For Sale: Baby Shoes

Like every other form of entertainment, good writing is totally subjective. Works that are considered classics are not always loved by everyone, no matter how many times they tell you in class that these books are 'works of art and you need to appreciate them!'

A few years ago I read "The Great Gatsby" (thought by many to be the best American novel ever written!) and though I enjoyed much of it, I thought the ending a little too preachy, so I can't say that I totally enjoyed it.

Ernest Hemingway is another example. I finally read my first Hemingway novel a while ago, 'A Farewell to Arms', I believe it was. When someone asked how I enjoyed it, my quick response was: "His best writing seems to be when he talks about death..." The book was fine, though bleak and depressive, but whenever one of the characters died, or talked about dying, the prose turned absolutely magnetic. (Maybe that death fascination explains why he took his own life? Just speculating...)

But recently I read something by Hemingway that I thought was one of the most brilliant things I have ever laid my eyes on. And it was only six words long.

The writing school where I took occasional classes was running a contest. It was based on a Hemingway urban legend, one where he was out drinking one night (a seemingly regular exercise in his life,) when the subject of writing came up and he boasted that he could write a short story in ten words or less. When his companion challenged him to try, Hemingway wrote the following:

"For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn".

Just look at that line. Even seeing it in print again gives me goosebumps. With those six words an entire story is told from start to finish, and when you think about the ramifications of it, you almost want to cry. Sure there are no details, but you can easily fill in the rest of the story based on your own life experiences. No questions really need be asked.

The contest challenged us to try and do the same: write a 'complete short story' using ten words or less. They printed five winners from the year before and I swear, at least three of them were almost as good as Hemingway's! So I immediately sat down and tried to come up with one of my own stories using no more than ten words. This was especially difficult for me, as I tend to have trouble keeping my writing brief (I know, a real shock, right?? )

I thought about it, then went about my day, then thought about it the next day. The deadline was about five months away, so I had plenty of time to submit my entry. Until I didn't. I had come up with two or three possible entries, until I finally polished one that I thought was worthy of submitting, before looking at the calender and realizing I had missed the deadline!

I was pissed. I was positive my entry could have at least made the top 5. I never got the chance, so for the first time in print, here's what my submission would have been:

"You were right," I whispered, kneeling graveside. 'It WAS loaded."

Yes, being as talky as I am, I had to use the entire ten words. But I thought it worked, as far as telling a whole story where you didn't need to ask any questions about details.

No matter what you may think of this week's blog, I would love to know if you think my entry would have been good enough to land in the Top 5. Please e-mail me or leave a comment below...

OK, back to our subject this week, which I have not yet established, and which I have almost forgotten... Oh yeah, writing...

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EARLY PERSONALITY PROFILING

I always liked writing stuff. I remember in the sixth grade, we had to come up with short stories, so I created a character named Don Drakin. (Pronounced 'Drake-in'. It was supposed to be 'Drake', but I knew of another popular character named Drake, so I just tacked on a couple of extra letters.) Don was a private eye, of course. I was always fascinated with private dicks and international spies (see recent blog about my 'Man From U.N.C.L.E.' fetish!)

Whenever an assignment included writing a story and reading it aloud in front of the class, I would create a new Don Drakin tale. Not too long, maybe five or six pages, but the rest of the class always seemed to enjoy them.

When the 'Batman' TV show took over the country, I tried to write a Batman novel. I got a few pages in, when I decided to ask my mother to read it. At one point in the story, I mentioned the Batphone and whenever Batman was being summoned, I wrote that the phone let out 'concessive beeps'. My mother stopped there.

"Irvin, there is no word 'concessive.'

"Yes, there is!"

"No, there isn't"

I got extremely frustrated. "Yes!"

"No, there isn't..."

I questioned myself. Did I mean to say 'consecutive'? 'Excessive'? I walked away to look for a new word. I never got any farther with the novel.

What I didn't know at the time but learned years later, was that my mother was a frustrated writer. I found some of her attempts when I was older, but felt awkward reading them, just skimming them, before putting them back where I found them.

But it made me think. The 'concessive' criticism was not the only time she had questioned or seemed underwhelmed by something I had written; I could remember instances when my father liked something I wrote, but my mom disagreed.

As an adult, it made me wonder--was there a hint of jealousy there? Did my loving mother NOT want me to end up being a better writer than she was? I mean, I was only like eleven years old, for gosh sakes! As a self-proclaimed amateur psychologist, I have often thought about this competitive relationship. (And now that she's seeing it, my therapist will no doubt want to talk about this next Tuesday!)

I started writing biographies and articles for different sports publications after my mom passed away, so she never really got to see my stuff in print. Would she have approved? Or would she have dished out some serious 'constructive criticism'?

I recently looked up the word 'concessive' by the way. Y'know what? It IS a word! It's a grammatical term that doesn't mean anything close to what I thought it did. But it IS a word!

So take that, Mom!

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THEN THERE WAS THAT TIME I WAS A SERIAL KILLER

When I got to college, I chose as many writing and public speaking electives as I could, and as the aforementioned amatuer therapist I always felt I was, chose some psychology courses as well.

This brings us to John. I met John in the fourth grade, and our lives have intertwined across two states and countless cities since then. I'd say that our relationship deserves its own blog, but it would be more like a book. And you probably wouldn't want to read it.

(What you need to know about John is that he's a person that never reads...but he loves my blog!)

We decided to begin our college careers at Nassau Community College; my major was the generic-sounding 'liberal arts', while John was probably majoring in business. Somehow, we both ended up in the same class at one point, some type of psychology/ health hybrid. Whatever it was, it gave us the chance to sit in the back of the room, whisper disparaging remarks about the instructor, and oggle the cute girls that sat on either side of us.

One afternoon, the instructor gave us the assignment to anonymously write about something secret that we wanted to share, but would be afraid to admit to. This was a mistake on his part. You do NOT want to give me the opportunity to write something anonymously--not then, not now, not ever!

First of all, I was not about to divulge any personal secrets to a room full of college students whom I did not know (excepting John, of course.) Secondly, I was sure that the instructor would read the most 'interesting ones' aloud for the rest of the class to hear and comment on.

Challenge accepted!

I concocted a story 'admitting' that I was afraid I was an ax murderer. That I would fall asleep at night, then wake up to find a bloody ax next to my bed, or a body part in my room, and not recall any of it. At one point I even detailed how I found a severed 'human arm in my underwear drawer'. Now I didn't really want to scare this poor guy, so I figured that this sentence would be a dead giveaway that it was all just a joke. I mean, why would I go into detail about the limb being in my underwear drawer, if the whole thing wasn't a put on? I mean, how naive could this instructor be?

Ummmmm.....yeah, you guessed it.

I don't remember what this guy's area of expertise was, probably some type of health counselor. Keep in mind this was community college, where there were just a few actual professors. Most of the teaching was done by men and women who actually worked in the fields they taught--and trust me, the education was a lot better than I got when I transferred to a state school two years later. The instructors were all professionals in their field and could effectively pass that expertise on to their students. Wellll...except this guy.

When he looked up at the room clock towards the end of that class and announced in a quiet tone that he had one more paper to read and that it was very serious, I knew it was mine.

There he stood, in front of thirty or so students, carefully reading my paper aloud, ridiculous parts and all. When he got to the passage about the underwear drawer, some people even snickered. But most of the class remained silent as he continued. When he was finished, he put down my paper and went to the blackboard, where he wrote out a doctor's long name.

"This is a psychologist here on campus," he intoned carefully. "If the person who wrote this feels like they need to talk to a professional, they can call him at any time." He turned back and wrote the doctor's phone number on the blackboard; I leaned over to John and whispered "if I were an ax murderer, does he really think I would grab a pen and write down the number with everybody watching me? What a dope!"

At this point, one of the cute girls in front of me whom I had been eyeing all semester, saw me whispering to John and smirked. I quickly turned away.

It gets better: for the next class, this guy actually brought the psychiatrist WITH HIM, and together they explored the possibility of the class murderer owning up to his crimes and admitting who it was; they were careful not to be too offensive, always using that sugary delivery that frightened health professionals tend to employ. I remained silent.

John and I would drop subtle hints for the rest of the term, drawing little pictures of axes on different areas of our assignments, but he never caught on. Finally, at the end of the very last class, this frustrated instructor broke down and asked "OK, who was the ax murderer? Was it a joke?" I sheepishly raised my hand. (I might have added: "No, it wasn't a joke!" but I'm not sure I did. Wish I had though...)

The class broke up laughing as soon as I confessed and the instructor looked blatantly relieved.

And me? At that moment I believe I could have gotten the phone number of every girl in that class!

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MOVE OVER, TARANTINO

Life moves along quickly as we all know, and I continued to dabble in writing novels, short stories and articles, totally immersed in them all, finishing but a few. As mentioned, I did have articles published in various books and magazines, all of them sports-related, few of them paying actual money. I've probably had more letters to the editor printed in the New York Post and the Sporting News than anything else.

But radio and television careers took center stage as I had bills to pay, and it wasn't until I was at ABC forty years later, that the whole writing thing almost paid off.

Sometime in the mid-2010's (is that an official historical term yet?) the Walt Disney Company (ABC's owners, of course,) went through an employee-friendly period, when they felt it important to give their workers ('Cast Members' as they liked to say,) opportunities to be a part of the 'Disney Family.' They offered the chance for us to form committees working towards the good of each department and they made sure that everyone knew that 'their doors were always open'...Yeah, Kumbaya!

But one program they offered really stopped me in my tracks: they were proposing that any employee--sorry, Cast Member--could submit an idea for a company-wide project: a Disneyland or Disney World promotion if you worked at one of the theme parks; an internet launch if you were employed in the on-line platform; or, in the case of my area--entertainment--the opportunity to write a proposal for a new TV series, with the winner given the chance to have a pilot for his or her show produced for air on the ABC Television Network!

There were 'terms and conditions, of course. They promised that the winner would get on-screen credit for the show's 'Original Idea', but there were no guarantees that the pilot would actually ever get produced (subject to the network's scheduling.) Additionally, the show and all its correlated ideas would immediately become the property of the Disney Corporation; and my favorite: the winner would have no control over any changes made to their ideas or script.

This one bothered me greatly. As legendary newspaper man and historian John Reed used to say: "Don't re-write what I write!" My feelings exactly. In one of the departments I worked in at ABC, we would be assigned the job of writing a detailed network report of any problems that occurred on the air that day. I used to shy away from this job, but when it did fall to me, I would make sure that my wording, grammar, and use of language were all perfect.

And God forbid I should come in the next day and look over the report from the night before, to discover that someone had re-written part of it...and made a typo! Or multiple typos! Or worse, wrote a grammatically incorrect sentence over MY initials! I would throw an absolute fit, at times marching into my VP's office to explain that the poorly written report was not mine. (I don't think she really cared...)

So I was not all that thrilled with the concept of some Hollywood type re-working my idea or re-creating my main characters. But....to actually have a story idea turn into a network TV show--with an on-screen credit?

THIS could be the Zelig-of-all-Zelig moments!

I immediately flashed ahead a year, and pictured myself at the next ABC premiere party, decked out in tie and tails, clinking champagne glasses with Shonda Rhimes (wait, I really don't like Shonda Rhimes--J.J, Abrams?) toasting the success of our new hit shows. I immediately went to work...

I had started a novel about seven or eight years before. It centered around--yes, a private detective. But a quirky one. I won't go into details, as I might still finish it some day (yeah, right) but as most of my fictional work, the strength was in the main character and in the dialogue. Plot-wise, I tend to get kinda lost. However I had always been writing it with a film script in mind, and believed it would make a great TV series, so I worked up a two-page outline, as requested in the contest rules.

According to the company website, the next step was to sign up for an appointment with someone in the L.A. office, who would listen to your pitch over the telephone and decide whether your story was strong enough to move on to the next level. I made sure to make the appointment on a day that I knew would not be overly busy, so when the time came I went to my bosses' office and told him I would be on a private call and could he please make sure I was not disturbed for about twenty minutes, He agreed. (He later said he thought I was interviewing for a new job somewhere else. I probably should have said yes and asked for a raise--if he's reading this, it's the first time he'll learn the truth!)

When I softly shut my office door and called L.A. , I could tell immediately that the guy on the other end was younger than me. This annoyed me--nothing worse than having your creative work critiqued by some Hollywood kid! I ignored this fact and we pleasantly chatted for a minute before I launched into my pitch, reading my outline verbatim.

When I was done, there was silence on the other end. Then four words: 'it's a bit derivative' or, more bluntly, it wasn't original enough. "But," he continued, "you'll hear from us." I thanked him and hung up.

I shrugged, then sighed. Guess he wasn't as young and clueless as I thought he might be. As much as I didn't like it, 'a bit derivative' was sort of an insightful comment. I opened my office door and went back to work.

Imagine my utter shock when I got an email about a week later, stating that I had passed the first review and that my idea was being moved up to the next set of judges!

I'll never know how 'slightly derivative' turned into 'you made the first cut' but I was too ecstatic to ask questions. The next interview was set for about a week later, however I couldn't resist feeding my ego by writing the person who sent me the email to ask how many entries there were and how many made it through the first round.

I had memorized her answer, but I should of kept the email, 'cause I don't remember it now, exactly. I believe the ballpark figure was that they had about 150 show entries and that about fifteen of us had made it through! Was she saying that just to make me feel good? I didn't know, but it worked. I ran home to edit my outline into an even sharper presentation.

The next round was scheduled for my day off, so I set myself up in my computer room at home and (im)patiently awaited the assigned time. I was too nervous to even tell Mercedes about it, afraid I might jinx the whole thing.

Not sure if I've alluded to it before, but the day I got Bar Mitzvahed was by far the most stressful of my life. I will never forget that morning in the synagogue, looking over the roomful of relatives and friends, all eagerly awaiting my SINGING of an entire Torah chapter, and swearing on that alter that I would never be that nervous again. And I never was--as related, I have walked out on stage in front of 15,000 screaming rock fans and never batted an eye. Radio, TV shows, never rattled.

'Till now.

I called in as scheduled and was surprised/ dismayed that this time I seemed to be talking to a conference room full of what sounded like twenty-or-thirty-somethings, male and female, all of them chattering noisily, waiting for me to introduce myself on the conference phone. When I did, the chatter faded and I was told that everyone was listening and ready to hear my pitch. I was so nervous I almost couldn't talk, but I took a few deep breaths and started to read.

My outline included a few lines of dialogue and I could hear some laughter when I read them. My confidence grew. When I was done, one of the girls came on:

"That was good, Irv, but something about the way you read it made it sound even better!"

I had been told this many times before. I guess it was my years in radio, or the way I read dialogue, but it has been communicated to me that as fun as my writing is, the way I read aloud makes it sound like even more fun. It's probably the reason that some of you have told me that I should turn this blog into a podcast. OK, maybe...

Anyway, I thanked everyone and ran inside to tell Mercedes the whole story. I was still so nerve-wracked that I could hardly get the all the facts out. Would I make the next cut? How far could this go? We were both extremely excited.

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No, I did not create 'Will Trent' (wish I had, very good show.) I got a polite e-mail a few days later thanking me for my entry, but informing me that my idea was not chosen. I would not be sipping bubbly with ABC entertainment bigwigs, would not be at the next premiere party sharing writing tips with Quentin. I would continue to screen commercials and watch NBA playoff games for ABC. I did not ask who won and when the winners were posted, I didn't follow up to find out whether or not their show got produced.

But just getting thatclose, and feeling that I was pretty good at this, was enough to convince me that people really did enjoy my writing.

And so begat "Modern Day Zelig"....

Talk Thursday.

IG