Adventures

Something You Don’t See Every Day

/ J. F. Riordan / 3 Comments

So, I had a book event for The Audacity of Goats at “A Room of One’s Own” in Madison on Sunday. People came, which is always nice.

But my own event notwithstanding, and apparently, unbeknownst to the general public, it was Food-Shaped Vehicle Driver Training Day at the Oscar Mayer plant.

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Note the license plate.

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There were also Mr. Planter’s Peanut vehicles, because, as every school child knows, it’s Mr. Planter’s 100th anniversary this year.

We asked one of the drivers about it, and he explained that there are only three peanut vehicles in the world. Since we hadn’t known that there were any, this came as a surprise.

“Are peanuts difficult to drive?” we asked.  He grinned. “It’s nuts!”

I imagine he’ll be saying that a lot this summer.

 

Not Judging Books by Their Covers

/ J. F. Riordan / 10 Comments

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I had car trouble yesterday on my way to a signing in Door County. I was tooling along at 70 in the pouring rain, when all of the sudden there was some catastrophic electronic failure. Every dire warning sign flicked on the dashboard. I lost my brakes, I lost my power steering, and the engine began to buck. Fortunately, I was close to an exit in civilization-which for our purposes here means a place with a Mazda dealer only a few miles away–and was able to coast and manhandle the car down a ramp, through a roundabout, and into the parking lot of a minimart.

I hate roundabouts. I mean, I hated them before, but in this case it was lucky I didn’t have to stop. I could just keep coasting.

When I pulled up next to the building out of the way, all the lights in the dashboard went out, and I couldn’t turn off the engine. I had to go inside to figure out where I was so I could tell the tow truck where to come, and normally one doesn’t leave a running car unattended. But what the hell, I thought. It’s not as if anyone could drive it away.

None of this is the point of the story, but I kind of wanted to tell it.

The tow truck showed up in about ten minutes, to my surprise and relief. We were going to be cutting it a little close for me to get to my event, and I was having a hard time figuring out how to explain to the bookstore proprietor–my friend, Peter–that all his planning was going to be for an author-less book signing. I called my husband, who was speeding in my direction to rescue me, and told him he could go back.

Anyway–and now we’re getting to the nub of the thing–the tow truck driver was this young, blond guy with lots of tattoos. He was a kind of classic Wisconsin small town guy, complete with the rural accent: decent, trustworthy, competent, grease on his clothes, dirt under his nails. He hooked up my car, and I climbed into the cab of the truck for the ride to the (mercifully) open car dealer who would loan me a car.

I told him that I was in a bit of a hurry, because there was an event I had to be at. What kind of event? he wanted to know. So I told him I was a writer.

“I love books!” he said. “Harry Potter is my favorite, as you can probably tell by these.” He raised his left arm to indicate his tattoos, which I couldn’t really see, but which must have been representative of this passion. “I listen mostly to audio books, though.” He fumbled in his pocket to get out his I-phone while I hoped that he was looking at the highway. “I’ve listened to…” he looked down at his phone to check the exact figure…”two months and two and a half weeks worth of books this year so far.” He then proceeded to talk about his favorites: after Harry Potter, a series of World War I historical novels by Ken Follet, and some other series in a similar vein. He was knowledgeable about history, and he clearly loved stories of heroism and mysticism. He wanted to know if my books were on audio. I told him not yet, but that we were working on it.

“I read paper books, too,” he said. “But with all the driving around, I do mostly audio.”  I kind of doubt that my books are his kind of thing, but so far all my assumptions were being proved false. “Would you like a copy of my book?” I asked. He was enthusiastic.

We got to the dealer, and I dug out a copy of each of my books and signed them for him. We shook hands.

I love thinking about this tow truck driver, wandering around the country roads of Wisconsin, doing this necessary but unglamorous job, the rhythms of different authorial voices accompanying his travels, moved by the heroic acts of protagonists both real and imagined. Along what path will these values take him? How will these stories affect his life and the lives of others? From the seemingly mundane heroism of helping people with broken cars to some other, more dramatic form? Or is it these small daily rescues that give his path meaning?

Maybe he thinks about these things. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just a job to him, not a mission. But the meanings of our lives may be things we never realize until we’re looking back. Or they could be things we’ll never know.

People are always more interesting than you think.

 

 

Now Me Also Commenting Here

/ J. F. Riordan / 2 Comments

When writers get together, the conversation immediately moves to the vicissitudes of publishing: which house treats authors well; who never issues checks on time; what kind of publicity is offered. And in these days of social media madness, the subject of blogging is always high on the list of topics.

If you’re a writer, you have to have a blog. And if you have a blog you live for comments. But you are always lured into disappointment by Spam. “You have 162 comments!” your blog site tells you. Eagerly, you check in, only to discover that your comments are 100 percent spam.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand how spam works. The majority of the come-on attempts are so patently false, and–at least on my blogging system–so completely separated out from the genuine, that I almost feel sorry for the perpetrators. Almost.

Remember Mad Libs? It’s a party game in which you are instructed to come up with a list of words: a noun, a verb, another noun, an adjective. And then your words are inserted into a previously unknown paragraph, with hilarious results.

Spam comments always remind me of this. And this is why I am puzzled.

Somewhere in the world, someone has provided a list of English synonyms to be inserted into standard sentences for the express purpose of permitting miscreants to invade your website and computer. Maybe the mastermind behind it played Mad Libs games as a child. Or maybe he has an unwarranted confidence in the intellect of his minions. And not incidentally, he may be underestimating the intelligence of the average blog writer.

To wit:

(All errors below are as written by senders.)

“I’ve been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me.”

“Personally if all web owners and blogrrss made good content as youu did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.”

“i’ve read this put up and iff I maay desire to suggest soke fascinating issues of suggestions.”

“Ahaa, its good conversation not he topic of this article here at this website, I have read all that, so now me also commenting here.”

“Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to more added agreeable from you!”

One fellow (non spam) writer confessed to me that she was so fearful of contamination from these comments that she was afraid to even look at them.  She was missing the opportunity for some fine comedy.

But all the same, I am deeply grateful for spam filters. And I look advanced to your comments.

Borrow an Author

/ J. F. Riordan / 2 Comments

 

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As I have mentioned before in these pages–no doubt to the accompaniment of wearied sighs from you–it can be difficult for an author to break through. There are so many things to read, and so many ways to read them, and the big publishing houses can pay magnificent fees to promote their wares on Goodreads and Facebook and in bookstores. For the rest of us in the Indy world it’s a bit of a slog.

Having said that, one of the fun things about promoting a book is meeting with readers. It’s fascinating to hear people’s theories about characters and to listen to them talk about why certain things happen–or don’t.

So, if you have a book group somewhere within reasonable driving distance of Milwaukee, you can borrow me for an afternoon or evening to meet with you.  Contact me via this website, or through my publicist, Felicia Mineva at felicia@midpointtrade.com.

The release of The Audacity of Goats,  Book Two in the North of the Tension Line series (available here, and here, and  here, and here, or at your favorite bookstore) is imminent, and my calendar is starting to fill up.

Come on, it will be fun!

 

In Praise of Strong Women

/ J. F. Riordan

 

My Aunt Ruth, whose sudden stroke a few weeks ago caused us to drop everything and run to her side is home again. I spoke with her on the phone this weekend, and she is filled with joy to be home, speaking normally, and in the company of kind and affectionate people.

That woman is a fighter. And on Friday, God willing, she will be 96 years old. My sister and her husband and son are going to see her next weekend, so she will have a celebration.

Don’t tell her, but on her birthday morning she will receive a bouquet of 96 pink roses.

She has earned every one, and then some.

 

 

Maybe Icarus was a Turkey

/ J. F. Riordan

We live at Turkey Central. It started out small a few years ago, when we would occasionally hear turkey calls in the spring. But now there are turkeys–about forty of them–who roost in our trees every night, and their comings and goings are part of the rhythm of our days. At dawn and at dusk, you can look up into the tops of the trees and see these unwieldy, bulbous creatures, precariously perched on the tiniest of branches, fifty feet above the floor of the woods. I have no idea how they manage to stay there, but so far, I have seen no evidence of them falling. They make quite a lot of noise, too, which I rather enjoy.

For those pedants among you, I draw your attention to the fact that wild turkeys constitute a flock. Domestic turkeys constitute a rafter, or a gang.

I don’t know.

One of my great pleasures in life is to watch the turkeys at dusk, flying, one by one, up to their nighttime berths. They gobble as they make a running start,  with a long rumble like a B-52 at take-off, and then, unexpectedly, they take to the air, and with a great flapping, land on a perfectly unsuitable branch, bobbling back and forth, as they establish their balance. This takes some time, and it is most enjoyable to watch with a cocktail in hand. Preferably bourbon, but I am not always particular.

We frequently attempt to bore our guests with it, but everyone who witnesses it seems as riveted as we are.

Last year, we had one turkey who broke the routine. Instead of using the little hill in the woods for his take-off, he would courageously mount the big hill to our house, where dogs do dwell. He would get almost to the top, near the patio, and then he would turn and run down the hill, his wings flapping, using the hill for acceleration on take-off. My husband commented on it one night in amazement, and after that the turkey came–this one bird, alone–every night.

I came to think of this bird as an innovator; a cultural leader, possibly breaking the Darwinian bonds of avian technology. I looked for him, I admired him, and I was delighted by him. Then came turkey season. I don’t hunt, so I don’t know what the rules are about where you can shoot, or when, or how. But I can say that the number of turkeys was considerably diminished. As winter came on, there were only about a dozen left. And our innovator was gone. The flock that remained continued its old habits, without variety or novelty.

In my heart, I know what probably happened. But I like to think of him, laboriously climbing the perilous hill, alone, undaunted, his vision of glory before him, as he turned and began the run to take-off, lifting up exultantly from the earth, closer and closer to the sun, on his way to immortality.

It’s spring again, and we have more turkeys than ever. But not the innovator. The flock has lost some of its magic for me.

He was a turkey. And I think of him every day.