Cathy Lamb's Blog, page 61

Alan, I loved Moloka’i and Honolulu and plan on reading Palisades Park soon.

Before I ask you about your terrific books, though, I’m hoping you can tell me, and the readers here, a little bit about yourself and your life.  Why writing?  When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I was born in New Jersey in 1954 and raised near the legendary amusement park I write about in Palisades Park.  My dad was a sheet metal operator for the Alcoa Company in Edgewater, my mom an apartment rentals manager, but under the byline H.E. Brennert my father also wrote nonfiction pieces for aviation magazines like Skyways and American Helicopter.  He was a good writer, with a clean, lucid style. 

The funny thing is, he’d stopped writing by the time I came along, so I had no awareness of him as a writer—yet that was what I wanted to be ever since I was ten years old and I banged out a synopsis of the animated special Dorothy’s Return to Oz, which I’d seen the night before, on my toy typewriter.

Obviously I received a genetic gift for writing from my dad, and since he had been a writer neither he nor my mother ever discouraged me—never said, “Oh, you can’t make a living doing that”—and never failed to buy me whatever weird comic book or science fiction magazine I wanted to read.  I had great, supportive parents; a writer couldn’t have asked for better ones.

At the moment I live in Los Angeles with my wife, Paulette, and our wonderful dog (though we have had five wonderful cats, too, in the past, all sadly gone now).

I’m sorry about your cats! I love our cat, KC, though she meows at me and expects me to meow back, which is odd. I will miss her when she’s no longer here, too.  

But back to books…Was it a smooth road to publishing?

A little too smooth, maybe!  I sold my first short story to a science fiction anthology, Infinity Five, in the summer after my high school graduation (for the princely sum of $35 for a 1500-word short).  Not too bad a story in retrospect, but I can’t say that about all those early efforts, though two of them (“Jamie’s Smile” and “Queen of the Magic Kingdom”) stand up well enough that I included them in my first collection, Her Pilgrim Soul and Other Stories.  Well, we all have our apprentice fiction and those were mine.

I moved to California in 1973, attending California State University at Long Beach, majoring in English as I wrote and sold more stories for sf magazines and anthologies—and then a typically meandering first novel, published as a paperback thriller, which was strong on energy but structure, not so much.

Later I attended UCLA Film School, which I confess I quit the minute I sold my first TV script.  For the next twenty years I wrote primarily for television and film, the high point of which was winning an Emmy Award as a writer-producer for L.A. Law, but I continued to write occasional short stories and novels, specifically character-centered fantasy novels like Kindred Spirits and Time and Chance. 

The novels got better the more I learned about structure from my screenwriting work, and provided a creative outlet for me when film and TV projects didn’t get made or got made badly.

Tell the readers here about Moloka’i and Honolulu, two of my favorite books EVER. They both made me tear up and I don’t do that very often with books. 

I love Hawai’i.  The first time I set foot there, twenty-four years ago, I felt as if I were coming home.  The place and the people have drawn me back year after year, and the history of the Hawaiian people is one that holds a special fascination for me.

I visited the island of Moloka’i for the first time in 1996, but it wasn’t until three years later that I began reading about Kalaupapa, the leprosy settlement on the island’s north shore, and how people—Native Hawaiians mostly—were taken away from their families, jobs, homes, and sent to this isolated peninsula on Moloka’i.

And when they had children at Kalaupapa, those children were taken away from them in a cruel reflection of what had happened to them (this was done to prevent the babies from coming down with the disease).  The more I read, the more I came to realize that here was a compelling, true-life story that had never fully been told before.

At the same time, I had just finished six months of work on a miniseries that NBC decided not to make in, like, six minutes.  So I decided to write the book that became Moloka’i. 

And Honolulu, about the immigrant experience in Hawai’i told through the eyes of a Korean “picture bride,” grew out of the research I had done for Moloka’i.

Moloka’i and Honolulu were absolutely gripping. I loved the history, heart breaking though it often was. How long did each book take to write?

Moloka’i took three years: nine months of initial research before I could see 1890s Honolulu in my mind’s eye, then a year to do a first draft, followed by multiple rewrites, first for myself, then for my editor.  Honolulu took two years of research and writing, often simultaneous.  There was so much research to do into so many subjects for both these books that I developed a process of initial research, then researching as I was writing, the research informing the writing.

How many times did you edit each book?

It’s impossible to calculate. I do several passes at each chapter before I even show them to my wife (who complains that she never gets to read one of my books straight through, but in installments—but she’s a professional editor and  her advice is invaluable to me).

I rewrite again after getting Paulette’s notes, then after I finish the whole book I do both structural revisions and polishing of prose, and then it’s off to my editor, Hope Dellon, whose notes are usually both extensive and invaluable.

And I can never resist making changes in the copy edited manuscript and the page proofs.  By the end the story has been honed into what I intended it to be before I started writing a word…and at the same time I’m so sick of it that I never want to read the damn book again!

Oh, I get it. By the time I’ve sent my proofs back to my editor I never want to read my books again, ever, and I don’t. 

But tell me,  do you like researching or writing better?

Writing. But research can be fun, especially when you’re doing it in Hawai’i.  The two weeks I spent in New Jersey for Palisades Park, revisiting my old homes and haunts, was also fun.

 The hardest part about being a writer is…

The roller coaster nature of the business, the ups and downs, feast or famine.  If you like a steady weekly paycheck this is not the business for you.

But the best part about being a writer is…

Getting to sleep in late (8 AM usually).  I had this planned since high school, when I had to get up at 6:30 every morning for classes.

What is a typical work day like for you?

Get up, feed the dog, feed myself, take care of email business and spend the rest of the morning doing research for what I will write that day.  Then a nice lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (my branch office!) and back by one to write.  I usually write from one to six or six-thirty—dinnertime—though sometimes I work after dinner too, either revising some troublesome prose or doing more research.

Three mornings a week I swim at my gym, and even there I’m plotting or revising what I’m working on in my head.  I tend to write seven days a week—I can’t just go to the beach and turn off my mind, or tell the voices of the characters to shut up—and so I usually write until I have a rough draft of a chapter, then take a few days off.

It is hard to tune characters out, isn’t it? I tried not working weekends for a while, that didn’t work. Now I try not to work on Sundays. At least until after ten at night. Of course, when I have a deadline all bets are off and I work like a crazed fiend, so I understand working seven days a week. 

But I digress.

Alan, what would a perfect day look like for you?

Waking up in Hawai’i with Paulette, a breakfast of poi pancakes and Kona coffee, then taking a catamaran cruise along the coast with my wife and our friends James and Nancy Preston, who love Hawai’i as much as we do.  Maybe some snorkeling or body boarding, then dinner at Longhi’s as we watch the sun set.  Notice that there is no writing in my perfect day!  That’s for the imperfect days back in Los Angeles.

That day in Hawaii sounds more than perfect. I think I need to get on a plane…

Thank you for the interview, Alan. I’m looking forward to your future books.

I would highly recommend them to everyone.

For more information:

http://www.alanbrennert.com/

 

 

Alan, I loved Moloka’i and Honolulu and plan on reading Palisades Park soon.

Before I ask you about your terrific books, though, I’m hoping you can tell me, and the readers here, a little bit about yourself and your life.  Why writing?  When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I was born in New Jersey in 1954 and raised near the legendary amusement park I write about in Palisades Park.  My dad was a sheet metal operator for the Alcoa Company in Edgewater, my mom an apartment rentals manager, but under the byline H.E. Brennert my father also wrote nonfiction pieces for aviation magazines like Skyways and American Helicopter.  He was a good writer, with a clean, lucid style. 

The funny thing is, he’d stopped writing by the time I came along, so I had no awareness of him as a writer—yet that was what I wanted to be ever since I was ten years old and I banged out a synopsis of the animated special Dorothy’s Return to Oz, which I’d seen the night before, on my toy typewriter.

Obviously I received a genetic gift for writing from my dad, and since he had been a writer neither he nor my mother ever discouraged me—never said, “Oh, you can’t make a living doing that”—and never failed to buy me whatever weird comic book or science fiction magazine I wanted to read.  I had great, supportive parents; a writer couldn’t have asked for better ones.

At the moment I live in Los Angeles with my wife, Paulette, and our wonderful dog (though we have had five wonderful cats, too, in the past, all sadly gone now).

I’m sorry about your cats! I love our cat, KC, though she meows at me and expects me to meow back, which is odd. I will miss her when she’s no longer here, too.  

But back to books…Was it a smooth road to publishing?

A little too smooth, maybe!  I sold my first short story to a science fiction anthology, Infinity Five, in the summer after my high school graduation (for the princely sum of $35 for a 1500-word short).  Not too bad a story in retrospect, but I can’t say that about all those early efforts, though two of them (“Jamie’s Smile” and “Queen of the Magic Kingdom”) stand up well enough that I included them in my first collection, Her Pilgrim Soul and Other Stories.  Well, we all have our apprentice fiction and those were mine.

I moved to California in 1973, attending California State University at Long Beach, majoring in English as I wrote and sold more stories for sf magazines and anthologies—and then a typically meandering first novel, published as a paperback thriller, which was strong on energy but structure, not so much.

Later I attended UCLA Film School, which I confess I quit the minute I sold my first TV script.  For the next twenty years I wrote primarily for television and film, the high point of which was winning an Emmy Award as a writer-producer for L.A. Law, but I continued to write occasional short stories and novels, specifically character-centered fantasy novels like Kindred Spirits and Time and Chance. 

The novels got better the more I learned about structure from my screenwriting work, and provided a creative outlet for me when film and TV projects didn’t get made or got made badly.

Tell the readers here about Moloka’i and Honolulu, two of my favorite books EVER. They both made me tear up and I don’t do that very often with books. 

I love Hawai’i.  The first time I set foot there, twenty-four years ago, I felt as if I were coming home.  The place and the people have drawn me back year after year, and the history of the Hawaiian people is one that holds a special fascination for me.

I visited the island of Moloka’i for the first time in 1996, but it wasn’t until three years later that I began reading about Kalaupapa, the leprosy settlement on the island’s north shore, and how people—Native Hawaiians mostly—were taken away from their families, jobs, homes, and sent to this isolated peninsula on Moloka’i.

And when they had children at Kalaupapa, those children were taken away from them in a cruel reflection of what had happened to them (this was done to prevent the babies from coming down with the disease).  The more I read, the more I came to realize that here was a compelling, true-life story that had never fully been told before.

At the same time, I had just finished six months of work on a miniseries that NBC decided not to make in, like, six minutes.  So I decided to write the book that became Moloka’i. 

And Honolulu, about the immigrant experience in Hawai’i told through the eyes of a Korean “picture bride,” grew out of the research I had done for Moloka’i.

Moloka’i and Honolulu were absolutely gripping. I loved the history, heart breaking though it often was. How long did each book take to write?

Moloka’i took three years: nine months of initial research before I could see 1890s Honolulu in my mind’s eye, then a year to do a first draft, followed by multiple rewrites, first for myself, then for my editor.  Honolulu took two years of research and writing, often simultaneous.  There was so much research to do into so many subjects for both these books that I developed a process of initial research, then researching as I was writing, the research informing the writing.

How many times did you edit each book?

It’s impossible to calculate. I do several passes at each chapter before I even show them to my wife (who complains that she never gets to read one of my books straight through, but in installments—but she’s a professional editor and  her advice is invaluable to me).

I rewrite again after getting Paulette’s notes, then after I finish the whole book I do both structural revisions and polishing of prose, and then it’s off to my editor, Hope Dellon, whose notes are usually both extensive and invaluable.

And I can never resist making changes in the copy edited manuscript and the page proofs.  By the end the story has been honed into what I intended it to be before I started writing a word…and at the same time I’m so sick of it that I never want to read the damn book again!

Oh, I get it. By the time I’ve sent my proofs back to my editor I never want to read my books again, ever, and I don’t. 

But tell me,  do you like researching or writing better?

Writing. But research can be fun, especially when you’re doing it in Hawai’i.  The two weeks I spent in New Jersey for Palisades Park, revisiting my old homes and haunts, was also fun.

 The hardest part about being a writer is…

The roller coaster nature of the business, the ups and downs, feast or famine.  If you like a steady weekly paycheck this is not the business for you.

But the best part about being a writer is…

Getting to sleep in late (8 AM usually).  I had this planned since high school, when I had to get up at 6:30 every morning for classes.

What is a typical work day like for you?

Get up, feed the dog, feed myself, take care of email business and spend the rest of the morning doing research for what I will write that day.  Then a nice lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (my branch office!) and back by one to write.  I usually write from one to six or six-thirty—dinnertime—though sometimes I work after dinner too, either revising some troublesome prose or doing more research.

Three mornings a week I swim at my gym, and even there I’m plotting or revising what I’m working on in my head.  I tend to write seven days a week—I can’t just go to the beach and turn off my mind, or tell the voices of the characters to shut up—and so I usually write until I have a rough draft of a chapter, then take a few days off.

It is hard to tune characters out, isn’t it? I tried not working weekends for a while, that didn’t work. Now I try not to work on Sundays. At least until after ten at night. Of course, when I have a deadline all bets are off and I work like a crazed fiend, so I understand working seven days a week. 

But I digress.

Alan, what would a perfect day look like for you?

Waking up in Hawai’i with Paulette, a breakfast of poi pancakes and Kona coffee, then taking a catamaran cruise along the coast with my wife and our friends James and Nancy Preston, who love Hawai’i as much as we do.  Maybe some snorkeling or body boarding, then dinner at Longhi’s as we watch the sun set.  Notice that there is no writing in my perfect day!  That’s for the imperfect days back in Los Angeles.

That day in Hawaii sounds more than perfect. I think I need to get on a plane…

Thank you for the interview, Alan. I’m looking forward to your future books.

I would highly recommend them to everyone.

For more information:

http://www.alanbrennert.com/

 

 

AS TOLD THROUGH MY CHARACTER, JEANNE STEWART.

I was hesitant to run naked.

It is not something I can say is in my comfort zone.

It is not something I’ve done before.

Still.

I had told Emmaline and the others at Anger Management class that I would do so.

Now, the first thought racing out of your mind might be that being a naked woman outside your home isn’t safe. You might also say that a naked woman running alone alongside a river isn’t safe. You might further say that a naked woman running alone by a river, at night, is asking for trouble.

You are right.

But, you see, I had agreed to do it to take me off my path of anger. As life did not seem especially precious to me, I was feeling a little reckless.

So I had pancakes for dinner at the cafe with a bunch of chatty, cheery townspeople who somehow soothed my soul, and listened to Donovan sing his favorite three opera songs, dedicating them to his “secret love.”

Afterward I promised to come to a retirement party for Bill Brayson on Friday night and a bowling tournament on Sunday.

(I tried to ignore the warm gush in my body at these invitations. I was very rarely invited to do anything in Chicago except to get more work done, find more clients, and deal with artsy creative types who insisted on doing yoga in the hallways, brought their giant dogs to work, or hummed when they got nervous.)

I did not share with my new found friends my further plans for my evening. Around 10:00 that night I pulled on sweatpants and my sweatshirt and headed to a private place along the river. Here, I could still see the trail, but there were no homes.

The rays of the full moon slanted through the trees. It smelled like pine and river water and wood and I sucked in a deep breath.

I took off all my clothes and put them in a small backpack. I retied my tennis shoes. (I do not consider wearing tennis shoes as breaking the rules.) I knew I should feel embarrassed standing there naked by the rushing river, but I didn’t. In one avenue of my mind I realized I’d lost my marbles.

I don’t have huge boobs, so it didn’t bother me that I would be bopping along without a bra. I looked up at the star studded sky again, catching a glimpse of the full moon. It was clearly a wild night for werewolves and weird women on wacky quests of self – awareness.

Overhead an owl hooted and somewhere on the other side of the river another owl hooted back.

I shifted my backpack and started into a slow jog. From having run this trail on numerous occasions, I knew that it went a long ways, and I had a pretty good idea when to head back around.

I figured I’d run about thirty minutes out, thirty minutes back in.

That should satisfy Emmaline and the rest of the angry group.

My legs jumped into their usual pace.

As I ran I tried to block out everything but the cool, velvet air, the whispering trees, and the rush of the river. Soon I was sweating, but I kept running.

I peeked at the moon and the Big Dipper through the tree branches as I ran and ran. I knew I had run for more than thirty minutes, but I kept going, my breath coming out in pants, my heartbeat even and steady, the sweat pouring from my pores.

I thought of all the lousy men I’d dated and I thought of Slick Dick and his stupid lawsuit. I made myself sprint.

I slowed down as I thought of my “pointless” speech at the convention, and how I’d worked so many years of my life away for, let’s see, nothing.  I sprinted again.

I thought of Johnny and Ally and slowed down, glancing at the night sky to say hello to them.

I thought of my sweet mother, and the cancer that ate away at her body, and I blinked the tears out of my eyes but didn’t bother to wipe them off as they mixed with my sweat.

I ran and ran.

And ran.

I careened around a curve on the path at a sprint and ran straight into a towering, steel hard, barricade.

The steel hard barricade made a sound like this – “Ooof.”

Next, it stumbled and I stumbled over it. We were pressed together tight. It landed first and I landed on top of it, spread – eagled, bone smashed against bone.

Did I mention that I am a woman, running alone, at night, naked, by a river?

All of my air rushed right out of my lungs and I gasped and struggled to find that elusive oxygen.

The steel hard barricade grasped my shoulders, shoved me to my back, and rolled on top of me.

I realized that the steel barricade was a man and panic roared through my body, every nerve end blitzing with fear, blood rushing through my body like an indoor waterfall. My brain screamed at me to hit and run, hit and run.

So I did.

It was too dark to see the steel barricade’s head so I couldn’t see what he looked like, but I assumed he was a rapist and had a very long and sharp sword or other weapon in his back pocket, and I would soon meet my untimely demise.

But not without a fight.

I brought one hand up, remembered to bunch it into a fist, and let it fly. It connected with his face.

He said, “Goddammit.” His voice was gravelly and rough and close to my ear.

I brought my other arm up to slug him again, but he caught it deftly, grabbed my other wrist, and I was trapped like a spider on a pin.

I raised up a knee and connected. Everything in me screamed to fight, fight, fight!

“Ah, shit,” the steel hard barricade said. He threw a jean – clad leg over mine.

“Shit yourself, asshole,” I said as a I struggled to bring my captured wrists toward my mouth so I could bite him. (I did not reprimand myself for swearing at that moment.)

 

 

I always have a lot of “I Should’s” going on in my life.

I should write more.

I should blog more.

I should write a thriller and scare myself to death.

I should eat more fruit, like a baboon, and less chocolate.

I should walk every day. (This has appeal. Then I can pretend I’m exercising when really I’m daydreaming like crazy.)

I should be a less temperamental wife.

I should lose weight off my butt.

I should keep my mouth shut more often.

I should help save the planet.

On and on. Endless.

Then I watch my cat.

KC has no “I Shoulds” in her life that stress her out, spin her up, and make her eat ice cream out of a carton with a spoon.

Currently, as I write, she is sitting on my lap, sporadically trying to lick my face. I don’t like cats licking my face, so I have to keep swinging my head back, again and again, like a bobble head. But still.

What KC likes to do is sit and relax. She likes to be in front of the fireplace. She likes to find a good place to nap before she finds a good place to sleep. She likes to sit on heaters and have warm air blown up her fur.

It’s quite the life of splendor, I think.

But what KC the cat loves the most is to be with our family, especially with the kids. When the kids were younger, and playing outside, she would hide under my old, rickety van and keep an eye on them. When they came in, she came in.

She will often sleep at the top of the stairs at night so she knows who’s coming and going, if she’s not sleeping in front of the kids’ bedroom doors.

She runs to the door to greet us when we come in. She meows at us and expects us to meow back, promptly, like we’re having a conversation.

She sits on our laps, lays on our chests. She’s in love with my husband.

Her whole life then, is basic: Eat, sleep, nap on a warm  heater, hang out with the family and bring joy to their lives.

It’s a nice life. Prioritized. Organized. Family first. And there are no “I shoulds,” in it at all.

She’s a heckuva cat.

I should figure out how to be a little more like KC in 2014.

 

 

Hello book lovers,

The Read Like Crazy Book Club begins this Sunday, February 16th, on my Facebook page.

Here’s how it will work.

1) Read one book a week. I know! That’s a lot for me, too, sometimes. But, you see, one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to read more. And here I am. And here you are, too. So let’s grab our coffee and chocolates and settle in together.

2) If you do not read a book a week you agree to be punished. You will be locked in a hotel room with Keanu Reeves for three days. I know. Torture. Get your reading done. (Keanu is a secret member of this group.)

3) The Read Like Crazy book group is for six weeks.

4) Read whatever you want.

5) Or read with me. Or read a book now and then with me. Here’s my list. Starting this Sunday, I will begin reading The Orphan Train. Next: Honolulu by Alan Brennert. The Hypnotist’s Love Story. The Poisonwood Bible. Labor Day. The Good Lord Bird.

6)On Sunday, on my Facebook page, look for the photo of the stack of books. I will post how my reading week went and, hopefully, I will have finished the book. If not, I will be HONEST, and keep my pathetic and whiny excuses to a minimum. I will review the book, then list the next book I’m reading. Do the same, on my post.

7)Treat this as you would any other book group. We all love books and reading, so let’s talk and share. However, feel free to chat about other things, too. Make new online friends. Laugh. Enjoy.

8) Be ready for Sunday. Choose your books. Read Like Crazy. Welcome.

Hello book lovers,

The Read Like Crazy Book Club begins this Sunday, February 16th.

Here’s how it will work.

1)      Read one book a week. I know!  That’s a lot for me, too, sometimes. But, you see, one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to read more.  And here I am.  And here you are, too. So let’s grab our coffee and chocolates and settle in together.

2)      If you do not read a book a week  you agree to be punished. You will be locked in a hotel room with Keanu Reeves for three days.  I know. Torture. Get your reading done. (Keanu is a secret member of this group.)

3)      The Read Like Crazy book group is for six weeks.

4)      Read whatever you want.

5)      Or read with me. Or read a book now and then with me. Here’s my list. Starting this Sunday, I will begin reading The Orphan Train. Next: Honolulu by Alan Brennert. The Hypnotist’s Love Story. The Poisonwood Bible. Labor Day. The Good Lord Bird.

6)      On Sunday, on facebook, look for this same stack of books. I will post how my reading week went and, hopefully, I will have finished the book. If not, I will be HONEST, and keep my pathetic and whiny excuses to a minimum. I will review the book, then list the next book I’m reading. Do the same, on my post.

7)      Treat this as you would any other book group. We all love books and reading, so let’s talk and share. However, feel free to chat about other things, too. Make new online friends. Laugh. Enjoy.

8)      Be ready for Sunday. Choose your books. Read Like Crazy. Welcome.

I am having a very bad cooking week.

This is not unusual.

I don’t like to cook.

I am not very domesticated and have zero talent in the kitchen. This, despite the fact that my late mother, an English teacher, used to bake bread from scratch and make home made plum jelly that would make you think you were eating heaven.

Still, Costco and their ready made meals and I are very good friends. Perhaps a little TOO close.  I do manage to get dinner on the table and none of my children, so far, have starved, though they do whine and complain that there is “nothing to eat” despite a packed pantry.

As a fiction writer, I will now say something bad about women who are cook book writers. Here it is:

I hardly know what to do with them or what to think. There they smile on the covers of their cook books, their hair tamed and brushed, in pretty outfits, not a blackened pan in sight. They wield a wooden cooking spoon, matching red mixing bowls nearby, with a full counter full of delicious meals or desserts in front of them. There is no mention that they just swallowed horse sized tranquilizers to get everything so perfect, so I’m going to assume they didn’t.

The cook book authors say their recipes are “easy” with only 125 ingredients, some of which I don’t even recognize. Perhaps the ingredients are in Latin?

If that were me on the cover of a cook book, my hair would be singed, there would be flour on my boobs, I would have a super pissed off expression on my face, and half the stuff on the counter would be burned.

They don’t have two foot tall fires on the stove like I did a few days ago when I was de – thawing some Chinese meal. They don’t have to get out the fire extinguisher like Tall Son had to. After the fire went out Oldest Daughter said to me, in all seriousness, with a pathetic, begging expression on her sweet face, “Mom, please don’t cook anymore. Please.”

They don’t make toasted cheese sandwiches that are burned on one side and hardly done on the other. They don’t break their blue and white dishes.

My husband says that I cook by fire alarm. As in, when the smoke billows around the room and the fire alarm goes off, that’s when I know to pull the meal out of the oven.

I try not get real personal about my twenty year marriage, so I’ll just say that if my glare could have felled a man, well, my man would have been on the floor, clutching his heart and his crotch and begging for testicular mercy.

Tonight I made a crock pot chicken recipe my sister from Montana gave me for tomorrow night. The whole thing is so simple, but I managed to forget it was cooking and let the whole thing melt in there for six hours, not four.

This was a dumb thing to do as I could smell the chicken and spices. It did not occur to me  to check the timing on it, probably because I was in the midst of writing a hot love scene and forgot about it. (This guy, Josh, is sexy beyond sexy, ladies. I have created him for you.)

In fact, I often forget what’s on the stove because I get lost in my work.  Or in my daydreaming.  This is a problem I acknowledge.

 

 

 

Sometimes my lack of cooking abilities, I will admit, makes me feel like less of a woman. It does. I try to cook, but I just don’t like it, have no patience, and I’m not good at it.

What to do?

Well, that is obvious. I will simply go back to looking at overly done – up women on the covers of cook books and cursing them and their impossible creations. They’re probably on horse sized tranquilizers anyhow.

That should solve the problem nicely. And, if it doesn’t, I will employ a Cathy Rule I learned long ago, in the kitchen: When problems can’t be solved, they should be eaten.

Pass the frozen chocolate chip cookie dough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy Lamb: Josh, I absolutely loved THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN.

Here are a few of the reasons why, in no particular order: First, your love of books and your mother’s love of books. I grew up in the same type of household, with a mother who was handing us books when we were still babies.  We all read. It was just what we did, so I related to you from the start.

Second, I appreciated your honesty about your challenges with Tourette’s Syndrome and how you wrote about it with sincerity and humor, and zero self pity.

Third, I liked learning about being Mormon and your faith trajectory, as I would call it. I’m Christian, but have questioned many aspects of my faith from day one, so your thoughtful introspection helped me to do some more thinking.

Fourth, your work as a librarian. I laughed out loud so many times.

Now I’m going to ask you a question instead of being a gushing fan.  Why did you write the book? What was your intent in writing about your life?

Josh Hanagarne: It really happened by accident.  I’d been writing a blog called World’s Strongest Librarian http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/  just to keep track of my workouts, because I kept losing my strength training notebooks. Two months into that blog, Seth Godin sent me an email and said “You should be writing a book! I’m sending this to my agent!” forty eight hours later, for no reason whatsoever, I had a literary agent, but no book, not even an idea for a book.

I hate to be bored, and writing a book sounded like an adventure, so away we went. It just took forever to figure out what it might be. I didn’t have any specific intentions except to see what might happen.

For the readers here who don’t know what Tourette’s Syndrome is can you explain it and then tell us what is hardest about having it?

Tourette’s is a neurological condition which causes involuntary vocalizations and/or movements. It kind of feels like needing to sneeze, but all the time, everywhere, in every part of your body. The symptoms are called tics. I have a very extreme case, so the worst parts for me are the pain and injuries in my body, and the relentless challenges of being in public but not being able to control the noises I make or what my body does.

One of my favorite passages, “I learned that I could alter the speed of certain tics with some success. Especially with the big whiplash tics, this was a revelation. Sometimes having tics at half speed released me from the urges. That would save huge amounts of wear and tear.”

At the end of the book, you seemed to have gained a great deal of control over the Tourettes, and then you seemed to back track a bit. How are you now?

Worse than ever. I’m thirty six years old and it’s so much worse than it was at any time I described during the book. And it seems to be worsening every day. Not sure what to say about that besides it really sucks and I’ll grind my teeth and keep going.

I’m sorry to heart that, I truly am.

I’m sure you have been inundated with questions from parents of kids with Tourette’s.  What are a few pieces of advice that you offer them?

All kids need the same things. They need to feel loved and safe and they need help finding whatever they can be good at. Kids with Tourette’s need those things, but it often takes the shape of parents learning about the disorder, being patient, and helping the child learn how to talk about the condition so it can be explained as needed.

When did you start writing THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN, how long did it take, and how did you write it? For example, did you brainstorm, outline, organize, did you set daily word count goals, how many times did you edit it?

It took about four years in one way or another. The story kept changing. Then we’d submit a proposal that would go nowhere and have to retool based on feedback. I’m not really an outliner or a word count person. I love to write and look forward to it every day.

With the nature of Tourette’s, I’m rarely capable of sitting still long enough to write for more than fifteen minutes a day. Sometimes that would get me 1000 words, sometimes it would get me 100. My goal was simply to write every day and keep my fingers moving. I learned that I have to make a huge mess before I can clean it up. I don’t ask myself editorial questions on the fly.

I went through eight drafts myself, and three with the editor who bought the book.

I loved this sentence, “Whenever the teenagers are quiet, I assume it’s because they’re impregnating each other.” What are your top three reasons for being a librarian?

These probably aren’t my top three, but if you can count, you’ll concede that these are, at the very least, three reasons:

I’m not well-suited to anything else
I love the library’s mission – fight ignorance and promote curiosity and literacy
It’s fun

I know this question might be hard because you’re a book addict, but I must ask you for your top five favorite books EVER.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

How much are you currently dead lifting and bench pressing now? How many hours are you in the gym per week? (Readers: Josh is six foot seven.)  

Not sure about deadfliting; I don’t test maxes. I know I can deadlift 525 pounds for a set of 15, so my upper limit would probably be in the 600 range. I don’t really bench press much, so I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve ever benched more than 350, and almost certainly couldn’t do that now.

I usually lift three times a week for 20-40 minutes. If I’m watching TV I might work do some additional work on my hands while I’m vegging.

Your story is very personal. Were there challenges in that regard?

Yes. When you spend this much time thinking about yourself, you learn who you are. When you start turning over the rocks you don’t get to choose what’s under them. I learned to love and hate myself in ways that I never would have suspected were possible, prior to the book.

How have your family members and friends reacted to the book?

With wonderful positivity and support.

THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN is so popular. How has it changed your life?

Ha! I wish that popularity translated to more sales! My life is still the same in most ways. Forty hours a week at the library. Family. Lifting and books. But I also get to go speak and meet people like Stephen King and have experiences that never would have presented themselves without the book.

More than anything, I like to meet people. Anyone. Everyone. And this book has put me in rooms with thousands of fine folks that I probably never would have met otherwise. I love that.

What are you writing now?

About to turn in the next non-fiction book. I’ll keep the subject to myself, but will give you the first line:

The French have a saying, but I can’t remember what it is, so we’ll speak no more of the French.

I love it. Can’t wait to buy it. Thanks for the interview, Josh. Happy writing and happy reading. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy Lamb: Josh, I absolutely loved THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN.

Here are a few of the reasons why, in no particular order: First, your love of books and your mother’s love of books. I grew up in the same type of household, with a mother who was handing us books when we were still babies.  We all read. It was just what we did, so I related to you from the start.

Second, I appreciated your honesty about your challenges with Tourette’s Syndrome and how you wrote about it with sincerity and humor, and zero self pity.

Third, I liked learning about being Mormon and your faith trajectory, as I would call it. I’m Christian, but have questioned many aspects of my faith from day one, so your thoughtful introspection helped me to do some more thinking.

Fourth, your work as a librarian. I laughed out loud so many times.

Now I’m going to ask you a question instead of being a gushing fan.  Why did you write the book? What was your intent in writing about your life?

Josh Hanagarne: It really happened by accident.  I’d been writing a blog called World’s Strongest Librarian http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/  just to keep track of my workouts, because I kept losing my strength training notebooks. Two months into that blog, Seth Godin sent me an email and said “You should be writing a book! I’m sending this to my agent!” forty eight hours later, for no reason whatsoever, I had a literary agent, but no book, not even an idea for a book.

I hate to be bored, and writing a book sounded like an adventure, so away we went. It just took forever to figure out what it might be. I didn’t have any specific intentions except to see what might happen.

For the readers here who don’t know what Tourette’s Syndrome is can you explain it and then tell us what is hardest about having it?

Tourette’s is a neurological condition which causes involuntary vocalizations and/or movements. It kind of feels like needing to sneeze, but all the time, everywhere, in every part of your body. The symptoms are called tics. I have a very extreme case, so the worst parts for me are the pain and injuries in my body, and the relentless challenges of being in public but not being able to control the noises I make or what my body does.

One of my favorite passages, “I learned that I could alter the speed of certain tics with some success. Especially with the big whiplash tics, this was a revelation. Sometimes having tics at half speed released me from the urges. That would save huge amounts of wear and tear.”

At the end of the book, you seemed to have gained a great deal of control over the Tourettes, and then you seemed to back track a bit. How are you now?

Worse than ever. I’m thirty six years old and it’s so much worse than it was at any time I described during the book. And it seems to be worsening every day. Not sure what to say about that besides it really sucks and I’ll grind my teeth and keep going.

I’m sorry to heart that, I truly am.

I’m sure you have been inundated with questions from parents of kids with Tourette’s.  What are a few pieces of advice that you offer them?

All kids need the same things. They need to feel loved and safe and they need help finding whatever they can be good at. Kids with Tourette’s need those things, but it often takes the shape of parents learning about the disorder, being patient, and helping the child learn how to talk about the condition so it can be explained as needed.

When did you start writing THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN, how long did it take, and how did you write it? For example, did you brainstorm, outline, organize, did you set daily word count goals, how many times did you edit it?

It took about four years in one way or another. The story kept changing. Then we’d submit a proposal that would go nowhere and have to retool based on feedback. I’m not really an outliner or a word count person. I love to write and look forward to it every day.

With the nature of Tourette’s, I’m rarely capable of sitting still long enough to write for more than fifteen minutes a day. Sometimes that would get me 1000 words, sometimes it would get me 100. My goal was simply to write every day and keep my fingers moving. I learned that I have to make a huge mess before I can clean it up. I don’t ask myself editorial questions on the fly.

I went through eight drafts myself, and three with the editor who bought the book.

I loved this sentence, “Whenever the teenagers are quiet, I assume it’s because they’re impregnating each other.” What are your top three reasons for being a librarian?

These probably aren’t my top three, but if you can count, you’ll concede that these are, at the very least, three reasons:

I’m not well-suited to anything else
I love the library’s mission – fight ignorance and promote curiosity and literacy
It’s fun

I know this question might be hard because you’re a book addict, but I must ask you for your top five favorite books EVER.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

How much are you currently dead lifting and bench pressing now? How many hours are you in the gym per week? (Readers: Josh is six foot seven.)  

Not sure about deadfliting; I don’t test maxes. I know I can deadlift 525 pounds for a set of 15, so my upper limit would probably be in the 600 range. I don’t really bench press much, so I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve ever benched more than 350, and almost certainly couldn’t do that now.

I usually lift three times a week for 20-40 minutes. If I’m watching TV I might work do some additional work on my hands while I’m vegging.

Your story is very personal. Were there challenges in that regard?

Yes. When you spend this much time thinking about yourself, you learn who you are. When you start turning over the rocks you don’t get to choose what’s under them. I learned to love and hate myself in ways that I never would have suspected were possible, prior to the book.

How have your family members and friends reacted to the book?

With wonderful positivity and support.

THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN is so popular. How has it changed your life?

Ha! I wish that popularity translated to more sales! My life is still the same in most ways. Forty hours a week at the library. Family. Lifting and books. But I also get to go speak and meet people like Stephen King and have experiences that never would have presented themselves without the book.

More than anything, I like to meet people. Anyone. Everyone. And this book has put me in rooms with thousands of fine folks that I probably never would have met otherwise. I love that.

What are you writing now?

About to turn in the next non-fiction book. I’ll keep the subject to myself, but will give you the first line:

The French have a saying, but I can’t remember what it is, so we’ll speak no more of the French.

I love it. Can’t wait to buy it. Thanks for the interview, Josh. Happy writing and happy reading. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy Lamb: Your book, The Rosie Project, was one of my favorite books of the year, probably of my whole life. I so enjoyed it. I read it on my kindle, then bought it for my son.

Graeme Simsion: Well, many thanks! It’s great to see something I’ve created giving so much pleasure to readers.

I actually read your book when I should have been working on mine! 

Readers are always  curious about authors. At least, I always am. So, can you tell us about yourself? Where you live, your job, interests, hobbies…

I live in Melbourne Australia. My original career was in information technology, and I built up a consulting business which I sold when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I kept consulting and doing seminars on a freelance basis until December, 2012 when international sales of The Rosie Project allowed me to become a full-time writer. Hobbies? Who has time for hobbies? I enjoy things that fit around my writing life – travel, food and wine, reading. My wife and I walked 1250 miles from central France to Santiago in Spain in 2010.

That sounds like a very long walk. I hope you were able to sample excellent wine along the way. (Although not TOO much wine, as that could have made walking difficult.)

For those who have not yet read The Rosie Project (and you should!!) tell us about Don Tillman.

Don’s a 39-year-old professor of genetics who’s a little (OK, a lot) socially challenged. His life is well-organised, productive and just fine – except he wants a partner.  Dating hasn’t been a big success so far, but now that he’s constructed a 32-page questionnaire to select the perfect partner, that’s under control too.

Don has Asperger’s but doesn’t appear to know it, though he’s clearly brilliant.  He even gives a lecture to children with Asperger’s and their parents and studies it extensively. Yet you never let him get to a place of deep introspection and self – analysis so he could acknowledge it. Why was that?

Photo credit: James Penlidis.

For a long time I avoided the question of whether Don has Asperger’s – not just in the book, but when asked in interviews. I didn’t read up on Asperger’s to invent Don; I based him on people I’d met in IT and academe, none of whom had been diagnosed with Asperger’s (the diagnosis wasn’t really around until the mid 1990s, and those guys were already adults and doing well enough not to seek help.) But the general consensus from the Asperger’s community is that Don is one of them!

The people who inspired Don frequently don’t seek diagnosis. I recall Autism expert Temple Grandin being quoted as saying that half of Silicon Valley is made up of people with Asperger’s avoiding diagnosis like the plague.

So Don avoids confronting that question – at least at first. Later in the book, there is a moment where he ponders the advantages of a diagnosis and lets us know that it’s at least crossed his mind.

I also found, in workshopping an early short story I wrote to ‘work up’ the Don character, that labeling him with Asperger’s shifted the readers’ focus from Don the person to Asperger’s  the syndrome.  I wasn’t writing about textbook Asperger’s: I was writing about a person who had it.

Don’s goal is to find a wife. He says, “There is something about me that women find unappealing. I have never found it easy to make friends, and it seems that the deficiencies that caused this problem have also affected my attempts at romantic relationships.”

I think a lot of people feel like this – certainly not just people with Asperger’s. I could certainly relate to him. Was that deliberate on your part as a writer – forming a bridge from him to us?

I often write on books I’m signing, especially for men: “There’s a bit of Don in all of us.” In fact, when I workshopped that first short story, one woman said “Asperger’s? He’s just a bloke.’  I see Don first as a fellow human being, second (or fourteenth!) as having Asperger’s. So he shares problems, desires, insecurities with all of us. Some of the Asperger’s characteristics are simply stronger forms of attributes we all have to some extent – social awkwardness, discomfort with uncertainty, need for our own space. The desire for connection which drives the story is close to universal, and so too the fear that we will not find it. 

The first paragraph of the book caught me immediately, “I may have found a solution to the Wife Problem. As with so many scientific breakthroughs, the answer was obvious in retrospect. But had it not been for a series of unscheduled events, it is unlikely I would have discovered it.” 

Don is trying to combine finding a wife and science. Is there a link do you think?  Or is there only a link for Don?

We use what we have! To a child with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and to Don Tillman every problem looks like a science problem. Everyone who signs up for internet dating and fills out a list of what they’re looking for, or who tells a friend that they want a partner with a good sense of humor who likes wine is applying a bit of science to shift the odds in their favor. Don is just taking it a bit further.

Often in books, the best friend is a lot of fun.  He or she offers humor, distraction, and lovability, so to speak. But Don’s best friend, Gene, is a real rat in some ways, especially in his goal, as a married man, to sleep with one woman from every country on the globe.

I thought it was a clever twist on the best friend angle. What was your goal in creating Gene, especially in terms of his relationship with Don?

The best friend is a classic way of externalizing the protagonist’s thoughts – Don tells Gene rather than us what he’s thinking. For obvious reasons, it’s used a lot in movies. In my earliest drafts, Gene was two people – the bad-advice-philanderer and the good-advice-lab manager. By combining them, I got a more complex character.  Gene is also the dark side of Don – what Don might have become if he’d mastered the surface skills of social interaction without developing real empathy.

I found Don’s list of requirements for a wife to be so entertaining. He does not want a woman who wears make up or jewelry and her appearance is not relevant, which is the complete opposite for most men out there trying to find a partner. He also wants to weed out the “time wasters, the disorganized, the ice cream discriminators, the crystal gazers, the fashion obsessives, the religious fanatics, the vegans, the creationists, the illiterate…” 

He does not seem to be looking for someone to love, though, or to be passionate about.   He’s looking for a partner. From your perspective, is this true?

I think Don is looking for someone to love, but he (a) doesn’t know quite what that means and (b) can’t specify what that person might look like beyond ‘someone like me.’ But I’d suggest that the loving relationships that last are those where a partnership grows to supplant that original infatuation or limerence. Indeed, Don and Rosie’s bond develops through a ‘joint project’ – doing things together rather than some instant attraction.

I loved Rosie because she was so blunt, often rude, intelligent, emotional and temperamental…and because she saw the good in Don. Was it your intent from the first to draw a character who was the complete opposite of Don?  

Not from the first! The story was originally The Klara Project and Klara was an obvious choice for Don – if only he could see it. I rewrote it with a character who was superficially the opposite to what Don wanted. She’s not the complete opposite deep down! She’s a bit of a loner herself, a researcher, a quirky dresser and she  ‘gets’ him from the start.

I felt that you accurately portrayed how challenging it could be to be in a relationship with someone with Asperger’s. How did you research this part of the book?

25 years working in information technology and meeting colleagues’ partners! Seriously, I simply drew on real life, sometimes just exaggerating things that happen in all relationships because men in particular are emotionally unaware, literal, problem / solution focused, etc.

Ah, yes. There does seem to be a slight difference between men and women….

How did you write the book? Did you draw the character first and jump into a first draft? Did you outline the story? Did you set daily word count goals? How many times did you edit it? How long did it take to write? And, with a full time job, how did you find the time to write it?  

The Don Tillman character and his search for a partner came first and drove everything. Almost everything else change over the five years I worked on the story, which for a long time was a screenplay rather than a novel.

I don’t try to write every day – progress is not just words on a page. Sometimes I’m outlining, sometimes working on a plot problem, sometimes thinking about a character, sometimes re-writing, sometimes thinking creatively about what could be different or better.

When I’m actually writing, I often go fast – several thousand words a day with limited breaks.

When I had a full-time job, I wrote (using that word broadly to mean ‘worked on the story’) in the gaps between assignments – when I could. I didn’t watch TV.

I know you’re an expert in data modeling and in information systems. How did your background help, or perhaps challenge, the writing of The Rosie Project?

More than you (or your readers) might expect. My approach to writing is strongly informed by my background in information technology and a PhD in design theory – plus my screenwriting studies. I outline first, and don’t write until I have an outline, but understand the outline may change. I treat creativity as something that can be managed and work hard on making as much of what I do conscious rather than relying on magic.

I did a TedX talk on this (it’s online) a little while ago.

The Rosie Project is an international best seller, as you well know. How has writing The Rosie Project changed your life?

Yes. I’m a full-time writer, I’m doing something I love but never thought I was capable of, I have a chance to communicate with people all over the world. The financial thing is not such a big deal but it does mean I can devote myself fully to my writing career.

What are you working on now?

A sequel to The Rosie Project. I’m also the screenwriter for the movie version of Rosie which has been optioned to Sony Pictures. And I always have a couple of short stories in the pipeline.

I cannot wait to see The Rosie Project on screen.  I will anxiously await to see who plays Don.  I can’t help but think of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory…

Thanks for your time, and happy writing.