Maine Crime Writers

Jule Selbo

A few days ago I attended a ZOOM event (set up through Thriller Fest) – it was an interview with the prolific Dean Koontz.

    and 100 more**

The hour went by quickly – and he had lots of tips for writers.

One that stood out:  Get a good office chair.

Koontz shared that he gets up at 5 am, walks his dog, has a quick bite to eat and then settles into his office chair and stays there.  No lunch. No errands. No interruptions. He writes until dinner time. (Could that really be, I asked myself. Can one be that protected, every day, from “stuff that needs to be done”?) He credited this disciplined schedule for the happy fact that he averages a completed book every six months – so far the total is around 105 novels (add to that some short stories and novellas).

He also gave some of the credit to his Herman Miller chair. “You gotta have a good chair,” he said.  I remember looking over at my office chair – a swivel, faux leather, armless ugly thing that has befriended my behind but doesn’t contribute much to me wanting to sit on it (non-stop) for ten to twelve hours.

(Above: just some other chair options I have seen at friends’ homes, what does yours look like?)

Herman Miller office chairs are pricey.  But the designers seem to care about those sitting behind a desk. You can go on their office chair site and take a “Find Your Chair” Quiz. You share how long your workday is, if someone else shares the use of the chair, posture preferences, height, weight, desire for adjustability and back support and ventilation.

I took the quiz.  The chair that would keep my butt, back and mind happy costs just under $2,000.

Attending the Koontz interview was good for my dark-February psyche.  He had a lot of interesting things to say about building characters – good guys and bad guys.  How he sometimes blends horror, sci-fi, fantasy and humor into his mystery-crime books and why. How he works with and relies on his editor (and it seems to be a good, healthy professional relationship – very supportive and creative.)

But what about that interview comes to the forefront in my mind over and over? That Herman Miller chair. I imagine it at my desk, tall, proud, mysterious in its ability to hold me in place, and expensive.  Will it ever be a reality?

Could it change my world as I know it?

Another tidbit that floated across my existence that could be life-changing:

This morning, on my usual five-minute drive to the local coffeeshop at 5 AM, I was looking forward to my snippet of “whatever is on NPR” at the moment. I was gifted with a short dive into a piece on Russian Elie (Ilya) Metchnikoff (1845 – 1916), the founder of gerontology. A successful immunologist, he had a large working space at the Pasteur Labs in France – where he declared that aging was a disease, and he was – dang it all – going to cure it.

Well, that caught my attention. I almost sat in my car in front of the coffeeshop so I could listen to the end of the podcast, but my desire to finish Chapter 15 in the next Dee Rommel Mystery book took precedence. I knew I could find the podcast later and there was no need to fight my Catholic schoolgirl discipline.

But what I did hear: A very young Metchnikoff lost his first wife to tuberculosis, nearly lost his second wife to typhoid fever. He became fascinated with germs, bacteria (are germs bacteria?) microbes (maybe germs and all bacteria are microbes?). One of his big discoveries was the presence of ‘phagocytes’ – bacteria-eating cells that could fight infection. He won the Nobel Prize for that work.

So not a ‘quack’.  Maybe he had his big idea about curing aging while sitting in this chair. He became obsessed with figuring out how humans could live 150 healthy years and then – when we were just sick of the whole thing – we could opt to die. Nice and neat.

One of his answers to longevity? Yogurt.

He had heard of some farms in the mountains of Bulgaria where inhabitants were centenarians. They ate a lot of yogurts – and since Metchnikoff believed that the large intestine, where imbibed foodstuffs were held and broken down – was largely responsible for unwanted events in human health (which lead to aging and death) . Metchnikoff did some experiments and came to believe yogurt affects bacterial action in the intestines in a positive way. I know, I know – all that probiotics stuff.

Not that I hadn’t heard of this.

We are inundated with information on pro, pre and antibiotics, micro and macrobes, kefirs (just don’t add honey or maple syrup) but when listening to the podcast on Metchnikoff, I realized (for the umpteenth time) that unless a “fun” story is attached to healthy advice (or any advice) things can go in one of my ears and out the other quite quickly.  What was the “fun” story that drew me into Metchnikoff’s championing of yogurt?

When he would go out for dinner in Paris, he would bring a Bunsen burner with him and sterilize the restaurant-provided knives and forks on the table before using them… Just one of the little things one can do to go to war with a pesky germ that may be lying in wait.

So. Eat more yogurt.  Save up for a Herman Miller chair.  With just these two changes in my life, will I finish a riveting, satisfying, exciting and fun book every six months?

I just finished Ruth Reichl’s fantastic book, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, and it made me think about critics in general. We, as writers, must suffer the slings and arrows of all the book reviewers out there. And like a negative restaurant write-up, bad reviews can quickly sink a book. And since we have so many fine dining establishments here in Portland, Maine, I thought it would be an appropriate topic for this blog. 

What I like about Reichl is that she took her job seriously. She understood the considerable responsibility of leaving a bad review, which is why she visited an establishment many times before deciding on how many stars to give a particular restaurant. The ramifications of her critique had the potential to put the place out of business, as well as put many people out off a job.

As part of her responsibilities, Reichl used different disguises to hide her identity. Many of the top NY restaurants would hire spotters to see if and when she came in. Or else they would reward employees with a bonus of five hundred dollars in cash if they spotted her. There were outings when she was recognized, but many of the times she dined out she was able to fool the staff. Concealing her identity made a huge difference in the type of experience she would have. Unrecognized, the service and food was on occasion subpar or unremarkable. Recognized, her meals were luxuriously presented, executed perfectly, and brought out in a timely fashion. The service was top notch and attentive. For one restaurant, she debated writing two separate reviews for the two vastly different culinary experiences she had.

Of course, when she liked a restaurant, she raved about it. And when she raved about it, it meant that the place would be booked up for months out. This was the upside of a great review: popularity, fame, and money. Lots of money. And Reichl is a great writer. Here is an example one of her reviews.

Chilled lobster consommé is a tour de force. The soup is as clear as crystal but so expressive of lobster that if you close your eyes and take a bite, you are surprised to find your mouth filled with liquid. The soup, decorated with rounds of lobster topped with crème fraîche and caviar, is dotted with coral cream when it is served. This is an astonishing dish worthy of a temple of haute cuisine.

Ultimately, the pressure of writing restaurant reviews got to her, as it does with all food reviewers. It’s simply too much responsibility, and such a heavy burden for one individual to carry. And the food reviewer frequently reviewed by many of the readers of the NY Times. Not to mention, she found it nearly impossible to enter a restaurant and not be recognized; she’d used up all her disguises.

How do you handle reviews? I’ve gotten better dealing with them as time goes on, but I admit that it’s still is hard to read a bad review of my book. Unlike restaurants, we authors don’t have millions of dollars in capital to lose. Nor do we have to worry about the livelihood of dozens of staff in our employ. How about all of you who review books? Are you able to critique freely and honestly? As a writer, I’m absolutely unable to give a bad review to a book that I dislike. Being a writer, I know how much it pains me. I’d rather leave no review than a bad one.

That’s it for now. Let me know how you feel about reviewing and being reviewed. And go out and enjoy your favorite restaurant this weekend.

Take care!

Joe