How many more days until Spring??

RO: Just about every year for the past 20 years I've gone to the Philadelphia Flower Show. Some years it's better than others - or maybe it's my expectations. Or perhaps there's a direct relationship to how much snow is on the ground! In any event flower show season signals the beginning of the end of winter and a lot of us are ready for that.

This year the theme was Passport to the World and it was one of the best shows in the last 10 years. None of the pictures will do it justice....the giant hot air balloon made out of flowers, the moss elephant, the African manyatta. (In fact those pix wouldn't load for some reason...)

The parrots from the Brazilian garden refused to stay put and there was no shortage of anxiety as they flew around the convention center, screeching and threatening to, um, make a deposit on someone's prized plant.

As usual the orchids were spectacular. As someone who's killed every orchid she's ever touched these other-worldly plants never fail to mesmerize me, and the ones at the show are flawless.
Of course I went to the show for myself..and I do volunteer there at the Horticultural Information Booth. It's one of the most nervewracking things I do all year long.

With the advent of cellphone cameras, anyone can take a picture with their cell and bring it up to the info desk and ask...Why did my plant die? or What's the name of this plant? I think there was only one the hort team couldn't identify, but talk about pressure! Two hundred opportunities to feel like an idiot in a three hour period.

I'm also working on book four in my Dirty Business series which is set at a flower show and the thing that most astounded me in Philly this year was the existence of an urban garden display exactly like one that I had created in my story. It was uncanny! Has anyone ever had that happen...something you've made up turns out to exist??

HANK: Oh, sure. Absolutely. Frighteningly so. Hilariously so. Where to start...
First, I struggled to come up with a name for a very important character in my Charlotte McNally books. He needed a last name--I wanted it to be of indeterminate ehtnicity, strong, two syllables. My first boyfriend (age 10 or so) had the last name "Gelston." So I thought--okay, Gelston, that'll work. But his real first name was (is) Phillip. And I couldn't use that, of course, because of Phillippi in my name.
So I thought: I need a one syllable first name. Strong, masculine, not cute, potentially but not necessarily romantic, appropriate for someone who's fifty or so. Jake, I decided. Ben. Luke. Nick. Sam. Josh. Josh! And so in that complicated way, Josh Gelston was born.

And then soon after PRIME TIME came out, I got an email. And the subject line was: "from Josh Gelston." He was a real guy (and very cool, I might add!) And he has a brother named Ben! And now we're Facebook friends.

And just after I wrote a character who is an undercover investigator for the IRS, it was BIZARRE when a glass mug appeared by the coffee machine in our office--with the logo "Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division." No one knew where it came from.
I have to admit, I'm still a little creeped out by that.

RO: Mundo Bizarro. Life imitating art?

A lot of what we write about is as they say "ripped from the headlines" but what if the headlines are hundreds of years old? In Philly for the show I had a chance to visit with one of my favorite Philadelphians. Stop by tomorrow when we chat with Cordelia Frances Biddle, author of Without Fear, the latest in her Martha Beale series

On Hangovers

“I feel like I have a hangover, without all the happy memories and mystery bruises."”

Ellen DeGeneres

JAN: When I was a full-time reporter, I'd have days when I'd work an eleven hour day to meet my deadline on a takeout on, say, say downtown development, the power of the bank lobby, or some other wide-ranging topic that required a lot of steamlining and double-checking. I noticed that even though I'd come to work the next day, I was entirely useless. My brain was fried. I had a writing hangover.

It made me wonder about those proclamations by scientists that we really only use ten percent of our brains. It felt like I'd actually used up my brain, and now it had to rest.

I mention that because I recently had to work a crazy schedule to get my latest book, Teaser, to my publisher to meet my deadline. (that's the twice extended deadline, not the first one.) Okay, I worked weekends and late hours the final two weeks, but everyone who writes seems to do that. That was almost a month ago, and I still don't feel like writing.

Luckly, my next project, which is non-fiction, requires a lot of upfront research. This allows me to spend my days reading and writing lists, which feels like luxury.

But I'm wondering. Have the rest of you experienced writing hangovers, or am I just a writing wimp?

ROBERTA: oh definitely! Big hangover here! I wonder if some of it doesn't have to do with our over-connectedness too. There was an essay in the New York Times style section this Sunday about a guy forcing himself to take a day off from email, phones, etc every week. And another essay in MORE magazine about a woman taking a month-long email hiatus. We're not just writing books, we're writing email constantly. And blogs. And reading listservs. And planning conferences and promotions. No wonder our poor brains are tired.

I went to see a movie about a New York man and his psychoanalyst in January. After the show, the author came out to answer questions. Someone asked if being a writer impinged on his real life. I thought it was a silly question until I heard him talk about how he's always in the process of observing and cataloging events to use in his fiction. Yes of course you're tired! Take a brain vacation--you deserve it!

HALLIE: I just turned a revision of "Baby, Baby" in to my editor and I confess, for me it doesn't feel like hangover so much as postpartum depression. I mean you work on a manuscript practically 7 days a week for (in this case) nearly two years, and then COLD TURKEY.
And I'm not someone who writes feverishly at the end. I can't handle the stress of it. I'm nearly always ready before I need to be and spend the last few days/week polishing.

Now, literally two days after, I'm ready to be thinking about the next novel but not no how ready to be writing it. Fortunately I have the book reviewing gig and some freelance magazine work which make a perfect palate cleanser (is this, in hangover terms, "the hair of the dog" cure?)

RO: Jeez, I'm still so new at this that I'm still indulging and haven't experienced the hangover yet. Maybe this is comparable...I worked so long and hard on my presentation for the Philadelphia Flower Show that once it was over I felt as if I was 10 lbs lighter. (It went well but I felt so much pressure that I'm glad it's done. If I don't use Powerpoint for another year that's okay with me.)

HANK: Hmm. No hangover here, either. (Maybe I'm not working hard enough.) I'm like Ro (hurray!). I'm so focused on what I have to get done, and so thrilled when it works, that I'm dancing around when it's over. Like the storm clouds of responsibility and looming performance have lifted. (And we're the newbies, too, I guess.)

I'm also so used to working, you know, that when I'm finished, I feel as if I must be forgetting something. When I turned in the synopsis for Drive Time, my brain was still churning about it. And I'd literally stop and remember--wait, that's already submitted. You did it. And then I'd do a little hip wiggle (I was generally alone, thankfully, at those times) and go on to whatever I was supposed to do next.

People always say--you've got to stop. Hmm. I'd worry if there were nothing.

But! At my office, at the station, my producer and I do have a sign that we post on our door from time to time. Generally after we've aired a big story. It says:

** Sorry, we're closed. Brains FULL.**