Tag: authors

Thinking about creativity

Does anyone remember as a kid collecting money at Halloween to give to UNICEF? Do kids still do that: find ways to raise money and awareness of the plight of children all over the world?

The United Nations Children Fund began in 1946 as a way to help children impacted by World War II, and over the decades, it’s grown into an organization that provides humanitarian relief that helps children globally, focusing on child survival and development; basic education and gender equality (including girls’ education); child protection from violence, exploitation, and abuse; HIV/AIDS and children; and policy advocacy and partnerships for children’s rights.

Here’s how my journey to thinking about UNICEF began.

thanks for reading on

I’ve been here before…or not…

One of the nice things (for me!) of keeping this LiveJournal is that I can go back and see what I’ve said about a novel as I’ve/we’ve worked on it, and what I’ve said about all the novels as each completed work was sent to the editor, was returned as galleys, and then was released and the first reviews and e-mails began coming in. This helps me remember that the various thrills and terrors are normal and they, too, shall pass.

For WHEN YOU DON’T SEE ME in particular, it’s lovely to go back and remember how immersed I was in things (like the Pet Shop Boys) and how I grew to understand and love a narrator that I initially had my doubts about co-creating. It’s not so lovely to remember how the research for this novel hurt, really hurt, but at least I can know that I’m not in that place anymore, which is a relief.

In this calm period before the novel goes out to the world, whereupon we’ll receive some praise for things we never expected people to notice, and some criticism for things that make me wish people had to say it to my face, I feel very fortunate that I’ve read one positive pre-publication review and that some extremely special readers have offered comments that helped me believe that even though, once again, we may lose a reader or two because “this is not like the other Beck books” (i.e., please write boy-meets-boy-chases-boy-wins-boy over and over), most of the people who’ve been on this journey with us will be glad to be on the road again… And hopefully, we’ll meet some new travelers along the way.

Thank you, Tim and Jim, for that magic thing you do. No birth is without pain, but this is one novel that was served by having its creators take anything that hurt and translate it into a story. I’m so proud to know we did this together.

Thank you special readers Tom, Lindsey, Rhonda, and the California crew for your time and your insights and for not telling anyone the secrets. Once the book is out, we won’t be able to control those inevitable spoiler people, but y’all have been magnificent with your discretion.

And finally, a most fervent thank you to Timmy. How odd it is to think that you weren’t part of writing this novel, since you were parent to these characters, too, when they were conceived and born and took their first steps into the world and began to grow up. People could learn a lot from you about how sometimes the best thing a parent can do is step away for a while. Thank you for being able, when you came back, to look at our offspring with a loving eye: liberal with your approval for how it turned out, never vocalizing what you might have done differently. For so many reasons which only the four of us can understand, when I wrote, I was very often writing with you as the silent reader sitting next to me. So, in fact, you are still very much a part of WHEN YOU DON’T SEE ME and the chain is still unbroken.

It’s okay to suspend belief in “I’m 35” for a few moments

When I was in graduate school, I was friends with a couple of other graduate students who’d been raised in the same hellfire and brimstone fundamentalist religion that I was. At that point in our lives, one of us was becoming Episcopalian, one was becoming Catholic, and one was becoming agnostic. All of us in our turbulent twenties, we’d come together at a point when a lot of those things we were taught to believe in as little Southern girls had proved not to be all they were promised–religion, politics, higher education, careers, marriage, family.

So we were a little abashed to find out that we were all secretly yearning to stay awake through a hot night in July to watch a love story on our TV screens. Once we cleansed our liberated souls with some good old-fashioned confessin’ to each other, we threw feminism and cynicism to the wind and gathered in comfortable clothes with lots of snacks to see a virgin bride wed her prince.

The bride wasn’t much younger than us, and we wanted so much for her to escape the harsh realities that we’d endured as she grew into her twenties. It was not to be, of course, but somehow, as she got older, either despite or because of public scandals and her own flawed nature, she became even more interesting, more beautiful, than she had been as a shy young bride.

I was online, in my old chatroom, late on an August night in 1997, when someone said, “Isn’t it terrible about Princess Diana?” When I asked what he was talking about, he said, “She’s dead.” I thought it was a joke in really poor taste, but after other people confirmed it, I went to the TV and CNN as I’ve done so many times when I get awful news. I was transfixed by the television over the following days, until I again stayed up all night, this time alone, to watch the last flower-strewn ride of a princess.

During those few days, I do remember leaving the house one night. My friend James called and told Tom and me to go to the intersection of two streets, Montrose and Westheimer, which, as I told Debbi in comments to another post, has long been considered the center point of gay Houston.

this is what I saw there

Just another manic Thursday…

I can barely hold my eyes open right now. I’m too tired to even get up and go watch Hillary Clinton on Letterman, though I can hear the audience and Tom cracking up, so she must be doing well. Since I’m immovable, I figured I could at least post about my day.

First of all, these things right here?

They are fantastic. I love Crystal Light lemonade, and these are designed to pour into a single bottle of water. Today I mixed one with water and crushed ice when I was working at the remote office. Mmmm. Only five calories. Also, I guess Crystal Light makes some with electrolytes added, a bit like Gatorade. There are flavors other than lemonade, including green tea with honey and lemon.

No, I’m NOT getting paid for this post. I just wanted to share something that made me happy.

Another thing that made me happy was going to a reading/signing by The Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose at Murder By the Book. He had a funny account of his experience with Oprah’s people when he was scheduled to be on her show for the Katrina anniversary. If you’re interested (and if the link still works), his column about it is here.


Chris Rose signing books.

Rose is a dynamic speaker. I think he’s feeling all the anger and frustration of anyone who lives in and loves New Orleans. But he was also able to talk about a few things that are going right–mainly the spirit of the people who are staying there and moving there and trying to make New Orleans even better than it was before. I got a copy of his collected post-Katrina columns, 1 Dead in Attic. He’ll be in Houston Friday, too, at Barnes & Noble on Westheimer at 7 p.m. (for more information call 713.783.6016). Or check here for signings in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

Another good commentary on post-K New Orleans is this post from chefcdb. Again, anger mixed with determination and optimism.

While at Murder By the Book, I also got a copy of New Orleans Noir and got to read Greg Herren’s short story “Annunciation Shotgun” which I’ve heard so much about. It lived up to its glowing reviews.

Now if I could just have some actual time for such pleasures, I’ve got lots of good stuff to read as I sip my lemonade.

This woman is amazing

Sometime back in the Dark Ages, or maybe it was 2005, I went for the first time to a signing at Houston’s Murder By the Book. Prior to that, most of the signings I’d been to (at least those of other authors) fell into three categories.

1. There was a reading, during which an author sat or stood, read from his or her work, fielded a few questions from the audience, then got down to the business of signing books.

2. A celebrity author, or a hugely successful author, did a signing without a reading and without a Q&A session. Mostly this consisted of people lined around a block or two hoping to actually meet the author before it was time to be at work the next morning.

3. An obscure author with a hesitant smile was tucked into a corner of a bookstore at a table with a stack of unbought books and maybe a poster (paid for by the author) to prove that he or she wasn’t there to give directions to the restroom or the cookbook section.

Since Tim and I don’t want to read, and because there are often four of us present to sign books, we have always eliminated the reading part. Timmy once endured the obscure author horror (luckily, he was not alone, but had a Famous Author with him so they could at least enjoy berating authors who weren’t present), but when the TJB writers have signed together, or when Tim and I have signed, we’ve been very fortunate to have enough friends and loyal readers show up so that it’s not depressing. And of course, we had two signings in bars, where the atmosphere was too noisy, busy, and alcohol-tinged for us to feel uncomfortable–plus we had a lot of friends there, too. Not that I’m saying all our friends are drunks.

My point is that most authors who aren’t Anne Rice or Hillary Clinton aren’t really sure what the hell they’re supposed to do at a book signing if they don’t read from their work. I wasn’t, and then I went to that signing at Murder By the Book, where authors Harley Jane Kozak and Randy Wayne White showed a deftness with the crowd that awed me. (Later, I saw author Dean James do the same thing, but HJK and RWW were the first.)

Of course, Harley Jane Kozak is an actor with performances in theater, television, and movies under her belt. She’s trained to look poised. But I suspect that when she’s standing** in front of a crowd talking about her own work, as opposed to interpreting someone else’s, it’s not any easier for her than for any other untrained soul. Her genius is that she makes it look effortless. She makes people laugh. She shows the right amount of humility and gratitude. And even if her books didn’t already prove it, her discussions of her novels show that she clearly loves writing.

I completely enjoyed her previous Wollie Shelley mysteries, Dating Dead Men and Dating is Murder, and I’m looking forward to having time to read the new one, Dead Ex. If any of you writers ever get the chance to go to one of her signings, grab it. Like me, you’ll probably learn a lot that will help you with your own signings.

But I still don’t want to do it alone. Ever.


The enchanting Harley Jane Kozak signing her new one
at Murder By the Book last night.

**STANDING. As Harley explained, in theater classes, she learned that having to perform sitting down, or even worse, lying down, gives the audience permission to sleep. Trust me, no one sleeps at her signings!

On writing

Tom always listens to NPR in the mornings. Today, Coventry (the real one in England, not the one I invented in Texas) was indirectly referenced twice. Campbell’s Soup currently owns Godiva Chocolates and is looking to sell (Anyone have a billion dollars?) because it doesn’t go with their health-conscious image. The chocolate company is named after Lady Godiva, one of Coventry’s more famous residents. My next Coventry novel (the one I’m trying desperately to finish–and the irony of that statement will one day be clear) references the candy manufacturer.

Coventry is also the birthplace of the late British poet Philip Larkin, who was in the news because his birthday is today. I don’t think Larkin and I would have been big friends based on his view of life as deduced from his poetry. (There’s been a lot said about Larkin personally since his death, but that doesn’t color my opinion of his work. I never expect writers to be flawless; they are human, after all.) Sad though his poetry may be, I think it’s stunning in its construction and imagery.

A couple of quotes:

“I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity,
if I have any–after all, most people are unhappy, don’t you think?”
Philip Larkin

“It’s unthinkable not to love–you’d have a severe nervous breakdown.
Or you’d have to be Philip Larkin.”
Lawrence Durrell


Margot, who thinks a good nap in the sun is the best poetry.