Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 459

Anatomy of agreement

First I see Slate’s tweet:

The American way of using a fork and knife is inefficient and inelegant. Here’s a better way: http://slate.me/11MPniB

I’m annoyed. The piece already sounds trite and presumptuous. It deals with something as snobbish and unimportant as table manners. I assume it’s written by a Frenchman. 

Then I click the link. I read the title:

Put a Fork in It: The American way of using fork and knife is inefficient and inelegant. We need a new way.

Still annoyed. Seems like a waste of a perfectly good hyperlink.

I look for the author’s name:

Mark Vanhoenacker

Okay, probably not French. Maybe Finnish. Still annoying.

Grudgingly, I begin to read.

Vanhoenacker points out that when using both a fork and knife, Europeans (and everyone else, basically) will keep the fork in their left hand and the knife in the right as they cut and eat their food. But when an American cuts his food, he’ll lower his knife to his plate and then he’ll switch the fork to his right hand to convey the food.

This, Vanhoenacker argues, is both inefficient and a relic of a time when Americans were trying to be more like Europeans (this maneuver was once considered proper table manners in European countries, but no longer).

Inefficient? How much time could we actually be wasting by switching a fork and knife? Is dinner really going to end sooner if we stop?

And I’m glad that what we do is unlike the Europeans. Good. We’re Americans, damn it. We can use our fork and knife any way we please!

Then something happened.

It occurred to me that as a left-hander, I don’t cut and switch. I hold my fork with my left hand and cut with my right.

I don’t switch.

“Wait a minute,” I thought. “Maybe this Vanhoenacker guy is onto something. Imagine how many times the average American cuts and switches over the course of a lifetime. That can really start to add up. And I’m all about efficiency. I strive for efficiency in every part of my life. Why not at the dinner table as well?”

Then I thought about it a little more.

“And you know what? I don’t want my eating habits to be dictated by some centuries old attempt to be more like stodgy old Europe. We’re Americans, damn it. We do things they way we want. Not the way some aristocrat dictates.  

This Mark Vanhoenacker is a genius

See how easy it is to get me to agree with you?

Piece of cake.

Where do you get your ideas?

I am often asked where I get the inspiration and ideas for my stories, especially considering that I’m fortunate enough to have so many ideas from which to choose.

A few years ago I wrote a post explaining my process. Since I continue to be asked this question almost more than any other, I thought I’d update that post here. I’ve completed two more books and a short story since then, so I have more to share on the subject. 

It’s rally the kind of question that is impossible to answer with a single sentence, because I never know when I might stumble upon an idea that could make a great book. I tend to be the kind of person who asks a lot of “What if?” questions, and through these questions, many of my ideas are born.

But since that is a relatively meaningless answer, I thought I’d give you some specific examples of how some of my stories were born.

SOMETHING MISSING: Over dinner several years ago, a friend bemoaned the loss of one of her earrings. She opened her jewelry box and could only find one of the two earrings that made up the pair.

In an attempt to make her smile, I asked, “What if someone broke into your house and stole your earring but left the other one behind so you wouldn’t suspect theft?” As I gnawed on a dinner roll, I found myself trying to imagine the kind of person who would break into every home in America and steal just one earring from every woman’s jewelry box.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, that was the moment that Martin Railsback and his story were born.

UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO:  For a long time, I wanted to be a film director.  At one point I had the idea for a movie in which three less-than-savory characters steal a video camera from a family on vacation in New York City.  After watching the videotapes in the privacy of their cockroach-infested apartment, the trio realizes that the memories captured on the videotape mean more to the family than they could have ever imagined, and they decide to return the tapes to their owners. They watch the footage in order to glean clues as to the owner’s identity, and in doing so, they become uncommonly attached to the family as a result. This idea served as the basis for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO.

However, I also dipped into my own life for major pieces of the plot, including:

The separation and divorce from my first wife in 2003.

The two months spent in fourth grade helping a friend plan his escape to an uncle’s house in the Midwest. Chris wanted to run away from home, something he had done before, and though he never made the journey that we planned in the back of the classroom, I often wondered what might’ve happened if Chris had run away from home and had disappeared in the process. How would I have felt knowing that I had a hand in my friend’s disappearance, and how might that have impacted the rest of my life?

This became a major plot point in the story.

CHICKEN SHACK (an unpublished manuscript): There was once a potato chip factory in my hometown of Blackstone, Massachusetts that produced a brand of potato chips called Blackstone Potato Chips. The factory closed years ago, and on a trip back to Blackstone, I noted that the factory was now a funeral home. “Wouldn’t it be great if they still sold potato chips and embalmed dead people at the same time?” I said to my wife as we drove by. A moment later, the idea of a funeral home that also sells fried chicken landed in my mind and CHICKEN SHACK was  born.

Once again, I dipped into my own personal life for other key elements to the story, including:

The disappearance of my brother, Jeremy, who I had not seen for more than five years after my mother died.

A public, and in the words of many attorneys and law enforcement officers, unprecedented attack on my character and reputation by an anonymous source several years ago.

My occasional forays into amusing and ultimately meaningless forms of vigilante justice, mostly as a teenager but occasionally as an adult.

MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND:  This book began with a simple conversation with my student-teacher about an imaginary friend that I had as a child. In the span of about four sentences, the idea for Budo and his story was born.

I also managed to take advantage of my experience with autistic children when writing my book, and on an unconscious level, my constant, persistent existential crisis became a key element in the story as well. 

THE PERFECT COMEBACK OF CAROLINE JACOBS: My next book began with a conversation that my wife and I had in bed one night. We were talking about her childhood home, and she told me about something cruel that a friend had said to her during a sleepover.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could find that girl today and finally tell her off?” I asked.

Just like that, the book was born. 

My next book is the story of a woman who suffered at the hands of a bully in high school, and much later in life, decides to finally do something about it. I used some of the bullying and hazing that I experienced in high school as inspiration, but most of the story was born from that simple question asked to my wife while lying in bed one night.    

BETTY BOOP:  The idea for this manuscript, which I am still tinkering with on the side, was born after reading about a 2009 law outlawing prostitution in the state of Rhode Island.  Prostitution was actually legal in Rhode Island between 1980 and 2009 because there was no specific statute to define the act and outlaw it, although associated activities, such as street solicitation, running a brothel, and pimping, were still illegal. With the passing of the 2009 law banning prostitution, I found myself wondering what a prostitute in Rhode Island might do now that his or her previously legal means of earning a living were suddenly forbidden. I came up with an solution for my theoretical prostitute, and that is the basis for this book.

Farewell to Arms: I recently wrote a short story that is currently under submission to several literary journals. It is an uncharacteristically dark story of an armless soccer team.

It was written on a dare.

Someone at work commented that soccer is so popular around the world because you don’t need anything to play. Even a crumbled-up bit of newspaper can serve as a ball.

“You don’t even need arms,” I said. “That would be a story. Huh? A soccer team with no arms.”

“Even you couldn’t write that story,” my friend said. 

I took up the challenge and wrote the story in three days.

The friends who have read the story like it a lot. I’m waiting to see if the literary magazines agree. 

An analysis of humor that will make you a funnier person

This is supposedly a TED Talk about the anatomy of a New Yorker cartoon, but it is also a dissertation on the nature of humor and what makes things funny.

It’s brilliant.

In 2014, I will wear a flesh-colored speedo in front of an audience of readers and talk about my books. Here’s why.

Sometime in the fall of 2014, I will be seated onstage with international bestselling author Sarah McCoy, speaking to an audience of readers and booksellers about books and writing, and I will be wearing a flesh-toned speedo.

You may wonder how or why this happened.

I’m still wondering this myself. 

Here’s the sad tale.

Slate’s Simon Doonan first wrote a piece for Slate entitled Why Are Guys Afraid To Wear Speedos? The subtitle of the piece is “American men need to get over their Freudian fear of showing off their junk.”

I saw Slate’s tweet indicating that the world needs more men in speedos and tweeted this in response:

No. It doesn’t. RT @ Slate: The world needs more men in speedos: http://slate.me/11yov63 #slatepitches #junkshots

Sarah McCoy, author of The Baker’s Daughter and The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico, saw my tweet and responded to me:

@MatthewDicks I’ll pay $$ for you to try. #WorldNeeds. BWAHA.

I ignored Sarah’s tweet, admittedly hoping that her offer would be quickly forgotten, but a day later, she tweeted to me again.

@MatthewDicks You ignored my man-kini challenge. I see how it goes. #WontProstituteGoodsForAudienceEntertainment Moral, man.

As you can see, Sarah clearly pressed the issue when I tried to let it go. All that follows is her fault.

Unable to ignore a challenge of any kind, I responded:

@SarahMMcCoy I was still debating color…

Sarah responded:

@MatthewDicks Flesh toned makes quite a lasting impression. Ala #BoDerek10. #MankiniColor

My response to Sarah flesh toned suggestion is where I made my first mistake. Here is where I allowed bravado and ego to overtake common sense. I tweeted this to Sarah:

@SarahMMcCoy Here’s the deal: You buy them. I will wear them in a joint author talk with you.

Sarah responded immediately:

@MatthewDicks: Oy, err, crud, you called my buff-bluff.

Right here, I could’ve let the conversation end. I should’ve let the conversation end. I had the upper hand. I had challenged Sarah McCoy and she had backed down and admitted defeat. I had won.

But no. Instead, I turned to name calling. I was feeling overconfident about my victory. I tweeted this:  

@SarahMMcCoy Coward.

Sarah immediately responded, as people often do when accused of cowardice, with aggression.

@MatthewDicks: Coward. >> Them’s fighting words. It’s on, dude. You name event place & time. I’ll bring the necessary libations. #FLESHTONES

Thinking that Sarah would still back down, I decided to apply pressure:

@SarahMMcCoy I’m holding you to it! I’ll crowd source it. #andamsuddenlyterrified

This was the moment that other people saw our back-and-forth on Twitter and became involved in the conversation. First it was Dawn Rennert (@TooFondOfBooks), the owner of The Concord Bookshop.

Dawn tweeted:

@MatthewDicks I don’t know what this is about, or who to put my money on?! Is Matt sporting flesh-tone stockings? @SarahMMcCoy

Now we had an audience. This was not good. Someone who I know and respect might think I’m a coward if I backed down. So I answered Dawn.

@TooFondOfBooks @SarahMMcCoy Not stockings. A speedo. We need to arrange a joint appearance.

Dawn’s response was appropriate considering my proposal:

@MatthewDicks oh. my. goodness.@SarahMMcCoy

Then Sarah responded. Her response appealed to me because she used the word “epically” (I’ve spent my entire life trying to be epic), but it also terrified me because now Sarah was actually formulating a plan. All hope of her backing down seemed to be evaporating. 

@TooFondOfBooks @MatthewDicks I am a woman of my word. #MustPlan We’d make it epically something. When’s your next book due out, Mr. Dicks? @MatthewDicks

I answered, hoping calendars, books and stars would not align.

@SarahMMcCoy @TooFondOfBooks Fall of 2014. You?

Sarah’s answer:

@MatthewDicks Ohhhhh and now we dance. Summer 2014. #MyBook3 Event on, my friend. @TooFondOfBooks

“Now we dance…”

Yikes.

Then good friend (but perhaps no longer) and Books on the Nightstand host Ann Kingman jumped in, offering a possible venue for this little nightmare:

@SarahMMcCoy@MatthewDicks Booktopia!

Sarah seemed to like this idea a little too much and reminded me that all this was my fault (which it was) with this response:

Indeed, see here, @AnnKingman: MT @MatthewDicks called my b(l)uff then called me a coward= challenge. we r locked into Flesh-Toned Book Event

Now the boulder was actually rolling down the hill and seemed unstoppable. My moment in a flesh-colored speedo now seemed inevitable. In a moment of honesty and fear, I tweeted:

@SarahMMcCoy @AnnKingman What have I gotten myself into?

Sarah responded:

@MatthewDicks Is this, dare I say, COWARDICE I smell? #YouUppedTheAnteMyFleshTonedFriend

Forced back into bravado, I responded:

@SarahMMcCoy@AnnKingmanCowardice? No way! Just pre-sympathy for my audience.

This is where we stand today. Sometime in 2014, I will be appearing with author Sarah McCoy in a joint author appearance, and I will be wearing a flesh-toned speedo of Sarah’s choice.

I have embraced this inevitability. I welcome it. I look forward to it.

Either that or I’m faking it, which amounts to the same thing.

I feel terrible for the audience members who will be subjected to this spectacle, but I will be sure to inform them of the optics of the event well in advance.

Perhaps no one will come. The specter of me in a speedo might be too much for anyone to bear.

No kisses for Mommy

I whispered to my daughter, “Go kiss Mommy on the cheek. It’ll make her so happy.”

My daughter’s response: “She’s already happy.”

This may be true, but it was beside the point. I tried a different approach.

“Fine,” I said, attempting to sound smug. “Then I’m going to kiss her myself. All by myself.”

Her response: “Then go kiss her.”

Heartless.

Thankfully, this refusal to affection is extremely uncommon for Clara, especially when Elysha is the proposed recipient.

Unfair assumption #12

People who purchase and use amateur fireworks lack intelligence and do not value their fingers appropriately.

This unfair assumption may have more to do with my fear of exploding objects, the typically unimpressive nature of amateur fireworks and the frequency at which amateur fireworks and alcohol are combined, but I don’t think so.

Unfairly or not, I tend to think that people who are launching amateur fireworks in their backyards are morons.

Here’s a bit of visual evidence to prove my point: 

You can find all of my unfair assumptions here.

Resolution update: June

In an effort to hold myself accountable, I post the progress of my yearly goals at the end of each month on this blog. The following are the results through June.

1. Don’t die.

I was stung by a bee yesterday, which is potentially deadly for me, but I’m still standing and the bee is dead. So I’m still winning.

2. Lose ten pounds.

I lost 7 pounds in May, bringing my total to 10 pounds lost this year.

I killed it in June. Honestly, I didn’t do much. I exercised every day, as always, and simply kept a little better track of my calorie intake, which typically means smaller portions at dinner. I’ve lost a total of 45 pounds in the past three years. If you’re looking to lose weight, let me recommend you start by eating a little bit less at dinnertime. There are typically a lot of calories to be saved at that meal.

I’ve set a goal of losing another 10 pounds in the second half of the year.  

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a day.  Also complete at least two two-minute planks five days per week.

Done.

4. Launch at least one podcast.

What I wrote last month continues to be the case, except now I am in the midst of summer vacation and there is more time now to do the work. 

I am out of excuses.

From last month:

The hardware is ready. We designated a location in the house and set up the mixer and the microphones. I am working on understanding the software now. Basically, I understand how to record a podcast and can use the recording software fairly well. I am unsure what to do after I have the recording. How do I get my podcast onto the Internet? Into iTunes? Anywhere else it needs to go? Also, I may need a website to host and promote the podcasts, though this blog may serve this function. Still, a page will need to be created. A logo created. Other details I’m not even aware of yet, I’m sure.

5. Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

The broken flute remains in the back of my car. Again, since it is summer vacation, I should be able to take care of this in July.

6. Complete my fifth novel before the Ides of March.

Done!

7. Complete my sixth novel.

Work continues on the sixth novel, as well as an unexpected golf memoir and perhaps another project as well.

8. Sell one children’s book to a publisher.

I will send at least one of the manuscripts to my agent by the end of July.

9. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

Work on the proposal for my memoir continues. I will be scheduling a day in Massachusetts to do some research in July.  

10. Complete at least twelve blog posts on my brother and sister blog.

A total of ten posts have been published as of June 30. It is my turn to write the next post, so we have a decent shot at achieving the goal by the end of July.  

11. Become certified to teach high school English by completing two required classes.

I am one class and an inexplicable $50 away from achieving certification. I planned on taking this course in the summer, but it is unavailable. Hopefully we find something in the fall.  

12. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a newspaper.

I’ve have now published three pieces in the Huffington Post and one in Beyond the Margins. Nothing in an actual newspaper yet.  

13. Attend at least eight Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended two Moth events in June, bringing my total to nine. I told stories in Boston and New York and placed second in both StorySLAMs.

I despise second place.

14. Locate a playhouse to serve as the next venue for The Clowns.

The script, the score and the soundtrack were sent to another playhouse in June. Fingers crossed. I will begin writing a new musical this month.

15. Give yoga an honest try.

No progress.

16. Meditate for at least five minutes every day.

I missed 5 days in June because my son continues to wake up well before 7:00 AM.

17. De-clutter the garage.

Work continues. We have found a home for all the remaining furniture. It will be removed soon.

18. De-clutter the basement.

Work continues and should accelerate as summer vacation has arrived.

19. De-clutter the shed

Work continues and should accelerate as summer vacation has arrived.

20. Reduce the amount of soda I am drinking by 50%.

I failed to record my soda intake in June. I will begin tomorrow.

21. Try at least one new dish per month, even if it contains ingredients that I wouldn’t normally consider palatable.

I did not try any new food in June. This was the first month that I failed to try a new food.

22. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2013.

No progress.

23. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

13 things that make me happy

Former acquisitions editor Jennifer Pooley wrote a post on her blog entitled “13 things that make me happy.” Nothing on her list actually makes me happy (#1 comes the closest, but my creative process is slightly different), so I thought I’d write my own list.

Narrowing it down to just 13 items was impossible, so this by no means an exhaustive list. Just the first 13 things that came to mind.

I’d love to see your list if you’ be so kind as to include it in the comment section.

Bluffing and winning a poker hand
Snow days
Ice cream for dinner
A perfect approach shot
Dancing with my wife
Reading to my children
Almost any Springsteen song
Seeing one of my novels on the shelf of a bookstore
A New England Patriots victory
Telling a story to a live audience
Watching my daughter experience pride from an accomplishment
Breakfast
Making my wife laugh

First marks

My son, Charlie, made his first marks on paper while waiting for our meals at a local restaurant. Perhaps this is just the beginning. Maybe he will be following in his father’s footsteps and writing novels someday.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

Also, it’s looking like you’re probably right handed.

Nobody’s perfect.

  

Sperm, sticks and downright douchebaggery

TIME recently posted a piece entitled A Dozen Random Goods & Services Selling Unusually Well Right Now.

A few were particularly notable to me.

American Sperm
In Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, sperm donors are not allowed to be anonymous. U.S. donors are under no such obligation, which is why America has become the world’s largest exporter of human sperm. More than 60 countries now import American sperm.

While this does not necessarily appeal to me, it’s good to know that in a pinch, I might be able to earn a few extra bucks.

Breast milk is also a hot commodity, as I’ve pointed out to my wife more than once. “Maybe you can just keep pumping for a while after you’re done nursing. Sell it on eBay.”

This did not go over very well.  

Luxury Menswear—Purchased Online
A study from iProspect on the “Digital Affluent Male” estimates that there are 19 million rich American men who use the Internet regularly, many of them for shopping purchases: Approximately 40% of this demographic shops online at least twice a week and spends over $30,000 on e-purchases annually. Luxury menswear and accessories are among the most popular purchases of this group—a group whose favorite brands include Rolex, Louis Vuitton, and BMW.

Who are these men? 

And where along the path to manhood did these men decide that an enormous, expensive watch or a wallet worth more than the amount of money it contains is a good idea?

Manual Transmission Cars
Sales of cars with stick shifts have been so abysmal that a grass-roots movement to “Save the Manuals” has been launched. Perhaps the movement is working. USA Today has it that 6.5% of the new cars sold in the first quarter of 2012 were sticks. That’s much higher than the previous two years (under 4% in 2010 and 2011), and the highest rate since 2006, when 7.2% of new cars sold were manuals. This is despite the fact that only 19% of today’s models are available in stick.

This pleases me. I drive a stick and have done so for more than a decade. A girlfriend in high school taught me to drive a stick shift on her Nissan Sentra, and I have loved manual transmissions ever since. Not only does a stick give you more control in bad weather, but it prevents most people from borrowing your car. Recent surveys estimate that less than ten percent of Americans know how to drive a car with a manual transmission.

I’ve always enjoyed singular competence.    

Weird Rides to the Prom
Forget the trusty limo to the prom. To really stand out on the big night—a night that’s increasingly expensive, now topping $1,000 per family, on average—the Wall Street Journal reports that today’s high school attention seekers are opting to hire fire trucks, school buses, and even replicas of the “Dukes of Hazzard” General Lee and hand-pulled rickshaws to take them to the prom.

I attended about half a dozen proms in my youth. Happily, I grew up in a time when the world was still sane and parents did not feel the need to crystalize every moment of their child’s life through ostentation, ceremony and excess.

Of course, I was somewhat neglected, so perhaps this played a role, too.

I drove my mother’s station wagon, a Datsun B210, a Chevy Malibu, a Chrysler LeBaron and a Toyota Tercel to my proms. I also shared a limousine with two other couples.

Hand-pulled rickshaws and fire trucks are clear signs of douchebaggery.

A $450 Cookbook
Who would buy a 2,438-page cookbook that retails for $625? Apparently, lots of people. The Wall Street Journal recently described the amazing run of Modernist Cuisine, a five-volume cookbook that has been translated into German, Spanish, and French (more languages to come), typically sells for around $450, and has been snatched up by more 45,000 (and counting) food enthusiasts around the globe.

Obviously this is insane. But many food enthusiasts take themselves very seriously, and people who take themselves very seriously like to spend lots of money projecting their seriousness to the world.

I’m only disappointed that I didn’t think of it first. 

What surprises me, however, is how impervious the cookbook industry has been to the Internet. How have recipes not migrated online by now?

Please note that I’m not saying this should be the case. I’m just surprised that it has not happened yet.