Crickets – Not in Times Square

Writing update: Between my producing job at Mattel and my “300 Days of Content” project, writing has come to a screeching halt. My brain is using a completely different set of muscles, which, I guess, is good for the working muscles, but not great for the ones that aren’t being used. I can literally feel my facility with words, and my feeling for language, lessening. I’m hoping this is temporary, and that maybe as these new muscles become more toned and efficient, they can take less effort, and I can achieve more balance.

Life Update: Last night I went to hang out with my brother and sister at my sister’s family’s apartment. They’ve been having issues with fruit flies, which of course is annoying to her. This prompted my brother to say that his apartment gets large waterbugs, which he really hates. They have no problem wishing death unto either of these species of insect.

I contributed that our apartment has crickets. One can hear them chirping in the eaves. Sometime I’ll see a blurry-something skitter across the floor and at first I’m alarmed, thinking it’s a spider, but then I put on my glasses and realize, it’s just a cricket. In which case I ignore it and let it go on its way.

“Obviously, I can’t kill a cricket,” I said.

“Why not?” my brother asked.

I thought about it. I’ve never heard of crickets being dirty like flies, and they don’t bite. And there’s the fact that I don’t like to hear things crunch. But none of these are the real underlying reason.

“Because of A Cricket in Times Square.”

They looked at me blankly.

I’ve run into this with younger people, but how can people of my own Gen X era not know A Cricket in Times Square?

“It won a Newbery Award!” I tell them, as if that will clear it all up.

“It was a cricket, and a kid who worked at a newsstand adopted it… and it could sing, or play its wings like a violin or something…”

A glimmer of recognition in my brother’s eyes… “Was it a cartoon?”

“Yes! Not a series, but like a TV special.”

Through the magic of the internet, you can watch it here: (I don’t know why it’s age restricted. I would say it is safe for all ages.)

A Couple Cool Things from October: Discovering Dick Francis

There was this hot minute where I wondered whether this should be the year I tried NaNoWriMo, which challenges a writer to write 50,000 of a novel during the month of November.

The answer is “Nope. ‘Tis not to be that kind of November.” There’s a lot of life-stuff happening.

BUT I will be revisiting a 10,000 word novelette I started a while back, no doubt re-ordering each sentence four or five times — which math-wise, is like 50,000 words!

But before those things take up all my brain space and I forget — a quick gratitude-y post of a couple cool things from October.

30 Days of Yoga IRL.
A yoga studio that opened by us ran an introductory special: Unlimited classes for 30 days for 30 bucks. At this place the default cost per class is $25, so obvi the 30 for $30 is a deal!

Studio yoga classes are expensive for me right now, but in general I think they can be worth their cost. My first yoga experiences happened at a time before it was mainstream, so doing it at all meant doing it at a dedicated studio with dedicated teachers. Good training early on gave me a solid and long-lived practice. Once you have a strong foundation, you can get greater value out of free yoga classes taught by aerobics instructors at low-rent gyms, or on YouTube during the pandemic.

And it enables you to recognize a well-lead class and really appreciate it, which I’ve been doing! I took about 15 classes in 30 days. In the near future, I’ll pick up a few “Community Classes” (classes a studio gives to the community at a lesser price) for the next couple months and it looks like next year will contain a couple months between producing gigs where extra time and extra money coincide and I’ll buy their month subscription then.

Dick Francis (and probably Mary Francis, too)
One of my current writing assignments — the digital comic I’ve mentioned — involves horse racing and the kind of shenanigans that an ex-mafia guy in need of some extra currency might get up to at a horse-racing track. It’s up to me to figure out the details of what these shenanigans might be, so I’ve been researching, interviewing acquaintances who are into racing, reading books and articles about betting, watching old movies like “Let It Ride.” All these have been somewhat educational but not inspiring.

But then I stumbled onto the novels of Dick Francis… and they are so. much. fun! Like if Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett had a love child and he was a British steeplechase jockey… which is what Dick Francis was before embarking on his second career as a crime thriller writer. From 1962 to his death in 2010, he wrote 42 books. So far I’ve stayed up to into the wee hours reading his debut novel, Dead Cert, as well as all his books that feature his only recurring protagonist, Sid Halley – a one-handed ex-jockey-turned-crack-investigator who pursues his perps despite being haunted by personal demons. I’ll be looking for a couple Dick Francis novels to download to my Kindle before my upcoming 15-hour flight to Istanbul!

The library book I read didn’t have the cool Trevor Denning illustration of this first edition, but was just as fun between the covers.

P.S. I enjoyed this article on by author John Fram about rediscovering Dick Francis during an extended illness. I might check out his book too!

Sugar Water For My Dopamine-Depleted Brain, featuring George Saunders

The importance of dopamine became apparent in 1954 when the neuroscientists James Olds and Peter Milner ran an experiment that revealed the neurological processes behind craving and desire. By implanting electrodes in the brains of rats, the researchers blocked the release of dopamine. To the surprise of the scientists, the rats lost all will to live. They wouldn’t eat. they wouldn’t have sex. They didn’t crave anything. Within a few days the animals died of thirst.

In follow-up studies, other scientist also inhibited the dopamine-releasing parts of the brain, but this time, they squirted little droplets of sugar into the mouths of the dopamine-depleted rats. Their little rat faces lit up with pleasurable grins from the tasty substance. Even though dopamine was blocked, they liked the sugar just as much as before; they just didn’t want it anymore. The ability to experience pleasure remained, but without dopamine, desire died. And without desire, action stopped.

James Clear, Atomic Habits (p. 105)

Although I’m happily emerging from the slump now, for much of this year, I found myself relating to the rats described above, in that I had very little desire to do much of anything. Although this sounds like—and probably was—a classic depression symptom, I simultaneously observed that, like the rats, I didn’t feel particularly unhappy. I still enjoyed flowers and pretty scenery and conversations and food when —like sugar water dropped on the rats’ tongues—it was delivered to me with minimal effort on my part. Luckily, because I live with a man moved by his appetites, much of the world was delivered to me: Television programs appeared on the screen, food arrived, I was ferried to various destinations. And as these things happened I thought mmmm, riding in the car in the sun is nice, this view is nice, this Modern Kale Ceasar Salad hits the spot.

The main arena where Paul could not carry me was in my writing. With a kind of distanced concern, I observed that my sense of hope and ambition had disappeared and my desire to write had dwindled to almost nothing. This, more than anything else, highlighted for me the growing similarity between myself and the desire-less rats.

I thought, For most of my life I have cared about writing. While I don’t care right now, it seems probable that I’ll care again in the future, so I should try to prolong my creative life until the caring kicks back in. To that end, maybe I need to be not only a rat, but also a scientist. (Not the one of the scientists who let their rats die of starvation, but the one who provided sugar water to keep the rats alive, albeit after cruelly disrupting their normal dopamine flow.)

In other words, I needed to procure my own source of sugar water.

I set about doing this by signing up for a new session of a writing workshop I sometimes do. It didn’t push me into writing pages as it normally would, but my sense of social obligation drove me to read other people’s work and give decent notes. There’s some satisfaction in realizing that, after years of practice, searching for writing solutions when I read scripts is now as automatic as starting to chew after I’ve put food in my mouth. So I think my fellow writers benefitted and it exercised my brain a little. But after a couple of months, I was worn out even by this. I needed sugar water that required zero effort.

And I was lucky enough to find some.

On Apple TV, there was Severance. Rather than attempt to say much about it, I’ll just recommend it, or recommend reading the second half of this essay in Electric Literature.

On audio, there was the George Saunders’ book, A Fish in a Pond in the Rain.

In the first weeks after my surgery, my general I-can’t-make-myself-care mood mixed with a fair amount of physical pain. I knew I was looking bad when our nosiest neighbor approached me on one of my daily recovery walks and asked, “Are you okay?” with a tinge of something approximating actual concern.

I’m sure whatever I answered was less than satisfying for her curiosity. I had little energy for back-and-forth conversations or the social niceties of stretching my face into different expressions. But as I slowly shuffled around the block like a battery-finally-depleted energizer bunny, I hit “play” on A Swim in a Pond in the Rain and it was pure sugar water piped into my brain via my ears. Inside my head, and even inside my soul, “my little rat face lit up with pleasure.”

Although the book can be described as about writing, Saunders’ discussions weave in morality, spirituality, human nature and the general poignant ridiculousness of people.

Saunders, like my husband, is an engineer-turned-storyteller, and it’s interesting to observe the ways in which their minds think alike (though Saunders’ analyses are elevated because he’s well-read and dedicated to efficiently and affectingly articulating his thoughts shaped by years of reflection and teaching).

In each section of the book, an actor reads a story by a Russian author, and then Saunders analyzes the story, beat by beat, page by page, combining close reading and larger structural analysis.

If you are a writer, a reader or a lover of stories in any format, I highly recommend this book.

P.S. Though I’m a fan of George Saunders’ fiction, I became aware of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain via his Story Club newsletter which you can check out on SUBSTACK for free. I will admit to being months behind — apparently opening emails and reading things on my computer is less like sugar-water delivery and more akin to having to cross one’s cage for sustenance—and I’m not all the way back yet. The minute he compiles his posts into an audiobook or podcast, I will be the first to lay my money down!

Introducing ATOMIC HABITS

Quick health update: I’m almost six weeks out from my surgery and feeling much better. Some aches and pains will work themselves out for a few months and deep healing is a process, but, as of now, no more daily needles in my belly, the glue is slowly peeling off the wounds, and I wake in the morning with more energy…

So… cool! I guess that means I can get back to what I was doing I when I got distracted, like…. six months ago? What was I doing again?

Oh, right, planning my best life ever in 2022! 😹

As 2021 came to a close, I decided to build the new year around two books: Joy at Work, co-authored by Marie Kondo, and Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. My plan was to pre-read these books before the end of 2021, then, in the new year, to go back through them in a more active way, using the advice and doing the exercises until I emerged anew— organized, in control, productive and operating at maximum satisfaction.

Of course, I understood that reconfiguring a lifetime of not-great habits wouldn’t be quick. It might take all year! Though, secretly, I hoped for less. Maybe I would achieve my optimal life in half that time—like by June, or even May!

Hahahahahahaha.

God

Consider this a prequel to some upcoming posts wherein I will reference Atomic Habits in the context of ruminating about life and purpose.

Writing Update: August/September/October

WRITING

My top three projects for August/September/October (as measured in hours devoted) were:  

A VERY PEARTREE CHRISTMAS – horror rom-com spec feature (with Paul Seetachitt) 
Christmas-resistant journalist is sent to the town of PearTree to cover their annual Twelve Days of Christmas Festival only to discover that a series of  gruesome “accidents” occurring during the festivities are actually ritualistic murders, orchestrated to resurrect the demon, Krampus.
Paul Seetachitt and I pushed to get it ready for pre-holiday reading. Available now!

THE INFLUENCER (suspense-horror spec feature)
When the manager / best friend of a struggling social media influencer cuts a deal for her client to beta-test some new tech in order to get more followers, the results are more than she bargained for. 
Did some rewriting in September and submitted. Readers (i.e. my reps) have come back with an intriguing idea… should it be a TV series instead?! Hmmmm. Stay tuned to hear how this one turns out.

GIRL, WOLF, WOODSMAN (short fiction)
A contemporary re-imagining of “Little Red Riding Hood” that details what happens after the woodsman heroically dispenses with that pesky wolf. 
Found this one in the archives and decided to finish it at long last. Did a round of submissions to literary journals — we’ll see if it finds a home.  There’s also a short screenplay version waiting in the wings.  

WATCHING

MOVIES: The Green Knight, Free Guy, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Card Counter, Americanish, Natalie, The Tomorrow War, Malignant, No Time to Die, Last Night in Soho, Eternals

TV: Dave, Ted Lasso, Mare of Easttown, The Boys, We Are Lady Parts, The Other Two (pilot); The Chair, Foundation, Squid Game, We Are Here, Great British Bake Off

READING

Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguru; Anxious People, Fredrik Backman; Women in White Coats; Olivia Campbell, Gone, Lisa Gardner; An Ordinary Wonder, Buki Papillon; Afterlives, Thomas Pierce; Elevation, Stephen King; The Woman in the Window, A.J. Finn; Best of Tor.com 2020; Heroine with 1001 Faces, Maria Tatar  Heroine with 1001 Faces, Maria Tatar 

LISTENING

New category! I’ve discovered and am really getting into scripted podcast series. Like radio plays of old… or TV for your ears…

Wolverine, The Long Night (Marvel), Moonface, Blood Ties, True Love, Bridgewater, Aftershock

APPRECIATING

Boundaries crossed after seeming millennia:

A TV agent (Auri Maruri at Gersh), and my first official TV credit (Creepshow, Season 3, Episode 5: “Time Out.”)