Debbie Does McKee

Robert McKee, of “Adaptation” fame, has long been a hero of mine. A friend recommended his book “Story” as I was writing my first novel, “Rattled,” and it helped immensely. McKee is a genius when it comes to de-constructing the elements of story. Writing is more than putting down pretty words. It’s creating a narrative that compels, explains and — if you do it right — awes. McKee specializes in teaching screenwriting, but his tools are just as applicable to novelists. And, hell, story is everywhere, in everything. What is the current political race but a story about a biracial boy, abandoned by his father, raised by a single mother and a grandmother, who overcame all odds to run for president v. the heroic prisoner of war? They can argue about the specifics of health care plans, but it’s story that compels.

McKee’s writing workshops are legendary. He’s THE rock star of the writing seminar. He comes to New York a couple of times a year and I’ve always had a conflict. But when I got an email that he was doing a new one-day genre workshop called “Love Story” on Oct. 18, I cleared my schedule and sent my Visa number in immediately. I’m almost finished my third novel, “Cars from a Marriage,” which is the story of marriage told through a series of car trips. I’m going to VCCA next month to finish and revise. Although I followed McKee religiously for my first two books, concentrating on plot, I wanted this one to be more character driven. I wrote in a more organic way, letting the story unfold. But now, so close to the finish line, I felt more than ever the need for the steel McKee provides for erecting a solid story. But maybe steel isn’t quite the right word. It’s more like having your house three-quarters built and then going to consult an architect. Still…

McKee doesn’t disappoint. He paces the stage like Macbeth, a larger-than-life figure who bellows at you from behind an overgrown thicket of eyebrows, and then sits frowning, deep in thought, as the room empties for the infrequent bathroom breaks during the 12-hour class. He announces at the onset that if your cell phone goes off, you’ll be fined $10.

But most of all he teaches. He not only reminds you of all the tools at a writer’s disposal — like dramatic irony, which lets the audience know more than the characters — but that you’re wrestling with nothing smaller than the meaning of life. I was so excited about going to a McKee lecture that I bought a brand-new spiral notebook the night before. I almost filled it.

How I Plan to Spend My Summer Vacation

Kicking off the beginning of summer (never mind that it’s 50 degrees right now and Memorial Day Weekend starts tomorrow) by writing.

Husband and kids are going away to Seven Springs for a family reunion. I get the house all to myself.

I’m about halfway through “Cars from a Marriage,” my novel that tells the story of a marriage through two decades of car trips, and really need to get cracking. The original deadline was June. I’ve gotten a reprieve til the end of the year. But still, when I look at the bulletin board next to my desk, and see the index cards bearing my future chapters, I almost get a panic attack thinking about all the work that needs to get done.

I won’t miss the leisurely kayak trip (NOT!) down the Middle Yough or the 5+ hour drive through Pennsylvania. Although, ironically enough, the long drive plus the family reunion might have yielded some material for the novel.

And as nerdy as it sounds, I’m looking forward to three or four days of sitting on the front porch without a firm social plan on the horizon.

I Wrote to Oprah

Was reading her interview with Eckhart Tolle before getting discharged from the hospital this morning. Thought about that tonight (middle of the night, home, but wide awake at 2:30 am), and decided to write to Oprah.

This is what I wrote before whittling it down to 2,000 characters.

I was sitting in a hospital this morning, waiting for my discharge, reading your interview with Eckhart Tolle. Don’t worry, I don’t have some fatal disease, just a chronic one: Chrohn’s. Anyway, the interview made me think about my novel, which is exactly the kind of book that you don’t normally recommend, because it’s not inspirational — quite the opposite. It’s satire. What it does, though, is tell the other side of the story. “Fear and Yoga in New Jersey” is all about ego, it’s about the thinking traps Tolle warns about — in this case, a stressed-out yoga teacher who thinks she’s better than everyone else because she’s so politically and ecologically correct. Her week goes terribly, comically wrong, starting with a flood caused by her chakra meditation fountain overflowing. This leads to a wild goose chase for feng shui cures, but the more Nina tries to control things, of course, the worse it gets.

I’ve been having a hard time getting traction with this book (published in March by St. Martins), because nobody loves a second novel, but I think it follows in the tradition of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton and that, while funny, it actually tackles big ideas. It’s not chic lit, it’s not inspirational. It’s about the way we women sabotage ourselves. I would love to send it to you. I really think it deserves to be read, and not just in New Jersey.

A little about me. My illness led me down a path of freelancing, but when a successful freelance career left me empty, I did “The Artist’s Way” and went back to my childhood dream of writing novels. Most journalists don’t have any idea how to get back to that childhood place where they can invent things. But it is possible. I’m now working on my third novel, under contract.

In addition, I’ve started a community news blog, baristanet.com that’s been named the #1 placeblog in America. We really kick the local newspaper’s butt and are getting a ton of local advertising. And I’m very proud to say that I’ve helped many local entrepreneurs launch businesses through baristanet. (My colleague calls us “venture humanists.”) So I live a very rich and full and connected life.

Anyway, I’m glad my Mom found “Oprah” in the hospital gift shop. Tolle has given me lots to think about.

So will this make all the difference in the world and set me on the path to fame and fortune? Well, Eckhart Tolle would tell me it’s just ego to want that. To be attached to that result. No, what I wanted to do was to write Oprah. If she thinks I’m worth a nanosecond of her time, that’s winning the cosmic PR lottery.

What I did was put 45 minutes into pitching my story to the most powerful popularizer in the world. It’s like a message in a bottle. Or a ship in a bottle. As I whittled and whittled to get down to 2,000 characters (and they count spaces!), I was crafting a miniature of my life. Better than tossing and turning or taking a sleeping pill, right?

What Do Book Groups Want?

I had a dream last night that I had launched a campaign to send out tons of copies of “Fear and Yoga” to individual people, people who might fall in love with it, spread the word, turn it viral. People like Christopher Buckley, Stephen King, Oprah. But I also thought (this was part of the dream too) about sending it to machers of the book club world. I wasn’t sure where to find them, although my unconscious had provided a major book club convention in Hawaii in August.

I woke up thinking, well that’s ridiculous. Chris Buckley and Stephen King gets tons of books. Another book would just go in their piles to take into the closest used bookstore. But book clubs, that’s different. They consume books like crazy. In fact, they’re the engine of the book industry. If it wasn’t for book groups, would anybody be buying fiction these days?

So what is it? What do book groups want? I know “Fear and Yoga” would absolutely be a great book for discussions. Do I offer to send one free book to any group as an incentive? Or to be available for a speakerphone chat? Or write a book club discussion guide for my website? Or have a contest? Or all of the above?

Not sure. I think I’ll ask some of the bookstore owners I know. And maybe John Mutter over at Shelf Awareness. And Twitter. There’s always Twitter.

Things Accomplished Today

1. Looked up kiddie movies that came out in 1993 for book-in-progress.

2. Signed retainer with a lawyer to file tax appeal.

3. Scored a 45-minute telephone conversation with Baristanet’s elusive technical genius Tom Biro.

4. Updated author site. (Clips from Montclair Times and NJ Monthly.)

5. Bicycled to Brookdale Park and back. (Warren was right. It’s easier to pedal with the bike seat raised, though I have to jump off the seat to stop.)

6. Convinced husband and son to set out patio furniture.

7. Had large dead tulip tree removed. (As well as nefarious sticker bushes.)

What’s the Emoticon for Not Perky?

My therapist says I do not have to be perky all the time.

This came as news. Actually this came with the force of revelation. It hadn’t occurred to me, until we discussed the issue, that a certain continuous level of bubbly effervescence was expected of me. Something I expect of myself. Something passed down through the female line in my family.

You don’t even realize that you’ve been perky your whole goddamn life until someone gives you permission not to be. I want to join the ranks of the non-perky. Like Philip Roth, whose old interviews with Terry Gross aired the other day in honor of his 75th birthday. Definitely not perky. Not trying to please. Not at all.

Is that what perkiness is? That old shuffle-shuffle-ball-step? That constant effort to keep em laughing, keep em smiling? The imperative to entertain?

And if so, why?

All I can tell you is that it can get exhausting, smiling all the time. It’s one thing to be funny. I like being funny. It’s another thing to be selling it all the time. That’s, I think, what perkiness is.

Stephen Colbert is perky as hell on his TV show, but when you see him around town he’s not selling.

Katie Couric, who I went to school with, couldn’t unperk herself enough to be an authentic news anchor. Perk was perfect for morning TV, where the main job is waking people up.

And me? I want to be more like Philip Roth. Or Jhumpa Lahiri, who I read an interview with the other day. She doesn’t even read her reviews. Didn’t even know what the Times Book Review had to say about her new book. Let alone, like me, posting them on her website the minute they come out. I couldn’t even imagine it. But no, Jhumpa Lahiri apparently is not mugging for the camera, googling herself, updating her website, doing the shuffle-shuffle-ball-step, smiling, smiling, smiling. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Jhumpa is always whipping up vegetable samosas for her friends. Popping up from her writing desk to entertain a vast extended family and a zillion friends. Maybe she’s perky as all get-out.

I don’t think so, though. I think she’s just writing.

What a concept.

Work to Do

With the great push towards getting press and signings for “Fear and Yoga,” I’ve neglected my third book, “Cars from a Marriage,” currently underway. It’s very hard to get back to a project as big as a novel when you’ve neglected it for more than a month.

So yesterday I took out my latest manuscript, stretched out on the sofa, and read.

It was enough to break my heart. Not because my prose was so magnificent, but because there’s so much work to do. Away from the story and the characters for more than a month, I could see it in all its flawed glory. Rushed narrative. Insufficient stakes. It’s a hard task: writing about the slow dissolution of married love isn’t like writing about a kidnapping.

Sulking was the theme of the day, reinforced by the overcast and chilly weather. I knew there wouldn’t be much of a turnout for my synagogue reading yesterday, because of the Darfur rally, and sure enough, there wasn’t. And I also know that in addition to getting back to real novel-writing, I have to also get back to the gym on a regular basis.

So back to the new novel. F&Y will have to live or die on its own merits. I’ve got more work to do.

Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful Powerful

A day in the life of your average suburban media mogul.

9:30 am. Send Annette to cover Montclair State’s big security threat.

11:30 am. Meet with Star Ledger ad team on our New Media/Old Media joint venture.

3:30 pm. Tape TV interview with Steve Adubato.

7 pm. Clinton booksigning.

And the piece-de-resistance: Making Buzzmachine for being named a judge in a Facebook app competition.

Take that, Junot Diaz!

I Guess What I’m Missing is a Cat

Just got back from a spectacular four-day vacation to Key West, which involved much eating, bicycling, application of SPF-45, and, well, other things that can’t be mentioned on a family blog. One thing that can be mentioned, however, was my visit to the Hemingway House, where I discovered that the secret to becoming an enduring icon of American letters is having cats. Lots and lots of cats. Preferably six-toed cats.

Cats were as much of the tour as the guides wearing Panama hats. There were something like 58 of them wandering around the grounds, or maybe it was 82. A lot.

Since I was also reading and signing “Fear and Yoga” at Voltaire Books later that day, I also tried to drum up business for my reading by handing out bookmarks. Fat lot of good that did. The only people who showed up were Ros Brackenbury, my friend from VCCA, and a cute couple from An Island Oasis, the B&B we stayed at.

Not to be ungrateful. The cute couple, Mary-Beth and Garth, asked fabulous questions and were truly interested in the life of an author. That was a refreshing change from Montclair, where novelists are a dime a dozen.

I kept hoping that I might glean something on the Hemingway tour about the man’s life as a writer — something that would be worth mentioning in my talks. There wasn’t much besides cats and wives (he had a lot of those too). But I wound up buying “Ernest Hemingway on Writing” in the bookstore, and found a valuable nugget at the end.

Kind Words

There are mean words, and there are kind words. Many, many kind ones arrived today. From Jenn Krusch at St. Martin’s:

Just wanted to let you know I’ve been reading your blog and I listened to you on the Brian Lehrer Show. I thought you did well and found it delightful to listen to.

No matter how many people congratulate you, the ones that are negative will always get to you, but you’re human and that’s how most normal people react. Take the negativity with a grain of salt and keep your head up because you’re doing fine.

From Anne Cushman, author of the forthcoming, “Enlightment for Idiots,” a very funny book:

Just wanted to let you know that I ordered “Fear and Yoga” on Amazon as soon as it was out and just last night had a free evening to curl up with it! I’m giggling aloud; the yoga satire is of course particularly hilarious to me. I hope it’s doing tremendously well! I’ll finish it tonight, perhaps while draped over a bolster with my legs up the wall…

And from Soprano Sue:

Just keep one thing in mind, if Soprano Sue loves ya, nothing else matters, Being on the show and being mentioned on the season 6 dvd directors commentary does give me magical powers to wack anyone who makes you miserable.

A three-hour nap this afternoon helped. And I’ve learned the hard way that you don’t want to see a 52-year-old woman cry, at least not in a mirror. It’s hell on the looks.