writing life – Malcolm's Round Table

If my pasta ever looked like this, it was at the Mueller's factory. — If my pasta ever looked like this, it was at the Mueller’s factory.

For some of you, it’s a Superbowl night and you’ll be teary eyed after watching the puppy and the Clydesdales in the Budweiser commercial, assuming you haven’t already seen it on Yahoo, Facebook or YouTube, and then–like me–you can forget about the game and find something else to watch while feasting on spaghetti.

If you’re old enough to see the hidden reference in the title of this blog, you’re probably too old to be surfing the net on a computer. By the way, very few people use the <g> symbol any more to show they’re grinning, so if you leave a comment with a <g> or a <vbg>, then you probably saw the 1969 film “It it’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.” It starred Suzanne Pleshette who was hot in those days.

Here’s the thing about spaghetti.

When the sauce is home made even when the pasta isn’t, it (the whole shebang) tastes better the second day around like beef stew, pot roast and possibly haggis. Serving spaghetti on a low key Sunday when there’s time for the sauce to simmer a couple of hours in the Dutch oven while I play Angry Birds and Words with Friends, guarantees that I’ll have a passable meal tonight and a superb meal on the typical high-stress Monday when Hollywood, some insurance agent, and reporters are all trying to talk to me at the same time.

In real life–as opposed to my author’s fantasy life where I remember Suzanne saying, “Malcolm, at least we had Belgium”–I’ll be buying groceries. If I lose track of what day it is, all I have to do is notice the Hunt’s Tomato Sauce on the aisle to remind me, If it’s a Grocery Store, This Must be Monday. Like traveling tour groups who go to Belgium on Tuesdays, I tend to fall into a pattern of doing the same thing on this week’s days as I did on last week’s days.

A Writer’s Structure

That way, I don’t have to think about what I’m going and can get all the chores done on auto-pilot while I’m actually thinking about how the main character in my next novel is getting off the mountain without falling. (My wife always knows when I’m thinking about the novel-in-progress because I’m rather absent from the reality she perceives.)

While contemplating a sex scene in the novel I was working on, I was once interrupted on a Monday by somebody wearing a red apron. He asked me if I was lost.

“Yes,” said. “I can’t find the sluts.”
“They’re on aisle three next to the tomatoes,” he said, without missing a beat.

My sense of order tends to create disorder around me, so I try to control it by making spaghetti on Sunday, grocery shopping on Monday, reading review books on Tuesday (though seldom in Belgium), going to the pharmacy on Wednesday…well, you get the drift.

If this were an upscale scent-empowered blog, you’d be able smell the vine-ripened tomatoes transforming themselves into spaghetti sauce with judicious amounts of rosemary, oregano, and a random bunch of secret herbs and spices.

Magic

You’d also know–from the oregano alone–that as a contemporary fantasy writer who dabbles in magic (for artistic purposes), I tend to be superstitious: Hell’s bells, it’s Sunday and I accidentally made haggis. The week is doomed almost as surely as going to Belgium on a Thursday.

Well, haggis would doom the week no matter what day one made it. But, for purposes of magic and this blog, haggis is a never on Sunday kind of event.

Some of you who are imagining the tomato aroma are probably sitting there with 55-gallon drums of salsa and bathtubs full of chips thinking, “Hell, if it’s Super Bowl Night, it Must Be Sunday.” Okay, that works for today, but it’s not the kind of thinking that’s going to get you through next week, is it? It would be safer to say, “If The Good Wife is On, it Must be Sunday.” At least, you’d be right more than once a year.

I need more order than pacing my life with Super Bowl Sundays. Toilet bowl Saturday’s come around a lot more often and give a writer the kind of structure he needs to put up with “real life” while building fantasy words in for his books. If you’re not a writer, don’t try anything in this post at home.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the comedy/mystery “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire,” some of which was written in a Kroger store while he was buying tomato sauce on aisle three.

Today’s guest article is by Chelle Cordero, author of “Bartlett’s Rule,” “Forgotten,” “Within the Law,” “Courage of the Heart,” “Final Sin,” “Hostage Heart,” and “A Chaunce of Riches.” It’s a pleasure to welcome a prolific author from Vanilla Heart Publishing with a humorous take on the writing life.

You’re not an author, you’re my mom

Chelle Cordero

Working as a writer is a hectic and often surreal lifestyle. You live by the power of words, both real and fictional, and you accept the responsibility of those words, the emotions they evoke and the lessons they convey. Although I’ve never participated in NaNoWriMo (a challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days) I can well understand the thrill of accomplishment. Every time I finish an article, a new novel, or edit a writing project, I am thrilled with the same sense of accomplishment.

It’s an amazing feeling to see your name on the cover of a book or see your byline in a national publication. As awesome as it feels to see your name, it is incredible to realize that people are actually reading your words. I’ve had an editor or two (for my non-fiction work) pass along letters they’ve received citing my articles and commenting that they found the information useful; that’s a wonderful feeling. Even more exciting is seeing a site like Amazon taking pre-orders of novels that haven’t yet been released (the ranking system shows that pre-orders have been placed) – people are actually buying books because I’ve written them and they are getting them as soon as they are available.

I’m still me. I am a wife, mother, community volunteer, housewife, sister, aunt, and friend as well as being a writer. I walk in the mall and I’m not hounded by fans because most people don’t recognize me as an author. Every so often I do get someone noticing my author pic on the back of a book and realizing it’s me or an email to me as a writer asking for advice on writing. My friends and acquaintances do call me if they see my name in the paper or the time I did a spot on a local news channel (as a participant in Operation E-Book Drop).

I often read and re-read my own articles and books and sit there thinking “I really wrote that?” Most times I like what I’ve read, perhaps that is just egotism? I guess I am in that in-between stage where I know that I am just an ordinary everyday person and yet craving the acknowledgment of what I’ve accomplished to date. I yearn for fan mail (please! chellecordero@gmail.com) and yet I felt embarrassed the first time someone brought a book up to me at a signing and asked me to autograph it – and I didn’t even know the person!

There is a feeling that is difficult to put into words, even for a writer, which overwhelms you in a crowd where everyone is speaking about their jobs. Then they turn to you…

I’ve often had a thoughtful acquaintance turn to me and ask “So how is your book doing?” and I respond “Which one?” and they’re shocked. Or it’s even funnier when someone I’ve known for years suddenly realizes that I’m a writer – “You wrote a book?” There is no way of comparing my “desk job” with that of my son-in-law’s title as “Infrastructure Analyst” or to my kids’ EMS careers (she’s a paramedic and he’s an EMT).

I try to surround myself with other writer and editorial friends – we understand each other. Whether I connect with these friends on Facebook or in-person at my local RWA chapter, I feel “normal” because of the association. Most of the authors signed with my publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing, are supportive and friendly, we have a tight group. My writer friends know when to call me on it when I make excuses and also know how to bolster my fragile ego when I need plaudits.

Then while I am feeling particularly talented and good about myself I over hear my daughter chatting with a friend and listing some of her favorite authors. I attempt a “guilt trip” –“What? My name isn’t included?” The answer I get is “You’re not an author, you’re my mom.”

…I chuckle and still feel pretty good.

Chelle Cordero, Author

Chelle Cordero Website

Chelle at Vanilla Heart Publishing

Malcolm's Round Table

Tag: writing life

If it’s Sunday, this must be spaghetti

You’re not an author, you’re my mom