Trendspotting

ROBERTA: If anyone is worse than me at spotting trends early--fashion or otherwise--I'd like to know her. Even if I see a fashion trend coming, the wagon will have left the station by the time I considering piling on. Let's take leggings for example; I've waited so long to embrace this trend that I think it may be coming around for the third or fourth time before I ever try a pair on. Facebook? I protested this as a useless time sink for years before I finally signed up--one of the last holdouts I suspect. Trends in publishing? Don't I wish I'd thought of writing about vampires in the early days along with Charlaine Harris. Or at least piled on while the idea was still catching fire. But no, I study my daily Publishers Marketplace emails, in awe of all the high concepts that wouldn't have occurred to me in a million years.

So what's the secret to spotting trends Jungle Red Writers? Are you good at it? Can you give me some tips? If not, tell us a story about what you missed!

HALLIE: Don't ask me! Three years ago I was telling people to forget about writing vampire mysteries. It would be so passe a few years hence. Not.

RHYS: I think some people are born with the trend gene. My daughter was one step ahead of fashion all the way through high school. When I was in London in the swinging sixties (doesn't that date me?) I was right up there with Mary Quant--dress up to my thighs like a British flag and white plastic boots with windows in the side. Since I left the entertainment biz and got married I've never tried to keep up and frankly I don't miss it. I know what suits me and am content. Funnily enough my daughters look at pictures of me and can't believe that I threw away clothes that are now fashionable again!

ROBERTA: OH man, Rhys, wish we could have seen you in the British flag and those boots!

HANK: Pleeeze. In 1980, I got a phone call from a guy who was working on a start up company. At the time,I was the anchor of the weekend news for the NBC affiliate and thought I was hot stuff. This guy showed me the new offices, and told me he wanted me to be the Los Angeles bureau chief of this new news organization they were putting together. But I was truly a trendspotter,so I knew it was doomed to failure.
No thanks,I said. Miss Know It All.
Afterwards I said to a pal--can you imagine? They think they can show news for 24 hours a day? No way. They're nuts.
Yup, CNN.

ROBERTA: Ouch, that one hurts, Hank. But just think, maybe you wouldn't have met Jonathan, nor would you know all of us:).

HANK: Oh, exactly! NO regrets. More hilarious, I had a news director who came into the office in 1975 with a yellow plastic thing. I said--what's that? He said--"It's called a 'videocassette.' They say videotape is going to replace film. But don't worry. It'll never last."

JAN: I actually think I'm a pretty good trend spotter. I picked up that Financial News was going to become big, back in late 1970s. So I jumped in. The bad news was that I got bored and jumped out in 1986 (Okay to have a baby) just when financial news really took off.

I find that a lot. I spot a trend, but too early. And then if you want to jump back in, it's too late.

But I think all of us spot a trend from time to time, just not ALL the TIME, or the EXACT right trend that would profit us best at the moment.

RO: Clueless when it comes to trends, especially clothing. If I'm wearing something that's in fashion it's probably an accident. I realized in the fourth grade that I'd never be fast enough to keep up with them so I took a pass. I see pictures of myself from high school or my twenties and think...I would still wear that - and sometimes do! That doesn't keep me from buying InStyle magazine, my favorite guilty pleasure airport magazine to which I now subscribe. I like knowing what the trends are but rarely want to wear them myself.

My notable non-fashion, clueless moment was when my former boss told me he'd forged a relationship with the WWF, the World Wrestling Federation, to distribute their videos. I thought, jeez, wrestling? That'll last a year and he'll be stuck with videos of Hillbilly Jim and Junkyard Dog. He made a ton of dough, wrestling is still going strong, and Hillbilly Jim was one of the nicest guys I met in the video business. What do I know?

ROBERTA: Okay Jungle Red readers, do you have the trend-spotting gene? And what have you missed?

Don't forget to come back often this week--we'll have three visitors: a comic strip artist/writer, the author of TRUE CONFECTIONS, and advice for empowering creativity. And we'll be talking books, books, books...

Charlaine Harris reveals all

And finally, Charlaine, will you answer our Jungle Red questions?

JRW: Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot?

Oh, Miss Marple. I love her.

JRW: Sex or violence?

Now that’s difficult. Violence, I think.

JRW: Pizza or chocolate?

Chocolate.

JRW: Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan? (We won't even include Sean Connery because we know the answer. Don't we?)
Daniel Craig.

JRW: Katherine Hepburn or Audrey Hepburn?
Audrey.

JRW: First person or Third person?
First.

JRW: Prologue or no prologue?
No prologue.

JRW: Your favorite book as a child?
“Jane Eyre.”

JRW: Making dinner or making reservations?
Making dinner. Though if there was anywhere here that took reservations, I’d vote the other way.


And also: the Jungle Red Quiz. Tell us four things about yourself. Only three can be true. We'll try to guess what's false.

1. My office décor includes headstone pictures.

2. I have skeleton flamingos in my front yard.

3. I set up a haunted house at Halloween.

4. I have a customized set of fangs.

Okay, Jungle Red readers...which one is false?

And thanks, Charlaine! And congratulations on a second season of True Blood.

(Tomorrow--come meet Lori Andrews! Her real life is right out of a thriller...and her new book IMMUNITY is--a real thriller.)

ON VAMPIRES

"Sookie Stackhouse, the series’ heroine, is just a hoot to write..."

*** Charlaine Harris in 2003

So. You've see it, right? True Blood on HBO? All of us who were fans of Charlaine Harris (and her Sookie Stackhouse, among all the other terrific characters she's created) are thrilled to see the "uniquely compelling" (as one glowing review put it) series on TV!

With Anna Pacquin as Sookie, and...well, if you haven't watched yet, do. Sunday at 9. You'll never look at a vampire the same way.

Well, you know what I mean.

And it's a true joy to read the books--she's on her eighth Sookie, with more to come next year. (Two are now on the New York Times Best seller list!)

Five Auroras--and more to come. Lily Bard. And some wonderful anthologies, including a new one for Christmas.

Charlaine was gracious enough to chat with us..probably trailing fans in her wake. She's hilarious and generous. And she says she's an overnight success--it just took 25 years. Congratulations.

HANK: You've created an amazing parallel universe in your Sookie Stackhouse world. It's so--consistent. And quite believable. Hilarious. Do hold the whole world in your head? Or are you creating it as you go?

CHARLAINE: My head's not big enough to hold the whole world, after nine books (the ninth will be out next May). I've got a contract employee who's working on the "bible" for the series, to help me keep track of what I've said. I do create as I go, which is the fun part.

HANK: But let me ask. The rules for vampires...and how they behave and what they can do. Did you think of it all at moment one? Or is that evolving? And do you have to keep track of it all, somehow?

CHARLAINE: Yes, it evolves all the time. There are some questions I'm still debating within myself, and if I can't come up with an answer that feels right, I skirt the issue in the books until I can be sure of having the right answer.

HANK: Oh, I wish I could get you to tell us about the questions. But I suppose that would ruin it. You're getting a raft of new attention now, because of the TV series, for Sookie. But many fans have been reading about your telepathic waitress for years. And before (and during) her, Lily Bard, and before (and during ) her, Aurora Teagarden. Your brain must be very crowded. How do you juggle your worlds and characters?

CHARLAINE: I have to get "into character" for each one. It can be jarring to switch from one protagonist to another. When I'm about to start a new book, very often I read the last book in that series again to get myself rolling. Since I most often write in the first person, I have to slip on a particular persona to see the action unfolding as the book progresses.

HANK: So one day, the phone rings. And it's--well, how did you learn HBO wanted to make a TV series about Sookie Stackhouse? (And by the way, how did you come up with her name? Was she ever named anything else?)

CHARLAINE: I'd had an option on the Sookie books before. When it was about to expire, there were three offers for the books. My agent described all three to me and I talked to the interested parties on the telephone before deciding Alan's was the best fit.

Sookie was the name of my grandmother's best friend. It's an old southern nickname. I found the surname "Stackhouse" in a phonebook, and it just seemed to fit.

HANK: The first time you saw the finished product of episode one, say. When was that? Where? What did you think? Can you tell us just one cool secret thing about the shooting writing editing or stars of the show? (And what book is Gran reading in episode 1? I squinted to see the cover, but couldn't make it out.)

CHARLAINE: HBO sent me a copy of the first two episodes when they were still a bit rough. I was riveted. It was so exciting seeing my characters on the screen, and every now and then there was some dialogue straight from the book! But there were enough things I HADN'T written to keep me on my toes, because I wouldn't be sure how Alan played it.

And the sex scene was startling, of course, because although I knew Jason's character, I'd never followed him into the bedroom before, since Sookie never did. Gran is reading "Last Scene Alive," one of my Aurora Teagarden books.

Secret things? I wouldn't tell secrets, but I can tell you that Anna is as lovely in person as she is on the screen, Stephen has wonderful manners, Sam is a true son of the south, Nelsan trained at Juillard, Rutina trained as a dancer and is married, and they are all happy to be working for Alan Ball.

HANK: Your family must be so proud of you--you've been such a mainstay in the mystery world. Now--is your life a lot different? What's next for you?

CHARLAINE: I don't know yet how my life will change as a result of the TV show. I hope it won't change much, because I'm very happy the way I am now. I think my family is proud of me, and I am of them. I am the most incredibly lucky person.What's next for me? Writing more books, I guess. The work is always there, just waiting to be done. I think I'm more nervous now about it than I was before. I never felt like anyone was looking, before!

(Charlaine blogs on Femmes Fatales http://femmesfatales.typepad.com)

Thanks, Charlaine! You're really quite amazing. And inspirational.Tomorrow--Charlaine agrees to take the Jungle Red quiz! And she'll let us decide which of four things about her is false! (And being a vampire is not one of them...)

ON ASSIGNMENTS

"Once upon a time, there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith..."

*** the first line of "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein

HANK: On the way to work this morning, I said to my husband--what books did you read in college? What books did you love?

You know Jonathan. He gave me that droll look. And he said: In college, I didn't read books for pleasure.

That's no doubt why he powered through law school, and my college career was spotty. At best.

I practically majored in a field the college did not know it was offering: listening to records and reading the books I wanted to.

Yes, I did devour some of the books that were assigned. Hemingway. Fitzgerald. Dickens. Austen. Tolkien's Ring books and CS Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet Trilogy were part of one course I took in my oh-so-liberal college. I think the class was called "Exploring Allegory." I also took the invitation-only "Seminar in Alice in Wonderland" which my mother still can't believe was an actual college course.

I was still devoted to Sherlock Holmes, of course. And all the Agatha Christie novels. But they weren't cool for school. So I was a closet mystery reader.

Was Catcher in the Rye college? I started talking and thinking like Holden the moment I met him--although my own language was carefully censored, I remember. (And I still think about him, every time I'm on the subway. Carrying the fencing equipment.) I forget who told me recently--the intial copies ofcatcher came out with the famously shy Salinger's photo on the back. He apparently freaked, and demanded all the copies be destroyed.

Stranger in a Strange Land. I just read something about that, how in revisionist criticism it's almost reviled as a screed against women, a pedantic rant. I don't remember that part. I remember "groking" and how that was one of them most evocative and descriptive made up words I'd ever heard. I still say--sometimes--yes, I grok that. And sometimes, people understand me.

I think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was just after college. That has stuck with me, profoundly. As a writer, the search for the understanding of quality haunts me every day. I found this copy in Amazon, as you can tell by the 'look inside' gizmos, which won't work here. But I really think my copy was pink.

I was so taken with Hallie's topic on our favorite books as kids--now I wonder, what books did you love in college?

ROBERTA: Okay, I'm drawing a blank on this one. I was busy making trouble I guess. And after wandering through biochemistry and art history, I finally settled on Romance language and literature as my major. So I was plugging through light reading such as The Stranger--in French!

HALLIE: I confess, I'm with Jonathan. College was a black hole for me as far as reading for pleasure goes. I’d read all the time through high school, but in college it was as if I’d undergone aversive conditioning… all those dense history and political science texts I ploughed through made reading painful. In four years I might have made it through “Exodus” and “Hawaii” and “Dr. Zhivago” but that’s about it.

When I finished school and could read just for the fun of it, I ploughed through all of Agatha Christie’s and Dorothy Sayers’ novels and short stories. Graduated to P. D. James’ “An Unsuitable Job for a Woman” with the delightful Cordelia Grey, and read everything else James wrote the minute it came out. Re-read all of Sherlock Holmes. Then I wallowed in the library mystery stacks and indiscriminately grabbed books, some of which I made it through.

When I got back to ‘real’ literature it was to discover Amy Tan (“The Joy Luck Club”) and Dorothy Allison (“Bastard Out of Carolina”) and Barbara Kingsolver (“The Bean Trees”) and Carolyn Chute (“The Beans of Egypt Maine”) and John Irving (“A Song for Owen Meany”). And to re-read Alice in Wonderland and my favorite Sci-Fi novels (“Stranger in a Strange Land”, “A Wrinkle in Time”). And to rediscover the poems of e. e. cummings.

It should come as no surprise that I also got hooked on food writers—Calvin Trillin (“Alice, Let’s Eat) and Laurie Colwin (“Home Cooking”) and Ruth Reichel (“Tender at the Bone”), just for example.

JAN: During college, I think I was busy validating myself as a wild thing by reading books like: The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, The Electric Koolaid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, One Flew Over the Cuckoos by Ken Kesey, and Kurt Vonnegut's short story collections.

I shifted out of my hippy theme years into a literary phase. This involved reading everything by Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Thomas Hardy and Somerset Maugham.

Then for a while there, I got into reading every single book by Barbara Pym. Her novels were always set around some sort of English vicarage. There was no real theme here, I just really enjoyed her books.

RO: I was about to say that I was with Roberta...having too much..uh, fun..in college to remember what I read. Then Jan reminded me of all the hippie-type books I read. Vonnegut must be like Disney. Every generation gets to discover - and claim - him.

The cobwebs have cleared a bit and I'm probably getting the decades confused (all that sangria, I guess..)but I remember loving Small Changes by Marge Piercy, Something Happened by Joseph Heller..everything by Richard Yates.

I'll probably wake up in the middle of the night and say something like..Birdy! I loved that!! And wisely, my husband will sleep through the outburst.

HANK: I'm going to ask my interns--all attending colleges across New England--what they're reading now. After you tell us what you read during those four (okay, or so) years, or if you read at all, care to predict what the students will say?

AND COMING UP LATER THIS WEEK! A visit from current double New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris, whose darkly hilarious novels are getting even more fans after the HBO blockbuster True Blood made Sookie Stackhouse a household name.

And that's not all--we'll chat with the new owners of Murder by the Book, the beloved bookstore--and how they stood up to Hurricane Ike.

But wait, there's more. Come chat with Lori Andrews, whose newest mystery Immunity is just out. Her real life? Is just as exciting than any fiction.