoon errands with the hope that we might eat out (I've been thinking again about a pastrami sandwich and Ultimate Chili Cheese Fries (which just means diced onions and sour cream included) at Weinerschnitzel). No luck, so by the time we reached Sprouts, I was famished, and grabbed a few samples from the bulk items, including chocolate-covered peanuts, and chocolate-covered cashews, and yes, not ideal, so I made sure that in the bananas we bought was a ripe banana to eat while driving a very short few hundred yards to Target nearby.
Had I read Angelina's Bachelors while walking around Sprouts, after grabbing a few containers of my favorite lemon yogurt from Casacade Fresh, my favorite yogurt actually, I would not have been inclined to scarf down chocolate. The descriptions of Italian food and Angelina cooking each dish is glorious, reverent, and it feels spiritual, a real connection not only with food but also with the bonds it creates between people. Wait until you read about Don Eddie's connection to marrowbones and toast, and the memories it brings to Big Phil, his nephew. Phil is my favorite character because he doesn't say a word, at least until it matters the most. It makes the impact of his later gesture huge.
Angelina's Bachelors is going into my permanent collection. I need it for reference not only in the gentleness of writing, but also how each word matters most. Every single word keeps you in the neighborly and caring world that Brian O'Reilly has created. Humanity has found another magnificent ally.
And now, the first lines:
"Perfect," whispered Angelina.
Standing alone in the moonlit warmth of her kitchen, she stroked them each softly in turn and applied the slightest, knowing pressure to each. They were cool to the touch now, all risen to exactly the same height, the same shape and consistency, laid side by side by side on the well-worn wooden table. The dusky scent of dark chocolate lingered in the air and on her fingers."
Angelina's Bachelors is also a vacation. Take a few hours for it, and you will return looking at the world anew.
I've learned not to be so prickly about language. People will end sentences with prepositions. It's not a heinous crime against humanity. (I'm not against this, but I have seen disturbing militancy from others about it.)
Contractions are ok; they help keep word counts low and prevent stuffiness.
And if you take away colloquialisms, you take away culture and how people live every day in language. I was born in South Florida, and grew up saying "Yes'm," and "No'm." I have not and will never say "Yes ma'am" and "No ma'am." That's not how I grew up, and I want to keep that part of my heritage.
But what I also learned is that I'm not the one to decide if my writing is impressive. I write because I want to, and however it turns out is because of the ideas I have of how it should be, along with assistance provided by editors. When I wrote my essays for What If They Lived?, I wasn't nervous about it being my first book, but my writing sure was. I overwrote the introduction to my James Dean essay, trying to tie in a visit to Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles, to a magnet store there with ones of Dean and Marilyn Monroe, to Dean's lasting appeal. Phil Hall, my co-author, thankfully looked over my essays and rewrote that introduction. I made sure it conformed to my writing style (Whatever that might be, but I make sure I'm comfortable with the words expressed), but was relieved, because in hindsight, it was an introduction more suited to a blog entry. In fact, I may post it here soon as a reminder of the time I spent writing that introduction, reading those paragraphs over and over, hoping that they clicked together without fighting it. I'm never embarassed by writing from years ago or writing I've scrapped. I always have to start somewhere, and that's where I did.
When I read The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte, I was excited at the thought of writing with that level of detail, resulting from so much research that I hope to undertake as well for my own projects. I'm passionate about these subjects, so that will be easy.
Reading Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, I want to write with that much care, that much love. And it's huge. This is not just the product of O'Reilly's experiences being surrounded by cooking for decades, with his wife Virginia O'Reilly having cooked since she was little, not just him being the creator of Dinner: Impossible on Food Network, but him having a true love for words and for reading. At the beginning, Angelina's husband Frank dies (There's no reason for a spoiler alert here because it's mentioned in the copy on the back of the book and it's the impetus for everything else here), and even though Frank is given only five and a half pages before his death, O'Reilly knows him so well that we're affected by this, not only because Angelina is going to lose a beloved husband, but he seems like a very good man.
After the funeral, and after a cooking spree that produces dishes and soups that are delivered to neighbors, as well as a lasagna to Dottie, her across-the-street neighbor, Dottie's brother Basil returns the empty lasagna pan and proposes to Angelina an arrangement whereby she'll cook him breakfast and dinner six days a week and he'll pay her for it, a sum to help her keep on living and not have to worry so much about future finances, as she is already.
I wish I had brought Angelina's Bachelors into Sprouts yesterday. I hadn't had lunch before my family and I left on afternoon errands with the hope that we might eat out (I've been thinking again about a pastrami sandwich and Ultimate Chili Cheese Fries (which just means diced onions and sour cream included) at Weinerschnitzel). No luck, so by the time we reached Sprouts, I was famished, and grabbed a few samples from the bulk items, including chocolate-covered peanuts, and chocolate-covered cashews, and yes, not ideal, so I made sure that in the bananas we bought was a ripe banana to eat while driving a very short few hundred yards to Target nearby.
Had I read Angelina's Bachelors while walking around Sprouts, after grabbing a few containers of my favorite lemon yogurt from Casacade Fresh, my favorite yogurt actually, I would not have been inclined to scarf down chocolate. The descriptions of Italian food and Angelina cooking each dish is glorious, reverent, and it feels spiritual, a real connection not only with food but also with the bonds it creates between people. Wait until you read about Don Eddie's connection to marrowbones and toast, and the memories it brings to Big Phil, his nephew. Phil is my favorite character because he doesn't say a word, at least until it matters the most. It makes the impact of his later gesture huge.
Angelina's Bachelors is going into my permanent collection. I need it for reference not only in the gentleness of writing, but also how each word matters most. Every single word keeps you in the neighborly and caring world that Brian O'Reilly has created. Humanity has found another magnificent ally.
And now, the first lines:
"Perfect," whispered Angelina.
Standing alone in the moonlit warmth of her kitchen, she stroked them each softly in turn and applied the slightest, knowing pressure to each. They were cool to the touch now, all risen to exactly the same height, the same shape and consistency, laid side by side by side on the well-worn wooden table. The dusky scent of dark chocolate lingered in the air and on her fingers."
Angelina's Bachelors is also a vacation. Take a few hours for it, and you will return looking at the world anew.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Pattern People: I Am Not One
A nonfiction book. Then a novel. Rinse and repeat. In theory, it sounded nice, a way to keep my ungainly stacks of books organized. No way was I going to bother organizing them further beyond how I had already stacked them, with most randomly placed and only one that could be considered organized with Las Vegas and Florida books within it, and this seemed like the right idea. At least my reading could be organized.
I started this notion with Like I Was Sayin'..., a collection of columns by Chicago god Mike Royko, and after that, I read O: A Presidential Novel. Then Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins, followed by Sleepless Nights by Sarah Bilston, the sequel to Bed Rest, which didn't work for me past page 30, because the diary format that was employed in Bed Rest was ejected, because Q's sister was coming over from England to visit and see the baby, and Bilston wrote from her perspective as well. Plus, the first novel felt sort of stuffy, whereas this sequel was overly stuffy.
Instead, The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry. Then Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse. Then How Sweet It Is by Alice J. Wisler, which I ejected after page 20 because of the awful writing, not much in the way of powers of description, particularly since Wisler couldn't simply say that the dog barked twice, but rather that the dog "produced two barks."
By this time, The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte was eating at me, because it was time to figure out how I want to eventually write my 1930s Hollywood history project after all the research is done, and I wanted to see how LaPorte covered the story of DreamWorks SKG. I'm not as much interested in business practices as she is, but the level of detail she produced in this book is astonishing and will undoubtedly remain an inspiration for as long as this particular project goes on.
The breakdown of this idea of nonfiction then fiction then nonfiction and so on came as I was doing it, because of Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, which I had received in the mail and wanted to read so badly, but wanted to stick to my pattern. It's about Angelina, who cooks and cooks to try to deal with the death of her husband, and soon comes to a deal with her new across-the-street neighbor, a retiree who pays her to cook two meals a day for him, six days a week. And soon, other bachelors get wind of this.
This pattern is all wrong for me. I'm only organized where it matters, such as making my bed, washing the dishes, and my writing projects. With the writing projects, the only pattern for books for research is to keep reading them and taking notes until I have enough information for a book, while also seeking out other resources. That should not apply to my regular reading.
So I've finally had enough. I decided that if The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher came today, I would make it part of a triple header for the weekend that would include Angelina's Bachelors and Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah. It didn't come today, but it might come tomorrow, and even so, I decided to get started. Not with Angelina's Bachelors, as you might expect, but with Kitchen Chinese, which is a gently descriptive, yet mild debut novel. I don't feel completely enveloped in the Beijing that Isabelle Lee becomes accustomed to after moving there, and I want to be, especially with the descriptions of the different types of food there. But I like it enough to keep on reading. And after this, definitely Angelina's Bachelors.
I'm also reading The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, to see if I want the Hollywood project first or one of my presidential book ideas, but that's only sporadic throughout the weekend. These novels first. And I've also got The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, purely for endless inspiration, because he writes about books with such a passionate love that it makes me love books more than I already do. I read it column by column, as these words appeared in the McSweeney's magazine The Believer. So I don't feel the need to read it all at once, though it is often tempting.
This feels right now, and this is how it shall remain, to just go with what I really want to read right away.
I started this notion with Like I Was Sayin'..., a collection of columns by Chicago god Mike Royko, and after that, I read O: A Presidential Novel. Then Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins, followed by Sleepless Nights by Sarah Bilston, the sequel to Bed Rest, which didn't work for me past page 30, because the diary format that was employed in Bed Rest was ejected, because Q's sister was coming over from England to visit and see the baby, and Bilston wrote from her perspective as well. Plus, the first novel felt sort of stuffy, whereas this sequel was overly stuffy.
Instead, The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry. Then Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse. Then How Sweet It Is by Alice J. Wisler, which I ejected after page 20 because of the awful writing, not much in the way of powers of description, particularly since Wisler couldn't simply say that the dog barked twice, but rather that the dog "produced two barks."
By this time, The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte was eating at me, because it was time to figure out how I want to eventually write my 1930s Hollywood history project after all the research is done, and I wanted to see how LaPorte covered the story of DreamWorks SKG. I'm not as much interested in business practices as she is, but the level of detail she produced in this book is astonishing and will undoubtedly remain an inspiration for as long as this particular project goes on.
The breakdown of this idea of nonfiction then fiction then nonfiction and so on came as I was doing it, because of Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, which I had received in the mail and wanted to read so badly, but wanted to stick to my pattern. It's about Angelina, who cooks and cooks to try to deal with the death of her husband, and soon comes to a deal with her new across-the-street neighbor, a retiree who pays her to cook two meals a day for him, six days a week. And soon, other bachelors get wind of this.
This pattern is all wrong for me. I'm only organized where it matters, such as making my bed, washing the dishes, and my writing projects. With the writing projects, the only pattern for books for research is to keep reading them and taking notes until I have enough information for a book, while also seeking out other resources. That should not apply to my regular reading.
So I've finally had enough. I decided that if The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher came today, I would make it part of a triple header for the weekend that would include Angelina's Bachelors and Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah. It didn't come today, but it might come tomorrow, and even so, I decided to get started. Not with Angelina's Bachelors, as you might expect, but with Kitchen Chinese, which is a gently descriptive, yet mild debut novel. I don't feel completely enveloped in the Beijing that Isabelle Lee becomes accustomed to after moving there, and I want to be, especially with the descriptions of the different types of food there. But I like it enough to keep on reading. And after this, definitely Angelina's Bachelors.
I'm also reading The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, to see if I want the Hollywood project first or one of my presidential book ideas, but that's only sporadic throughout the weekend. These novels first. And I've also got The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, purely for endless inspiration, because he writes about books with such a passionate love that it makes me love books more than I already do. I read it column by column, as these words appeared in the McSweeney's magazine The Believer. So I don't feel the need to read it all at once, though it is often tempting.
This feels right now, and this is how it shall remain, to just go with what I really want to read right away.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
I Don't Miss It, But I'm Grateful for It
I was 5 years old when I saw my first movies: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Jetsons: The Movie. It was 1990.
I was 7 years old when, for some inexplicable reason, I copied onto a sheet of white posterboard by hand a review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids from the Orlando Sentinel. It was 1992.
It was 1999 when I began actually writing movie reviews, for the Teentime pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's weekend Showtime section. I was nearing the end of 8th grade, and I had found a call for writers in those pages. I wrote two test reviews for the editor, Oline Cogdill (One review was of Analyze This, which I had seen at a sneak preview), and was deemed good enough to write regularly for the section. During my three years, I won, at the high school journalism awards that the Sun-Sentinel held every year at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, 2000 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, 2001 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, and 2002 Teentime Reviewer of the Year. I still think that those awards were for sheer quantity, because I wrote a lot, and there were weeks when I didn't think my reviews were any good. Sure I wrote them, but I didn't feel so vested in them. Step one: Pour out opinion of movie into Word file. Step two: Send review to Oline. Step three: Repeat steps one and two.
No matter those occasional dry, dull weeks, I appreciate the experience because it taught me to write regularly. It gave me a routine about it. It began the process that led to where I am today, undaunted in the face of potentially massive writing projects. Don't mistake that for arrogance. I'm comfortable with the tasks, but it still entails a hell of a lot of work.
In 2002, my time with Teentime had ended because I had graduated high school. And one day, in February 2003, while attending classes at Broward Community College on the smallest campus they had (Which was diagonal from the Southwest Regional library in Pembroke Pines, part of the Broward County library system), I was in the computer lab at the Southwest Regional library and had come upon a website called Film Threat, which was looking for writers. I e-mailed the editor, Eric Campos, asked what was needed, and I sent along many sample reviews, silently praying that they would be good enough as I sent each one. And they were. And until 2009, I wrote countless reviews for the site.
In 2004, I applied for membership to the Online Film Critics Society, which Phil Hall, a fellow writer, had suggested. He was also a member of the Governing Committee of the OFCS. I was rejected because, as Phil had said, my reviews contained too much plot summary and not enough opinion. I made necessary adjustments to my reviews, and I was accepted the next year.
Then, in 2006, I decided to run for a slot on the Governing Committee and was elected. Phil was with me, and it was nice to be at the top. And I had also been impressed that at the end of the year, when Hollywood was pushing so many movies for Oscar consideration, we got screeners too since we had our own awards. Sometimes, movies that I wanted to see arrived this way. And then the entire membership sent ballots of what should be nominated, and a few weeks later, we voted on what should win our awards. In 2006 and 2007, I loved it. In 2008 and 2009, I was tired of it and it was partly why I was glad to eventually leave the OFCS.
It began to feel like a hamster wheel. The screeners were wonderful to have, but it felt like there was an obligation to watch these movies, to see if there were any performances, cinematography, editing, etc. that was remarkable enough to garner a nomination, and then the voting, and that was it for the year. Then it began at the same time the next year. I didn't mind the requirement that you had to have written at least 50 reviews for the year in order to retain membership. It was just this aspect that I slowly began to loathe.
At the same time I became a member of the Governing Committee, Jim Judy, the owner of Screen It (http://www.screenit.com/) posted a message on the private OFCS board looking for writers for his site. It was vastly different from other movie review sites, being that these reviews were geared toward giving parents the most information possible about a movie. Everything from alcohol and drugs to sex to violence and profanity was documented in each review.
I e-mailed Jim, very interested, because unlike Film Threat, Screen It paid per review. Jim e-mailed me back, assigning me two test reviews, one for Bad Boys II and another for Something's Gotta Give. Both were easy to get since I had a 3-DVDs-at-a-time account with Netflix at the time.
Bad Boys II, with the violence, explosions, and profanity was a nightmare. I quickly learned what was involved in documenting an "R"-rated movie and had worked so diligently on all of that, and it took so many hours, that I'd forgotten that a regular movie review had to be written in the "Our Take" section. By the time I was done inserting everything I had written down into the template Jim had provided, I didn't even want to think about what I had thought about the movie.
Jim e-mailed both files with corrections, pointing out what needed to be expanded in my descriptions, what wasn't necessary, and hired me. He wanted reviewers for pre-1996 movies (Screen It began in 1996), so it was a godsend for me since I didn't have to go out to the movie theater and try to get everything down without a pause button. I reviewed Ghostbusters, The Godfather, and Beverly Hills Cop, among others. Some reviews took a week because I was so thorough. Mom thought I was being too thorough, but I felt this obligation to get it all exact, no matter how many hours it took.
In early 2009, my final review for Screen It was Goodfellas, and I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to write other things. Not only was it not possible for me to be a full-time film critic for a newspaper or a magazine, as I once thought I might be, I didn't want to be that anymore, and I also didn't enjoy movies anymore. I wasn't as enthusiastic about them as I was as a writer for Teentime.
It was in the same year that Phil and I lost re-election to the Governing Committee. After the results were known, he asked me if I wanted to join him in co-writing a book called What If They Lived?, about what actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and John Belushi might have done in their careers had they not died. It was the second book in his two-book contract with BearManor Media, which specializes in Hollywood history and other books about movies and television and radio. It was going to be published.
I didn't want to do it. It felt like too much work. So many books to read, notes to take, and I also had to find other sources, such as newspaper articles, and people to interview, to speculate about what these actors might have done.
Mom told me I had to do it. I would not get this opportunity again. This book was being handed to me. It was a gift other writers would kill for. I understood, and I told Phil I would join him.
Some of the research was very tedious. I especially remember the evening of July 4th in 2009, sitting at the dining room table while fireworks were shown on CBS, reading a 600-page biography about Judy Garland. Fortunately, I had been reading since I was 2, so I was a pro at speed reading, but having to take notes while reading slowed things down considerably, particularly because the first half of each essay was a straight-out biography about each actor, and I had to choose what I wanted to include about Garland.
The fun part was contacting people to interview about these actors. There was a publicist named Gilda N. Squire who had worked with Aaliyah, who graciously speculated about what her career might have been, believing that she would have become what Beyonce is. Considering what I had read, I believe it, because Beyonce is taking the same path with acting as Aaliyah was planning, and had already begun with Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned. The Matrix sequels would have been next for her, in the role that Nona Gaye played. And then she wanted the remake of Sparkle, and Some Kind of Blue, with her playing a woman dating a white jazz musician in a time when that was extremely taboo.
I appreciated that people like Squire gave time to talk about these actors. To talk movies with them was most welcome to me because as a writer, you do spend a lot of time alone, in front of a computer screen, trying to figure out how to make your writing work. To talk to others is always welcome, especially in the thick of a writing project.
After I finished writing and editing my share of the book, and sent what I had to Phil to be put together with his essays, I decided I was done with movie reviews. I would be much happier as a former film critic. I wanted to love movies again. I wanted to only know what was coming out by way of the commercials on TV and the trailers I saw online. I didn't want to request DVDs from publicists anymore, I didn't want to receive press release after press release; I just wanted movies to be one part of my life, not the dominant part anymore.
I don't miss movie reviews. I don't miss the wind-tunnel hype machine of awards season. I don't miss the sniping that went on during Governing Committee election campaigns within the OFCS. I don't miss my encounters with publicists after screenings when I wrote for the Teentime section. They were nice enough people, but you could never be sure if it was truly them or just their PR personality.
However, all these years taught me to write regularly and the book taught me how to do research, what was available to me, and it was the first time I wrote anything over 1,500 words. My reviews, save for Screen It, never went above that, and here I was, writing 8 pages about James Dean. It's difficult to do, but if you've got enough research material, it's bearable.
Without all that, I wouldn't be here as I am right now. Without Phil, I would not be so eager to begin writing books. And now I'm facing choices over what I want my second book to be about. I don't have a publisher this time. I'm going to have to become a salesman in addition to being an author. But now I have some of the confidence necessary to pitch myself because of those years of writing movie reviews, because of What If They Lived?. The rest of the confidence will come once I have a book I want to present to the world.
Here I go.
I was 7 years old when, for some inexplicable reason, I copied onto a sheet of white posterboard by hand a review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids from the Orlando Sentinel. It was 1992.
It was 1999 when I began actually writing movie reviews, for the Teentime pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's weekend Showtime section. I was nearing the end of 8th grade, and I had found a call for writers in those pages. I wrote two test reviews for the editor, Oline Cogdill (One review was of Analyze This, which I had seen at a sneak preview), and was deemed good enough to write regularly for the section. During my three years, I won, at the high school journalism awards that the Sun-Sentinel held every year at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, 2000 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, 2001 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, and 2002 Teentime Reviewer of the Year. I still think that those awards were for sheer quantity, because I wrote a lot, and there were weeks when I didn't think my reviews were any good. Sure I wrote them, but I didn't feel so vested in them. Step one: Pour out opinion of movie into Word file. Step two: Send review to Oline. Step three: Repeat steps one and two.
No matter those occasional dry, dull weeks, I appreciate the experience because it taught me to write regularly. It gave me a routine about it. It began the process that led to where I am today, undaunted in the face of potentially massive writing projects. Don't mistake that for arrogance. I'm comfortable with the tasks, but it still entails a hell of a lot of work.
In 2002, my time with Teentime had ended because I had graduated high school. And one day, in February 2003, while attending classes at Broward Community College on the smallest campus they had (Which was diagonal from the Southwest Regional library in Pembroke Pines, part of the Broward County library system), I was in the computer lab at the Southwest Regional library and had come upon a website called Film Threat, which was looking for writers. I e-mailed the editor, Eric Campos, asked what was needed, and I sent along many sample reviews, silently praying that they would be good enough as I sent each one. And they were. And until 2009, I wrote countless reviews for the site.
In 2004, I applied for membership to the Online Film Critics Society, which Phil Hall, a fellow writer, had suggested. He was also a member of the Governing Committee of the OFCS. I was rejected because, as Phil had said, my reviews contained too much plot summary and not enough opinion. I made necessary adjustments to my reviews, and I was accepted the next year.
Then, in 2006, I decided to run for a slot on the Governing Committee and was elected. Phil was with me, and it was nice to be at the top. And I had also been impressed that at the end of the year, when Hollywood was pushing so many movies for Oscar consideration, we got screeners too since we had our own awards. Sometimes, movies that I wanted to see arrived this way. And then the entire membership sent ballots of what should be nominated, and a few weeks later, we voted on what should win our awards. In 2006 and 2007, I loved it. In 2008 and 2009, I was tired of it and it was partly why I was glad to eventually leave the OFCS.
It began to feel like a hamster wheel. The screeners were wonderful to have, but it felt like there was an obligation to watch these movies, to see if there were any performances, cinematography, editing, etc. that was remarkable enough to garner a nomination, and then the voting, and that was it for the year. Then it began at the same time the next year. I didn't mind the requirement that you had to have written at least 50 reviews for the year in order to retain membership. It was just this aspect that I slowly began to loathe.
At the same time I became a member of the Governing Committee, Jim Judy, the owner of Screen It (http://www.screenit.com/) posted a message on the private OFCS board looking for writers for his site. It was vastly different from other movie review sites, being that these reviews were geared toward giving parents the most information possible about a movie. Everything from alcohol and drugs to sex to violence and profanity was documented in each review.
I e-mailed Jim, very interested, because unlike Film Threat, Screen It paid per review. Jim e-mailed me back, assigning me two test reviews, one for Bad Boys II and another for Something's Gotta Give. Both were easy to get since I had a 3-DVDs-at-a-time account with Netflix at the time.
Bad Boys II, with the violence, explosions, and profanity was a nightmare. I quickly learned what was involved in documenting an "R"-rated movie and had worked so diligently on all of that, and it took so many hours, that I'd forgotten that a regular movie review had to be written in the "Our Take" section. By the time I was done inserting everything I had written down into the template Jim had provided, I didn't even want to think about what I had thought about the movie.
Jim e-mailed both files with corrections, pointing out what needed to be expanded in my descriptions, what wasn't necessary, and hired me. He wanted reviewers for pre-1996 movies (Screen It began in 1996), so it was a godsend for me since I didn't have to go out to the movie theater and try to get everything down without a pause button. I reviewed Ghostbusters, The Godfather, and Beverly Hills Cop, among others. Some reviews took a week because I was so thorough. Mom thought I was being too thorough, but I felt this obligation to get it all exact, no matter how many hours it took.
In early 2009, my final review for Screen It was Goodfellas, and I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to write other things. Not only was it not possible for me to be a full-time film critic for a newspaper or a magazine, as I once thought I might be, I didn't want to be that anymore, and I also didn't enjoy movies anymore. I wasn't as enthusiastic about them as I was as a writer for Teentime.
It was in the same year that Phil and I lost re-election to the Governing Committee. After the results were known, he asked me if I wanted to join him in co-writing a book called What If They Lived?, about what actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and John Belushi might have done in their careers had they not died. It was the second book in his two-book contract with BearManor Media, which specializes in Hollywood history and other books about movies and television and radio. It was going to be published.
I didn't want to do it. It felt like too much work. So many books to read, notes to take, and I also had to find other sources, such as newspaper articles, and people to interview, to speculate about what these actors might have done.
Mom told me I had to do it. I would not get this opportunity again. This book was being handed to me. It was a gift other writers would kill for. I understood, and I told Phil I would join him.
Some of the research was very tedious. I especially remember the evening of July 4th in 2009, sitting at the dining room table while fireworks were shown on CBS, reading a 600-page biography about Judy Garland. Fortunately, I had been reading since I was 2, so I was a pro at speed reading, but having to take notes while reading slowed things down considerably, particularly because the first half of each essay was a straight-out biography about each actor, and I had to choose what I wanted to include about Garland.
The fun part was contacting people to interview about these actors. There was a publicist named Gilda N. Squire who had worked with Aaliyah, who graciously speculated about what her career might have been, believing that she would have become what Beyonce is. Considering what I had read, I believe it, because Beyonce is taking the same path with acting as Aaliyah was planning, and had already begun with Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned. The Matrix sequels would have been next for her, in the role that Nona Gaye played. And then she wanted the remake of Sparkle, and Some Kind of Blue, with her playing a woman dating a white jazz musician in a time when that was extremely taboo.
I appreciated that people like Squire gave time to talk about these actors. To talk movies with them was most welcome to me because as a writer, you do spend a lot of time alone, in front of a computer screen, trying to figure out how to make your writing work. To talk to others is always welcome, especially in the thick of a writing project.
After I finished writing and editing my share of the book, and sent what I had to Phil to be put together with his essays, I decided I was done with movie reviews. I would be much happier as a former film critic. I wanted to love movies again. I wanted to only know what was coming out by way of the commercials on TV and the trailers I saw online. I didn't want to request DVDs from publicists anymore, I didn't want to receive press release after press release; I just wanted movies to be one part of my life, not the dominant part anymore.
I don't miss movie reviews. I don't miss the wind-tunnel hype machine of awards season. I don't miss the sniping that went on during Governing Committee election campaigns within the OFCS. I don't miss my encounters with publicists after screenings when I wrote for the Teentime section. They were nice enough people, but you could never be sure if it was truly them or just their PR personality.
However, all these years taught me to write regularly and the book taught me how to do research, what was available to me, and it was the first time I wrote anything over 1,500 words. My reviews, save for Screen It, never went above that, and here I was, writing 8 pages about James Dean. It's difficult to do, but if you've got enough research material, it's bearable.
Without all that, I wouldn't be here as I am right now. Without Phil, I would not be so eager to begin writing books. And now I'm facing choices over what I want my second book to be about. I don't have a publisher this time. I'm going to have to become a salesman in addition to being an author. But now I have some of the confidence necessary to pitch myself because of those years of writing movie reviews, because of What If They Lived?. The rest of the confidence will come once I have a book I want to present to the world.
Here I go.
Feeling Like It Can Be Done
I don't know how many books I'm going to pore through this time for either that 1930s Hollywood history writing project or one of my presidential writing projects. I don't know how many newspapers I'm going to root through online, nor what libraries I'll need to get in touch with for records I seek, or, if it is one of those presidential writing projects, presidential libraries too.
I do know that I'm ready. I want to do this. It's going to be a lot of fun, whichever one it will be. But I have to get to work on it. After What If They Lived? was published, I vowed to be published again by the time I turned 30. I'm 27, and I'm going to be 28 in March. Two years left by then, so I still have some cushioning in these final months of 2011.
I finished reading The Men Who Would Be King early this evening, and instead of beginning The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The switch from nonfiction to fiction and back and forth), I began The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, documenting the first year of the Clinton administration's economic policy. I have three tall stacks of presidential books in the living room, and this one has been prodding me over the past week, even though I've had it since December 2009 (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2009/12/spontaneous-evening.html). Every book in time, I guess. As with The Men Who Would Be King, I'm reading this one to see what my enthusiasm is for those presidential writing projects. Is it higher than the Hollywood project? Or should I set it aside until I'm done with that one?
I love all these ideas, but I still have to pick one because it's the only way anything's going to be written. I don't think I could work on simultaneous projects. One book and then another. I'm not Danielle Steel.
I do know that I'm ready. I want to do this. It's going to be a lot of fun, whichever one it will be. But I have to get to work on it. After What If They Lived? was published, I vowed to be published again by the time I turned 30. I'm 27, and I'm going to be 28 in March. Two years left by then, so I still have some cushioning in these final months of 2011.
I finished reading The Men Who Would Be King early this evening, and instead of beginning The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The switch from nonfiction to fiction and back and forth), I began The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, documenting the first year of the Clinton administration's economic policy. I have three tall stacks of presidential books in the living room, and this one has been prodding me over the past week, even though I've had it since December 2009 (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2009/12/spontaneous-evening.html). Every book in time, I guess. As with The Men Who Would Be King, I'm reading this one to see what my enthusiasm is for those presidential writing projects. Is it higher than the Hollywood project? Or should I set it aside until I'm done with that one?
I love all these ideas, but I still have to pick one because it's the only way anything's going to be written. I don't think I could work on simultaneous projects. One book and then another. I'm not Danielle Steel.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
All It Takes is One Great Book
I have admitted before to being a lazy writer, and I stand by that. But give me one great book to inspire me, and I rush into action (as much action as a writer can be counted on for), considering so many ways that I could write a book.
I've found that great book. It's The Men Who Would Be King by master Hollywood journalist Nicole LaPorte, who documents the formation and dissolution of DreamWorks SKG, which was started by Steven Spielberg (S), Jeffrey Katzenberg (K), and David Geffen (G), all big Hollywood power players in one way or another, Spielberg most obvious.
The people interviewed for this book embrace the cloak of invisiblity, preferring to talk to LaPorte where they couldn't be seen by other Hollywood denizens and possibly ratted out to Katzenberg or Geffen. Piss off one of them, and your career is over even before you got to where you hoped you would be one day. Hollywood is a tight-knit town with sharp teeth.
LaPorte's writing is brilliant, bringing you right into the plans for DreamWorks, the press conferences held by SKG that touted how different DreamWorks would be from the Hollywood norm, how they fancied themselves the next generation from United Artists, which was begun by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. Just as United Artists existed for the artists in Hollywood, so too would DreamWorks.
But the dream came with many costs, and flops from the start, before becoming a possible shining star with the releases of Saving Private Ryan and American Beauty. The acrimonous relationships written about here are utterly fascinating, but it's not LaPorte's expose style that inspires me; it's her level of detail, how she's so thoroughly researched her subject, interviewed what must have been hundreds of people at least, and gotten every single detail she sought that there is no way another book could match. There's no way another book could be written, because I don't think any other writer would have the guts that LaPorte has. This is immediately another classic Hollywood book.
I'm only on page 200, but I've been reading it with my jaw partway to the floor. I want to write my 1930s Hollywood history book like this, with as much detail as I can find to keep it interesting. I have a partial idea of where I might like to go with it, and I intend to see if it's workable based on the records I hope to find after preliminary research with a few of the books I got about the studio system back then. But reading LaPorte's book, I feel like I can do this. The research is going to be a lot of fun, and I can feel the laziness lifting.
I've found that great book. It's The Men Who Would Be King by master Hollywood journalist Nicole LaPorte, who documents the formation and dissolution of DreamWorks SKG, which was started by Steven Spielberg (S), Jeffrey Katzenberg (K), and David Geffen (G), all big Hollywood power players in one way or another, Spielberg most obvious.
The people interviewed for this book embrace the cloak of invisiblity, preferring to talk to LaPorte where they couldn't be seen by other Hollywood denizens and possibly ratted out to Katzenberg or Geffen. Piss off one of them, and your career is over even before you got to where you hoped you would be one day. Hollywood is a tight-knit town with sharp teeth.
LaPorte's writing is brilliant, bringing you right into the plans for DreamWorks, the press conferences held by SKG that touted how different DreamWorks would be from the Hollywood norm, how they fancied themselves the next generation from United Artists, which was begun by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. Just as United Artists existed for the artists in Hollywood, so too would DreamWorks.
But the dream came with many costs, and flops from the start, before becoming a possible shining star with the releases of Saving Private Ryan and American Beauty. The acrimonous relationships written about here are utterly fascinating, but it's not LaPorte's expose style that inspires me; it's her level of detail, how she's so thoroughly researched her subject, interviewed what must have been hundreds of people at least, and gotten every single detail she sought that there is no way another book could match. There's no way another book could be written, because I don't think any other writer would have the guts that LaPorte has. This is immediately another classic Hollywood book.
I'm only on page 200, but I've been reading it with my jaw partway to the floor. I want to write my 1930s Hollywood history book like this, with as much detail as I can find to keep it interesting. I have a partial idea of where I might like to go with it, and I intend to see if it's workable based on the records I hope to find after preliminary research with a few of the books I got about the studio system back then. But reading LaPorte's book, I feel like I can do this. The research is going to be a lot of fun, and I can feel the laziness lifting.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Continuing Quindlen
Reading about Justice Harry Blackmun's overall impact on Roe v. Wade in Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse, a sentence in the first paragraph of Chapter 9, "Improbable Icon", struck me with a reminder:
"On Harry Blackmun's improbably journey, becoming a feminist icon was perhaps the most improbable destination of all."
Once again, reading one book led me to think about another author, being that Anna Quindlen, in her collection of columns entitled Thinking Out Loud, had written a touching tribute to Blackmun upon his retirement from the Supreme Court. Quindlen, a feminist, thanked Blackmun for all that he had done for women with that one opinion. And just then, I thought about how Quindlen matched the kind of writer I like to be, with it being ok to have a big heart, following your convictions with firm certainity while agreeably learning about all that's going on around you, open to other opinions.
After I finished reading Thinking Out Loud a week ago, I went to Amazon and spotted an interesting-looking cover for Quindlen's novel, Every Last One, two red flowers next to a framed photo of what looks like a woman in a willowy white slip. I read only the first page of the provided sample, and went to abebooks.com and ordered it. I didn't need to know what it's about. I wanted to see what Quindlen is like as a novelist.
I'm still waiting for Every Last One to arrive, and I may also partake of Quindlen's other novels, but now I also want to read Living Out Loud and Loud and Clear, two other collections of Quindlen's columns. And though I read How Reading Changed My Life in January of last year, I feel like I read it without really knowing who Quindlen was. I want to try again.
Before starting Thinking Out Loud, I read all of Celia Rivenbark's books from the end of September (Bless Your Heart, Tramp and We're Just Like You, Only Prettier), through four days toward the middle of this month (Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank, Belle Weather, You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning, and You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl). I liked her very funny observations, but thinking about those books, I don't remember an overall great deal of them beyond the life which I also lived in part as a resident of South and then Central and then South Florida again.
But I feel a kinship with Quindlen, observing everyday life, always wondering, always appreciative of the days given to live, with a big heart to match. I want to see what else she offers in her other columns, and now's the time.
"On Harry Blackmun's improbably journey, becoming a feminist icon was perhaps the most improbable destination of all."
Once again, reading one book led me to think about another author, being that Anna Quindlen, in her collection of columns entitled Thinking Out Loud, had written a touching tribute to Blackmun upon his retirement from the Supreme Court. Quindlen, a feminist, thanked Blackmun for all that he had done for women with that one opinion. And just then, I thought about how Quindlen matched the kind of writer I like to be, with it being ok to have a big heart, following your convictions with firm certainity while agreeably learning about all that's going on around you, open to other opinions.
After I finished reading Thinking Out Loud a week ago, I went to Amazon and spotted an interesting-looking cover for Quindlen's novel, Every Last One, two red flowers next to a framed photo of what looks like a woman in a willowy white slip. I read only the first page of the provided sample, and went to abebooks.com and ordered it. I didn't need to know what it's about. I wanted to see what Quindlen is like as a novelist.
I'm still waiting for Every Last One to arrive, and I may also partake of Quindlen's other novels, but now I also want to read Living Out Loud and Loud and Clear, two other collections of Quindlen's columns. And though I read How Reading Changed My Life in January of last year, I feel like I read it without really knowing who Quindlen was. I want to try again.
Before starting Thinking Out Loud, I read all of Celia Rivenbark's books from the end of September (Bless Your Heart, Tramp and We're Just Like You, Only Prettier), through four days toward the middle of this month (Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank, Belle Weather, You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning, and You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl). I liked her very funny observations, but thinking about those books, I don't remember an overall great deal of them beyond the life which I also lived in part as a resident of South and then Central and then South Florida again.
But I feel a kinship with Quindlen, observing everyday life, always wondering, always appreciative of the days given to live, with a big heart to match. I want to see what else she offers in her other columns, and now's the time.
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