It's "What We're Writing" Week... Hallie Monday

So this is the first of a new feature on Jungle Red: a week of posts on "What We're Writing."

Hear the latest from:
Hallie Ephron Monday
Hank Phillippi Ryan Tuesday
Rhys Bowen Wednesday
Lucy Burdette Thursday
Deborah Crombie Friday
Julia Spencer Fleming Saturday
Susan Elia MacNeal Sunday

HALLIE EPHRON: I AM(!) writing the final 50 pages of a book set in Beverly Hills where I grew up in the early 60s. Yes, I went to Beverly Hills High School. Oh, all right -- classmates included Richard Dreyfuss and Albert Brooks (these are their pictures in my 1965 yearbook). 

But seriously, folks, back then Beverly Hills was just another neighborhood. Well, another a wealthy neighborhood. But nothing like it is today.

Whenever I admit to someone that I grew up there, they perk up and say, "Oh, 90210!" I remind them: We didn't use zip codes back the olden days. Ditto no pantyhose. We wore skirts to school, nylons, girdles, and padded bras. And we smoked. It was a gentler time, just a scoche before marijuana and drugs became widely available and long before anyone had even coined the term "safe sex." We used the word "scoche."

The main character in my work in progress (working title: Night Night, Sleep Tight) is Deirdre Unger. She left Beverly Hills, as I did, after graduating high school in '65. Unlike me, her best friend back then was a movie star's daughter who dropped out of sight after she murdered her mother's gangster boyfriend. (This may sound familiar to some of you.) 

Twenty years later, in 1985, Deirdre drives home to help her aging father, a screenwriter (as my father was) who still lives in the house where she grew up. She doesn't know it, but she's about reconnect with her one-time best friend and encounter another murder, this time even closer to home.

So here it is, TA DAH! A preview from the opening pages of my work in progress, working title "Night, Night, Sleep Tight" --

By the time Deirdre Unger reached the Sunset Boulevard exit off the 405 and sat at the light, waiting to turn toward Beverly Hills, her stomach burned. The egg McMuffin she'd wolfed down an hour earlier had been a mistake. She took a sip of what was left of tepid coffee. It tasted mostly of waxy cardboard and only made her stomach seethe.

"How hot is it, kiddies?" The voice on the radio sounded maniacally overjoyed. "So hot trees are whistling for dogs!" A buzzer sounded, then hollow laughter. "Seriously, it's hot out there so drink plenty of water. Red flag warnings have been issued for today and tomorrow. Heat and dry winds are expected to turn Los Angeles and Ventura County mountains and valleys into a tinderbox."

Yippee. Dierdre snapped the radio off and gripped the wheel. Another reason to have stayed home in San Diego.

At last there was a break in the traffic and she turned onto Sunset. Accelerated. All the time asking herself why on earth was she doing this? Couldn't her brother Henry have stepped up to the plate for once in his life? He'd been living in that house, sponging off their father ever he dropped out of college. The least he could have done was offered to help Dad get the place cleaned up and ready for viewing.

But no, Henry was "tied up" -- probably his euphemism for all night poker games or hanging out with his biker buddies at Neptune's Net.

The loud blat came from a passing car that she'd nearly sideswiped. Deirdre jerked her car back in its lane. Get a grip, she told herself. Besides, what was the point of churning over someone else's mishegas. Her father had asked for her help and, good daughter that she was, she'd agreed to roll up her sleeves and do what she could. Just a weekend, not a lifetime thank God.

No big deal, right? she thought as she unclenched her teeth and loosened her grip on the steering wheel. Speed -- that was what she needed.

She crossed into the left lane and floored it. She felt power surge as the car automatically downshifted and shot forward. Her Mercedes SL hugged the road as she pushed it around a bend, weaving between cars on the windy two-lane road. She braked into the curves and accelerated coming out. Forty, forty-five, fifty.

The end of her crutch slid across the passenger seat, the cuff banging against the door. Her water bottled rolled off the passenger seat.

She allowed the car to drift into the right lane coming around a tight curve and then had to slam on the brakes behind a red bus that straddled both lanes and poked along at twenty miles an hour, idling just outside walled estates. STARLINE TOURS was painted in slanting white script across the back.

She gritted her teeth and crept along behind the bus, past pink stucco walls that surround the estate where Jayne Mansfield had supposedly once lived. It had been a big deal when the actress died, had to have been at least twenty years ago. And still tourists lined up to gawp at her wall. Breasts the size of watermelons and a car accident that decapitated her -- those were the kinds of achievements that merited lasting celebrity in Hollywood. That or kill someone.

In her less snarky moments, Deirdre sympathized deeply with Jayne Manfield's children. She thought there was a daughter about her own age, and Deirdre could easily imagine how painful it was for her, grieving and at the same time having her mother's notoriety stuck to her like a bad smell.

For some reason she never understood, buses like the one now belching exhaust in front of her now, used to pull up in front of her family's house, its passengers glued to the windows. Deirdre liked to dress up in her mother's silver fox stole and wave at the bus from the window seat of their dining room. She perfected an open handed, tilt-to-tilt wave like one of those gowned-up girls in the Rose Parade. Back then she could dream of being in the royal court. Queen, even. But beauty queens didn't have withered legs.

Most of her parents' neighbors lacked the star power to warrant a bus stop. In the flats between Sunset and Santa Monica, notables were TV actors, writers, and agents, tucked in like plump raisins among the nouveau riche non-celebrity types who'd moved to Beverly Hills, so they'd say, because of the public schools. You had to live north of Sunset to score neighbors like Lucille Ball or Jack Benny or Milton Berle. Move up even further, into the canyons to where one of those ultra-modern, ultra-expensive homes to find yourself with neighbors like Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire.

Finally the bus pulled over enough so that Deirdre and all the cars backed up behind her could pass. A little further along, she cruised past the familiar brown shield with gold letters, "Beverly Hills."

After that, the twisty road straightened into a divided parkway and the speed limit dropped to thirty, as if chastened by the wealth surrounding it. There was not a single pedestrian on the sidewalks. Not a soul crossed in the crosswalks or waited at bus stops.

 So here's my question as I try to keep anachronisms from popping up in 1985: Is it okay to have bottled water in a chapter set in 1985? And what else besides cell phones and and spray-on tanner do I need to be sure I don't try to insert into a 1985 narrative with flashbacks to '65?

Teach Your Children Well

Recently, I was asked to speak at three different high schools in my area. After confirming that it was really me they wanted - and not the Rosemary Harris who appears in the Spiderman movies - I said, of course, and proceeded to think nothing more about it. How hard could it be to speak to a bunch of 15 year-olds?

The only other time I've prepared this extensively for a talk was my lecture at the Philadelphia Flower Show. I agonized over that. I had over 300 pictures on a powerpoint presentation. I worked on it for months and rehearsed with my husband a dozen times usually ending with me yelling at him for something I screwed up. In the end the presentation went well and they've asked me back, but it could just be that I was the only person there who wasn't talking to them about cow manure or slugs. (Actually, I had some funny slug stories..)

But this is different. These are kids. Granted half of them will be on their phones, or sleeping or listening to their ipods, but some of them might actually be hoping to become writers. I'm planning to give them the Cliff's Notes version of what the publishing business is like, but I feel I should do more to, dare I say it, inspire.
You gals have been in this business longer (and most of you have kids...I don't.) Any tips?

HALLIE: Be afraid, be very afraid. Seriously. The only speaking gig that has ever left me quaking in my boots is talking at a high school. It's better if you're addressing a classroom full (as opposed to an auditorium full)...but chain the teacher to her chair, DO NOT let her leave the room.
Katherine Hall Page does this all the time and she's wonderful at it...we should ask her what's the secret.

JAN: Be funny, be very, very funny. Be loud enough to carry over the cell phone conversations and keep it as brief as possible. Honest, though, I really enjoy talking to kids, and think the key is to speak from the heart and engage them with something participatory. In a smaller class setting, I used do a thing where I'd illustrate how a story works by making them choose the protaganist, the goal and the obstacles. Sometimes it was hysterical. In a larger setting, you might just let them choose one or two elements from a pre-set list. Good luck, you'll be terrific.

ROBERTA: I talk to 5th and 6th grade classes every year, first describing how a book gets made (with tons of props), and then having them work on their own idea for a mystery using a worksheet. When Lori Avocato and I went to Homer, Alaska, we used the same ideas with two high schools. It went better than expected. Jan is right--speak from the heart and loudly. Hallie's right, keep the teacher in the room with you. My very worst experience was the day there was a sub in a class that was troubled anyway. We lost any semblance of control and I spent an hour shouting over the din! I always leave a day of teaching thinking that school teachers are truly saints.

HANK: Oh, Roberta, I love the idea for having then work on a mystery. You know, too, they all love movies. Wonder if you could bring up some mystery/thrillers they know of and use them as illustrations about "story" and the importance of a story. Of start with half a sentence, the old: "It was a dark and stormy night, or better: Tiff and Melissa knew they shouldn't climb out the window, but... And see if they have ideas on how to make it a story. Could there be a mystery just in text messages?
I would do something very very organized and structured, so the kids know what to expect. Like 'the top ten' of something. Or a quiz.
And some of them, even many of them, will be terrific. It'll be fun to watch them connect with you. When the light goes on in a teenager's eyes--there's nothing more fulfilling.

RO: LOL..well I had my debut and not only did the light NOT go on in any of their eyes, I'm pretty sure one of them WAS fast asleep. And another spent the whole hour drawing.

I didn't really expect them to know Elmore Leonard, but shouldn't they have recognized Hemingway? I tried dropping names...Project Runway (which I only know about from you guys!) Brett Favre, Sarah Palin..humor...text messaging....it wasn't horrible but I'm convinced they only came for the cupcakes, which they inhaled at the end of my talk.

At least they weren't as bad as the kids in the old Glenn Ford movie..where they terrorize Anne Francis and break poor Richard Kiley's records. Anyone remember who played the leader of the bad kids? The good kid? The kid with the coke-bottle glasses?

**check back on Wednesday to hear how my NY DL lunch went. No one fell asleep!

On High School

High School: Fab? Or Forget it?

"True terror is to wake up one morning and find your high school class is running the country. "

**Kurt Vonnegut

HANK: Was high school the best time of your life? Or would you rather forget it? I'm pretty glad it's in my rear view.

I just went back to my home town for an event honoring alums of Pike High School, my alma mater. It was lovely, because I was delighted to be an honoree. But traumatic, because I had to give a speech about it. And that meant I had to think about high school. And my memories of those years--although I can still sing the Red Devils fight song--are not full of heart-warming nostalgia.

Frankly, an unworthy thought crossed my mind. I considered beginning my speech: Thank you for inducting me in to the Pike Hall of Fame. I would like to ask, however, where were you all when I needed a date for the prom? (Can you believe I still thought about that? FORTY years later?)

I discarded that idea, and went with genuine gratitude. I did learn a lot in high school: to love Shakespeare, the fun of analytical thinking, how to drive, and that I should not take any more math. Honor Society, yes. Prom date, no.

And wow. Being one hundred per cent uncool for 4 years was a tough thing. I admitted, in my speech, that I had sneaked into every language club yearbook photo, even though I did not take Latin or Spanish. (You can see what a rebel I was.)

I also admitted that I had not actually attended every phys ed class, and that moreover, I still have dreams that I was not allowed to graduate as a result. And I apologized for how often I got sent home for wearing short skirts. (I had figured if they didn't like me in Indianapolis, they would love me in Liverpool, and I dressed accordingly.)

It turned out fine. of course. And looking back, it's likely that those 4 years of nerd-dom were actually beneficial. I was reading instead of partying, much as I was bitterly sad about it at the time. So, thanks, Pike High School. Turns out, it was a wonderful four years. I just didn't know it at the time. Did you love high school? How did it change you?

JAN: It's not that I have bad memories of high school, its mostly that I have no memories of high school. In our town, CLifton, New Jersey, high school didn't start until tenth grade and by then, apathy was big. It was totally uncool to take part in any school event, even the prom, and in our year book under Who's Who. My class wrote "Who cares?"

One of my major goals in high school was to skip phys ed so I could smoke cigarettes in the bathroom. (note from Hank: this photo is not Jan!) Imagine my surprise, to find out much later in life that I really was pretty athletic and actually would have enjoyed all those team sports I was eschewing.

I was so not into highschool that I figured out a way to skip my senior year and go straight to college. (which back then, was easier than you might think). The great thing about that was I got to go to college with my older brother, and I wouldn't change that for the world (especially since I married one of his college room-mates,)But the sad part is that I missed all that bonding that goes on in the senior year and never felt a "part" of high school. I did go back for a reunion though, and realized that I have a lot of really good memories with the kids I went to junior high with. Back before I was "too cool" to participate!

ROSEMARY: I actually said "Oh, no" out loud when I saw the heading on this blog. Please don't make me relive high school, it was bad enough the first time around. It's a wonder I graduated and with pretty decent marks (I think) since all I remember doing was hanging our with friends, smoking, and going to parties. I travelled with a pack of 30-50 kids....wait a minute..this doesn't sound so bad..

HALLIE: I do think that the reason that Hank is such a thoroughly NICE person (really, just as nice as she seems) is because of that traumatic high school experience. Sheesh, Jan, sounds like a different century not merely a different decade when you were in school.

I went (don't groan) to Beverly Hills High School. Back in the days when it was just another high school (except that it had an oil well on the football field and a gym with a pool that had a baskeball court that could be rolled out over it...maybe not so typical). Classmates were Richard (Ricky back then; he was in all the plays ) Dreyfuss and Albert Brooks (Einstein back then and class clown). Needless to say they were not my buddies.

I know this will surprise many, but I was not a cheerleader or a flag girl. I did a brief stint, marching about on the Drill Team wearing a smelly orange felt outfit and white boots with tassels. Adorable though I was, I never got asked out on a single date. Did not hang out with a 'crowd' or even a best friend. In short it was excruciating. I could have ended up a serial killer.

I went to one reunion, my 25th. Me to one of the once popular and now blonde: "So what are you doing now?" Her answer: "I'm into horses and avocadoes." O-kaaaay.

ROBERTA: Oh high school was so mixed for me too! Of course I was an overachiever in every way. Socially? Just not cool. And you had to be cool to be chosen as a cheerleader, which was of course every girl’s dream. A boyfriend and cheerleading—that’s what I wanted. I made up for the lack by trying out for plays (bit parts, not much talent), singing in the chorale (ditto, lots of enthusiasm but not much talent,) editing the yearbook, and running for treasurer of the student council. During campaign season, we made huge banners that read “Bobbie kisses babies!”

Whatever effect they might have had, I did win the election. Then stashed the accounts ledger in my locker, where it stayed until the end of year. I panicked when I realized I had to try to remember and reproduce all the entries I should have been making. (My husband pays the bills for now…)

But the most interesting thing about my high school was our all-girl bagpipe band—the only one in the country, complete with kilts, drummers, tons of marching bagpipers, and the Highlander dancers. I tried out for that dance troupe and spent the last couple years dancing with swords at the football games. (NOTE from Hank: This photo is not Roberta.)

I dug out a short story I wrote eight years ago (the first incarnation of Dr. Rebecca Butterman) that featured the Highlander dancers: http://www.robertaisleib.com/golf/piper.htm

Ps I never had a date for the damn prom either. The kids do it right these days, often attending with a group of friends. I wonder if they’ll end up less traumatized? But then what will they write???

pps Oh hooray, I found a youtube video for you of the bagpipe band. If you make it as far as the dancers, that is NOT what we wore! We danced wearing kilts and all the traditional accoutrements...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-T8kLXBYg

HANK: Wow, what I didn't know about my own blog sisters! I NEED to see Hallie in the drill team outfit, "Bobbie" in her kilt. ( I was a majorette, briefly, but the band director put me in the middle of the back row because I was so bad. I DO wish I still had my white boots.) And what does 'Bobbie Kisses Babies' even mean?

So--how about you in high school? Time to tell all! And come back Wednesday--I'll tell you the worst thing that happened to me. Then we can see if your stories are worse.
Going to watch the You Tube video now...