'About Me' photo added

You may have noticed that my face has never appeared on this blog. I'm sure most of you are thankful for that. There had been one photo of the back of my head that appeared in the About Me section of this blog. That is now gone. But in its place has risen a new photo that, for better or worse -- almost certainly worse -- unmasks me.

I send this out as a warning to all readers, so that they do not unknowingly step onto what they might otherwise consider a blog landmine. And, yes, I fully realize that by posting this photo I am setting myself up for ridicule. But I have tough, old (heavy emphasis on old) skin and am ready for any shots that come my way.

Several of you have offered suggestions -- unsolicited, I might add -- for the photo that will grace (some might say mar) the back cover of my upcoming book. Some have generously volunteered old college photos. Others have suggested particular poses, such as this one, which model-actress Nastassja Kinski made famous in the early 1980s. However, as I noted before, I do not do nudes -- and that includes nudes with snakes.

The back cover photo caused me a considerable amount of unease. Like many people, I do not like to have my photograph taken.

So it was with a great deal of anxiety that I eventually sent an email to Chad Husar, a photographer based in my hometown of Evanston, Illinois. Fortunately, Chad showed great interest in my project and a few days later he had me plodding through foot-deep sand-covered snow on the shores of Lake Michigan on a frigid late January afternoon. The Arctic-like backdrop made for a surreal photo shoot. I was amazed that we found patches of sand not dusted by snow and that is what you will see in the aforementioned photo that I posted in the About Me section. Chad, I must say, did an incredible job, especially when you consider the subject matter. I highly recommend him to anyone who is looking for a photographer. The photo that I've posted for this blog is one of three shots that will be submitted to my publisher. One of those three will eventually be the back cover photo. Sorry to disappoint, but none of those features Nastassja Kinski or a snake.

Synopsis and excerpts from the book

I've attached as .pdf files a synopsis and couple of short excerpts from my upcoming book, Lost in the Ivy. Think of these as appetizers, intended to whet your appetite for the main course, which still won't be served for several months. On the Navigation bar to your left you'll find a link to Book Excerpts. Just click on that and the file should open. Bon appetit!

When "The End" does not mean the end: Writing Process Revealed Part V

When it comes to the novel-writing process, perhaps the most frequently asked question I get is: How long did it take you to write it?

This seems like a simple question, but when it comes to novel-writing nothing is as simple as it seems.

The simple answer, I suppose, is four years. That's basically how long it took me to get to the point where I could write "The End." There were many stops and starts during that time, and times when I didn't think I'd get to write "The End." Belief in my story carried me over those bumps I encountered along the way.

Over the years I've sent fledgling chapters to friends and family. A few people have even read an entire manuscript. But none of these people will have seen the final version. I know this because I haven't finished it yet.

Three years have passed since I wrote "The End" and even today the book is still not really finished. It's being edited and revised for the umpteenth time.

Sure, the novel is essentially written and the basic plot structure will not change, but significant alterations are still being made in almost every chapter. Whether anybody other than myself would notice these changes I don't know. But each time I read I find a section that I think can be improved upon, and I try to do just that -- make it so it reads better.

I still have the first fledgling chapters that I sent out some five or six years ago. I barely recognize them. They serve as a measuring stick of how far I've come -- and how difficult it is to get to "The End."

Like father, like son

Sometimes watching your child grow is like looking in a mirror. You start to see yourself in that little body -- and it can be the coolest thing in the world. Or the scariest.

When a baby is born, everyone -- relatives, friends, complete strangers -- wants a glimpse of the little creature. And you see their eyes, as they peek in on tiny Yoda, glance occasionally in the direction of the parents. You know what's coming, don't you? Of course you do.  He's got Mommy's eyes. Or he's got Daddy's oversized nose. Now I know my vision isn't what it used to be, but I just don't see these things. Newborns, to me, barely look human.
The Newborn
Yoda

By the time those babies become toddlers, you do start to see some of these things. For instance, like me, my son has a cowlick -- a projecting tuft of hair on the head that grows in a different direction from the rest of the hair and just will not lie flat. Most likely he will have to live with this inherited trait all his life. And if he's anything like me, he will curse it each and every one of those days, because no matter how many hair products he tries, that little tuft of hair will never cooperate.

But there are more than just physical characteristics that we share. For better or worse (usually worse), I'm starting to see The Toddler display many of the mannerisms and behaviors that I thought I owned the rights to.

Peanuts danceFor instance, The Toddler seems to have inherited some of his father's better dance moves. When he first was learning to dance, I was concerned. He did this thing where both of his arms were outstretched behind him with palms up and looked not unlike a Peanuts cartoon character. At stage two he had a frenzied, spinning Tazmanian devil dance. That had me a bit scared. But at stage three, around 19 months, he really advanced. From a squat position, much like a midget sumo wrestler, with arms facing forward and wrists clenched, he moves his torso from side to side. You can tell he's starting to really feel the music, just like his father. Now if only he could work on that overbite.

The Toddler also has picked up his father's unflattering habit of whining and moaning whenever things don't go exactly as he planned. He also cries at the sight of a doctor, just like his father.

But I can most see The Toddler in me when he strikes a Sunday afternoon pose with a bag of Cheetos cradled in his arms. As a father, I couldn't be more proud.
    Say, "Cheese!"(I'm sad to say that after seeing the photo below, Mommy banned Daddy from providing The Toddler with Cheetos ever again. Hopefully, for The Toddler's sake, Mommy will show mercy and lift this prohibition. Just look at the joy on that cheesy face.)

Characters: Writing Process Revealed Part IV

Characters -- we all know them.  They're the ones that seem to have walked straight out of the pages of a novel.

Writing a novel allows you to do just that -- put those characters that have crossed your world onto paper in fictionalized form. 

Sometimes the line between fiction and non-fiction is blurred.  Take, for example, Primary Colors, by Joe Klein (aka "Anonymous"), a tale about an enigmatic southern governor running for president. As Amazon.com noted in its review, "The main appeal of Primary Colors, of course, lies in guessing who's who in the fictionalization of Bill Clinton's first bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and just how much of its juicy plot is true."

Undoubtedly readers who know me who read my book will be doing so with an eye on guessing who's who.  Those readers will not be completely disappointed, but they shouldn't look too hard.  Lost in the Ivy is not Primary Colors.

There are obvious similarities between the protagonist of Lost in the Ivy, Charley Hubbs, and me.  Like Charley, I was a newspaper reporter. And as I noted in an earlier journal entry, the Wrigleyville apartment that Charley moves into is modeled after the studio I rented in the mid-1990s. Charley's thoughts sometimes are my thoughts, but that shouldn't come as a surprise since I am, after all, the author.  But what happens to Charley is purely fictional. If this were a story about the real me, it would be dreadfully boring.

As I also noted in an earlier journal entry, the Jimmie Dart character derives from a real-life Jimmy who lived across the hall from me.  But as I noted before, I knew almost nothing about the real-life Jimmy.  The character Jimmie is purely a product of my imagination.

Other central characters, Elizabeth "Lizzy" Zappler and Danny Piper, bear almost no resemblance to anyone I know or have known.  They, too, came to life out of my brain.

Some lesser characters, like the judge and the newspaper editor, are composites of real-life judges and newspaper editors I have known.  If you know or have known any judges or newspaper editors, you know that they are almost always novel-worthy characters.

I will acknowledge that there are two characters in the book that are fictional recreations of real-life characters.  I do not believe that I am spoiling anything for you by revealing them to you here.

The real-life CamusOne is the character of Camus (pronounced Kah-moo), the cat in the book.  He is modeled, unapologetically, after my cat of the same name, who is, of course, named after the French existentialist author, Albert Camus.  There are differences between the fictional Camus and the real-life Camus, however.  The fictional Camus is Persian while the real-life Camus is Siamese.  Also, the fictional Camus is slightly more plump than the real-life Camus. 

The other is the bouncer at the Ginger Man tavern.  He is unnamed in the book and appears only once but is a fictionalized depiction of Bobby Scarpelli, the real-life bouncer who opened the doors to the Ginger Man when I frequented it in the mid-1990s.  As Sun-Times reporter Dave Hoekstra eloquently reported in a loving tribute to Bobby on May 28, 1998, Bobby opened the doors to a lot of hearts. Bobby, who Hoekstra described as "Chicago's best known rock 'n' roll bouncer, died at age 50 of complications from liver disease. To me a huge part of the Ginger Man and the Wrigleyville I knew died with him.