Ruth Harris's Blog, page 13

When Collaborators Disagree—And Live To Tell The Tale

Love doesn’t always run a smooth path (no kidding!) and neither does collaboration. There are inevitably going to be times when co-authors—in my case, my DH, Michael—don’t see a character, a scene, even a line of dialogue the same way. Most of the time while Michael and I were writing our thriller, HOOKED, we were in synch but there was one scene about which we had radically different opinions. I hated it so much I deleted it. Michael, appalled, retrieved it from the trash.The scene occurs midway through the book and involves two characters. One is Gavin Jenkins, the brilliant and charismatic miracle doctor who is at the center of the story. The other is Adriana Partos, a world-famous concert pianist who has retired at the request of her lover, billionaire tycoon, Nicky Kiskalesi. Now, however, Nicky misses Adriana’s fame and celebrity and wants her to make a come-back.The problem is that arthritis has made it impossible for Adriana to play without pain. Nicky, who didn’t get rich by giving up, suggests she consult Gavin Jenkins, a doctor who, it seems, can cure almost anything. Adriana, reluctant but also afraid of losing Nicky, agrees to meet with Gavin.As the scene was originally written, Adriana dislikes Gavin for intuitive reasons: she finds him “cold” and “hidden” although no specific examples of cold and/or hidden behavior are given. The scene, based on her instinctive dislike, seemed weak and unconvincing to me: ergo, the delete button.Michael convinced me the scene was necessary and could be made to work.The question was: how?I trust Michael’s opinions so we had several conversations over the course of a day or two about why I hated the scene and thought it should be cut—and why he thought it was essential and should stay. We finally came to an agreement when we decided that “something” specific had to happen in the scene to validate Adriana’s dislike of Gavin.The question was: what was the “something?”Neither of us could come up with an incident that would work for what the reader already knows about both characters. We had solved our impasse but we now faced a new dilemma.After another day or two of conversation and getting nowhere and still having no idea of what the “something” was, I got impatient. Typical!Annoyed with our lack of progress, I went to the computer to rewrite the scene with our discussions in mind. I began by taking out the language referring to Adriana’s “intuitive” dislike of Gavin—his “coldness” and “hidden” personality. Cutting, as it so often does, equalled improvement.Still, what was going to happen next? I had no idea but when I got to the lines that describe Gavin taking her arm in an intimate, almost caressing way and giving her the shot for which he has become renowned, the words, apparently of their own volition, popped out of my unconscious and emerged on the screen:“You’ve never felt this good, have you?” he whispers seductively as he presses down on the syringe and the fluid enters her vein.That brief line of dialogue—unplanned and unanticipated—gave us the specific, dramatic “something” we needed.Appalled by Gavin’s creepy whispered question, Adriana slaps him. He reacts by calling her a bitch. He wants to give her a second (different) injection but she walks out on him and leaves his consulting room. The scene ends with Adriana standing on the sidewalk outside his office and remembering the bulge in his pants.Had she been seeing things?, she wonders. Imagining things? Or did he have an erection as he administered the shot?Since we already know about Gavin’s sexual quirks from earlier scenes, we now had a compelling scene that advances the plot, creates conflict between Adriana and the gifted doctor whose help she will depend on if she is to resume her career and keep her lover. The rescued scene also adds a new dimension to Gavin’s intriguing, slightly sinister character.Sometimes disagreement is the friction that produces the pearl. Sometimes disagreement is part of the process of getting from the problem to the solution. In this instance, it was both.
SPECIAL WEEKEND SALE (Through Sunday, May 5 only)!

I've reduced HOOKED, A Thriller, to $.99 for this weekend only. Save $3!
"Written by pros who know how to tell a story. Slick and sexy!" —Publisher's Weekly
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My life in the slush pile.

Back in the twentieth century when I started out in publishing, publishers did not insist that all submissions be agented, and direct submissions, aka the slush pile, served as training wheels (more like hamster wheels as it turned out) for young editors. In my beginner's job at Bantam, I was assigned a desk in the secretarial bullpen where a monster stack of manuscripts waited for me. My job was to read them to see if any might be worth passing on to one of the older, more experienced editors. Conscientious and wanting to impress the senior editor who was my boss, I began to read, at first assiduously finishing one manuscript after another. Here is what I confronted:
The quasi-literate who loved "big" words but used them incorrectly.The sub-literate and illiterate sandwiched at random between the religious visionaries, the sexually shall-we-say peculiar, and the politically febrile.The demented, the deranged, the delusional and the dangerous—the last represented by submissions from jails and penitentiaries.The would-be writers who had no idea how to shape a scene or introduce a character much less write a line of dialogue that any human being might actually have uttered.The wannabes (that word didn’t exist then) to whom punctuation seemed a galactic mystery as did sentences containing both a subject and a verb. I was no literary snob and my reading choices embraced everything from Willa Cather to Mickey Spillane—but the slush pile almost did me in.

No matter how fast I plowed through, attaching Bantam’s form rejection letter to the top and placing them in the required SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope), the pile never diminished. Every morning and every afternoon (two mail deliveries a day back then) the mail room guy dumped another stack on my desk. They were typewritten, smeary, often single-spaced, sans margins, punctuation or paragraphing; some were hand written, scrawled in pencil in old-fashioned school notebooks, the kind with the marbelized black-and-white cover. They were held together by rubber bands, string, yarn and, once in a while, ribbon.
 The pages were occasionally pristine but more predictably smudged, dog eared, defaced by icky, unidentifiable substances, or dotted with coffee stains and cookie crumbs left by previous editors who had read—or made a valiant effort to read—the submission in question and, as they say in the trade, “passed.” 
I soon learned to read the first one or two pages, maybe scan a few more, then flip to somewhere around the middle to see if anything had improved and, if any shred of hope remained, look at the last page to see if a more careful reading might be called for. (Dream on.)

The only response from these would-be authors was an occasional complaint that they’d left a piece of white thread on page 125 and, when the ms came bouncing back, the piece of white thread remained in place. Why, they wanted to know, hadn’t the entire ms been read? How could we (the nameless editors because no one ever signed a name to a form rejection) reject their masterpiece without reading it in its entirety?
Let me count the ways. :-(
As the years passed, I moved on and so did the slush pile: to agents who weren’t about to pay a young assistant to slog through the slush—in a short while, it was their unpaid interns. This new, "improved" system provided a double benefit: neither publishers nor agents had to hire salaried employees to sift through the slush pile and submissions had now been vetted before appearing on an editor’s desk.
As time passed, we arrived somewhere in first decade of the twenty-first century and reading the slush pile had gone from paid labor to unpaid labor. A sort of progress, I guess, but one last glimmer of progress beckoned: the internet. The quick and easy upload that earned Amazon a 70% cut every time a 99c book was purchased. The magic of the internet had managed what had long seemed impossible: it  turned a huge time and money sink into a profit center.
Lest you think me excessively bitter and cynical, I will add that the SP was not 1000% hopeless. There are writers who have made it out. Stephanie Meyers (Twilight) was rescued from an agent’s SP. Philip Roth back in 1958 from a Paris Review SP (you can look it up on Google). And Kathleen Woodiwiss, one of the queens of the Bodice Rippers, was originally pulled out of the SP as was Rosemary Rogers.

SPECIAL WEEKEND SALE (Through Sunday, April 28 only)!
I've reduced ZURI, a love story with all 5-star reviews, to $.99. ZURI will go back to its usual price on Monday, April 29.

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The news and the olds.

Diane Sawyer and me.I’m getting older. So are my friends. We tell each other how good we look and we mean it. We look healthy, alive, interested, interesting.
What we don’t tell each other is how young we look. Because we don’t. We look—more or less—our age. We know it and, while we visit our dermatologist and maybe even a plastic surgeon; while we wear flattering makeup, patronize talented hair stylists and care about clothes, we don’t make excessive efforts to fool anyone about how many years we've been gracing the planet.
So why does just about every anchor or news personality on tv—most of whom are in their 50s, 60s or beyond—so faux-young?  Look up Diane Sawyer or Nancy Grace, Leslie Stahl, Greta Van Susteren or Katie Couric on the internet and, odds are, one of Google’s first guesses as you type in their names includes the term “plastic surgery.”  Barbara Walters is pushing eighty but, counting in TV years, eighty isn’t pushing back.  And it’s not just the women.  Al Roker, Sam Donaldson and Sam Champion all rank high on the plastic surgery websites.I’m a true believer in the power of lighting, hair and makeup and I’m certainly not proposing that these knowledgable and experienced people look as if they’d just rolled out of bed to tell us about the most recent global disasters, political crises and economic trends.   In fact, I want them to look their best.  Still, how much Botox, plastic surgery, teeth whitening and fake bake are we supposed to be fooled by?We grew up with them;  we know approximately how old they are.  We know what we look like and we can probably even guess what they look like.As we grow older, looking in the mirror isn’t always great but it’s not always terrible, either. Like everyone else, we have our good days and our not-so-good days.  Diane and Katie, Barbara and Al are all very smart and very good at what they do.  Their age and experience are a large part of the reason they’re so respected.  How about letting at least a little bit of it show?  After all, what’s more powerful than authenticity?We women—and men—“of a certain age” grew up with TV and still have the TV habit. We’re the ones to whom TV wants to sell their relentlessly advertised arthritis-relievers and erection-enhancers.  Do the executives who hire on-air journalists think we forgot we knew their star anchors and reporters back in the day?Doesn’t occur to them that in their twisted zeal for youthification they risk insulting the very audience they most want to woo? The grown-up audience that hasn’t—at least not yet—deserted them in droves for the internet?

OOOOOH! Want to read more? My new Romantic Comedy/Thriller, THE CHANEL CAPER, is #1 in Comedy and answers the question: Is there sex after marriage?  It does NOT tell you how to lose weight—that's an Amazon ad I can't nuke.
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Coming soon from iBooks

5 sex thrills (almost) no one talks about.

Freud asked what women want. Well, Dr. F, here are a few clues:The vaunted 6-pack? Meh.The big shoulders and small waist? Big effing deal.The biceps and triceps? The quads and hammies? Oh, yawn.Lifts weights like an Olympic champ but won’t lift a finger around the house? Surely you jest. Bulked-up cover boys remind me of Arnold Schwartzenegger and we all know about him. Or else they bring to mind  narcissistic movie stars who flit from woman to woman and pro athletes—baseball, football, basketball, you name it—with a different baby mama in every city his team blesses with its presence.I have zero interest in a man who devotes hours to himself and “sculpting” his body. He’s the kind of man I’m going to have to fight for mirror time in the AM, who uses more—and more expensive—“beauty” products than I do, and the kind of man whose self-involvement turns me off, not on.What turns me on in a man is:1: Competence—Can he change a tire, fix a leaky faucet? Big plus for sure if he can, but, no, I’m not looking for a handyman. Sometimes I just want the man who knows who to call to get the job done.2: Humor—Give me a man who can make me laugh—over spilled milk, a bad haircut, a new recipe even the dog won’t eat. He’s the kind of man who can make me smile all the way into the bed room3: Integrity—Introduce me to the man I can trust. The guy who won’t cheat on me, steal my money or turn into a vampire sucking my energy, ambition, goals, dreams is the man who turns me on and keeps me turned on.4: Savvy—Set me up with the man who knows how to wangle/charm his way into an airline upgrade, can order in a french/spanish/chinese/dominican restaurant, is knowledgable about finance, art and architecture, movies, tv and world affairs. He’s the man you can live with for a life time and never be one of those couples who sit through dinner without a word to say to each other.5: Smile—Who can resist a guy with the kind of smile that would melt a glacier or even contribute to global warming? Does his smile start with a glint in the eyes, go to the mouth and light up the whole face? Please. Give him my number and twitter handle.Oh, and a few more essentials, kindness and, as old fashioned as it sounds, good manners. A man who treats others well—who respects his parents and siblings, his colleagues and co-workers—will treat me well. And nice but not necessary, a guy who can cook dinner and clean up afterwards without acting like turning on the stove or washing a dish will make his man root shrivel up and fall off. But if he's a klutz in the kitchen, he knows how to pick up the phone and order take-out when I'm too tired, too hungry and too cranky to cook.Spare me the studs. Keep your hunks. You can have those “irresistible” bad boys all the girls seem to love. Just give me a man who appreciates everyday life and knows how to live it.

So, girlfriends, do you agree? Do you have anything to add to my turn-on list?

Romancing The Wild: From the "bodice rippers" of the 1980's to 50 Shades of you-know-what.

Romance and an accidental collision.Romance as a category has shown its strength over the decades as it evolved from the early days of the nurse romance—pretty nurse Patricia wins handsome Dr. Phillips—through the “bodice rippers” of the Eighties to the many sub-genres that exist today including, of course, the steamy erotic romances descending from 50 Shades.
No matter the sub-genre, there always seems to be room for further expansion and an eager audience willing to follow writers wherever our imaginations take us. To pirates and pirate ships, to the Middle Ages, Regency England, and the settling of the American West. Wherever there are people, people can—and will—fall in love.  We want to write about them and readers love to read about them.
ZURI—the word means "beautiful" in Swahili—is a romance with an unusual setting: an animal orphanage named Kihali located in Africa. The initial idea for the book was the product of an accidental collision.
Out Of Africa, set in Kenya in the early 1920’s and starring Meryl Streep as the Danish writer Isaak Dinesen, and the young, golden Robert Redford as a white hunter, is a grand romance—and one of my favorite movies. I watch it every now and then and had just seen it again when, while casually flipping thru TV channels one evening, I happened to see a clip of a baby rhino. I was blown away by the little rhino’s appeal and gracefulness.
Baby animals never fail but a rhino? Could a baby rhino actually be adorable? Yes, indeed. Very much so.
I was also aware via newspaper and internet articles that poaching had become an extremely lucrative international crime. The slaughter of rhinos and elephants was decimating the wildlife populations of Africa to the point where they are now endangered species. Between the glamor of Africa, the vulnerability and appeal of helpless animals and the sweeping Streep-Redford romance, the germ for the book was firmly planted.
The need for research was obvious. I had to find out about the people involved in the dangerous work of animal rescue and protection, the newest scientific discoveries in animal communication as more and more is learned about their high intelligence, the gory reality of poaching and the ruthless criminal gangs who profit from its bloody endeavors.
Then there were the details of rhino husbandry and veterinary, the amazing work being done by African animal orphanages, the risks involved in wildlife care, the details of rhino and elephant behavior—Zuri, the orphaned baby rhino who is the story’s heroine, meets elephant and other animal friends at Kihali. I also needed to find out about the local language, Swahili, Kenyan cuisine & wedding rituals—and I needed to use my research in a way that fit in naturally with the narrative flow of the book.
The research was fascinating. Did you know that the illicit trade in wild animals is third only to the illegal trades in drugs & weapons? Or that rhino horn—it’s actually keratin, the same material found in feathers and nails—is thought to cure cancer, maintain sexual vigor and is considered a miracle medicine in Asia, although it is, in fact, of zero medical value? The price of rhino horn, driven by demand in booming Asian economies, is now more expensive than gold as is the ivory from elephant tusks, used not for “medicinal” purposes but to make carved trinkets.
Of course, in a romance, a love story is crucial. Therefore: Renny Kudrow, the sexy scientist and expert in animal communication, who is the moody Alpha hero. Renny is the Director of Kihali and Starlite Higgins is his newly-hired vet, a talented doctor who hides a horrifying secret. Their relationship gets off to a rocky start when Starlite panics and almost causes Zuri's rescue to fail. The two who must work together to save Zuri and the other animals in their care must also work their way through their initial very rough beginning to a much-deserved Happily Ever After ending.
 By the time I finished writing ZURI, I thought of the book as romance in its broadest sense, meaning love of beauty, love of nature, love of animals, and, of course, the romantic and transformative power of human love.
Readers, do you enjoy romances with off-beat backgrounds and unusual settings? Or do you prefer your romance with backgrounds that seem familiar?
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THE MEMOIR THAT TOOK 50 YEARS TO WRITE

I've asked Michael to post about the long journey required to write his best-selling memoir, The Atomic Times:By Michael Harris
Three-eyed fish swimming in the lagoon.  Men whose toenails glow in the dark.  Operation Redwing where the F words were Fallout and Fireball. In 1956, I was an army draftee sent to the Marshall Islands to watch 17 H-bomb tests. An "observer," the Army called it. In plain English: a human guinea pig.
I knew at the time that the experience could make a fascinating book, and I wrote a novel based on it while I was still there. The problem was that Eniwetok was a security post. There were signs everywhere impressing on us that the work going on (I mopped floors, typed, filed requisitions and wrote movie reviews for the island newspaper “All the news that fits we print”) was Top Secret. “What you do here, what you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here leave it here.”
I was afraid they would confiscate the manuscript if they found it but a buddy who left Eniwetok before I did concealed the pages in his luggage. When he got back to the States, he mailed those pages to my father so I had what turned out to be a very rough draft.
What was wrong with the book?  Let me count the ways.  I didn’t know how to write action, plot and character.  I did know how to leave out everything interesting that was happening  around me. Back in the States after my discharge, I thought about writing Version #2 but for ten years, I had nightmares about the H-bomb almost every night.  I survived the radiation (unlike some of my friends), but the memories were also a formidable foe.  I tried to forget and more or less succeeded.
My perspective gradually changed over the years and I began to remember what I had tried to forget:We were told we had to wear high density goggles during the tests to avoid losing our sight but the shipment of goggles never arrived—the requisition was cancelled to make room for new furniture for the colonel's house.We were told we had to stand with our backs to the blast—again to prevent blindness. But the first H-bomb ever dropped from a plane missed its target, and the detonation took place in front of us and our unprotected eyes.Servicemen were sent to Ground Zero wearing only shorts and sneakers and worked side by side with scientists dressed in RadSafe suits. The exposed military men developed severe radiation burns and many died.
The big breakthrough came when enough years had passed and I had overcome the anger and the self-pity resulting from the knowledge that I and the men who served with me had been used as guinea pigs in a recklessly dangerous and potentially deadly experiment. At last I had the perspective to understand my nuclear year in its many dimensions and capture the tragedy and the black humor that came along with 17 H-bomb explosions. In addition,  certain significant external realities had changed.Top Secret documents about Operation Redwing had been declassified.  I learned new details about the test known as Tewa:  the fallout lasted for three days and the radiation levels exceeded 3.9 Roentgens, the MPE (Maximum Permissible Exposure).  Three ships were rushed to Eniwetok to evacuate personnel but were ordered back after the military raised the MPE to 7.  That, they reasoned, ensured everyone's safety.I made contact with other atomic veterans who told me about their own experiences and in some cases sent me copies of letters written to their families during the tests.  As we talked, we also laughed:  about officers who claimed Eniwetok was a one year paid vacation;  about the officer who guarded the political purity of the daily island newspaper by deleting "pinko propaganda," including a speech by President Eisenhower.By now, Ruth knew the material almost as well as I did and provided crucial perspective and detailed editing expertise.
At last, I was able to pull all the strands together.  After 50 years, I was able write the book I had wanted to in the beginning.
Having struggled to write a memoir for so long and having been asked for advice by others contemplating writing a memoir, I can pass along a bit of what I learned along the way. Make sure you have enough distance from the experience to have perspective on what happened.   Exposure to radiation and the resulting reactions—anger, terror, incredulity—produce powerful emotions that take time  to process.Figure out how to use (or keep away) from your own intense feelings.  In the case of the H-Bomb tests, anger and self-pity were emotions to stay away from.  So was the hope of somehow getting “revenge.”Sometimes the unexpected works. For me, finding humor in a tragic situation—  the abject military incompetence in planning and executing the H-Bomb tests—freed my memory and allowed me to write about horrific experiences.Figure out (most likely by trial and error) how much or how little of yourself you want to reveal."A gripping memoir leavened by humor, loyalty and pride of accomplishment. A tribute to the resilience, courage and patriotism of the American soldier."  Henry Kissinger

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The aaargh draft & the universe of Writing Fast

HOLD YOUR NOSE AND TYPE—THE UP SIDE OF WRITING FASTWe all know about a certain anatomically impossible act frequently recommended but today I’m going to talk about another, less frequently recommended, but also anatomically impossible act: the plusses of holding your nose and typing. But, you ask, won’t I add to the “tsunami of crap”? The answer is yes, of course, but let me remind you that writing slowly and agonizingly can also result in unspeakable crap. So, you choose.When you write fast, you get the engine running.You quash the inner scold, that mahatma of negativity that rains on your parade. By writing fast, you don’t give yourself time to censor or second-guess yourself and you avoid obsessing over whether your hero should be blond, brunette or a power-baldy à la Bruce Willis. You can always figure out the details later and, more often than not, as the character engages and develops, hair color (or lack of hair) will become obvious.Writing fast increases your chances of “getting into the flow” and gaining access to your sub-conscious or what Steven King calls “the boys downstairs.” Those “boys”—or girls if you’re of the female persuasion—are the source of creativity. They are the ones who come up with the unexpected (even to the writer!) plot twist and help you get the work done.By watching the words and the pages pile up, you give yourself the gift of a sense of accomplishment. Where there was nothing, there is now something and the mere fact that there’s “something” where once there was nothing builds confidence.Last of all, writing fast is professionally crucial in these days of self-publishing because new books help sell old books. Just ask Joe Konrath or Dean Wesley Smith.
Now that I’ve persuaded you (I hope!) of the plusses of writing fast, one obvious question rises: How do you make yourself write when you’re tired, distracted, uninspired or just plain “not in the mood.”My friend Rona Jaffe used to “read something good.” Which meant one of her already-published books. For Rona, reading her own work reminded her of what she did well and what she’d been successful at.Other writers read something by an author whose work they admireCoffee works for some. Loud music for others. Vivaldi’s The Seasons for still others.An external deadline can help: a contract or even a promise to someone else—including the dog who is in need of a walk.Setting a word target, a time target, a scene target adds focus in the form of an achievable goal.Do you respond better to the kiss or the whip? If the first, promise yourself a Dove Bar at the end of your just-get-it-down writing session. If the whip, then no dessert for you tonight unless you get your quota filled!Shut the door, turn off the phone, the internet, do whatever you have to do to get the job done.  Adapt Nora Roberts’ approach: you will permit interruptions only in the case of “blood or fire.”Roni Loren wrote 97k words in 55 working days and did the revisions in 5 days. She had always thought of herself as a slow writer but deadlines compelled her to speed up. She was surprised by the result and blogged about what she learned here.Once you've done your prep work , whether you're a pantser who starts out with a vague idea or maybe some characters plus an incident or a plotter who loves detailed outlines, begin to write your story. Power through because once you’ve got something —just about anything—down on paper or, these days, on the screen, you have a point of departure. You can always fix it later. If you don’t have something down, there’s nothing to fix.In the Universe of Writing Fast, there are a number of possible outcomes:Might be much better than you think and just needs a light edit. Yay! Treasure the moment because you get to feel you're better than you think.Might be pretty good but needs a careful edit. OK, editing is part of the job of being a writer so get on with it.Might be dull, drab and needs major, butt-in-chair revision. That’s OK, too, because revision is also part of the job.The aaargh! draft: So what you wrote is real crapola and needs a four-corners rewrite? Don’t let that get you down and don’t forget: It ain’t the writing it’s the rewriting. Professionals know it and the aaargh! draft is the perfect case in point.Even worse than the aaargh draft is draft so putrid it threatens the integrity of the time-space continuum. We’ve all been there, done that and that’s why keyboards come with delete buttons. Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean you have to publish it or even that anyone else has to see it. Just trash it, see if there's anything you can learn from it, and move on.Saving best for last: OMG! Did I write that? It’s just about the best feeling a writer can have and, when you write fast, you outrun your insecurities and second guesses, your tendency to “fix” and fiddle, you’re also raising the odds of the OMG!-Did-I-write-that? outcome.So, dear readers, do you write fast? Or slow? Have you ever tried to change the way you write? How did that turn out?
As for me, I wrote THE CHANEL CAPER fast because the MC, Blake Weston, her voice, her attitude came to me one day more or less out of the blue. What did take time, though, was revising, editing and polishing that first draft. But that's the way the process usually works for me.
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James Bond meets Nora Ephron. Or is it the other way around?

SHORT TIME ONLY! Park Avenue Series Books 1-3 Boxed Set usually $7.50 now $.99.  Get em while they're hot—and they ARE!   Kindle   Nook

The Story Behind The Story: The Chanel Caper
For a long time I’ve wanted to write about the ups and downs of a long-term relationship and about the way romance can wax and wane, evolve and transform over time. In The Chanel Caper, Blake Weston and her DH, Brooklyn boy and ex-NYPD cop Ralph Marino, have been through it all—the break ups and makeups, the squabbles, the spats and the stand-offs. Even so, after twenty-six years of living together (and sometimes driving each other crazy), they are still holding hands in the movies. And they still have the hots for each other!
A second element that went into creating The Chanel Caper was that as my friends and I approached sixty, I realized that 60 isn’t what it used to be (and maybe never was). Maybe 60 is—or isn’t—the new 40 but attitudes toward age and aging have been transformed by medical advances, new discoveries about the importance of nutrition and exercise and Baby Boomers' determination to stay on top of their game.
Throw into the mix the fact that I’m a news junkie and love to write about the social and cultural atmosphere of the time in which a book is set. The Chanel Connection takes place in the fall of 2008 when the global financial system faced collapse. From Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff to bankers in five thousand dollar suits flying their private jets to Washington to scrounge for money, the financial crisis of 2008 was a richly ironic background for my story of murder, .
Other characters in the story were inspired by headlines, news stories & current events:a washed-up Martha Steward wannabe trying to make a come back with the help of a red balconette braa one-eyed, one-legged Afghan warlord who doesn’t speak a word of Englishan über neurotic, germ-ophobic billionaire freaking out as the stock market plummets and his net worth goes down—and downa flack-jacket-wearing gung-ho war zone reporter with a humongo pair of 36 DoubleD'sNYC’s ubiquitous sidewalk vendors of faux designer label bags, sunglasses and scarvesthe city’s vast selection of ethnic restaurants and foods.news reports about the deadly consequences of counterfeit drugsthe rise of the Chinese economy and the glam and glittering city of Shanghaitrendy gurus and hot self-help fads

Add in Bollywood movies, the world's best shade of red lipstick and one drop-dead fantastic way to deal with a cheating husband (+ a dick joke) and you have an idea of some of the ingredients that went into The Chanel Connection. I had fun writing it. I hope you have fun reading it!



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Who loves you, baby?

There are—at least—two kinds of just about everything. For example:Dog lovers or cat lovers but there’s overlap.

MickeyD’s or Burger King but that doesn’t preclude the occasional Taco Bell.


Perfumed or Fragrance Free but not always—sometimes the hint of jasmine is irresistible.Black or White but there are also shades of grey (sometimes more than 50!)Mozart or Notorious B.I.G. but there’s room for both.Jamaica Blue Mountain or Indian Single-Estate Darjeeling but both coffee and tea taste good and will keep you going.Macs or PCs but both do the job.Beach or Mountains but both have sun, fresh air and natural beauty.Bikes or Cars but they’ll both get you where you want to go.Beer or Wine but both go soooo well with dinner.Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe—blonde or brunette—but they both left a mark.Lots of choices but there's one fool proof way to sort the diamonds from the rhinestones:  People who do what they say they’re going to do and people who don’t. The first are treasures beyond words and you will forgive their cranky moments, lousy taste in clothes/music/tv/movies and  inability to tell Warhol from Watteau because they are reliable and you know you can count on them.Headache? They’re there with the aspirin.Bad breakup? They’re the shoulder you cry on.Fired, laid off, downsized? They’re there with comfort and contacts who will help you find the job you need.Then there’s the rest: They love you, love your book, wouldn’t miss your opening/party/reading for anything, will call their best friend, the President/CEO/Big Boss on your behalf.But don’t hold your breath—because you know they not gonna do whatever it is they promised on the Bible/their sainted mother’s memory/their favorite pair of Nikes to do. They’re the here-today-gone-tomorrow, leave-you-in-the-lurch buddies, the bff’s we all know and even like—but also know we can’t depend on.So now you know what pissed me off this week.At least it gave me the idea for this blog so I’m counting my blessings and telling all my reliable friends how much I love, cherish and appreciate them.

 On her way: THE CHANEL CAPER, a romcom mystery thriller starring a Baby Boomer couple that addresses two of the most crucial questions of our time: Is there sex after marriage? Is sixty the new forty?

In a nutshell:  James Bond meets Nora Ephron. Or is it the other way around?

Here's a peek at the cover:

From Menobleep to The Chanel Caper: Is There Sex After Marriage?

First of all, many thanks to Mark Chisnell, bestselling author of top-quality thrillers, for including me in the #nextbigthing! Don’t miss Mark’s latest, Powder Burn . Coming soon! 
What is the title of your book?  The Chanel Caper.
The book begins when no-BS haute WASP Blake Weston buys a fake Chanel bag from a NYC sidewalk vendor. As it turns out, it would have been cheaper for Blake to go to Chanel, take a deep breath, spring for the money and buy a genuine Chanel.
OTOH, if she had done that, I wouldn’t have a book!
The original title was Menobleep—my made-up word to convey Blake’s attitude toward approaching sixty. Let’s put it this way: she’s not thrilled.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
Lots and lots of places.
For a long time, I've wanted to write about the ups and downs of a long-term relationship and, especially, about the way romance can last, evolve and even flower over the years. Blake and her DH, hot Brooklyn boy and ex-cop Ralph Marino, have been through it all—the break ups and makeups, the squabbles, the spats and the stand-offs. Even so, after twenty-six years, they are still holding hands in the movies, still driving each other crazy.
A second contribution was that as my friends and I approached sixty, I realized that 60 isn’t what it used to be (and maybe never was). Maybe 60 is—or isn’t—the new 40 but attitudes toward age and aging have been transformed by Baby Boomers determined to stay on top of their game.
Add to the mix the fact that I’m a news junkie and love to write about the social and cultural atmosphere of the time in which a book is set. The Chanel Connection is set in the fall of 2008 when the financial system faced collapse. From Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff to bankers in five thousand dollar suits flying their private jets to Washington to scrounge for money, the financial crisis of 2008 was a wicked and, as it turned out, wickedly entertaining background for my Baby Boomer couple.
Also inspired by the news: a washed-up Martha Steward wannabe trying to make a come back with the help of a red balconette bra. Plus a one-eyed, one-legged Afghan warlord who doesn’t speak a word of English and an über neurotic, germ-ophobic billionaire named George Profett freaking out as the stock market plummets and his net worth goes down—and down.
Supporting players: NYC’s ubiquitous sidewalk vendors of faux designer label bags, sunglasses and scarves and the city’s vast selection of ethnic restaurants and foods.  Throw in news articles about counterfeit drugs, the glam and glittering city of Shanghai, trendy gurus, hot self-help fads, Bollywood movies and you have some of the ingredients that went into The Chanel Connection.
What genre does your book fall under?
The Chanel Connection is romcom-mystery-thriller.
Which actors would you cast in a movie rendition?
Ellen Barkin would be a great Blake Weston. She survived Hollywood and Ronald Perelman. She’s snarky, savvy, strong and sexy.
Robert deNiro all cleaned up in a Brioni suit has the sex appeal and street cred to play Ralph, a retired NYPD cop with a James Bond edge.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
James Bond meets Nora Ephron. Or is it the other way around?

On Sunday, I’ll be posting over at Anne R. Allen's blog about how difficult women—they're thorny, obstinate, blunt, steely, manipulative, and sometimes pathological—can come to your rescue.