USING THOSE LITTLE BLACK SYMBOLS ON THE WHITE PAGES...

I often talk to groups about what writers have in their arsenal, besides, we hope, a way with words. And then there’s what we DON’T have. We don’t have technicolor. We don’t have steroid crazed action figures or digitally enhanced crowd scenes. We don’t have animated animals or voiceovers. We don’t have soaring soundtracks. What we DO have are little black symbols on white pages, period (and hopefully without typos...)

What we do with these black symbols is the fun part. In EXTREME CUISINE, I set one scene that was being filmed for a movie in screenplay format. It is fun to read and I think it really helps the reader visualize what is happening. We have the actors doing take after take and their audience—the bewildered production crew and the harried director—all set up like a screenplay.

In my latest story, LOCATION LOCATION, I’ve placed my two intrepid protagonists on location in the exciting and beautiful country of Panama. I am lucky enough to have a smart son who married a beautiful Panamanian dentist whose family we get to visit on vacations, both in the sophisticated city of Panama and also on their rural ranch in the midlands. This country was perfect for the locale of a mystery story!

In one (memorable, at least to me and our editor) scene I have Margot and Max returning to their hotel after a day spent chasing down (unsuccessfully) one of the producers of their new movie. They have traveled from one end of the country to the other. They have searched and searched different places and talked and talked to all sorts of people, trying to locate this fascinating individual. Their success was none-at-all.

I wanted to show what it might be like to travel in a foreign country filled with nice people who don’t speak your language, where everything is exotic and unfamiliar, and you’re getting desperate!

I did this scene with an infamous (to my publisher and editor) TWELVE- LINE sentence. I wrote this in one fell swoop (whatever that actually is) and refused to touch it after that. To me, this paragraph says it all and with the long lines of little black symbols, I believe it shows the reader how exhausting and frustrating this adventure must have been like for Margot and Max.

Tell me what you think!

Chapter VII

Later that afternoon, after a not so calm and placid flight, the plane roiling up and down invisible air currents—not to worry, said the steward, it’s just due to thunder storms—and after dismal conversations they couldn’t stop about what were they going to do now; what the hell could they do now?— should they pay off everyone with the remainder of their own money and just get the hell back to L. A.?—between frenzied, silent, tense taxi rides through strange neighborhoods to hospitals and airports and airports and hotels and searching for that one person who could understand their Spanish or, better yet, speak some English, they finally walked back into their room with the afternoon sun behind the curtains, golden, filling the room, a dazzling illustration in a child’s book, the telephone message light blinking red, off and on, madly, as though everyone in the civilized world felt it was necessary to get in touch with them now—and they made love.

June 6th, 4:30-6:60, Book signing and school benefit at Catfish Books. Lakeport, CA

Location Location launch party at Catfish Books in Lakeport, CA. April, day to be announced

Kit was selected as one of ten Mills College Literary Women of 2007 by the Mills College Alumnae Association!