Lee and Tod Goldberg Countdown: My Sister is NaNoing
Only four weeks until Lee and Tod Goldberg arrive in town at the Mystery Bookstore. As though in anticipation the city is only digging up Cherry Street directly in front of the store, rather than hither and yon as before. The purpose of the digging is twofold: to make a lot of noise ( we know that it’s fun to make noise) and two: divert traffic. If you read GM Ford’s Red Tide you’d be ready for traffic diversions of all kinds. Shakespeare did some of this with Burnham Wood coming to Dunsinane; all traffic, all the time.
My sister is writing her next book in thirty days. Terri has signed up for the National Novel Writing Month; she is not returning telephone calls nor wasting time fretting about the NFL. In sympathy I’ve developed writer’s block as a kind of balancing counterweight to this burst of productivity. Here are some valid excuses: “Manny Ramirez: will he stay or will he go?” Manny is owed fifty seven million dollars by the Bosox. No one owes me money, so I’m blocked.
Other concerns: Britney, of course, whither her career? The muddled and murky cesspool of intrigue surrounding Scooter and Judy. The sudden rise of interest rates just when Mr. President is weakened by scandal after scandal. The flattening yield curve is bad for writing, and then there’s the housing bubble. If only Maureen Dowd would write a column that explains all of this.