Reds on Writing: Trunk Novels @LucyBurdette

When the subject of trunk novels (finished or unfinished manuscripts that have been stashed away before publication) comes up, I have plenty to say. The first book I ever wrote, FINAL ROUND, lives in a trunk. As it was told, Cassie Burdette, a lady golfer whose personal baggage limited her professional success, had the bad luck to get involved with the murder of a superstar golfer. 

Recognize anyone?

On the basis of that manuscript, I landed an agent and she sold a 3-book golf lovers mystery series to Berkley Prime Crime. But FINAL ROUND was rejected because Cassie was serving as a caddie, carrying the bag for a man on the PGA tour. They wanted her to be shown as a golfer, not a caddie, in the first book of the series. 

    "But she has issues," I explained, "that prevent her from playing at that level."

    The publisher didn't care. 

    So FINAL ROUND went in the trunk.

    During the time I was waiting and hoping to hear news of a sale, I wrote a second installment in the series in which Cassie falls for a gorgeous professional golfer in the Dominican Republic. Tropical setting, voodoo, a dangerous romance: What was not to like? But my new editor determined that foreign settings weren't selling. Into the trunk it went.

photo by Daniel Johnson

    
After eight mysteries published, I attempted a non-mystery "breakout" book, featuring a jilted real estate agent and the detective from my advice column mysteries. My agent felt it wasn't representative of my strongest work. Thunk, went the manuscript, into the trunk.

 

photo by Greg Wagoner

   
Next I started a book about a psychologist who was tricked into co-leading a happiness group and finally found happiness herself. I got involved in writing something else and didn't finish it. Thud: on the pile, in the trunk. 

    And then came the book I fondly call "the homeless baby thriller." But three-quarters of the way through, I got distracted by writing a proposal for the Key West food critic mystery series. And that led to a gallop through seven published novels. So the thriller went to gather dust with the other trunk inhabitants. (Help, help, it's getting very crowded in here!)

Poco, the original zany Aussie

    
Oh, and don't let me forget the children's book about a zany Australian shepherd who gets in trouble with all the neighbors. Trunkward bound after a clumsy first draft.

    

So though I recently celebrated the publication of my fifteenth book in fourteen years (KILLER TAKEOUT), I've actually written parts or all of 21 books. But there's very good news in this: I've learned more about writing well with each book. And all but the first two are still interesting ideas that I'd love to go back to one day, if life ever slows down. (In truth, I’m working on three things that I feel a little superstitious about, so I’ll wait to tell.)

    Someone told me once that he'd pitched a golf mystery to an editor who told him that writing about golf would kill his career. But I’ve survived. And honestly, I don't have a moment of regret. And here I give you the opening of my first ever novel-fresh from the trunk:

FINAL ROUND by Roberta Isleib, circa 2000

    The first streaks of sun lit up the golf course like a carpet of emeralds.  I rolled my neck in slow circles, easing out kinks left over from a long drive and a series of lumpy mattresses.  A palpable hum of excitement and hopefulness hung over the practice range, which teemed with golfers grooming their swings for today's tournament.

    Despite the pastoral backdrop, I knew the tension that permeated these early minutes would surge over the next few days.  For professional golfers, competition was more than just a game.  Take the first tee, where a crowd of fans narrowed the hole to a chute with living, breathing walls.  And suppose the only image that flashed through your mind was shanking the ball off the toe onto some spectator's bald head.  Or worse yet, making no contact at all.  Or maybe the guy you needed to take apart that day was your best buddy off the course.  Even so, you had to grind away without a thought about how he felt.  No question about it, competition could be murder.   

    I'd worked hard to get here.  Except I never imagined I'd make my appearance carrying someone's bag, not using the clubs myself.  And there were things I missed about playing.  Like the feeling of striking a shot so pure, so perfect, you knew it was your best.  Or say you were playing an opponent who had the game to kill you, but you'd clawed a path to two holes up anyway.  Or maybe you were coming down the home stretch all square and your hands felt like concrete blocks, but you needed to chip close to give yourself a chance for bird.  And you knocked it stiff.

    Yeah, I missed it.  Gods knows, I grew up in a family that could make eating mashed potatoes into a contest.  Even our dog was competitive:  you had to fight him for a place in the front seat of the car.  But right now, my job as Mike's caddie was to stay in the background.  Kind of a Hillary Clinton to her Bill, only without the humiliating Monica Lewinsky part.
  
Well, now that I look it, there was a lot of golf in them there pages! I think I improved as I went along:). 

Cassie's first published adventure on the LPGA tour, Six Strokes Under, is still available as an ebook.

Jungle Reds, anything in your trunks? Doesn't have to be writing--could be any project you started and didn't quite finish...

Lessons from My Mother-in-Law

LUCY BURDETTE:  My mother-in-law died two weeks ago—it was a sad and wrenching time, even though she was 102 and lived a wonderful life. All seven of her children were there to see her out, along with four in-laws.

Dorothy was a little suspicious of me when I arrived on the scene in 1991. John had experienced an unpleasant divorce, and she was very protective of her chicks. How could she be certain that I would treat him well?

In 1995, I was a nervous new golfer when I invited her to our club’s member-guest—my first foray into competition. (She had taken up the game at age 40, and was especially known for her putting expertise.) As we were eating breakfast before the tournament, our talk turned to dreams.

I said: “I dreamed last night that we got lost on the golf course.”

She said: “I dreamed they told me I was too old to enter.”

We laughed and laughed, and became fast friends after that. She wasn’t one to brag about her offspring, though she didn’t allow anyone to say anything bad about them either. She read most of my books, right up to the time when her macular degeneration prevented her from reading even large print. But she still carried the large print edition of MURDER WITH GANACHE tucked under her arm in the assisted living facility, so the other “inmates” could see that her daughter-in-law was a writer.
 
Of course, we've all been thinking about her legacy. Here are a few of the things I learned from her example:

The Brady Bunch, 1959

1. Family is king. Her centrifugal force in this family was powerful—she treasured and worried over each child (7), grandchild (17), great-grandchild (12), and in-law.

2. Keep moving! As I mentioned, she took up golf at 40 and played into her 90’s. Whenever we visited, she had planned a schedule of events that could have laid out a much younger person—bridge, visits to the library, golf, cooking, theater…And when she moved to assisted living in Maine, she went on every outing the activities director planned, and attended most of the in-house sessions, including a daily discussion of current events.

3. Hydrate. My sister-in-law Lisa said this one perfectly—she considered coffee and manhattans/martinis to be excellent ways to hydrate.

4. Embrace your age. She was uncomfortable at first with people pointing her out as a centenarian, but she finally gave that up and took whatever came. With the help of Lisa and other family, she threw a giant 100th birthday weekend that pulled the whole extended family together. (This was the chocolate cake I made for her at 102--she'd already devoured the coconut cake made by my sister-in-law Lisa.)

And one more irresistible photo from Julia Child's birthday celebration at Lisa's house. Note the pearls and the cookbooks...

What memorable life lessons do you carry with you from a special person?

Dream Jobs

DEBS: I debated chatting about something timely today, like VS Naipul's assertion last week that women can't write as well as men. (Not reading one of your long, boring books, Mr. Naipul, by the way.) But then I decided that we would all be grinding our teeth in irritation, getting the week off to a very bad start, and that we should talk about something fun instead.

A couple of weeks ago, Roberta asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, and how that turned out for us.

That started me thinking about dream jobs. What would we do if we could pick something that we don't do now and have never done? (Or are likely to do in real life.) No qualifications or experience required, as it is, after all, the fantasy job. Astronaut? Archeologist? Spy? Jockey?

I'm fascinated by all those things, and might have done any of them if I were a little more adventurous in spirit and tougher in body. (Or better at math.)

But the thing that always make me say, "Ooh, I'd LOVE to do that!" ?

I want to be in the MOVIES.

And no, not in front of the camera. No way. My dream job would be to design sets, especially interiors. I'm one of those incredibly nerdy people who will watch the extra materials on DVDs over and over to listen to the commentary by the art director, and will play scenes back just to study what the sets convey about the story, the setting, the period, and the characters. Think Lionel Logue's office in The King's Speech. Or Tony Stark's house in Iron Man. Or The Burrow in the Harry Potter movies . . . The list is endless, and makes me giddy. And wouldn't the shopping be fun?

So, Jungle Reds, assume the world is your oyster. What would YOU do?

JAN: Well, if talent goes with the dream, I'd be Taylor Swift, writing and singing country songs on the big stage, touring the world, and writing best selling songs about the people who bummed me out in high school. Otherwise, I'd really like to be a director. I directed actors in the small video trailer I did for Teaser and I had the time of my life. it was like writing, only in three dimensions. My third choice is to go back to school and become a psychologist. I love brain stuff, and right now I'm talking to returning veterans and writing about EMDR therapy and I'm thinking what a meaningful job it would be to help someone overcome the traumas in life.

ROSEMARY: So hard to say since one's dream can so quickly turn into one's nightmare. I was about to say professional tennis player - but only if I could be in the top five. But even then someone would always be nipping at your heels and you'd have to prove yourself 100 times a year. So then I thought about owning a wonderful Victorian house and opening an inn or bookshop - but I was put off by all the strangers I'd have to invite into my home. Next up was the vintage clothing store. That was nixed quickly since sometimes going through old clothing can be skeery. The heroine in my books is a gardener and that would be fun and I'd get a great workout, but people are so hard to please and they'd probably blame you for deer, slugs and things over which you really have no control.

I'd really like to be Oprah. She can do good. She can make stuff happen. No one cares how much she weighs. She has great hair and skin. She probably never worries about parking or her wifi connection or getting tickets to anything. She probably never waits in line. That's it. I want to be Oprah.

HALLIE: Never having to wait in line...ever. That part I could get used to. Ditto, waving my magic wand and "making stuff happen." The rest of what Oprah does is too hard and I'd have trouble being that "nice." My dream job would involve travel, eating, and wearing comfortable shoes. Being a restaurant critic (like Lucy Burdette only for a fancy travel magazine--Yoo hoo, Conde Naste!) would suit me just fine.

RHYS: I also considered being the world's number one tennis player, but it's a stressful life, always living out of a suitcase, always having to compete. I'd like to be an intrepid explorer, meeting primitive tribes and talking to gorillas--because I love reading about such exploits, as long as I don't have to wade through water full of leeches. I'd also like to be a famous opera singer with a divine voice. I used to sing in an opera chorus and would love to be Violetta in La Traviata or Madama Butterfly. Or I'd like to be a better writer than VS Naipal!!

HANK: Rhys, you already are.

ROBERTA: Okay this is fun--I'd like to start by being a top ten lady golfer and win the US Open. "On the tee, from Key West, Florida...please welcome Lucy Burdette. She came to golf very late but she's taken the golf world by storm...She's a lot smaller and older than most of the golfers we see on the tour, but her brilliant short game makes up for that."

Next I'd like to be EmmyLou Harris or Bonnie Raitt, except I can't stay up late enough to do all those evening concerts...so, another idea would be to be a top level manager in a big, big company run mostly by strong women. The kind of company that donates a ton of money to worthy causes and helps women feel good about themselves by offering good jobs. And then Rosemary could have me on her Oprah show and I'd donate cars to everyone in the audience, but only if they give their old cars to someone who needs one. In fact I think there's a boatload of creative and organizational talent amongst the Jungle Reds and I bet this could really happen...

Except I really love writing and working in my yoga clothes and I couldn't do all that if I was an important executive. oh well...

HANK: Really? I missed it, maybe, but being a blockbuster New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of really good books that people love and talk about and share, that'd be pretty nice. Notice I said books, plural. I'd like to write them from my house in France for a third of the year, and then maybe in Italy, and then home for the other third. Maybe..I could be a documentary producer, yeah, that would be great. Do important, world-changing, or at least intriguing documentaries (yoo hooo PBS and HBO and AMC and History channel) about current events or history or the arts. Or, be a ballerina, but that's so impossible, what with the bulimia and all. OR be Linda Ronstadt, with that great voice, and come out to a crowd of happy fans and sing something powerful and terrific. (And some day ask me about my astronaut decision. Pretty funny)

Debs, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Can I be in your movie?

DEBS: Okay, you guys have made me sound really dull . . . and you never fail to amaze me with your inventiveness. Now I have a whole other list of things that would be cool to do (except I'm not too fond of golf. Sorry, Roberta!) But I hope we all get to do the New York Times Bestselling author bit, and writing from my house in France or Tuscany wouldn't be bad, or even from my fantasy flat in London. I've never been interested in the fame part of being famous, but some of the perks wouldn't be half bad. So in the words of famous and regularly-bleeped Stephen Tyler, Dream On!

What about you, Jungle Red readers? What's your fantasy job?