West of Mars

A quick Spring Reading Thing Update before I get to Buy a Friend a Book Week fun…

I gave up reading Dead Man’s Island (Carolyn G. Hart) and it’s already been mooched from me. A Darker Place (Laurie R. King) was also abandoned partway through, and is available either from PaperBackSwap, BookMooch, or … (what a segueway, Susan!)

… this quarter’s Buy a Friend a Book Week contest.

There are two ways to win:

The first three people who e-mail me a scan of their receipt for Steven Lee Beeber’s The Heebie Jeebies at CBGB’s will get my last three copies of Lyrical Life. So make sure you include an address with your e-mail. Buy it for you, for a friend, for the rocker-type down the street. Steven and I don’t care. Just buy it and read it. It’s a really cool book, and Steven’s a truly cool dude.

The other way to win a book between now and the 7th, with the winner announced shortly thereafter, is to visit my bookshelf at BookCrossing. Look under the available titles — but be careful, because if there’s anything in parentheses after the word available, that means I don’t have the book anymore. Leave a comment here on this post (because there will be quite a few posts this week, I suspect, so let’s keep things where they belong) and tell me what book you want, and WHY. Whoever has the best reason will win the book and I’ll happily send it to you.

Be warned: I like multiple winners. And I’ve got enough books here to sink a rowboat, I suspect. Have at it.

Now, I know that in my Thursday Thirteen this week, I promised you more fiction about Mitchell’s desk. It’s coming. But you guys helped me have one of my busiest Thursdays yet, and I’m still digging out from it. Keep it coming and I’ll reward you with, as always, more and better.

Happy Buy a Friend a Book Week! (and yes, if you run out today and buy Heebies for a friend’s Easter basket, I’ll count it as a purchase)

While I’ve been busy putting together some Buy a Friend a Book Week fun for next week, I realized that I can’t find the surface of my desk. It’s actually been this way for some time now and I swear, everything there can’t find another home somewhere else.

That made me think. What sorts of things do other people keep on their desks?

Here’s one take on it, with an outtake to finish up the desk fun over the weekend. Stay tuned for that, and for the BAFAB contest.

Thirteen Things on the desk of Mitchell Voss, rock star: 1. Guitar picks 2. remote control to the sound system, empty CD cases, and some newish, trendy stuff that keeps getting overlooked in favor of the old favorites. 3. papers JR’s been waiting on for weeks 4. papers Daniel’s been waiting on for weeks 5. love drawings, instead of love notes, from Kerri and a sketch of hers that he stole and framed. Conveniently, she’s never noticed it. 6. scraps of paper with random, so-far unused song lyrics scribbled on them 7. the first guitar string he broke onstage 8. bulk quantities of black Sharpies 9. three desk lamps to act as spotlights on strategic piles of papers 10. new lightbulbs for the lamps 11. two years’ worth of music industry trade magazines he intends to read — next time he gets the chance 12. a hairbrush that hasn’t been cleaned since it arrived on the desk even though it gets semi-frequent use 13. an origami dragon folded by one of the crew during ShapeShifter’s last tour Anything interesting on your desk? Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Hey, guys, over the weekend, I noticed that some of you were asking if I’d gotten a comment you’d left here, or I’d clear something from owner moderation and … it wouldn’t show up.

I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m going to sic the Tour Manager on it today.

Stay tuned; I’ve got your monthly visit with Pam and I hope to have time to write you a new outtake.

Anyone got fun ideas for Thursday Thirteen? Feel free to e-mail me if your comment doesn’t show — my name at my blog’s name dot com.

First off, let me tell you that I’ve finished my first book for the Spring Reading Thing challenge: Linda Fairstein’s The Kills. I really liked it, so if you’d like to read it, you can get it one of three ways: by requesting it at PaperBackSwap, by mooching it from me at BookMooch, or by leaving me a comment here and asking for it. Be sure to leave me an e-mail address, if I don’t have an address on file for you.

My copy’s a hardback and yes, it’s registered at BookCrossing. I’d love it if you’d leave some thoughts about what you think of it.

Other stuff…

Barb at Front Street Reviews has asked me to tell you guys to check out a cool profile she’s done of Capital Crime Press. Two of their more prominent authors are the extremely funny Robert Fate (author of Baby Shark) and Troy Cook (author of 47 Rules of a Highly Effective Bank Robber). This feature is in conjunction with Small Press Month; don’t forget to finish off the month with some small presses!

Buy a Friend a Book Week is fast approaching. I’m going to do a small contest for it, so watch the blog for more details. But here’s a hint: anyone who e-mails me a scanned receipt for the purchase of Steven Lee Beeber’s The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s will win a cool book from me. I’ll have other books to give away during BAFAB week, if only because I have too many here again and would like to get them moving through the world.

And while I’m talking about Beeber and punk rock, I’d like to once again put forth my willingness to review Clinton Heylin’s new book on punk. Babylon’s Burning. Not only am I curious to read it, I want to see how it stacks up against Beeber’s book. Now pushed back to a July release, I’d love to be part of some pre-publication reviews — and I’ll offer up Barb’s Front Street Reviews as a spot for which to post that review. Ain’t it great to have friends?

Okay, I’ve got a TON of stuff for you guys the next few days (and none of it is fictional, scarily enough), so I thought I’d combine two posts into one.

First off is Kailana’s request for the Blogger List of Books They Cannot Live Without. I don’t expect to see many, if any, of these titles in her final list; they’re too off the beaten path. But they’re right up my alley and they’ve all had an impact on me in one big way or another. (if you want to know how/why, ask. I’ll answer)

Susan’s List of Ten Essential Reads:
1. The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green — Joshua Braff
2. Dragonflight — Anne McCaffrey
3. The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon — Richard Zimler
4. I’m with the Band — Pamela DesBarres
5. Cowboys are my Weakness — Pam Houston
6. Bright Lights, Big City — Jay McInerney
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood
9. East is East — T. Coraghessan Boyle
10. Fat Kid Rules the World — KL Going

All of these books have impacted me in one way or another. Many you’ll see in my Library Thing sidebar; I’ve included in my LibraryThing list only the books I’ve really loved.

And now… on to the other book-related list. That’s Katrina’s Spring Reading Challenge. Check out the cool graphic in my sidebar and join in! Here, we’re supposed to list the books we want to read or finish before June 21.

Beware; you’re about to see that I’m not kidding when I say I have too many books! All but the first three arrived in my house between April 2005 and June 2005. I’d love to have them all read by the end of June, but c’mon. I’ve got a life.

Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson — Peter Ames Carlin
A Crazy Little Thing Called Death — Nancy Martin
Every Little Secret — Lila Shaara
A Darker Place — Laurie R. King
Deadhouse — Linda Fairstein
Cold Hit — Linda Fairstein
Dead Man’s Island — Carolyn G. Hart
The Chatham School Affair — Thomas H. Cook
Final Jeopardy — Linda Fairstein
Blood Harvest — Gary Gottsfeld
Track of the Cat — Nevada Barr
Talk Before Sleep — Elizabeth Berg
Where Serpents Lie — T. Coraghessan Boyle
Harvest — Tess Gerritsen
Bloodstream — Tess Gerritsen
Flashback — Nevada Barr
Deep Freeze — Lisa Jackson
The Puttermesser Papers — Cynthia Ozick
Buried Evidence — Nancy Taylor Rosenberg
The Second Silence — Eileen Goudge
Skinny Dipping — Claire Matturro
I’m no Angel — Patti Berg
Rain of Gold — Victor Villasenor
The Ladies — Doris Grumbach
Grime and Punishment — Jill Churchill
The Quality of Mercy — Faye Kellerman
Under Currents — Francis Fyfield
Shock Rock II — Jeff Gelb (Ed)
Imperfect Strangers — Stuart Woods

Hi, there. My name is Susan and I have a small book problem…

Yesterday, I showed you one variation on the real soy sauce story. Here’s the other one.

Really, is it that much of a surprise to hear how much I love Mitchell?

Mitchell scratched his head as he contemplated the seven varieties of soy sauces. He hadn’t paid much attention when Ma had asked him to pick some up on his way over; he’d figured that just remembering it was the brand with the Chinese name would be good enough.

He could hear her reminder: “Good enough rarely is, Mitchell.” And his father, chiming in about how to find success, a person had to give 100%, all the time.

Clearly, he’d fucked this one up royally.

He was still standing there when a couple walked by. “Get the Ping’s,” the woman said. “It’s the best of the all-natural brands.”

“How can it be best?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” the woman said. Mitchell smiled at her exasperated tone. “But it is. Maybe they use special soy for it or something. Make it in small batches. I don’t know. Call them and ask.”

Mitchell wondered if they would answer that sort of question if someone called and asked it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the woman nudge the man and make a subtle gesture in his direction. With a sigh, he picked up a bottle of Ping’s soy sauce and tried to be casual as he walked away.

Just what he needed. To be spotted while making an indecisive ass of himself in front of something like soy sauce. It wouldn’t be surprising if, over the next few days, someone’s gossip column mentioned that he used Ping’s Soy Sauce and there’d be a run of it.

And that he’d spend the next six months autographing the stupid labels.

He looked at the label on the bottle he held. Thankfully, it was black. That’d make it hard to sign. No one ever carried Sharpies in colors other than black.

He was safe, at least from that.

It dawned on me over the weekend — after I’d posted the Soy Sauce Story, of course — that I could have written the same story, only fictionalized. From the point of view of one of my characters. (Isn’t Mitchell the perfect naif to play the stranger?)

And then my brain really kicked into gear, which was no small feat because I’m still pretty sick and headed to the doctor today. Maybe I only reached this epiphany because I’m sick; I’m not certain. But it goes like this: many of you, when you’ve nominated me for various writers’ blog awards, have said that you really like that I give you an inside look at the writing process. I haven’t seen myself doing much of that, so I’ll do it here and now.

Today, I’m going to post one alternate to the Soy Sauce Story. A fictionalized scene that shows how I take real life and put it into my fiction. Most of my outtakes are based on some real-life inspiration, you know. You just have to figure out what the real-life inspiration is.

Tomorrow, I’ll post another. And we’ll culminate this insider look with a Thursday Thirteen that ought to make you laugh pretty hard.

One quick note and then we’ll get to the fiction: This is about as rough as my writing gets. I haven’t gone over this for typos, for improvements or tweaks, nothing. So bear with me.

Soy Sauce Story — Val’s Point of View

Val sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. They were out of Ping’s brand soy sauce again. What was wrong with the place, that they couldn’t keep up with demand? Everyone knew Ping’s made the best soy sauce.

She turned to the woman behind the counter. “Excuse me?” she started, ready to chew the woman out. She worked there; surely she had some sort of control over the store’s inventory.

It wasn’t overly surprising that the woman ignored her. Val figured she was probably bristling with hostility and if the roles had been reversed, Val would have been reluctant to talk to someone so ready to explode.

What did surprise was when the woman yelled to someone in the back room. In perfect Mandarin, “Anyone want to come deal with the annoying slut out front?”

Val tried not to gasp or adjust her clothes. Yeah, so she was decked out; she and Daniel were on their way to a sex club and she’d asked if they could run in since the grocery was on the way.

“The annoying slut out front is pissed you’re out of Ping’s. Again,” Val snapped back, not caring that her Mandarin was rusty. Not caring about anything except this had been a wasted trip and that she’d have to spend half the week searching out the Ping’s.

The man popped out of the back room, full of apologies in both Chinese and English.

By the time Daniel came in to see what had happened to her, Val had promises that four bottles of Ping’s would be held for her on the next shipment day — Tuesday — and that in the future, all she needed to do was call when she ran low and bottles would be waiting with her name on them.

Even if her name would be Annoying Chinese Slut.

I got home from another great Penguins game last night to find this message in my inbox: Tell the Soy Sauce Story. The reminder came from The Bluest Butterfly and thank goodness, because I’d completely forgotten I’d left a comment on someone’s blog that said, “Remind me to tell the Soy Sauce Story.”

Now, to fully appreciate the Soy Sauce Story, you’ve got to understand that I’m a bit geeky. I think some of it is from birth, but the majority of it has rubbed off from the Tour Manager. Fortunately for him, he’s indispensible to me, so I’ll gladly take a bit of geekiness on his end. And maybe mine, too.

One of our favorite shows is Alton Brown’s Good Eats. (I won’t link to the show because last time I did, it fought with my XM radio and took down my entire computer. I’m talking Blue Screen of Death takedown. And even though XM just made me choose between Metallica and Iron Maiden, I won’t torture it again with the Good Eats link. You, I’m sure, know how to Google.)

One Saturday night, before our local indie station started running Farscape, we were watching Alton teach us about soy sauce. Alton pointed out that in the case of soy sauce (unlike crystal meth), better living does NOT come from chemistry. Soy sauce should be made up of soy beans and water, nothing else.

This probably wouldn’t have stayed with me, but the next day, the Tour Manager and I were in the local grocery. Soy sauce was on our shopping list. The Tour Manager looked at me with that glint in his eye, the one that says he’s about to unleash the Inner Geek. And then he set about reading the ingredient list on the bottle of soy sauce that we had a coupon for.

It was perfect: Soy beans and water. Into our shopping cart it went.

Of course, the Inner Geek wasn’t done yet. The Tour Manager’s Inner Geek is never satisfied that easily, not when there’s geekiness to be wreaked. And so, in short order, the Tour Manager was off, reading the ingredient list of each and every brand of soy sauce and reporting his discoveries.

Now, this is merely a story of a geeky tour manager and his writer wife, who is standing there, slightly embarrassed, slightly intrigued, and definitely pleased that the Tour Manager’s having so much fun. What makes this story such a good one is the man who was also shopping for soy sauce at the same time.

The man who reached into his cart and began reading the ingredient list on the back of the soy sauce he’d chosen.

The man who put that bottle of soy sauce back. Who looked none-too-casually into our shopping cart. And who picked up the same brand of soy sauce inside our cart. The one made of soy beans and water, and nothing else.

Okay, maybe you’re not roaring with laughter the way The Tour Manager and I were as we walked away. Maybe you’re only smiling as you’re picturing this. Maybe it’s a “you should have been there” type of story. I don’t know. You tell me.

Thanks to everyone who put up with me today and last night. I’d inadvertently turned off the comments on my Thursday Thirteen. Not sure how; can I blame it on my using the laptop instead of my more comfortable desktop?

HUGE thanks to those of you who stopped back JUST to leave a comment. I owe you guys.

Also, if you’ve been looking for your comments, I was (the horror!) away from the ‘puter all day. ALL DAY. They’re posted now; you guys rock. Thanks for visiting.

And lastly, SparkyDuck, what’s your dirty comment that goes with Trevor riding his Vincent? I’m sure it’s not something he tried, if not out-and-out did, so let’s hear it!

(If you have no clue what I’m talking about scroll down to the Thursday Thirteen that now has its comments turned firmly ON.)