Pearls My Mother Wore

Back on June 10th, I mentioned that I’d gone to a senior living community (Atria Covell Gardens) to talk about writing Pearls My Mother Wore.  It was my hope that the book club there would then consider it for their book of the month, which they did.  Last Sunday was the book club’s meeting where they discussed my novel, and I was invited to attend, which I did.

Here’s a picture of Lucille.  At 94, she’s the oldest reader of Pearls, that I know of.

Lucille at Atria Covell Gardens, age 94

The book club gathering was an interesting first for me.  I wasn’t sure how much I should participate, having no idea how robust or lax their discussions tended to be.  I went in with the intention to mostly observe.

Andrea, the group leader, was a few minutes late in arriving, so there was no formal introduction or start.  Only three of the nine attendees had been at my initial book talk, so the new women were eager to get some background information and they launched right into asking me questions.  I abandoned the passive observer plan and jumped in.  Their questions were good and showed me that they had really read the novel and connected with the characters.  One women wanted to know why I hadn’t given Grayson, Kelly’s husband, more of a presence in the story.  I explained to the group that the novel had originally been titled Grayson, but while I was writing it, another book came out with that exact title, about a whale!  Initially, he had factored in more prominently, but as I wrote, I realized that I didn’t want the story to be about their love but more about her deep loneliness, isolation, and sense of loss.  I enjoyed telling them about how the story had evolved, and by the smiles and nods coming back at me, they enjoyed hearing about some of the various developments that had occurred along the way.

When Andrea arrived, we shifted gears for a few minutes  Attendance was taken and announcements were made.  Then attention was back on the novel and me.  Back and forth observations were made, and it was a thrill to have my character’s motives and behaviors defended amongst the group.  Given the demographic, I suppose it’s no surprise that one women said she almost stopped reading because of the foul language.  I didn’t want to come off as too defensive, although in my mind I was defending every single word choice.  I smiled at her and acknowledged, “Yes, it’s in there.”  And then I thought it was a score because she almost put it down…but she didn’t.  She read to the end and then showed for the meeting.

The lasting stinger came from the tiniest women in the room.  She thought my novel read like a high school creative writing project, and that I had been given a theme and told to write on it.  Ouch.  There was noticeable rumblings amongst the others, and at that the women qualified that her reading preference was for history and politics, not fiction.  So we moved on.

Some members of ABC - Atria Book Club

I’ve had a week of self-talk about the event.  I’m reminding myself over and over again that writing fiction is a highly subjective sport.  Some will like what I write and some won’t.  It’s part of the game.  If I can’t handle the criticisms and quit playing, then I sacrifice the praise, which I love.  My choice.

Until next time, have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.

Cadel Evens wins the 2011 Tour de France

For the last three weeks, I’ve been enjoying the Tour de France.  Cadel Evens from Australia won this year, and that makes me happy.  Evans began his cycling career as a mountain biker, which is the kind of cycling I do, so I like it that he started there.  He switched to road cycling over ten years ago.  As a pro road cyclist for so many years, he has earned my respect because he’s stayed at it, despite numerous crashes and setbacks.  I admire his determination and perseverance.

Last Sunday, I celebrated my 51st birthday.  It was a lovely day filled with lots of my favorite things to do.  We went out to breakfast, then headed to our local state park for a two hour mountain bike ride,  back home we watched the joyous conclusion of the Tour de France and even got in some Formula One from Germany.  After dinner was ice-cream and princess cake, my favorite!

Annadel State Park 7-24-2011

This is me on my trusty Votec Bike.  Not too bad for 51!

Have a great week everybody, and I’ll post a little something again next Friday.

Here we are again at another Friday.  The week has been quiet, with just a couple of interesting writing related blips.  One, I received a check for $219 from Readers’ Books for my commission on sales of Pearls My Mother Wore.  It may be tacky to share such info, but enough friends are curious about the money end of self-publishing, and that’s where it’s at.  Pearls has been on their shelves for over a year.  The math is not impressive.  What excites me is that my novel sold at all, and that the folks who bought it have come back and said how much they enjoyed it.  That’s golden.

Another writing point of interest, more probably to me than anyone else, is that I responded to a topic posed in The Sun magazine.  The section of the magazine is called “Readers Write.”  They throw out a topic that’s broad enough to encourage writers to tell their personal experience, and if what you wrote gets printed, then you get a free one-year subscription…and your words in print.  The topic I wrote on was “Warning Signs.”  I’ll know by Aug. 2nd if my 300 word essay will be used, and then I’ll tell you about it here.

For several weeks now, I’ve been mulling over a short story that I’d like to try and write.  I’ve started it this week, but it’s going slow.   How I wish that they would spring forth fully formed, but that is not the way. This is the first creative fiction writing project that I’ve done in over a year and a half.  As much as I’ve enjoyed writing this weekly blog, it has been the place where I have put all of my writing energy, and it’s time for me to change that.  If I’m ever going to write another novel, I need to get back into the creative writing grove.  I’m not a speed reader, and I’m not a speed writer; therefore, I’m struggling to find time to get it all done.  I’m not abandoning this little blog, but I will be shortening the subsequent post to the bare minimum.  Unless, of course, I have some kind of big news.

Before sidling up to my short story, I enjoyed the mind numbing task of organizing and sorting out all of my Word Docs into their own folders.  It took hours, and I was able to discard several megabits of duplicate and unwanted material.  When I was done, I felt that I had accomplished something significant.  I had that satisfied clean-house feeling, but honestly, it was mostly a procrastination tactic.  It’s amazing how clean the house gets when I’m avoiding something.

While sorting, I finally put all of the writing I did in another blog format into one folder.  That blog writing group was called, “A Writer is Someone Who Writes.”  I’m still friends with several of the folks from that group, who live all around the country, but alas, we drifted and our little on-line community disbanded.

Here is a flash fiction piece I wrote from a prompt thrown out in “A Writer is Someone Who Writes:”

Compelled

The doorway didn’t appear until after I had reached the end of a long, whitewashed, adobe corridor and was forced to turn right.  The grey-stone pavers were cool and rang out with my every footfall.  I slowed at the right-angle bend in the passageway to peer around the corner.  Straight ahead, molded into the thick clay walls, was a stout, ornately carved, closed door.  It couldn’t have been more than five feet high for I was taller than that opening.  I waited and examined the aged wood with its intricate carvings that seemed to expand and multiply with every passing minute.  Depicted were all varieties of plants and animal – birds in flight, swirling fish, sleeping cougars, butterflies and caterpillars, trumpet-vines, swaying cypress, lilies and cat-tails; there were snakes and beetles, monkeys and alligators, kangaroos and cockatoos.  The longer I looked the more I saw.  I was captivated by its beauty and wanted to gaze upon the wonders indefinitely, but yet, something compelled me forward.

To open the door required all of my strength.  I had to push down with all my might on its ancient, spring-loaded, cast-iron lever.  It refused to give way.  My palm blistered and stung from the urgent pressure I exerted.  I held my breath and bared-down with one final immense effort, and it released, sprang wide open, into heaven.

Frightened, I turned and ran the other way.

Have a great week, and I’ll post a little something again next Friday.

Presenting at SF Book Passage 7-11-11

Life is good when I see all the generosity around me.  I don’t mean monetarily, I mean in gesture and in deed.  You’d think it was November, the Thanksgiving month, I’m so full of gratitude for the wonderful people in my life.

I’m still reading my collection of writing craft books.  Today I came upon some of the best words of advice I have ever read.  Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing, on page 47 said, “Who are your friends?  Do they believe in you?  Or do they stunt your growth with ridicule and disbelief?  If the latter, you haven’t friends.  Go find some.”  Hallelujah!

On Monday, Book Passage hosted an event for my writing friend Tami Casias and I.  That book store deserves a lot of credit for encouraging and supporting my writing efforts.  They were there at the beginning when I took their “Is There A Book In You” class.  Book Passage does all it can to promote writers and writing.  From beginners to best sellers, all are welcome.  It’s amazing to be part of such an active, supportive and giving community.

Bonnie never fails to deliver a smile. It was great having her at BP.

Speaking of all are welcome, last Saturday night was the monthly Readers’ Books event called “Random Acts,” where $5 gets you a seat in the audience and, if you’d like, an opportunity to perform for five minutes.  The participants share their talents, and the audience shares their appreciation.  I was thrilled to see my artist friend, Jonqui Albin, among the observers.  She’s a multifaceted artist who works in several different mediums, often in larger-than-life scale.  Her website,  http://www.jonqui.com/art/index.html, absolutely is worth a visit.  She teaches, models, and performs when she not sculpting with wire or painting.

Jonqui Albin, artist extraordinaire

Andy and Lilla Weinberger own Readers’ Books.  Their outrageously talented, sword swallowing son, Tobias, belongs to a theatrical and musical group like you’ve never seen, The Yard Dogs Roadshow.  If you don’t know about this itinerant, madcap band of vaudevillian dazzlers of the stage, then please let me introduce you.  If you’ve ever felt weird or out of place, these performers will become your new heroes.  Nothing says celebrate your own uniqueness and creativity like the YDRS.  If you Google Yard Dogs Road Show, Wikipedia has an interesting entry about their history.  Currently, they’re endeavoring to create a Yard Dogs Road Show documentary.  This one is guaranteed to be an award winner.  Of course, they’re fundraising for the project, but I like their approach.  They have a cash goal, but the donors won’t be charged until they’ve met the goal.  If the project can’t get funded enough to complete it, then it won’t get started.  Their goal date is Friday, August 5th, so if you’d like to support brilliant, uninhibited art, I encourage you to go to http://www.yarddogsroadshow.com/, and join the circus.

Yard Dogs Road Shop - Photographer: Hilary Hulteen

Have a great week, and I will post again next Friday.

One of the wonderful aspects of public speaking is that I give myself permission to purchase something new to wear.  This coming Monday I will be speaking at Book Passage in San Francisco.  Book Passage is a world class bookstore in a world class city.  I’m not scared; I really enjoy talking about my writing journey; however, It helps to feel prepared, which includes dressing appropriately.  My friend Nellie Cravens, who produces our local non-profit little theater – Silver Moon Theater: www.http://silvermoontheatre.org/ – tells me that her actors often can’t fully develop their characters until they’ve put on the costume.  I think that’s true for me as well.  When all eyes are on me, I like knowing that I look the part.

Yesterday, I had a delightful day in Benicia, CA.  The weather was perfect, warm and clear with a refreshing breeze coming off the Carquinez Strait, a  waterway that feeds the Sacramento river into the San Francisco bay.  Benicia is a sweet, historic town about 45 minutes from Sonoma.  For a brief period of time in 1853 it had been the state capitol.  First Street is were almost all the action is, to the extent that there is action.  What they have done  right on First St. is that they have kept chain stores out; each business is independently owned and operated, and that gives the area charm and soul that just can’t be found in shopping malls and corporate box stores.

My friend Jane and I strolled through some of the charming bungalow neighborhoods that Benica is known for.  We stopped in at a couple of very fashionable clothing stores and poked around in a couple of antique dealerships.  We had a very tasty lunch at The First Street Cafe, although our intention had been to go to The Camilla Tea Room.  The Camilla Tea room was closed; it was the one week of the year that they close for a holiday.

While Jane and I were together we talked about all kinds of stuff, especially interesting when the stuff was about me < ; 0 )  Monday’s Book Passage event came up, and I had the chance to discuss something that has had me feeling a little out of sorts — the difference between my public performance self, and my private writer self.  Until my friend had allowed me to air my thoughts, and she probed with some great questions, all I knew was that something was off.  She really helped me see that these two aspects of myself are essential, yet very different.  Being the entertainer is exhilarating, but I’m only “on stage” for a brief period of time, not nearly enough for the entertainer.  Now my writer self finds all of that public performance piece to be a terrible nuisance; it gets in the way of writing time, time for deep, quiet contemplation.  My job is to satisfy both of these opposing inclinations.

What really clarified all of this for me was when Jane and I were back outside walking around.  We passed by a public swim center.  A mother and her two young sons were just walking out the door, buoyant and smiling after an afternoon in the pool.  The bigger boy bolted toward the car and jumped into, apparently, the preferred seat.  The littler one was instantly distraught and wailing; bitterness, frustration, and anger were undeniable with every full tear that sprang from his eyes.  Before too much distance separated us, I could hear the mother’s exasperated tone as she tried to console the little one, “We’re only going to be in the car for a few minutes.”  My writer self ached for the little one, while my performer self rejoiced for the boy who “got there first.”

I didn’t want to leave Benica before showing Jane the famous hand-blown glass studio and retail store called Nourot.  Jane has only recently moved to Sonoma from Tennessee, so Benica was all knew to her.  Nourot is not on First Street, so I thought we were just going to do a drive by to show her where it was located.  I though perhaps it was too much to ask her to go into still another shop, but she had no such thought, so we went in.

Now back to San Francisco and Book Passage.  I will be sharing the evening with my Sonoma  friend and fellow Left Coast Writer, Tami Casias.  Tami has written a young adult novel titled Crystal Bound, and it’s about a girl who inherits metaphysical powers on her sixteenth birthday, but she can only use them to do good.  Since my novel is titled Pearls My Mother Wore, we’re calling our event “Crystals and Pearls at Book Passage.”  Everyone is encouraged to wear as many crystals and pearls as they’d like.  So when I was at Nourot in Benica and found the pearls, crystals, and hand-made Murano glass-bead necklace and earrings show in the two top pictures, I just had to buy them.  My costume!  And you know what made the purchase even more significant?  On the wall at Nourot were autographed pictures of celebrities who buy from them.  One of the pictures was of a personal hero of mine, Tina Turner; they ship to her in the south of France.  Now there’s a performer!  And, I understand, she’s a practicing Buddhist.  She, by all appearances, has managed to integrate her wildly public self and her quiet meditative self, so I’m going to keep her in mind on Monday when I’m at the front of the room at Book Passage, and I’m going to hope that I can rock the house.

Have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.

BTW, http://www.marcopolodesigns.com/ will take you to the website for Marco Polo Designs, the makers of my exquisitely gorgeous necklace and earrings.

July 1, 2011!  OMG.  Really?  Already?  For this year of perpetual winter, it rained an unheard of inch last week, I think we should be allowed to turn back the calendar at least one month, like turning back the clocks, except with months instead of the one hour.  In my little summer back-winter forward adjustment, I suggest we reboot the year on December 1^st to January 1^st.  That would be perfect; I’d get an extra month of summer, still hang on to Halloween and Thanksgiving, and we’d completely skip over those dreaded days of Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and New Years Eve.  Hey, this could work!

No matter how many summers I’ve experienced as an adult, the season just isn’t right since it doesn’t include a couple of months of summer vacation.  Thongs, shorts, bikini top, and a baby-oiled brown tan are not a part of my summer this year; however, I have gotten out of the house to play.

Vox Populi I had a rockin’ night with friends at the Sebastiani Theater when Vox Populi sang a bunch of Paul Simon songs, as well as songs by several other rock and roll greats, music I grew up with.  Vox Populi is Latin and means “voice of the people.”  They’re an amateur singing club of more than sixty men and women who put on a concert once a year.  Because the singers are all local, I knew many of them on stage, which added to the toe-tappin,’ head-boppin,’ shoulders-swayin’ good time.

Vox Populi singers

Wicked Plants A trip to The Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park included seeing an exhibit of “botanical rogues & assassins.”  I hadn’t been to The Conservatory in many years.  Its permanent greenhouse collection is outstanding, but add to it the theatrical installation of a dilapidated Victorian house draped in sickening and deadly weeds, and it was unforgettable.  Did you know that raw cashews sold at health food stores are not actually raw?  Their shells are so poisonous that contact with them can be fatal; they must be steamed off before the seed (they’re not nuts I learned) can be handled.

Wicked Plants on exhibit until October 30th

Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton Nothing says summer like a county fair, and this one is the best.  It runs until July 10^th.  Some of my favorite exhibits include the gardens, the bunnies and birds, the antique farm equipment, the model trains, and the 4-H livestock.  The art pavilion is worth strolling through, and so is the hall of terrariums filled with insects and reptiles— if you’re into some creep factor.  There are two huge exhibit halls that house hundreds of miracle products and their carnie sales folk.  Step right up ladies and gentlemen.  Behold…the mop-o-matic, the five-in-one knife, the blender-ific, the mans-best-friend bed, the stains-be-gone wonder solution, the revolutionary new shoe insert sensation, and much more.  This year I didn’t visit the rides and games midway, although there was a time when that was the main attraction.  I’d come home with bags of assorted water glasses and ashtrays that I’d successfully tossed dimes into, stuffed animals, and colorful spin art.  I might even end up with a goldfish or two.  My afternoon wouldn’t have been complete without fair food.  It’s only once a year, so I indulge in whatever strikes my fancy.  There’s sausage on a stick, one-pound, candy encrusted apples, salt-water taffy, funnel cakes, BBQ turkey legs, burgers, hot dogs and fries, Mexican and Chinese, Greek gyros, snow cones and cotton candy; it’s all there.

The Epic Ride Lutrell and I road our mountain bikes from Hwy 1 up and over the coastal mountain range to the Pacific via the Five Brooks fire road.  On the ocean side, it’s really steep, which is a blast going down, but coming up from the beach, it’s a sweaty first gear spin for about fifty minutes.  The grind is so worth it though—cool ocean air, lush forest, drifts of wild flowers, and the trees are filled with chirping loons, jays, sparrows, blackbirds, crows, wrens, and towhees.  We are so lucky.

Five Brooks trail to Wild Camp

Tour de France Speaking of epic rides, the epic ride of all epic rides begins tomorrow.  Over two hundred pro-cyclists will spend the next three weeks competing to win the world’s most famous bike race.  They’ll cover over 2100 miles on roads that pass through stunningly picturesque regions of France including several high mountain stages in the French Alps.  Some of the super stars to watch include our local Santa Rosa, CA hero, Levi Leipheimer and the Radio Shack team, last years winner, Alberto Contador, Fabian Cancellar (a.k.a. Sparticus) and the Schleck brothers (Andy and Frank) and their whole Leopard Trek team, Mark Cavendish hopefully will pull off some thrilling sprint finishes, and George Hincapie and Cadel Evans are two sentimental favorites; they’ve been in the sport a long time and are true warriors for the cause.  This event will not disappoint.  Set the Tivo.

Short Stories I’m still reading lots of short stories, but I’ve also started listening to them on The New Yorker’s fiction podcasts.  Try clicking on or copying this web address into your browser to get to the site:   http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction.  The stories have all been fabulous, but The Swimmer, by John Cheever (see “Voices Over Water,” Anne Enright reads) took the prize.  I loved it.  The pacing, developments, characters, and atmospheric shifts were brilliant.  It’s about 45 minutes of listening, but you wont be sorry you took the time.

7/11/2011 Mark your calendar for Monday July 11^th at 6:00.  My Sonoma friend, fellow Left Coast Writer, and fellow self-published author, Tami Casias, and I will be presenting at Book Passage in their San Francisco Embarcadero Ferry Plaza store!  Were calling it “Crystals and Pearls at Book Passage.”  Tami’s young adult novel is titled Crystal Bound, and mine, of course, is Pearls My Mother Wore.  We think it’s going to be a great summer evening event.  Come early to the Ferry Building to do a little shopping and sight seeing.  Plan for dinner.  You can’t go wrong at The Slanted Door for divine Vietnamese food, or Gott’s Roadside for delicious burgers, fries and diner faire.  Not far from the waterfront is another great place.  If you already know about Kokkari on Jackson then I don’t need to say more.  If you haven’t heard of them or been, let me just say “kali orexi,” which means “bon appetit” in Greek.  It’s Greek food like you’ve never tasted before (unless you’ve been fortunate enough to spend time in Greece.)  They’re open on Mondays from 5:30-10:00.

Well, I guess this is enough summer fun for one day.  Have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.

When the going gets tough, the tough… go to the nearest bookstore and buy books about writing.  That’s what I did a couple of weeks ago, and I bought five gems.  I haven’t read them all yet, but of what I have read, I’ve received much.

How To Write a Short Story from Sparknotes, written by John Vorwald and Ethan Wolff, hit exactly the how-to note that I could hear.  I didn’t get any sense of being talked down to.  The advice they give is all backed up with good examples of what works, and then what works better, how it worked and why.  Just flipping through right now, I came to this: “Show, Don’t Tell.”  Writers hear that all the time, and I get it, but in the Sparknotes book they illustrated the difference: Example one, “Claudia was a very jealous woman.”  Example two, “As soon as Paul was asleep, Claudia emptied his backpack, flipped through the contents of his wallet, and checked the call-log on his cell phone.”  Nice.  The writing advice was presented in such an un-intimidating way  that I thought I’d like to try my hand at a short story or two, so that’s a winner book in my estimation.  Not only did this book give me a little inspiration, it also had dozens of recommended short story reads.  I pulled down from the attic one of my old college anthologies and have picked off eight so far:  The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Araby by James Joyce, The Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka, The Cathedral by Raymond Carver, A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Conner, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Marquez, Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, and A & P by John Updike.  Wow!  What treasures.  I’m thrilled to have stumbled onto them.  I hadn’t been thinking anything at all about short stories.  I had been in the bookstore, in the reference aisle, saw the How To book, and the next thing I know, I’m not only thinking about my own short story, but I’m now hooked on them.  Isn’t that something?  It is for me.

The Breakout Novelist: Craft And Strategies For Career Fiction Writers by Donald Maass.  Donald Maass is a big deal literary agent in New York.  He represents hundreds of well-known authors (not well-known to me, but they apparently sell in the millions.)  Anyway, Maass has, a little bit, been through the wringer with crappy submissions, so he’s got a book here that lays it out in very straight forward terms.  His book is actually spiral bound, like a cookbook.  Oh yeah, writing a novel is as simple as following a recipe: buy the best characters you can find, throw them in a plot pot, add generous portions of scene and theme, let that simmer while you prepare a few subplot side dishes, when the main dish is almost finished cooking, accidentally/on purpose knock the pot off the stove, panic, burn yourself in a frantic effort to shovel the contents back into the pot, then burn the whole mess when trying to reheat it, transfer the salvageable concoction into a new pot and hide the scalded one in the basement where it can soak until it doesn’t scare you anymore, return to the kitchen, plate the meal with a flourish of creme fraiche, minced basil, and twist of lime.  Voila!  Your best seller is served.

Don’t get me wrong, what Mr. Maass has to say is quite valuable and he was thorough, so in the end, I felt that his book was absolutely worth reading, highlighting, and bookmarking.  But I’ll give you an example of what sets my teeth on edge when I’m looking for answers from experts who are clearly jaded.  In Chapter Two he covers escalating tension in a plot.  The chapter is titled “Stakes.”

He writes, “Low stakes are easy to diagnose in the work of beginning novelists.  In one-on-one meetings at writers’ conferences, I can usually stop a story pitch dead in its tracks by interjecting the following: Hold on, your protagonist wants to [insert goal here] but let me ask you, if he is not successful so what? What follows that question is generally a stare of disbelief.  So what?  Well, if he didn’t, then…then…”

Oh my god, what a putz.  His point is lost when he seems to delight in seeing his subject squirm.  He clearly enjoys his gotcha question.  I can only imagine the pore sucker who wasn’t ready for that one.  Hesitate and be killed, think fast or get lost.  Peeuuu!  But Maass has numbers on his side, lots of clients and lots of sales.  Like it or not, he’s what’s out there.  Take what you need and leave the rest.

Next I’ll be reading Jorge Luis Borges’ book, On Writing.  Section One is titled “Becoming A Man Of Letters”  Chapter One is title “Ultra Manifesto.”  Paragraph one reads, “Two aesthetics exist: the passive aesthetic of mirrors and the active aesthetic of prisms.  Guided by the former, art turns into a copy of the environment’s objectivity or the individual’s psychic history.  Guided by the latter, art is redeemed, makes the world into its instrument, and forges—beyond spatial and temporal prisons—a personal vision.”

Ahhh, manna from heaven.

My other two writing craft books are Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You, and clean, well-lighted sentences: A Guide to Avoiding the Most Common Errors in Grammar and Punctuation, by Janis Bell.  Her title intentionally has the first part in lower case letters and the sub-title capitalized.

So I’ve got a ton of good writing to get to, so I better wrap this up.  Have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.

This week’s blog is simply a short story that I wrote a couple of years ago and read last Saturday at my local bookstore, Readers’ Books.  Beauty Express is about a woman getting her head shaved in celebration of her divorce becoming finalized.  The bookstore event is held every month and is called “Random Acts.”  It’s basically open-mic at the bookstore.  Five dollars gets you a seat and allows you the opportunity to throw your name in the basket to perform your random act: read, sing, recite, tell a joke, play an instrument, whatever, as long as you’re done within five minutes.  I hope you like it.

Working at Beauty Express, it has been my experience that the customers are more concerned with express than beauty, but the lady that came it yesterday was in a category all her own.
She asked to have all of her hair shaved off.  It was some kind of ritual, right of passage, self-dare thing she was doing.  She said she was celebrating her divorce becoming final, and that the hair held unpleasant history and wanted to be free of it.

“Shaved, as in all gone, shaved?” I asked, hoping I had misunderstood.

“Yep. I want to be bald as a baby. Go for it.”

I was more nervous than she was.  I don’t know how to describe her, not nervous, maybe giddy, confident but with some psycho thrown in.  I couldn’t believe she was really asking me to take every single bit of hair off her head.  It was the highest risk haircut I had ever done.  It’s one thing to change a person’s hairstyle and risk them hating it, but cutting everything off…slow down, let’s think about this for a minute.  If a person isn’t crazy about a haircut I give them, well, that happens, but a shaved head, that’s gonna take a long time to grow out.

To stall, I suggested just a little cosmetics, brow, lip and cheek color, before we started. I could see she wasn’t much for make-up, and I was very concerned that a bland head and a bland face would end in tears for the daring divorcé.  Thankfully, she was game.  I used every bit of self-control to prevent my hands from shaking as I applied the cream and powders.  I had barely finished dabbing on the make-up when she jerked her head away from my hand and creased her forehead into a frightening scowl.

“No more,” she barked as she inspected what I had just done.

“O.K.” I replied calmly and casually, controlling any hint of quiver in my voice, although her words were like ice water down my back.

The moment of no return had come; I had to start shaving her head.  Her thin, drab blonde, mid-back length hair was loosely gathered together at the base of her neck with a faded red office supply rubber band, not exactly the height of fashion.  With my very sharp scissors, I cut the ponytail off in one dramatic whack.  If that wasn’t enough to scare her out of her plan, then I had to assume she was serious about losing all of her hair, and I had to proceed.  She didn’t flinch. I fired up my electric clipper; of course it’s not as loud as a chain saw, but it has a similarly menacing note.  An electric buzzer doesn’t need time to warm up, but I held it for a moment, giving her one more chance to change her mind.  It didn’t happen. I dug in, raking the clipper across her head in forehead to nape rows, like cutting grass.

She had taken the lopped off ponytail from me and was playing with it as I went along, tickling her face and rolling it into a ball that she tossed from one hand to the other.  Like a child playing with a toy, she made humming sounds from her throat and was enthralled.

The final part of the cut was to clean off the buzzed stubble with a men’s electric face shaver. There was no way I could have done that part with a straight-edged razor the way barbers do; my hands were shaking as if the room had gone sub-zero. When everything was done, to my surprise, she liked it; we both did.  She looked good. In fact, she looked fabulous. I was incredibly pleased with myself. She had a well-shaped head, small ears with small turquoise earrings in them, nice cheekbones, and soft hazel eyes, all of which I had missed the hour before.  She stood up from my chair transformed; head high, she was positively regal, like an ancient warrior goddess.  I could tell she was pleased, even though she wasn’t saying much, because she paid the twenty-dollar bill and then tipped me twenty.

Not a typical Beauty Express customer.

Have a terrific week everybody, and I’ll post again next Friday.

Too late.  Ugg, it just now occurs to me that I should have taken a picture of Lucille on Sunday.  At 94, she is, without a doubt, the oldest reader of Pearls My Mother Wore.  That’s important to me because I had hoped for a wide variety of readers, and it’s happening.  Last Sunday I drove up to  Davis to present my novel to a group of seniors at a lovely assisted living community, Atria Covell Gardens.  My talk went well; that is to say I had no regrets when I was done.  I hit all the key points.  I didn’t talk too long.  And I remembered to speak up so that everybody could hear me.

So when I tell you that I sold books to 50% of the room, you can smile because there were only six people in attendance.  It’s all in how you look at it.  The book sales covered gas and lunch, but that really doesn’t matter.  I’ve discovered that I really like connecting with folks, and the more intimate the gathering, the less nerve wracking it is.

I wasn’t sure how I would be received, but I’m happy to report that I was received with warm appreciation.  In my talk, I explained that Kelly was a grieving widow, that her mother was a narcissistic alcoholic, and that Mitchell was a pierced and tattooed trouble maker.  I had no idea how those types would go over, but I wanted to make sure they understood what was in the story.  It’s easy for pearls to conjure up positive images of sorority sisters, grandma in her Sunday best, or June Cleaver and Jackie O, and I didn’t want to mislead them.  I also told them that these characters, flawed as they are, represent what I know to be real.  I didn’t need to dream up over-the-top action to convey a heroic journey.  Pull back our socially acceptable facades, and nearly all of us have some challenge that requires enormous strength to get through.  When I mentioned that I had begun writing in response to, and in rejection of, reality TV’s last-man-standing model for entertainment, the whole room nodded in agreement.  I said that I wanted to contribute something to popular culture where the losers were the winners, and smiles appeared on every face.

None of the three who bought copies of Pearls My Mother Wore have anything to do with computers.  I was hoping for a way to stay in touch with them through Facebook, e-mails, or this blog.  My inquiry on the subject generated an amusing “Oh my goodness no” reply.  Even the tall, handsome, elderly gentleman who had been an engineer, scoffed at the notion of having a computer.  Dick told me that he wanted to read my novel because, at this stage in his life, he was interested in how words, rather than quantifiable calculations, could express human complexity as I had described it.  I was honored.

Lorraine was the other person to buy Pearls, and she is a member of the Atria Book Club (ABC).  I’m hoping she will enjoy what she reads and recommend it to the book club.  The leader of the book group, Andrea, who suggested I go up to the Davis retirement community in the first place, may also give me a plug.  Andrea and I met for the first time last month when we did a Roseville Library event together.  Getting picked up by a book club, as far as I know, hasn’t happened yet, but it’s something I’m looking forward to.

Speaking of clubs, Monday was the first Monday of the month, which means I attended my meeting of Left Coast Writers at Book Passage in Marin.  Our guest speaker for the night was Roger Housden.  He talked about his most resent release, Saved By Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran.  He’s the author of many (20) books, including his best-selling Ten Poems to Change Your Life series.

Housden’s British accent and bald pate reminded me of a tall Sir Ben Kingsly.  I bet he gets that all the time.

Housden

Kingsley

Housden was a captivating speaker.  He described the moment when the idea for this book occurred to him.  He had been walking through Muir Wood, a magical forest of ancient Redwoods, hadn’t been thinking about anything in particular, just enjoying the splendor, when seemingly out of nowhere three words came into his consciousness; those words were, “the other Iran.”  Housden had studied Middle Eastern culture for decades and was deeply versed in Iran’s poetry and literature, art, architecture, music and traditions.  While George Bush was referring to Iran as part of “the axis of evil,” Housden understood that the place and its people possessed something vastly different from how it was being portrayed by our president and the media.

Housden jumped on the inspiration to write about “the other Iran” and within a very short amount of time was on an airplane headed for Tehran.  While in Iran, he met with filmmakers, writers, artist, and scholars, many of whom were women.  The book, Saved by Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran, proved to be his most difficult to write, he shared with us at Left Coast Writers.  The first draft he scraped entirely.  His writing experiences up to that point had always been relatively effortless, but this one was work.  His task was to integrate Iran’s dark side, which he encounter when he was detained for several days and accused of being a spy, with its light.

Although Housden is often thought of as a poet, he made it clear that he is a lover of the musicality and richness of words, but he is indeed a prose writer.  And so, with exquisite word choice, he unfolds both a secular (outer) and spiritual (inner) journey that concludes in some ways as it started, with inspiration.

Google “Roger Housden” for links to his YouTube video, Chapter 1 which can be read from the scribd.com link, and much more.

Have a great week, and I’ll post again next Friday.