The Green Eyed Monster

Courtesy Essdras Suarez

Hank Phillippi Ryan:  Someone asked me once if I could write a mystery without a romance. I said: not if the characters are real people. Then they asked: could you write a romance without a mystery?

This one was tougher. "Well, I asked, if there's no mystery to solve, what would the characters DO?"

(Now you probably know too much about me.)

Anyway,  the real point is, authors are always contemplating the work of other authors. And Samantha Wilde has been looking at us! Well, at mystery authors. And she says:

Everything I Learned About Writing Came From Mystery Authors (Almost)

SAMANTHA WILDE: One day I sat staring at a mostly blank page, some distance through a novel, and thought, what would a mystery author do? I grew up the daughter of a novelist. My mother, Nancy Thayer, saturated my childhood home with novels. What’s a room without a bookshelf or a stack of books? What’s a room without floor to ceiling bookshelves? And among those thousands of stories, some of her most favorite, most absorbing, most addictive reads, heaps upon heaps of them: the mysteries.

I can’t be the first person to write that no one can plot like a good crime writer. You pick up the novel, read the first line, and for the next twenty-four hours your children run around screaming and begging for food. When you remerge, it’s like you just got off a plane from a trip abroad. You take a big gulp of air and remember your actual life.

I try to engage that genius of plotting I learn from suspense, although when you’re dealing with cranky mothers and envious friends and you can’t kill someone because it’s not that kind of book, you sometimes wish for another genre. In my most recent novel I wrote about envy. This led me into some research on envy, one of the seven deadly sins. I won’t say that envy makes the world go round (it doesn’t sound very good, does it?), but what’s a good story without it?

Shakespeare was the one who coined the phrase “green-eyed monster” in Othello: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;/ It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock/ The meat it feeds on.” Envy is so powerful, so universal, that I decided it must have plagued even the dinosaurs. One can only imagine the envy Tyrannosaurus Rex experiences looking at his long-armed companions.

I asked an artist friend of mine, Sara Prentice Manela, to draw a cartoon of the envious T-Rex to accompany some of my essays on envy; she drew him “losing his envy.” Self-love for dinosaurs!

It should be a surprise than that I, writing about envy, would have to wrestle my own green-eyed monsters, particularly when reading other novels or finding out about the successes of other authors. It has always struck me, subtly, and without malice, this small pinch of envy, when I read mystery, as I follow an incredibly orchestrated and executed plot that literally bewitches me out of my life and into the pages. I do want to plot like that, and, of course, it’s not impossible, even in my world of women’s fiction, writing as I do about the ordinary lives of women.

In the end, the cure for envy lies in one’s willingness to learn, to appreciate, admire and be a beginner. Of course, I don’t read books to learn how to write. I read books because I love to read. But any good book I read, particularly when I recognize a gift in the author I feel is weaker in me, offers a good education. Which is why, as my mother knows and certainly taught by example, a good writer always reads. And reads. And reads.

Tell me what you envy. Have you ever read a book that awakened your green-eyed monster?

HANK: And Sam is offering a copy of her book (in the US. only, okay?). How about--what--if anything--are you envous about?

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 Samantha Wilde is the author of I'll Take What She Has and This Little Mommy Stayed Home (both from Bantam Books).  Here's the trailer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2bJ-glbr0
 The at-home mother of three young children, she moonlights as a minister and a yoga teacher. She's the graduate of Smith College and Yale Divinity School and lives in Western Massachusetts.

Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSamanthaWilde

In I'll Take What She Has... Best friends since kindergarten, Nora, a reserved English teacher, and Annie, an out-spoken stay-at-home mother, wrestle with the green-eyed monster when the new history department hire at the suburban Boston prep school where they teacher, Cynthia Cypress, arrives on campus. A missing grandmother, depressed sex therapist, and a financial crises add to the comedy in a novel about imperfect friendships, mixed up families, messy motherhood, and the quest for the greenest grass.

Guilty Pleasures

DEBS: We all have them. (At least I think we all have them--maybe you will prove me wrong!) Our Friday chats have been trending a bit towards the confessional, so I just thought I'd ask. . .

Are you tempted by very expensive shoes?

A little flutter at the neighborhood poker game?

Eating Fritos in bed while reading very bad romance novels?

Sneaking off to a matinee when you're supposed to be working?

Chocolate sundaes?

Fess up, girls! And while we're at it, I suppose I have to admit mine--or at least the latest--slightly weird and embarrassing guilty pleasure.

I've never been much for ice cream (and that's slightly weird, too, I know, but I've been a foodie nut since I was a teenager, and don't have much of a sweet tooth.) There is, however, a Dairy Queen right down the street from my house. I used to take my daughter there for after-school treats when she was in middle school, but for years I'd driven by without a thought. Then, a few months ago, I had a vision of a small chocolate-dipped cone. I'd missed lunch, I was tired and cranky and worried about something, and that cone suddenly seemed like the antidote to all the world's ills.

So I drove up to the DQ window, payed my $1.98, then found a shady place to park, turned off my phone, rolled down the car windows, and ate the whole damned thing. Nothing left but the wrapper. It was twenty minutes of solitary bliss, and I did feel a whole lot better.

And I have to admit I've given into temptation a couple of times since, but I think it better not become a regular habit. I've just watched the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution episode where he talks about the ingredients in commercial ice creams-- things like shellac (made from bugs) and beaver anal glands. God knows what's in DQ soft serve!

So my guilty pleasure may be a bit lame (and certainly G-rated) but I'll bet none of you can top that for CHEAP!

HALLIE: Oh, Debs, we are so on the same page. For me it's a root beer float. We buy a liter bottle of A&W Root beer and a quart of good vanilla ice cream. The perfect amount for me is about a tablespoon of ice cream and 2" of root beer in a glass. That's all I need -- it's so perfectly sweet and tangy and creamy.

RHYS: I am waiting for the county fair to arrive because I adore cotton candy. What could be worse for you? But once a year I love pulling it apart and stuffing it into my mouth while I watch the fireworks. And a different kind of guilty pleasure (no, not that kind) is watching reruns of all the old British comedies on TV. I know them by heart and still laugh at the jokes.

HANK: Twizzlers. The red ones. What can I say. Also, certain movies: Bring It On, Working Girl, Desk Set--I guess they're sort of Ugly Duckling stories that always get to me. (And my very first job was at DQ, Debs, so if you need a curl on the top of a dip cone, I can totally make that for you. Also a dilly bar. No problem.)

Please don't ask about the shoes. But you should see the red ones I just got. Not feeling guilty, though. Nope nope nope.

Beaver anal glands? Honestly?

DEBS: Really, Hank. According to Jamie (I saw it on Letterman, too, so it must be true) beaver anal glands are used to make an additive called castoreum that's used in ice cream and other vanilla flavored products. Yuck.

HALLIE: Such interesting choices, Hank: Working Girl & Desk Set. Smart girl triumphs. Add to that His Girl Friday. I confess my favorite junkie movie is The Fifth Element. With flaming DJ Ruby Rhod, studly Korbin Dallas (Bruce Willis as a cab driver from the future... being funny!), Mila Jovovich in a brilliant performance as a redheaded alien who had to be inspired by Pippi Longstocking. Just say the word "Multi-pass" and I crack up.

JAN: My guilty pleasure this time of year is baseball. When my husband leaves on a business trip, this is how I misbehave. I watch the entire Red Sox Yankee game AND (and this is the indulgent part) the entire NESN Extra Innings and FINAL post-game chit chat. It's clips of the same game I JUST WATCHED, interspersed with a little analysis and player interviews where they say THE SAME THING after every game. Also about a gazillion commercials -- which leads me to my next guilty pleasure -- I'm starting to develop a thing for the pirate in the Captain Morgan rum ads that play nonstop during the game. Have you guys seen him?? He's got a great body and he's so very 18th century.......

HANK: Yes! Baseball! Go sox.

DEBS: Jan, I can see I'm going to have to start watching baseball. Or drinking rum. . . Hallie, I love The Fifth Element, too. My favorite Bruce Willis movie. Although my guiltiest movie pleasure is probably Love Actually. I can recite the dialogue . . . How sad is that? And if I'm feeling really self-indulgent, The Holiday. And Hot Fuzz . . .

Rhys, State Fair, yes, cotton candy, no. Corn dogs for me. Fletcher's, famous at the Texas State Fair.

And Hank, I may take you up on that curl:-)

ROBERTA: Oh Hallie, I love root beer floats too. That's what I get when we go to the ice cream store. Also home made cookies--one or two at a time from the freezer each night. And light fiction--don't give me Jonathan Franzen or Michael Chabon, give me Barbara O'Neal and Kristin Higgins...any combination of food and romance. As for movies, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, YOU'VE GOT MAIL, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. John refuses to watch these one more time...

JULIA: My food guilty pleasure? Those boxes of Junior Mints, eaten in the well air-conditioned movie theater (because being indoors in the dark on a beautiful summer day is a guilty pleasure in and of itself) while watching some junky action-adventure flick (preferably with hunky guys ripping their shirts off.)

My lazing around guilty pleasure is following various miniseries/cult TV shows with my oldest daughter. We recently polished off the first season of THE WALKING DEAD, staying up until waaay too late to see which of our heroes was going to get bitten by zombies in this episode. Next up? GAME OF THRONES. I'm hoping Sean Bean will rip his mail shirt off.

DEBS: Julia, my daughter and I watched every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer together. More than once. And then (she must at least have been in college . . .) every episode of Sex and the City. Girl bonding, even if not G-rated.

Jungle Reds, we must be the root beer girls. It's the only soda that ever tempts me, usually reserved for things like road trips, so it's a really special treat. And root beer floats? Oh, my. Haven't had one in years. But now I may have to rethink that giving-up-vanilla-ice cream thing . . .

What about you, readers? Share your guilty pleasure.

(Oh, and by the way, I want those red shoes . . .)