John Blumenthal's Blog, page 2
December 14, 2013
Hanging Out With Nora Ephron in 1973
Nora Ephron and I worked at Esquire at the same time, she as a columnist, me as a lowly fact-checker. It was 1973. We'd passed each other in the halls occasionally, perhaps rode an elevator together, but she had no idea who I was and I wasn't quite bold enough to tell her, not that she would have cared.
Esquire was my first editorial job and I was lucky enough to serve under the magazine's legendary editor, Harold Hayes, who plucked me out of obscurity from a job as a house painter and whale's tooth polisher on Nantucket Island. Esquire paid me exactly $65 a week which, even in those days, was chump change.
Anyway, one day Nora stalked into the fact-checking area -- a large room containing the four of us who made up the overworked department. It was not hard to discern that she was not happy. For some reason, she chose me to snap at. I forget what it was about, but I snapped back and she strode angrily out of the room.
Of course, I thought I was going to get fired. I didn't. Instead, Nora asked me to accompany her to a literary party. Needless to say, I was a little bewildered, given out first frosty meeting, but of course I said yes. Neverthless, I wondered why she'd chosen me; perhaps she respected the fact that I -- a peon -- had not taken her guff lying down. I would find out the real reason years later.
Anyway, Nora and I hung out for a while. It wasn't a dating thing -- she was married at the time. We'd go to gallery openings and literary parties together on occasion. One thing that impressed me about her -- she never abandoned me at any of those parties, even though she knew everyone there, everyone being the likes of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and Gay Talese, to name a few.
Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of details. It was a long time ago and, when you're young and self-absorbed, things are a blur. But I do remember that she was smart, sarcastic, mischievous, sensitive and ballsy -- Dorothy Parker minus the mean streak.
A few months later, Harold Hayes, who had been grooming me to be an editor, left the magazine and was replaced Don Ericson, who didn't have any particular career-advancement plans for me. I had to leave, but I had nowhere to go.
Nora, sensing my dissatisfaction, corralled me in the office one day and said, "How would you feel about being an editor at Playboy?" I wasn't sure. I had never been a big fan of Playboy. But living in New York on $65 a week was getting tiresome. I needed a new job so I said yes. "The editor will call you tomorrow morning," she said. He did. I got the job.
Ten or so years later, I bumped into Nora at a party.We reminisced for a few minutes, exchanged small talk. I was still curious as to why she had chosen me to accompany her to parties and why she'd gotten me the job at Playboy. I figured perhaps she saw something in me -- humor, intelligence, ambition. So I asked her. Why me?
She gave me that toothy smile and said, "Because you were cute."
John Blumemthal's next novel THE STRANGE COURTSHIP OF ABIGAIL BIRD will be published by Regal House in October 2019.
Esquire was my first editorial job and I was lucky enough to serve under the magazine's legendary editor, Harold Hayes, who plucked me out of obscurity from a job as a house painter and whale's tooth polisher on Nantucket Island. Esquire paid me exactly $65 a week which, even in those days, was chump change.
Anyway, one day Nora stalked into the fact-checking area -- a large room containing the four of us who made up the overworked department. It was not hard to discern that she was not happy. For some reason, she chose me to snap at. I forget what it was about, but I snapped back and she strode angrily out of the room.
Of course, I thought I was going to get fired. I didn't. Instead, Nora asked me to accompany her to a literary party. Needless to say, I was a little bewildered, given out first frosty meeting, but of course I said yes. Neverthless, I wondered why she'd chosen me; perhaps she respected the fact that I -- a peon -- had not taken her guff lying down. I would find out the real reason years later.
Anyway, Nora and I hung out for a while. It wasn't a dating thing -- she was married at the time. We'd go to gallery openings and literary parties together on occasion. One thing that impressed me about her -- she never abandoned me at any of those parties, even though she knew everyone there, everyone being the likes of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and Gay Talese, to name a few.
Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of details. It was a long time ago and, when you're young and self-absorbed, things are a blur. But I do remember that she was smart, sarcastic, mischievous, sensitive and ballsy -- Dorothy Parker minus the mean streak.
A few months later, Harold Hayes, who had been grooming me to be an editor, left the magazine and was replaced Don Ericson, who didn't have any particular career-advancement plans for me. I had to leave, but I had nowhere to go.
Nora, sensing my dissatisfaction, corralled me in the office one day and said, "How would you feel about being an editor at Playboy?" I wasn't sure. I had never been a big fan of Playboy. But living in New York on $65 a week was getting tiresome. I needed a new job so I said yes. "The editor will call you tomorrow morning," she said. He did. I got the job.
Ten or so years later, I bumped into Nora at a party.We reminisced for a few minutes, exchanged small talk. I was still curious as to why she had chosen me to accompany her to parties and why she'd gotten me the job at Playboy. I figured perhaps she saw something in me -- humor, intelligence, ambition. So I asked her. Why me?
She gave me that toothy smile and said, "Because you were cute."
John Blumemthal's next novel THE STRANGE COURTSHIP OF ABIGAIL BIRD will be published by Regal House in October 2019.
November 24, 2013
How I Screwed Up My First Romance Novel
Inspired by the gazillions of dollars people are making in the romance novel genre, I decided to write one with a friend, Barry Golson. Granted, the genre is dominated by women, but so what? How hard could it be?
Besides, Barry and I weren’t exactly neophytes. Some years ago, we’d cut our teeth on a short romance novella called Love’s Reckless Rash, written under the pen name Rosemary Cartwheel. Granted, it was a spoof but it gave us a feel for the lingo. We knew our way around the territory.
Sort of.
But this time, we vowed to write a straight one. Our heroine would succumb to fiery passion, flaming eroticism, burning desire and lots of other forms of romantic arson.
Sure, there would be challenges. First, we would have to attempt to see things through a female’s perspective, which meant that power tools would not figure prominently in the plot. Also, we don’t know anything about romance because we’re guys and we don’t understand things like why women like candles so much. We asked our wives for help but they thought the idea of guys – especially us -- writing a romance novel was… well… idiotic.
We decided to ignore them.
Having written Love’s Reckless Rash as a period piece, we felt comfortable with the historical approach. It would take place in Jane Austen’s era. There would be dukes and earls and princes, all of them incredibly horny because in those days first base meant getting beyond the bustle.
The era’s sexual repression also appealed to us as did the language of the day -– words like “hither” and “hence” and “bodice” (although we had to look up “bodice” in a dictionary.)
So far so good. We mapped out a story. Now, all we had to do was fill the pages. Easy right?
Nope.
Ten pages into it, we encountered problems. Every time our story required us to describe ball gowns, sensuous fragrances, the intricacies of corsets or most importantly, the mysteries of the female heart, we’d get stuck.
How did we compensate for our ignorance? Simple. We went for laughs. Again. We simply couldn’t write it without cracking up. Every time we tried to craft a lurid sex scene we couldn’t resist a punch line.
Often, we’d start a sentence with the best of intentions, but end up with this:
“I have never felt my heartstrings pulled so sharply as they are being pulled at this moment. I feel as if they will snap, and my heart will be flung across the garden into yonder lake.”
“’Sir, kindly remove your nose from my bosoms this instant! Bosoms are not places into which one inserts one’s nose. If bosom nosing is a custom in this vile place, it is not one that I care to have performed on my bosoms!!’”
“She knew her One True Love was out there somewhere, practicing cruel expressions in the mirror, opening his shirt just so, and in general posing rakishly, roguishly, and redundantly.”
You get the idea. Eventually, we succumbed to temptation. We expanded our original spoof to novel length, sending our heroine on new adventures to foreign places where she would encounter a variety of slow-witted potential paramours of different nationalities, and upper-class twits, most of who would –- of course -- ardently attempt to unravel her sixteen petticoats. We titled it, Passing Wind of Love.
In other words, we fell back into the ditch.
And we still don’t understand why women like candles so much.
John Blumemthal's next novel THE STRANGE COURTSHIP OF ABIGAIL BIRD will be published by Regal House in October 2019.
Besides, Barry and I weren’t exactly neophytes. Some years ago, we’d cut our teeth on a short romance novella called Love’s Reckless Rash, written under the pen name Rosemary Cartwheel. Granted, it was a spoof but it gave us a feel for the lingo. We knew our way around the territory.
Sort of.
But this time, we vowed to write a straight one. Our heroine would succumb to fiery passion, flaming eroticism, burning desire and lots of other forms of romantic arson.
Sure, there would be challenges. First, we would have to attempt to see things through a female’s perspective, which meant that power tools would not figure prominently in the plot. Also, we don’t know anything about romance because we’re guys and we don’t understand things like why women like candles so much. We asked our wives for help but they thought the idea of guys – especially us -- writing a romance novel was… well… idiotic.
We decided to ignore them.
Having written Love’s Reckless Rash as a period piece, we felt comfortable with the historical approach. It would take place in Jane Austen’s era. There would be dukes and earls and princes, all of them incredibly horny because in those days first base meant getting beyond the bustle.
The era’s sexual repression also appealed to us as did the language of the day -– words like “hither” and “hence” and “bodice” (although we had to look up “bodice” in a dictionary.)
So far so good. We mapped out a story. Now, all we had to do was fill the pages. Easy right?
Nope.
Ten pages into it, we encountered problems. Every time our story required us to describe ball gowns, sensuous fragrances, the intricacies of corsets or most importantly, the mysteries of the female heart, we’d get stuck.
How did we compensate for our ignorance? Simple. We went for laughs. Again. We simply couldn’t write it without cracking up. Every time we tried to craft a lurid sex scene we couldn’t resist a punch line.
Often, we’d start a sentence with the best of intentions, but end up with this:
“I have never felt my heartstrings pulled so sharply as they are being pulled at this moment. I feel as if they will snap, and my heart will be flung across the garden into yonder lake.”
“’Sir, kindly remove your nose from my bosoms this instant! Bosoms are not places into which one inserts one’s nose. If bosom nosing is a custom in this vile place, it is not one that I care to have performed on my bosoms!!’”
“She knew her One True Love was out there somewhere, practicing cruel expressions in the mirror, opening his shirt just so, and in general posing rakishly, roguishly, and redundantly.”
You get the idea. Eventually, we succumbed to temptation. We expanded our original spoof to novel length, sending our heroine on new adventures to foreign places where she would encounter a variety of slow-witted potential paramours of different nationalities, and upper-class twits, most of who would –- of course -- ardently attempt to unravel her sixteen petticoats. We titled it, Passing Wind of Love.
In other words, we fell back into the ditch.
And we still don’t understand why women like candles so much.
John Blumemthal's next novel THE STRANGE COURTSHIP OF ABIGAIL BIRD will be published by Regal House in October 2019.
