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Where Words Meet

L.A. Writing Stories – A Traveler’s Tales

Los Angeles is not my usual stomping ground, so visiting twice in a month is quite the event. One trip was for Book Expo America, while the current trip is tied into a recording session for a Game Which Shall Not Be Named. Both trips seem straightforward – go in, take care of business, go home.

But around the edges, you can always find stories. Here are six.

ONE

Never before have I been haunted by Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

I first saw her in the corridor between the West and South Halls of the Convention Center, a block-long carpeted slog liberally bespangled with posters, banners, and ads carefully attached to the very ground the attendees walked on. I was in discussion with my agent and he looked over my shoulder and said, “Look. Dr. Ruth.”

I turned around and looked. There she was, motoring down the hall at a goodly pace, her people hurrying to keep up with her. She looked much as she did during her basic cable heyday, instantly recognizable.

I had no idea she was going to be at BEA. I had no idea why she was at BEA, as the sort of book I’d assume Dr. Ruth to be involved with isn’t generally my cup of tea. That being said, I certainly have nothing against Dr. Ruth, and I watched her sweep by, impressed.

I did not stop her, or ask for an autograph.

Later that day, I ran into her again on the sidewalks of Figueroa Street. We nearly bumped into each other. I said, “Excuse me.” She said something that I think was “Of course,” and we went our separate ways.

I called my wife that night. “You’ll never guess who I saw,” I told her. “Dr. Ruth. Twice.”

“Huh,” my wife said. “What’s she doing at BEA?”

I thought about that for a minute. “I think she sells more books than I do.”

And that, I thought, was that. My brush with celebrity at the conference, my semi-six-degrees moment. I saw Dr. Ruth, and it would make for a good story.

That afternoon, there was a signing in the Wizards of the Coast booth for the first few authors on the new Discoveries imprint: Myself, Joe McDermott, Rob Rogers, and Steve and Melanie Tem. We sat ourselves down in our respective corners, readied our signing hands, and prepared for we knew not what. (Rob, Joe and myself, at least – Steve and Melanie were cool as cucumbers, and Steve’s Magical Signing Pen was a subject of widespread awe and wonder).  The doors opened, metaphorically speaking. The people swept in. We signed, we schmoozed, we joked, we occasionally surreptitiously rubbed our wrists when we thought no one was looking.

When suddenly, through the middle of the crowd, swept Dr. Ruth. The people parted for her. She had no entourage, did not yell, did not need to announce her presence. She simply was there, and the next second there was a space around her.

She marched up to where I sat, shook my hand, and then grabbed a copy of Firefly Rain off the pile. We spoke very briefly about what was in the book, and then she said, “I would like you to autograph this for my grandson. He is quite precocious.”

At least, that’s what I think she said. Most of my brain was locked down with the enormous task of Not Saying Something Incredibly Stupid, like “Hey, I was a big fan of yours when I was a teenager” or “You know, I tried one of the things I saw on your show and it didn’t work.”

You know. Stuff like that.

Instead, I concentrated on making my signature legible. On the other side of the desk, another author was trying to force a copy of her boon on Dr. Ruth, who ignored her magnificently, took the book from me, and vanished into the crowd

It took about thirty seconds for the booth to return to normal, if normal is the right word for it.

And I’d signed a book for Dr. Ruth.

TWO

The lure of BEA for the casual attendee is free books. Publishers will set down piles of freebies like the lost treasures of Croesus, encouraging passers-by to take them. Some of these books will be arranged artfully, in effigies that mimic the giant termite mounds of Africa or the spirit-touched menhirs of Glastonbury Tor. Others will be stacked neatly, for greater ease in plundering. Some were clutched in the arms of attractive women who generously handed them out, along with fulsome praise for the books they were sharing. Some were cast haphazardly, perhaps victims of drive-by freebee-ing.

I’d heard tales of the wondrous riches of BEA, of the ever-flowing springs of free reading material. I’d received books from friends who attended, handed off with the words “I saw this at the show and you might like it”, as if it was the easiest thing in the world just to abscond with books. In my heart, I lusted after the opportunity, the chance to wander among the aisles picking low-hanging literary fruit.

But when I got there, I discovered something: I’m not very good at taking free things.

After all, I didn’t know which books were there for the taking and which ones were there for display purposes only, and nightmare visions of taking the one book that wasn’t up for grabs haunted me. What if I took something that wasn’t supposed to be a freebie? Would I be summarily chased from the floor, stoned with remaindered paperbacks and banished into the lobby? Would I simply attract whispers as “the guy who took the wrong book?”

The fear was paralyzing. I put my hand out near a titanic pile of copies of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl, then pulled it back. Reached out again, pulled it back again. Made eye contact with the woman minding the booth, who was busy adding copies to the monolith. And then stepped back, and let someone else reach in and snatch up a copy before finally daring to do it on my own.

“Thank you.” I said to the woman who was standing there. She looked surprised before answering with a “You’re welcome.” And I realized, in the time I’d been standing there watching and preparing to avail myself of freebies, no one had said thank you. They had just swooped in, made their grabs, and flitted on to the next score, the next pile, the next freebie.

Something about that struck me as sad. Why take a book you wouldn’t appreciate? Why not appreciate the fact that someone had taken a moment to put the book out for you?  If the name of the game was relentless acquisition, what separated BEA from, say, the endless thotchke-fest that was E3, or GenCon, or a baseball card convention.

I picked my books carefully from that point on, and said thank you when I could.

THREE

At times, it pays to be greedy.

I’d picked my selections carefully, but books are still books, and books are heavy. The key word in the wood pulp that makes up book paper is “wood”, meaning that that book you’re holding is in fact a soft pine brick between two glossy covers. Get a bunch of them, and you’ve got your triceps workout for the day.

But many of the BEA booths offer, in addition to free books, free totes for carrying books. The ones from Viz, a manga publisher, are particularly striking. After all, they’re purple.

I grabbed on the first day of the show. Saturday, when my book-nabbing confidence had grown, I filled it. With my hotel a few blocks from the convention center, I was faced with a choice: haul my loot back to drop it off, then start the cycle again, or simply nab another tote and fill that as well.

I decide to be dignified. I take my tote and head back to the hotel. I believe at one point on the walk back, I was whistling.

And then, around the corner from the hotel, I hit an uneven seam in the sidewalk and rolled my foot.

I stopped and tested it. It didn’t seem too bad. I shrugged, finished my trip back, and carefully unloaded my spoils. I tested my foot again, and it didn’t hurt much. I’d rolled my foot before, after all, and it rarely had done much to slow me down. Besides, it was BEA. When would I pass this way again?

So I headed back, empty tote in tow. In the first hour or so back on the floor, I refilled my tote. My foot was throbbing a little, so rather than shlep back, I nabbed another tote instead. I felt mildly silly with two, until nearly getting run over by someone with a bulging backpack and three.

A few more books went into the bag. I rearranged them. My foot really started hurting. The inescapable fact that under the pretty carpet, the show floor was concrete, was making itself known.

By this time, I was limping and horribly self-conscious. A half hour later, I couldn’t walk. In agony, I hopped down the long corridor to the side of the convention center where the shuttle buses waited. I heaved myself into a seat and clenched my teeth with every bump and pothole.

Eventually, the shuttle got to the hotel. I hopped off, literally. Hopped to my room. Gulped down a handful of Tylenol. Tried to figure out what to do next, with a bum pin and two totes full of books. Tried walking across the room, and literally could not do it. The painkillers in my travel kit seemed a long way off, the ice machine on the sixth floor impossibly far away. I experimented. Shoved my foot back into my shoe (sans sock – there was no room) and tried to hop.

Which is why, ten minutes later, I was propped up in bed with one foot shoved into a purple tote bag filled with ice, reading. The second bag was full of neatly stacked books, right next to the bed.

Sometimes, it pays to be greedy.

FOUR

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” the cabbie says. “I’m an LAX cab. This is Burbank cab territory.” But he lets in anyway, and takes us off to Hollywood Boulevard for a friend’s birthday party. We pass Nickelodeon, we pass Vivid, we pass Warner Brothers and marvel that the infamous water tower of Animaniacs fame is real. It’s a long drive.

Eventually, we talk, as fares and cabbies do. He asks us what we’re doing here, and Mike (Lee, author of seven novels for Black Library) and I tell him we write video games. He tells us he’d had another fare who did that, and who’d encouraged him to get into the business.

“You write?” I ask.

He writes. Back home on the East Coast, he’d been a playwright. He’d had his work produced in Philadelphia and New York, among other places.

In LA, he drives a cab.

“Good luck with the writing,” he said. “And I can drop you off a block from the club, in case you don’t want to be seen pulling up in a taxi. Lots of people don’t want to be seen pulling up in a taxi. They may live in a shack, but if they’re going out, they’ve got to show up in a limo.”

Mike and I look at each other. “We’ve got no problem with a taxi,” I say. “We’re writers.”

FIVE

There is no mercy in the recording studio. The lines get laid out there, naked. They’re interpreted by a director who doesn’t know what was in your head, read by an actor who hasn’t heard the way you heard them in your head when you wrote them.

They’re naked, and defenseless. Weakness is exposed mercilessly. Bad word choice, run-on, awkward word sequence, too many sibilants in a row – they’re all held up for review. They crash on the ear. The actor stumbles and stutters. The words just sound wrong.

With luck, there aren’t too many. With luck, the director is good and you’ll have the chance to fix them, to suggest an alternate take or a rewrite. With experience, you train your ear to know instinctively where the lines could go wrong, to head them off before the actor ever sees them.

But you never catch them all, and there will always be that moment when your words are inescapably bad, inescapably wrong.

You leave your ego at the studio door. Really, you have no choice.

SIX

Back to BEA.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the show. It’s as big as E3 used to be, forty thousand book people pushing books, signing books, taking books, advertising books, showing off books, making deals for books, you name it. Books are very much a commodity there, and a lone writer wandering the hallowed halls for the first time feels very much a tiny cog inside a titanic machine.

And then, Saturday. I swung by the WotC booth to check in, and as I talked to one of the folks there, a woman rushed in. Right past me she went, and up to the estimable Jessica Blair, with a question:

“Does Richard Dansky have anything else out? I really loved Firefly Rain.”

Jessica kept a straight face, looked at me, and said, “Why don’t you ask him?”

The woman looked at Jessica. Looked at me and tried to reconcile the guy she saw with the bearded, slightly dyspeptic guy in the dust jacket photo. Looked back at Jessica. Looked back at me.

And got the biggest damn smile on her face.

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1. Under a Cabbage Leaf (where stories come from)
2. A Writing Experience that Didn’t Involve Writing
3. Writing (Programs) for Comics
4. The Gonquin Table: Stories and Essays
5. Why write short stories?

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