Many thanks to my generous friend and poetry compatriot, Sarah Fox, who tagged me for this! (I love you Sarah for your belief in my writing.)
Doing this was challenging and fun and a bit like diving off the high board in an Olympic Pool when you're not even sure you can swim or are wearing a bathing suit that will stay on! Yikes! :-)
What is the working title of the book?
Well
actually I’m working on 2 books at once.
Can I mention them both? (Sure you can.
I mean, why not? I mean whose
interview is this? Who’s setting the
rules? Me, myself and I. (Aha! 3 books! Nah, 2 will do.)
So the
first book’s working title is “Specter.”
The
second book’s working title is “The
(Good) Wife or Why We Leave.”
Where did the idea come from for the book?
Specter is a book of poems all of
which are related to ghosts/specters/wraiths: my dead. The idea came from the fact that dead people
show up in my poems (and my dreams) a lot – apparently they are a preoccupation
of mine -- and I finally figured they deserved their own book.
It’s also
because I don’t show up as much as I wish I did and so I tend to think that
maybe I’m some kind of a specter or wraith that most people just don’t
see. So I deserve a book of my own also.
Finally, “Specter” is also only one letter off
from my actual birth name (Spector) so it feels fitting.
The (Good) Wife (or Why We Leave) is about a daughter/wife/woman
who exists mostly in the shadow of her father/husband/self. Yeah, the one who doesn’t show up. The idea for the book was taken from my own
life.
For years
I’ve felt kind of invisible. For
instance, at my brother’s wedding he and his wife hired a professional
photographer who took hundreds of photos over the course of the afternoon. I did not appear in one of them. Which is pretty weird when you consider that
my (now ex) husband was in several photographs, not to mention his sister and
her husband who were also invited to the wedding. (It was a pretty big
wedding.) Where was I? I’ve always wondered about that. Can you spell invisible?
Then back
in 1990 when I spent most of the year walking around on crutches after a bad
ski accident I finally had to put fluorescent bike tape on the crutches in
order to make myself more visible. I’d
be walking down the sidewalk and people wouldn’t see me and would bump into
me. Okay, it was New York City and okay,
I’m short (5’2” at the time). But still.
More to
the point the book kind of addresses the question I got asked a lot (or I
imagined I got asked a lot) by all those people who couldn’t figure out exactly
what I was doing 15 years ago when I left a life and marriage that looked
really good, really perfect, even great, on the outside but was stifling the
inner me. So I moved away from an apartment in NYC (and a weekend house upstate
and a retirement house in Jackson Hole) to a small cabin that was both in the
woods and off the grid in Northern California. Yeah, I know hard to
comprehend. But there was a reason.
And I
figure I’m not the only woman who’s ever faced that in her life. Great looking outside. Not so great inside. Those last several years of my not-so-great
inner life I looked and looked for a book/novel that I could relate to. That would help me figure out what to
do. I’ve got pretty decent researching
skills but I couldn’t find anything.
So
I’ve decided to write the book I was looking for.
What genre does your book fall under?
Specter is poetry.
“The (Good) Wife” is what I’m calling a “novoir” or a nomoir” which is a hybrid somewhere between a novel
and a memoir. No-moir. Nov-oir.
I like the “no-voir” because voir is to see in French and it’s a novel where my eyes finally open (from a
lifetime of not seeing) and once I can see what’s going on and (re)act to it I’m
finally able to move on from where I’m stuck.
On the other hand “no-moir” has a nice sound (as in No More) and that’s
exactly where I finally found myself once my eyes were open (from no seeing)
etc. You get the idea, yes?
What actors would you choose to play the part of
your characters in a movie rendition?
A casting call for ghosts?
hmmmm.
Seriously,
there are some “characters” that appear in both books.
First are
the geographics: rocks both artificial
(cement cityscapes) and natural (cliffs, mountains).
I think
New York City could be played by Chicago or perhaps Toronto.
The
Shawangunks, where I spent many years rock climbing, should really be played by
themselves. It would be hard to fake their famed horizontal crack systems. The Wind Rivers and the Tetons – you could
make do with some of the mountains in the Sierras, but why would you want to?
And then
there’s Death Valley. A pivotal starring role in terms of life changing
events. But, if we wait long enough to
film, there will be lots of places that will be desert-like to chose from.
Then
there are the humans:
THE
MOTHER: I’ve always thought that my
mother could be played by someone like Rita Hayworth, a glamorous pin-up type
from the 40s. I mean she was a pin-up
type herself. I’ve even got the picture
she send out to lonesome GIs who were overseas serving their country.
That's My Mom
That's Rita
Hayworth
You do see the resemblance, don't you?
THE FATHER: My dad was a sleek,
handsome man when I was growing up. And he was a pianist who played in nightclubs through much of my childhood. He
did turn outdoorsy but that was after my parents divorced.
The bandleader, Peter Duchin, could play him. There was actually a time when I was in my
teens and Duchin was inventing himself as the reincarnation of his father (more
ghosts) and my father mentored him in
the skills of a cocktail pianist. (See pages
223-224 - Chapter 14 "Society Beat" - of "Ghost
of a Chance" by Peter Duchin for
verification.)
THE BROTHER:
My brother was once told
by someone in an elevator (I think) that he looked like Richard Gere. Of course that was some years ago. But maybe Gere would enjoy playing this supporting
role. After all we’re both Buddhists. Or maybe I once dreamed a movie of my
story and Gere was in the dream playing my brother. So it’s fitting some how.
MY (EX)
HUSBAND: My aunt once told me that my (ex)husband
looked a bit like Spencer Tracy, so maybe in the spirit of Specter, we could ask Mr. Tracy to resurrect himself for the
purpose. I can’t think of anyone from my
story who’s enough like Kate Hepburn to encourage him (and her) to return but
maybe, since the story is still a work in progress, I can add her in someplace.
THE AD
YEARS: For the part of the story that takes place in the ‘60s at an ad agency
we could ask the folks who do Mad Men to lend a hand. Of course I’ve never watched a single episode
because I’ve never felt I needed to watch the Hollywood version of what I lived
but I’m sure there are several actors who will fit the roles of my DDB
compatriots just fine.
THE
CLIMBERS: For the climbing years – well, pretty much any of the stunt men whose
names form the long, long list at the end of most action movies.
Did you
think I forgot THE (GOOD) WIFE? I didn’t. Oh my we’ll have to find someone short. Sally Fields?
Maybe she’s short (enough) but is she also athletic? I mean can she climb rocks? Ski? Work out at the gym? Why am I even worrying about this? They can do all kinds of things on film these
days. Or so I’m told. I just checked on Google and she’s actually a
year older than I am and 2” taller but as I said they can do all kinds of thing
on film these days.
Or maybe,
since this is my fantasy, I could find someone who’s tall(er) like Angelina
Jolie. Maybe Brad Pitt could play THE
POET (my second husband). With the two
of them on board I bet the movie version would be a hit! (Is that what I’m dreaming of? A blockbuster and all that comes with
it? NO!
If we are going to think along those lines, I’ll settle for a book with
a decent advance that stays in print.)
What is the one sentence synopsis of
your book?
1) Specter: about MIDP (my Most Important Dead People
known and unknown)
2) The (Good) Wife: a woman who’s living what looks like a damn
good life (by most standards) has a really bad skiing accident, is in recovery
for almost a year, begins a meditation practice as part of her healing, sees a
whole bunch of stuff about her life she’s been ignoring and decides to cut
herself loose, leaving what she always thought she wanted behind and starting over.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of
the manuscript?
Specter: I started officially working on these poems
(or talking about them as an idea for a book) in June 2011 but then I
discovered I’d been working on it a lot longer when I went back and looked at
poems I’d already written.
The (Good) Wife: I’ve been working on
this ms for several years, Or at least
since 1995. Or 1998. Or maybe even 1966. Several years ago, I distilled the
part about leaving NYC and arriving in California into a small self-published,
hand-bound limited edition of 100 (there are still some copies left - if you’re
interested let me know) called “everything
breathing.”
 |
| "every breathing" |
 |
| first page |
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Specter was inspired by my mother
who passed in 1993, by my good friend Joel who passed in 2012, by my dog who
passed in 1985 and by some of the paintings done by Gerhard Richter.
The
(Good) Wife is inspired by all the women out there who feel trapped by a life that
leaves them empty but where they are too comfortable to make a change. Also most recently by something that my
ex-sister-in-law wrote to me: “It reminded me of everything you’ve been through
to get to where you are now. It’s almost
like a fairy tale, at least the part where you started to travel to California
for zen retreats and how you eventually moved away. I think it would make an amazing tale. But actually you have to tell the story from
the beginning to realize how magical it is.”
Wow. I mean how can
you ignore that?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s
interest?
It's a ghost story? It’s an adventure story? It’s a
love story? It’s a story about escaping
from what you’ve been told you should do to what you feel inside yourself you must
do? It’s a story about hibernating for
years and years and finally walking out into the sunshine?
Will your book be self-published or represented by
an agency?
a)Yes
b)No
c)Maybe
d) All of the above
My tagged writers for next Wednesday (2/20) are:
Marilyn Mociun, Nancy Jean Burns, Molly Fisk, Julie Valin, Susan Suntree
and Dale Pendell
