Curtain Closed: Goodbye to Davy Jones of the Monkees

March 1, 2012 By 22 Comments

My favorite photo of Davy

When I heard the news of Davy’s death, I was stunned. A weight settled in my chest, and the world turned surreal. I had trouble concentrating on my work, but luckily a toddler and a deadline are great motivators. And while I will shed a few tears for Davy tonight, my thoughts are with those whose grief is deep and searing—his wife and his four daughters, Talia, Sarah, Jessica, and Annabel.

I never thought Davy would be the first to go. He was the youngest Monkee, and always seemed the most fit. His off-stage life with his horses kept him athletic and strong. A heart attack makes no sense, but then death rarely does.

Much of the public never considered the Monkees a “serious” band, even though they were astronomically popular. Many people who only knew Davy as a Monkee wave him off with a snort. They don’t know that he had serious bona fides—he was a rising Broadway star before the Monkees got him. Davy was nominated for a Tony award for his role as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! He was on The Ed Sullivan Show the same day the Beatles were. You don’t get to those places without having something special.

Davy was my favorite Monkee. When my friends and I were in high school and college, we followed the Monkees as they toured. Whenever they came near, we were there—from New York to Virginia, from the wilds of New Jersey to the environs of Philadelphia. We called ourselves the Monkettes, made two halfway decent parody albums, and two completely cringeworthy videos. So, yes, we were groupies.

I got to be Davy because I was short and could do a passable English accent.

While the three Monkees who toured together (Mike Nesmith declined) treated their fans well, Davy always went the extra mile. He would stand outside the stage door until every fan got an autograph or picture, and never once look at his watch. In spite of the mass of fans around us, he had the talent of giving you his full attention for those few minutes he was with you. One time, my friends and I went to the hotel where the Monkees were staying after their concert. It had poured rain at the outdoor concert, and we were all soaked. When Davy noticed two particularly drenched girls shivering and shaking in the lobby, he had hot tea sent down to them.

A consummate performer, Davy never cancelled a show to my knowledge. One time, my friend Donna H. and I went to Long Island’s Jones Beach to see him do an open-air solo concert. He got about six songs in when a huge thunderstorm blew in from the ocean and caused a literal sandstorm before the deluge. To this day I firmly believe he would have stood there singing through it all if his band members hadn’t all disappeared when the lightning started.

When I was in college, my friend Donna L. and I went to WHYY studios to watch Davy tape the Don Kirschner Rock Awards infomercial. The filming dragged on and on and on. The audience wilted with fatigue. But Davy kept going. He joked with the audience during the down times, he stepped up whenever the cameras turned on, and he never wavered throughout that arduous filming session. He was a professional through and through, even though he had to be as exhausted as we all were.

Don Kirschner Rock Awards - May 22, 1990

Davy lived to be onstage. The audience jazzed him up, always, and he clearly gave us everything he had every time I saw him—which was too many times to count. He loved to interact with the audience, both onstage and off. He gloried in the spotlight.

Some people might have called this ego, or hubris. I never saw it that way. Davy Jones was supremely confident in who he was and what he did. Onstage he was magnetic and full of fun. Offstage he was warm and personable. Often irreverent, occasionally bawdy, he wore who he was right out there for all to see because he was secure in himself. He might have been only 5’4”, but he stood far taller than that in person.

Davy lived his life without apology and without regret. He made his living doing the things he loved most, and most people don’t get to do that. He was one of the lucky ones, and he knew it. I believe that was why he loved the stage so much, loved his fans so much. Because he understood that they were the reason he had risen from apprentice jockey to Monkee superstar.

Davy at Great Adventure 9-7-1987

Davy Jones didn’t need to be a daydream believer—he made all of his come true.

Curtains closed, Davy.

I hope you can hear the standing ovation.

Inspiration: The Paths Taken

February 23, 2012 By 11 Comments

Two roads diverged in a wood…
–Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken


I find paths winding through the wood irresistible. Not that I go charging down every one I see on a whim, mind you, but the image of that path stays with me for a long time. They call to me with the voice of the past, luring me away from the loud, crowded, connected present to the quiet, expansive solitude of a time long gone.

Paths like this appeal to my sense of adventure. (My husband is now snorting water out his nose as he reads this, because I am, shall we say, less than adventurous in my travels.) But the adventure of wooded paths is one of the imagination, not just geography. As my feet follow the pathway, I wonder about those who have gone before. Who were they? Why were they here? What were their lives like? What trials did they face? What triumphs did they celebrate? What were their stories?

Paths like this inspire me; they fire my imagination. They bring me a welcome release from the hectic pace of the normal world. They allow me to breathe, to be quiet, to think—to feel. Where they lead me to physically is almost irrelevant. But most times, I get the added gift of vistas like these: 

How can I pass up a path when it leads to a reward like that? And how can I as a writer help but get new ideas when a path leads to a house like this:

What’s it like to live in a house only accessible via water? It must cut down on unwanted visitors, that’s for certain!

The other day I drove past a wooded area. At one point two pillars stood. Once a gate—I picture wrought iron—had stood between them, but now one pillar lay half-toppled and a large branch blocked the way between them. Beyond the pillars stretched a path between the trees. Yellow and orange leaves lay thick on it, covering it and reclaiming it for the woods that surrounded it.

It called to me, but I could not follow it…that day.

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

–Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

The Literary Toolbox: Writing Simultaneous Action

February 16, 2012 By 6 Comments

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of going to a workshop run by editor Kathryn Craft. This workshop was a focused one, dealing with a single element of writing for two hours. Last week’s topic was writing simultaneous action.

Normally, when writers want to show action happening at the same time in two different locations, we write the events as two separate scenes. We may quickly cut back and forth between scenes, but each action happens as its own discrete event.

Not so with writing simultaneous action. The events are woven together within the same paragraph, the sentences jumping back and forth between events with no segues. A good example of this from the movies is the baptism montage from The Godfather. The example Kathryn gave us from literature was from Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.

We practiced this mind-bending technique by writing one scene based on a prompt, then writing a second based on a different prompt (we had numerous prompts to choose from). When writing the second scene, we were supposed to try NOT to think about the first scene, to just write as if it wasn’t going to be integrated with the first. Of course, our subconscious knew it, so it did some pretty remarkable things with this exercise!

Since we were constrained to a short time period, we meshed the two scenes together rather willy-nilly. All of us were amazed at how well they meshed! Unintentional reinforcements of words or themes or metaphors or symbols layered deeper meaning into the story. We did find that confusion as to what was happening where did occur (although sometimes that added unexpected texture to the piece), but since this was a rough exercise that was expected. One trick that helped alleviate the confusion was using the present tense in one event and the past tense in the other event. That may sound contradictory, since both events are happening simultaneously, but it worked well, especially when the two events were present action and a flashback occurring during the present action.

Writing simultaneous action kind of made my head hurt, in that time-travel-paradox kind of way, but even the short exercise we did showed how powerful a tool it could be if used in the right place. In fact, I thought of a particular story I am writing where this would be perfect for a certain scene.

I’m going to share my writing exercise below so you can see what I mean by writing simultaneous action.

Scene 1: Driving in the rain is awful. Driving in the rain in the dark is horrific. Kaleidoscopic light refracts through the rain from oncoming cars, water slashes across the windshield so hard the wipers might as well be turned off, the tires just barely grab the road, the lines on the road all but invisible. Exit 47. How much farther? A flick to turn on the overhead light, a glance at the paper with the tear-stained directions. A nearly fatal glance, as the tires rumble on the strip at the road’s edge. The wheel fights me, the tires slip, but the car keeps to the road. Five more miles. Five miles takes about 15 minutes in this weather. 15 minutes could be too long. The end was near, they’d said. Only 15 minutes more to reach her bedside—and I still might be too late.

Scene 2: A crack shattered the night, the sound made visible by a blinding sulphurous light. The tree, steaming in the rain, stands for a moment as if in shock—the half of it falls away, splintering the trunk as it smashes to the ground. The tree tears down wires, pulverizes two cars, and lays across the road with the finality of death. Among the crushed limbs and shredded glass, the wires spark like disheartened fireworks, the only light left in the neighborhood.

Combined: Driving in the rain is awful. Driving in the rain in the dark is horrific. A crack shattered the night, the sound made visible by a blinding sulphurous light. Kaleidoscopic light refracts through the rain from oncoming cars, water slashes across the windshield so hard the wipers might as well be turned off, the tires just barely grab the road, the lines on the road all but invisible. The tree, steaming in the rain, stands for a moment as if in shock—then half of it falls away, splintering the trunk as it smashes to the ground. Exit 47. How much farther? A flick to turn on the overhead light, a glance at the paper with the tear-stained directions. A nearly fatal glance, as the tires rumble on the strip at the road’s edge. The wheel fights me, the tires slip, but the car keeps to the road. The tree tears down wires, pulverizes two cars, and lays across the road with the finality of death. Five more miles. Five miles takes about 15 minutes in this weather. 15 minutes could be too long. The end was near, they’d said. Among the crushed limbs and shredded glass, the wires spark like disheartened fireworks, the only light left in the neighborhood. Only 15 minutes more to reach her bedside—and I still might be too late.

So there’s a rough example of how it works (or doesn’t). Add this to your literary toolbox and use it to amp up some of the action in your story!

Undervaluing the Art of Writing

February 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

I’ve read a bunch of blogs lately that wonder why we writers are often reluctant to tell other (non-writing) people that we are writers. The answer always seems to come down to this: Other people do not value what we writers do.

Certainly if we are able to say that we have sold a bunch of books, or written for prestigious magazines, people do not react the same way as when we admit that we’ve been querying since the Jurassic era and still haven’t sold anything. They find little or no value in the hours and weeks and years of work and sweat and money we have put into improving our craft and writing book after book without any tangible return on our investment.

There was a time in history when art of all sorts was valued more than it is now. Many artists had patrons who supported them so they could focus on their art. The patrons got the prestige of having beautiful art made just for them, and the artist got to work with relative peace of mind. Paintings, sculptures, and, yes, even books were commissioned and paid for by avid supporters. Books were written and copied by hand, and owning a book was a privilege.

Not so anymore. Ever since Gutenberg, technology has contributed to the devaluation trend. We started being able to print out thousands of these things called books, and suddenly it wasn’t special to have a book—anyone could get one. Books stopped being art and became a commodity—units to be sold. Familiarity bred contempt.

Technology has also contributed to the proliferation of writers. The word processor has made it easy for people to write and revise. And with technology like laptops and tablets and smartphones, people can write anything, from virtually anywhere. Enter the ease of self-publishing these days, and a tsunami of writers has swamped the world. As always with when supply outstrips demand, less intrinsic value is placed on that item.

And because it appears so easy to write, writing doesn’t seem like work to people. It seems like play. Like…dare I say it…a hobby. And unfortunately, until you get an agent, until you get a book contract, most people will not consider what we do “real work”—because we are writing for no money. And in this day and age, that means there is no value to what we do.

But there is value in what we do, tremendous value. Personally, it gives us great joy, in spite of the sweating blood moments. Even more so, when we write something that touches someone, we have accomplished a minor miracle. Contemporary fiction might reach a person who felt that they were all alone and give them hope. Fantasy or science fiction might reach someone who needs an escape—or fire someone’s imagination. Every book that touches a reader takes them to someplace they have never been, into someone else’s life, and leaves the reader seeing their own world in a different way.

We inspire hope, compassion, understanding, courage, and dreams.

If that’s not value, what is?

So go ahead and say it – I AM A WRITER!

A Writer in a World Without Written Language

February 2, 2012 By 3 Comments

Last week, I asked fellow writers what they would do if they weren’t writers. Which got me wondering what I would do if I wasn’t a writer—if that wasn’t an option in our world.

All other things being the same, I think my dream job would be as a genealogist. I love digging around in the past so much, that I get as excited when I help other people do their family lines as when I do mine! So I think that would be my job: professional genealogist. I have no idea how you get to be a professional, but I certainly have logged thousands of “in the field” hours doing my own research!

But, since I am a writer, I took my mental musings a bit farther. What if I lived in a world with no written language? Then what? Genealogy research is based on documentation, which of course would not exist with no written language.

I don’t think I could be an oral storyteller, mostly because I dislike being the center of attention. And I would love to be the keeper of a family history, but my brain turned to mush at age 40 and I would have had to pass it on to the next generation already. So what to do in my retirement?

Keep in mind that a society without a written language does not necessarily have to be a backwards, primitive society. I expect that we would have evolved a different method of preserving and passing on information—likely a visual medium. So our stories would be long, elaborate films or series instead of books. Our non-fiction would be preserved in pictures and videos of lectures and speeches and documentaries. Music would have more weight, as songs would likely convey information instead of simply being “pop culture.”

In a world like that, what would I be? I would still be what I am, a storyteller, only I would have to use the visual medium of the day to tell my stories. I would have to learn to interweave the visual and the aural and the symbolism into a work of art on the screen. Which shouldn’t be too hard—many authors are visual thinkers anyway and many use music to set the mood as they write.

So I would be a visual storyteller. Which is kind of ironic, because in a previous life—before full-time writer, before Mommy—I was an award-winning video editor.

Funny how you can never escape what you really are.

The Mystery of Learning to Read

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

How many of you remember learning to read? If you’re like me, you have no recollection of the moment you understood how to read. It just happened one day when you were very young.

My two year old is very interested in words right now. She’s known her letters forever, and now insists I spell things for her. Or if we are reading, she will ask me, “What does that spell?” and motion to the whole sentence. I have taped sight words all over the house, so she can see the words all the time.

She knows about a dozen words when I spell them out loud for her, and about half as many by sight. While she understands the basics of phonics (she knows what sound all the letters make), she doesn’t yet understand the concept of using those sounds to “sound out” a word she doesn’t know by sight.

I am amazed at all the knowledge she is compiling in her head, and I am very interested in watching how all these various ways of learning about words and letters and sounds coalesce into her actually reading. One day, something inside will snap all these components into place and she will read.

I have a feeling, though, that no matter how closely I watch, no matter how hard I pay attention for “the moment” when it all comes together, how someone learns to read will still be a mystery.

As mysterious as it is, learning to read does seem hardwired into us as a species. Virtually everyone does learn how to read. There are people with problems that learn later than most, but almost everyone gets there in the end—some in multiple languages. Why do we have such a natural affinity for the act of reading? Why are our brains so well adapted to interpreting symbols and creating meaning from them? Did we create writing because we already had this ability, or did we develop the ability in response to the need to write things down to preserve survival information? Another mystery we will likely never solve.

Reading has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. I hope my daughter also learns to love reading as much as her father and I do, whether it’s reading a real book or an e-book or some other kind of book that hasn’t been developed yet. For all the joy reading has brought to my life, I am profoundly grateful to those long-ago ancestors who invented writing.

Which brings me to one last mystery: If there was no writing, what would all of us writers be doing instead?

So how about it? In a world without the written word, what would you be doing?

War Horse: The Use of POV in Book & Movie

January 19, 2012 By 5 Comments

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, published in 1982, was a favorite book of mine as a kid. I remember reading it multiple times (back in the days when I actually had time to read things more than once!). When I heard it was going to be made into a movie, I was a little leery of seeing it, in case the movie didn’t live up to the memory.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Perhaps luckily for me (and Steven Spielberg) my memory is not so good. All I really remembered from the book was that it was told from the horse’s point of view, and that he “fought” on both the English and German sides.

I wondered how Spielberg and the movie writers would handle the whole POV issue. Aside from the rather cheesy option of having a horse voice-over, there didn’t seem a way he could pull it off. Turns out that he did have some non-horse POV in there, which worked well and allowed the human story to come through.

What I thought was brilliant, though, was that Spielberg and the writers understood something about the book that I, as a child reading it, did not. Most war stories are told from one side or the other. Someone is always the bad guy. In War Horse, the horse Joey tells the story. He is on neither side—or rather, he is on both, beginning as English cavalry and then working as a German ambulance and artillery horse. This allowed Morpurgo and Spielberg to simply show the war and let the readers or viewers make up their own minds. Instead of vilifying either side, the movie held up the insanity of war, cast an impartial eye on it, and asked us if this was the best humankind could be.

World War I was especially heinous because the armies were at a crossroads of technology. They were still fighting with cavalry tactics against machine guns and tanks. Thousands of soldiers died needlessly in stupid attacks that should never have been tried. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie (spoiler alert!) was an English cavalry charge on an unsuspecting German camp. The sweeping visuals of 300 horses charging in formation, the thunder of their hooves, and the shouts of their riders made them seem invincible. Indeed, the German soldiers, caught unprepared, fell in droves as they raced for the shelter of the nearby woods. The woods…I nearly jumped up out of my seat, wanting to scream at the cavalry to retreat, retreat!

In an eyeblink, everything changed. The massive cavalry charged right into a line of machine guns hidden in the woods. In a beautiful, intense, heart-wrenching few minutes, the machine guns chattered away, and a stream of riderless horses leapt over the gun line. An eternity of riderless horses… It was one of the most powerful images in the movie, and one of the most compelling scenes as a whole that I have seen.

By maintaining this impartial eye, Spielberg was able to show us humans at our best and at our worst. We are left to wonder if we have come very far from the carnage of World War I. If we have learned anything at all. If we could be as strong, forgiving, and noble as the four-legged hero of this film. If we are worthy of a War Horse.

EastEnders

January 12, 2012 By 2 Comments

Ever since my daughter was born, I haven’t watched much TV. The occasional football game, but as my favorite drama series went off the air, I didn’t replace them.

But there is one TV show that I have watched religiously since I was 16. For 25 years, my parents and I have watched this show together, growing up with the characters. This show is EastEnders.

EastEnders is a half-hour British soap opera following the families living in an East End square in London. Unlike American soap operas, the people are not rich, glamorous, or privileged. This is the story of working-class families struggling just to make ends meet. The plotlines are (for the most part) realistic and often gritty. As in real life, people come and go in the community—families move in, move out; children grow up, get married; people are born, people die. Unlike American soaps, the people that die tend to stay dead. Only 4 characters remain from the original cast 25 years ago.

So why have I watched for 25 years? Why does this show have such a loyal following in both the UK and the US?

Quality.

The writing is superb, and the actors are incredible. While there are always difficult and sometimes gut-wrenching plotlines in each episode, some other character is often involved in a light, often slightly comedic, plotline to alleviate the tension. Often these two plotlines will collide in unexpected ways. The writers also don’t forget—a storyline that impacts the characters deeply often resurfaces much later. They remember anniversaries of deaths, marriages, births, and other important events, and are not afraid to tackle difficult topics like HIV, prejudice, rape, adoption, abortion, and discrimination.

Not only is the writing fantastic, but the actors carry it off with skill. They manage to capture nuance and contradiction, making their characters as real as anyone you’d meet on the street. My husband is not a huge fan of the show because he finds it loud—there is a lot of ambient noise in some scenes, and arguments do tend to have raised voices. But my very favorite episodes are the quiet ones.

Every once and a while, there will be an episode that consists entirely of two people talking. Sound boring? Well, it could be, if done incorrectly. But the actors combined with the writing make it riveting. (I also have to give kudos to the director, who shoots the episodes with varied camera angles to give the feel of movement even when there is none.) These episodes often follow some “big reveal”—they are the quiet after the explosion. They are intense. I cannot look away. My living room fades away as I am pulled into their world.

One example showing the convergence of writing and acting is the character of Dot. She is an original character, and is likely about 70 now. Dot is deeply religious, often quoting scripture to make her point. She could be a sanctimoniously annoying character, but her zealotry is tempered by her own human foibles and true compassion. Her character is often used as light relief, comedic without being hurtful, and it would be easy to leave her character at this shallow level. But the writers don’t. Dot’s life has been harsh, and we understand that this is one reason she has retreated so deeply into her religion. Also, the writers create moments where Dot’s depth can shine through—moments where she reveals little pieces of her pain. The actress that plays Dot is superb. In just a few lines, she can transform from a comedic façade to an intense, soul-searching woman. In one of those “quiet” episodes I love so much, Dot was forced to make a horrific choice: help her terminally ill friend end her suffering or stick to her religious principles. This episode (just Dot and her friend Ethel) explored the issue of assisted suicide without ever once mentioning the word. One moment I was swayed by one point of view; the next moment the other side made an equally compelling argument. The emotional conflict was vivid and gut-wrenching and left the viewers to make up their own minds while showing clearly and believably the choice Dot eventually made.

I had fallen behind in watching them—I had 63 to watch. In a month and a half long marathon, I have caught up, and I remember why I love that show so much. It is addictive. Now that I’ve caught up, I am jonesing for the next episode. Here in the US, we are watching episodes that aired in 2004, so we are very far behind. As long as EastEnders is being filmed in the UK (where it airs 4 times a week), we will never catch up.

And that is fine with me.

Happy New Year 2012

January 5, 2012 By 2 Comments

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a fun holiday.

I’ve never been a big one for New Year’s Resolutions. I figure if I can’t stick to my resolutions at any other time of year, why would ones made on Jan 1 be any different?

I did make a resolution last year – to post at least once a week on this blog. And I am proud to say that I did it! I missed one week in November, but since I posted more than once several times in the year, I figure it evens out.

I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs about writing resolutions and goals for the new year. I think the best piece of advice I read was to only make goals that are completely within your control. For instance, having blog posts written and ready for each week was totally within my control. Having my blog appear in the Writer’s Digest Top 100 Best Blogs for Writers (it didn’t) is not in my control. By choosing goals where things are out of your control, you are setting yourself up for failure.

So I thought about my writing goals for 2012. I have two:

1. Write every day. No word count goal, because my daily writing time is unpredictable (something out of my control). But write something each day. A blog post, a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence. Something.

2. Polish my two middle grade WIPs and query agents. I can do that. Note that I didn’t say, “Get an agent.” That’s because whether the agents accept me or not isn’t something I can control. I can, however, research agents that are a good fit for me and query them.

Another thing several blogs suggested was sharing your goals, because once you tell someone else you have an accountability and will tend to work harder to achieve the goals you set. So I’m telling all of you!

What are your goals for 2012?

Writing During the Holiday Madness

December 29, 2011 By 2 Comments

I don’t know about you, but from Thanksgiving on my life has been a runaway train going downhill. I haven’t stopped for over a month. I feel like I haven’t breathed in about as long. An exhausting combination of travel, family obligations, illnesses, classes, and the requirements of survival have drained me. My gas tank is well below “E.” And yet, I’m still going.

So did my writing fare in this whirlwind? Did I even manage to get a single word written? I am pleased to say that yes, I did.

I did more than just eke out words, too—I was quite productive. I attribute this productivity to the fact that I am in between books. I finished a draft of one middle grade book and got it out to beta readers before the insanity began (which I had planned). The rest of this month was taken up with back-and-forth between my co-authors and me on the major revision to The Egyptian Enigma.

Mostly this consisted of new suggested timelines/outlines. Jim Kempner and I started with two separate outlines and the subsequent discussions (via email) slowly merged them into one outline that we felt contained the best of both. It helped that we were not that far apart on most major issues.

I would say that coming to an agreement on a completely new outline for our revision (and all the writing of those outlines to get there) is pretty productive.

Today we met face-to-face to hash out the details of things we had not been able to resolve online. We ended the 3-hour meeting with a finalized new outline—one that will cut some 30,000 words from the book, streamline the plot, and sharpen the focus.

Now we just have to implement it. We’re thinking of trying something new in our process. We’ll see how that works out. Working with three of us is an ongoing experiment to find the most efficient way to get from start to finish.

How did your holiday writing go? Or did you simply decide to take the holidays off?

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