Mere Words

Last evening at WORD, a splendid little bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Deb and I attended a reading by Willy Vlautin, whose first two novels, The Motel Life and Northline, are two of the best books I've read in years. In a blurb advertising the event, Time Out New York called Northline a "bleak novel... about a pregnant woman who, in moments of deep trauma, speaks with her idol, Paul Newman." Reducing the book to these two plot points is as wrongheaded as describing John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath as a "road movie about a family that can't get work."

In between playing a couple of songs on his guitar (he's also the lead singer of Richmond Fontaine, a fine band that's been around since '94 and have ten or so CDs to their name), Vlautin read a passage from Northline, introducing it as a "story about weakness, about the bad things you do when you're feeling weak, the sideways moves you do. You get out of one bad situation and you feel good that you've made a brave step. But then you're so worn out that you end up making the same exact mistake."

Both of Vlautin's books are in the literary tradition of Raymond Carver and Charles Bukowski. His spartan prose perfectly reflects the people about whom he writes: spare on the surface but ultimately strong enough to bear up under the lives they have made for themselves. Readers, like Vlautin's own characters, may be surprised to discover just how strong.

After the reading, we had an opportunity to meet Vlautin and have him sign our copies of his books. He and I both spent a chunk of our lives working in trucking out West (we were employed by competing companies), and we spent a few minutes talking about Reno and Portland and Salt Lake, about the Nugget Casino, and a legendary hamburger called the "Awful Awful." Deb and I left the bookstore with the feeling that—Toulouse-Lautrec be damned—Vlautin in person appeared to be as genuine and wryly funny as Vlautin the writer. It was a good night.

In upper management in Corporate America, it was constantly instilled in us, so that we could constantly instill it in those with whom we worked, that everybody's job--whether we resided in accounting or payroll or rates or worked on the dock--that whatever one's title happened to be, we were all in sales.

Yes, we had a designated sales team whose responsibility it was to go out and deal directly with, and generate revenue from, our customers; but we also knew that any contact the rest of us might have with these customers, either on the phone or by mail or via the Internet, also impacted their perception of doing business with our company. Call it politeness, call it common decency, call it do-unto-others, what it truly came down to was: we were all in sales.

The irony is, though sales and I clashed often through the years (since my department was in the position of establishing the pricing levels that sales would in turn have to sell to the customers, we were automatically diametrically opposed: our making sure the company made a profit versus their desire to present something economically attractive to the customer), what I learned from sales has better equipped me for my "new life" (i.e., self-employed) than any other skill I took away with me from C.A.

Until this morning, it hadn't occurred to me that this wisdom applies to writing, as well. This "miniphany" came to me in the midst of a four-and-a-half hour power outage that enabled me to catch up on my reading. According to Richard Ford's existential realtor Frank Bascombe in Independence Day :


It suddenly dawned on me that, as writers, if we're doing our jobs correctly, we're selling our readers that, fiction or nonfiction, fantasy or science fiction, self-help book or expansive volume on the sex life of the tsetse fly, every word we've written is true. That what we say happened really happened. As writers, we're telling our readers that, if they trust us, we'll deliver.

But we can't do that unless we ourselves also believe what we're saying. And in order to do that, we have to imagine the sale.

Last week yet another memoirist was outed (this time by her sister no less!) as nothing more than a lowly fiction writer; once again begging the question: why didn't they just publish their works as fiction in the first place?

Ego and greed, probably.

Not discounting these writers' duplicity in dealing with their publishers, what's truly troubling when these contretemps raise their ugly little heads is the press's haughty shock and awe that any half-truths (or quarter- or third-truths) should have wormed their way into the sanctity of somebody's memoir. Literary and social critics alike thump their thesauri and behave as if, pre-James Frey coming along and embarrassing Oprah with his million little lies, every memoir published was letter-perfect when it came to factual matters--that no details were added or enhanced (or omitted), that no dialog was fabricated, that nothing was tweaked to make the piece better (or at least readable).

By its selective nature, a memoir is not journalism; it is subject to the tricks our memories play on us; how and why events took place are filtered, consciously or unconsciously, by our prejudices, belief systems, etc. Plus, let's face it, folks: life, by and large, is boring. Even fascinating people have plenty of downtime where nothing of much interest happens. Knowing what to emphasize and what to ignore, where a chapter--let alone the real story--begins and ends (in reality, most people's lives have very few--and very long--chapters), is the writer's job.

And while we're talking about it, the very journalists looking down their collective nose at these memoirists are prone to the same refractions they're pillorying; they shouldn't be, but they are. The truth is never more malleable than in the hands of a writer.

A line from Woody Allen's masterful 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is airing on TCM as I write this, reminded me that the subject of yesterday's post is nothing new:

Show business is dog-eat-dog. It's worse than dog-eat-dog: it's dog-doesn't-return-other-dog's-phone-calls.

The Internet has just taught an old dog new tricks.

Yesterday morning an old friend called from Los Angeles and recounted how earlier this month he and his band had their first real meeting with a bona fide record label. By all indications, the encounter went well and ended on a positive note with the record executive saying all good things about their music and hinting toward a time when they, record company and band, would share in a relationship both symbiotic and copacetic. He said he'd be in touch. Two weeks down the road, however, there's been no word; nor is aforementioned executive returning any of my friend's phone messages or e-mails. Seemingly a case of "Don't call us, we won't call you."

I told my friend that things are not necessary what they seem.  

The thing is, he and I used to work in the service industry--transportation--where every aspect of our company's performance was measured daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly; this data was then shared with our customers so that they could better decide whether to use our services or our competition's. The idea of not returning a phone call or not replying to an e-mail is as unconscionable to him as it is to me. Except . . .

For the most part, that's not the way things work in entertainment--music, books, movies, whatever--where unreturned calls and unanswered e-mails are more the norm than the exception. Which is really ironic, if you think about it, given an industry whose ultimate goal is to please its customers.

But therein lies the answer: When we--musicians, writers, filmmakers, artists one and all--are doing our best to interest them in our wares, we're not their customers but rather their suppliers. Or at least we hope to be. Until they actually put a contract in front of us and we sign on the dotted line (which, come to think of it, is never dotted, at least not on the contracts I've seen and signed), we're nothing more than the unwanted call from the telephone company, the knock on the door from the missionaries, or the takeout menu left in our mailbox by the new sushi restaurant around the block.

What I told my friend was this: "Don't forget that right now, as we speak, there are probably hundreds, nay, thousands of guys around L.A. in bands who are wondering, What the hell's up with that guy at the record company? What you need to hang onto, in the midst of your completely understandable frustration, is that if the record executive were to reply to all of his phone calls and e-mails, he probably wouldn't have enough time left in his day to do what you're hoping he'll do in the first place: sign you and your band to a record contract."

Is it frustrating? Yes. Is it fair (to say nothing of good business or in the realms of politeness)? Of course not. I had a magazine editor tell me once, after expressing displeasure because I continued to follow up on a pitch after not having received a response in more than six months: "If we were interested, clearly we would have gotten back to you." "No," I wanted to reply, "if you weren't interested, clearly you should have told me so." Unfortunately, this is not uncommon; the delete button has become the answer to many a busy editor and agent's overburdened calendar and workload. Even enclosing an SASE with snail-mail queries no longer guarantees a response.

Could it be handled differently? Sure--and often it is. When I first submitted my short-story collection to the man who became my agent, he immediately e-mailed me to say that he'd received it and cautioned me that he was going to be out of the office for a while. "Therefore, if you don't hear from me for a week to ten days, it has nothing to do with my response to your writing."

But, then, he's a gentleman.

As for my friend, the days when a Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen can walk into John Hammond's office, play their songs, and almost literally walk out with a recording contract are sadly gone. Long gone. And so he waits.

It's how he's having to wait that's the problem.

It's been over three months since I last contributed anything to these pages and, what with my two-year anniversary in New York only two days away, it seems as good a time as any to return to the fold.

On the upside, the time away from here has been well spent--not just writing and working with my publicity clients, but enjoying family life and everything NYC has to offer. There was also a great trip to Long Beach, CA, a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco (with a Citizen Kane-inspired visit to San Simeon along the way), then over to Reno and Salt Lake before returning home. And my nephew Tim came to New York and visited us for a week, during which time he educated us as to the feather and fowl we'd been taking for granted.

Friday not only marks my first two years as a resident of this great city, it also commemorates my independence from Corporate America and the nine-to-five world (which, towards the end, was closer to the seven-to-six world) and my first two years living the life I'd always dreamed of: that of a writer.

On that front, I came across the following quote from Werner Herzog, which now finds itself pinned to the corkboard above my desk:

If I find one person who walks out of a cinema of 300 people after watching one of my films and does not feel alone any more, then I have achieved everything I have set out to achieve.

Because being creative is often a solitary act, both selfish and selfless at the same time, I can't think of a better reminder--especially this time of year--of why we write (or paint or compose or, in Herzog's case, make movies).

Happy holidays.

Today on CBS Sunday Morning, in a segment devoted to interviews with five prominent octogenarians (including entertainer Elaine Stritch, White House correspondent and resident thorn-in-the-side Helen Thomas, Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post/Watergate/Woodward and Bernstein fame, and Playboy incarnate Hugh Hefner), TV producer Norman Lear was asked if he had any advice for writers: "Write," he said.



And Lear's secret for living healthily and happily beyond eighty?

"Every day's a production," he said. "You produce."

First things first, I hereby swear not to do any more YouTube-related posts for at least thirty days. I've whiled away much too much time over at that copyright-infringing, time-sucking, Stuckey's-on-the-Web (though, I must admit, I did enjoy seeing again, for the first time in years, "The Contest Nobody Could Win" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati).

Second things second, this clip from Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick's often brilliant thirtysomething epitomizes what it's like not only to be self-employed, where you're dancing as fast as you can to pay next month's rent, but also what it's like to work in a creative field (in this instance, an ad agency), where you're only as good as your next idea.

In this scene, Ken Olin's Michael and Timothy Busfield's Elliot perfectly portray the battle constantly waging within the creative psyche: each of them anxious to welcome, then almost automatically dismiss, whatever idea, no matter how good, they come up with.

As Elliot concludes: "Mike, you gotta relax. It's just fear, dread, and anxiety. I mean, we're gonna deal with this on every job."

Yesterday, Tom DiCillo kindly reviewed my review of his terrific new film Delirious. Check out "gracias" in the Comments section.

In doing so, he inadvertently addressed a question I raise again and again in my book: beyond providing a guide for the consumer, does criticism in any way serve the artist?

DiCillo's response echoes what Jackson Browne told me about Paul Nelson's writing: "it made me feel that I was being received, that I was being heard, by people who really got it."

Also, be sure to look in on DiCillo's own online journal, Delirious: The Director's Blog, for more trenchant, and often very funny, commentary.

François Camoin made a similar observation in a Writers at Work workshop in Park City back in 1988, noting that those fledgling writers who sweated and stuttered and apologized as they handed in their work were, as a rule, better writers than those who proudly and unflinchingly proclaimed their word-processed scribbles as masterpieces.

Over the years, I've discovered the same to be true. The best writers treat writing the way a truly devout person treats religion: something practiced, not boasted about; lived, not preached.

Wondering what to do in the city on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? How about doing as we did yesterday and partaking in the Algonquin Round Table Walking Tour.

Presented by the Dorothy Parker Society of New York in the person of society president Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, the two-hour tour covers a 30-block vicious circle that includes visits to more than 40 Round Table-related locales: speakeasies, hotels, homes, offices, and theaters frequented by the likes of Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Harpo Marx, and more.


Fitzpatrick, who wrote the book A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York and conducts the tour several times a year, makes the jaunt fun and informative — and, as a bonus along the way, recommends some of New York's best bars. Beginning and ending at the Round Table's headquarters, the Algonquin Hotel, he'll let you in on the ins and outs of the New York literary scene gone by but, thanks to his efforts, not forgotten.

Fitzpatrick proves wrong Parker's famous quip: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

There have been several things I've wanted to blog about these last few weeks, but, because I've been happily occupied with this and that, the opportunity just hasn't presented itself. So tonight, in one fell swoop, here's what's been on my mind:

How good Rescue Dawn is and how, true to form, Werner Herzog never allows the truth to get in the way of telling a good story (neither here nor in his documentary treatment of the same story, Little Dieter Needs to Fly...

How disappointing Fox's new reality series On the Lot turned out to be, so much so that it sent me back to my DVDs of the first two seasons of Project Greenlight...

How much I'm enjoying Monsters HD -- "TV's First Horror Channel Uncut in Hi-Definition" (according to their website, they "dare you to watch!"). Where else can you catch Tarantula, War of the Colossal Beast, and The Monster that Challenged the World all on the same day -- and the same channel?

How much I enjoyed Frederick & Steven Barthelme's Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, which proves just how much Frederick's fiction draws from his real life... 

And lastly, for now, just how fine a film Match Point turned out to be, growing richer with each viewing. Who would've thought that, for all the great films Woody Allen has created on his native New York soil, he'd have to go to England to deliver what very well might be his best movie? Elegantly pulpish and poetic at the same time, it mines the same territory as his classic Crimes and Misdemeanors with very different results.

I know that I promised to "[track] the process of how a book goes from sale to publication" over at my sister journal Everything Is an Afterthought, but that journal quickly established itself as a resource center for all things Paul Nelson. Posting the mechanics of book publication over there would be as incongruous as Sam Peckinpah at an est meeting.

Instead I'll allow that site to continue to become what it's become and pledge to write more about book matters over here (including the process of putting together a book proposal, working with an agent to query publishers, what it feels like when you receive an e-mail from your agent with the subject line "We Have an Offer," and how I got an agent in the first place). Deal?

Towards that end, yesterday I received the first installment of my advance. The way it works is this: the publisher pays one-third upon signature of the book contract, one-third upon "satisfactory completion" of the book, and one-third upon publication. These monies are paid by the publisher to the agent, who then cuts a check to the writer less the agent's commission.

Holding the check in my hand yesterday, I was thrown back over 20 years (21, to be precise) to when I sold my first piece of writing: a short story to Erotic Fiction Quarterly. If I remember correctly, that first check was for 50 dollars — but it felt like a million. Yesterday's felt like many million more.

David Mamet's latest collection of essays, Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business, zeroes in on the subject of moviemaking — Hollywood moviemaking, in particular — and, as is his way, manages to make the reader feel a) pretty damn smart for understanding what's being set at our feet, b) dimwitted for sometimes not knowing what the hell he's talking about, or c) both a) and b) at the same time.

Reading Mr. Mamet is not unlike drinking a dose of cherry-flavored cough syrup: you don't necessarily enjoy it at the time you're downing it, you wonder where they picked these particular cherries, but afterwards, if its desired effect is successful, you're glad you took the measures.
(I speak here of Mamet's prose writing, not his playwriting. In that respect, I have nothing bad to say about the man who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, nor, with few reservations, about the man who wrote the screenplays for The Verdict and the Untouchables, and who wrote and directed House of Games and State and Main. This hereby ends the world's longest mea culpa.)

That being said, the sections of the book devoted to "The Screenplay" and "Technique" prove invaluable reading for any writer. "Storytelling: Some Technical Advice" begins: "Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others." Mamet goes on to say that all successful stories utilize the same form: "Once upon a time, and then one day, and just when everything was going so well, when just at the last minute, and they all lived happily ever after. Period."

He misses the boat, however, with the book's appendix, which consists of over 30 pages listing the films referenced throughout the book. Rather than enticing us with descriptions of the movies that are salient and incisive, after providing the year the film was made, the principal actors, the director and writer, he boils the plot lines down to their bare bones (sans any marrow whatsoever) and presents capsule reviews that make Leonard Maltin sound like Shakespeare. (For example, his entry for Taxi Driver: "Isolated in New York City, a Vietnam vet takes it upon himself to violently liberate an adolescent prostitute from her pimp.")

If his goal was to demonstrate how the plots of even classic films can be reduced to a single sentence, he succeeds. But in doing so he also shows why so much of what comes out of pitch-happy Hollywood these days is devoid of mystery, poetry, character, or any trace of art.

Because I'm operating on only four hours' sleep, and because I have a ton of work to do, and because I can't think of anything to post about anyway, I share the following quote with you (because the author's always sage advice in this instance seems especially true):

As previously mentioned, I recently sold my first book. In conjunction, I've established another LiveJournal to report on the project's progress, occasionally provide links about, and writings by, its subject, Paul Nelson, and share snippets of information or parts of interviews that may or may not be covered further in the final product.

The new journal shares the book's working title, Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson. Just follow the link.

Anybody interested in learning more about this brilliant critic, whose own life proved just as mysterious and fascinating as the artists' about whom he wrote, is welcome to join. As well, tracking the process of how a book goes from sale to publication should prove interesting. I'm rather curious about that part myself...

I feel as if I've had a cold forever, but in fact it's been less than a week. Still, I sound like Tom Waits with laryngitis and feel like Marlon Brando towards the end of On the Waterfront: down for the count -- but don't count him out.

Regardless, I'm keeping busy. I've yet to shower, but so far today have managed to take out the garbage in time for it to be taken away, catch up on the Virginia Tech developments, water the houseplants, refill the dog food container, reheat the leftover fried calamari from last night, watch the amazing film Insomnia, listen to director Christopher Nolan's commentary track, search for the origin of Kerouac's "great American night," do some publicity work, go out to the garden and admire the return of the plants I planted last year, think about but nix the idea of going to Home Depot, and, most importantly, throughout it all, write a considerable amount for the book.

In short, I'm living the life and loving it.