a baby and two writers talk, though not all together.
Hope I never win a Pulitzer.
-- Michael Connelly, after David Guterson finished describing John Steinbeck's massive self-doubt after winning a Pulitzer. Running news:
5.3 miles.
So, I got to see Mary and new baby Grace yesterday! Grace Blackwell E____ G________. (Mom and Dad's last names) was born on April 18 and was evidently such a good-natured delivery that when I talked to Mary on Monday she was practically ready to do it again. ("Talk to her again in a month or so," a friend told me.)
If you want to see her, click on the baby's sleeping face. Be warned that there are eight jpegs on the page, so it might take a while to load!
Mary looked great, if a little dazed. She referred to herself as "the Dairy Queen" and "the donut shop"--"I think the only reason [Grace] calms down near me is because she can smell the donuts," Mary said. The hardest thing about the week has been getting into the rhythm of breastfeeding, but that's totally understandable.
Rod seemed dazed by it all too, but he seemed like a very happy new father. Which is not surprising, since he just helped produce the most remarkable baby ever.
Mary's sister Beth has been in town for a week (leaving tomorrow), helping take care of Her Highness and just helping around the house. I mentioned how clean the place was--last time I'd been there, the place had been hip-deep in baby things--and Mary and Rod said together, "Beth." Beth is very much like Mary; they even have similar voices. Beth remembers when Mary was just a little baby, because she's five years older.
The one occupant of the house most distracted by the newcomer is Yogi, the Welsh corgi. Rod said Yogi spends much of his time guarding his bag of food from the new dog and trying to get Mary to play fetch with him--usually while she's breastfeeding. Mary laughed at how silly the dog was being. I tried to throw the squeaky toy to give Mary a break, but Yogi gave me this look, like, "I don't think so, interloper."
Mary even put Grace into my arms, which surprised me, since new mothers always seem to be territorial--"Not with my baby!" I held Grace for a while, once again absolutely amazed there is this new person on the planet. It's just incredible, isn't it? Grace fussed, not surprisingly, and I was terrified that I was holding her wrong and she'd get a crick in her neck and then she'd grow up stoop-shouldered and never have a date and Mary and Rod would have me to blame for the fact that their daughter lived with them for the rest of her life.
She is very cute though.
The best thing was the Buzz Chair, a small bouncy chair that has a switch to set it to buzzing. Evidently this chair works better than anything on the planet for lulling the baby to sleep. I now know what to get all prospective parents.
Monday night Darin and I went to another installment of the Writers Bloc lecture series, this time Michael Connelly in conversation with David Guterson, author of Snow Falling On Cedars, which I haven't read but I've heard a lot about. I actually didn't care about David Guterson that much, I wanted to see Michael Connelly, whose books I absolutely adored (as the careful reader of nka knows).
This wasn't like the Elmore Leonard/Scott Frank mutual admiration society; this was Michael Connelly interviewing David Guterson, all David Guterson, all the time. They had all the same mike problems they had with Leonard/Frank, which made me wish they'd do a goddamn sound check before one of these things, dammit.
I was underwhelmed by David Guterson, but perhaps I would have felt differently had I read the book. He seemed a bit pretentious. He talked about his new novel, East of the Mountains, as being a mythic journey story, only his was in a real-world setting. (Thereby dissing all previous mythic journey stories, whether in a real-world setting or a fantasy/science-fiction one.) He then derided the new Star Wars movie. Since his first novel had been a novel built around a court case but wasn't quite a legal thriller, Connelly asked him, "Did you tell your editor, Time for the mythic journey?" (It struck me as funny.)
Connelly asked him about his writing habits, and Guterson said he starts with a blank sheet of paper in the morning, on which he writes three or four sentences, in pencil. Then he works on those sentences for a while, crossing things out, writing new parts, for a while, at which point he types them into his word processor, where they look totally different, so he works on them some more. And then, when he's done with that, he starts over with another couple of sentences.
Connelly, who writes a novel a year, immediately responded: "And it only took you five years to write a novel?" Everybody laughed.
(If that's what it took for me to write, I don't think I could be a writer. I swear to God. Perhaps I don't have the same musical language skills as Guterson does, but...I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have the patience.)
I did ask a question: "This one's for Michael Connelly. Is the new book a Harry Bosch novel and will there be any Harry Bosch movies?" I was so annoyed at not having heard from him at all. (The answers are no and no, by the way. Connelly's fine with there being no movies; he'd hate to have a mental image of Harry Bosch when trying to write one of his novels.)
I couldn't believe that they got Michael Connelly to do this--he should have his own damn "conversation with"! I still can't figure out why they got Connelly (who evidently doesn't do that many appearances or promotion) for Guterson, since they're such different writers.
Darin liked him much better than Guterson simply on the basis of how they talked about writing, though he's never read either.
|
|
|
|
Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com