Attack of the killer cliches

Right after Thanksgiving weekend Richie, my friend from up the street, came over to watch Monday Night Football. It's been a great season so far. After another sensational second half comeback the day before, Peyton Manning and the Colts were still undefeated, and we wanted to see how the other undefeated team, the New Orleans Saints, would do against the New England Patriots in the Monday night spotlight. The Saints did just fine, and we knew they would give the Colts a fight if they happen to meet at the end of the season.

But at halftime it isn't the Saints that Richie wants to talk about.Instead he begins telling me about what happened that Saturday night when he and Noelle went out to dinner. I turn the TV sound down and settle back to listen to Richie's latest adventure.

"So there we were," Richie says, "munching on tortilla chips and salsa and waiting for our food, and Noelle starts telling me about the book she's reading, the latest in a long, long line of romance novels. We have an unspoken agreement. I listen to her talk about the romance stories and she listens to me talk about sports. Sometimes at the same time.

But Saturday night I let Noelle do most of the talking. She's so cute when she's in the middle of a romance novel and excited about what's going to happen to the heroine, and she asks me what I think is going to happen to the heroine, and I'm like 'I don't know, but maybe this or that, and she deserves a happy ending,' and Noelle is like 'Of course she deserves a happy ending.'

"And just then, in the middle of the happy ending discussion, this couple sits down at the table next to ours, just to the side. Noelle checks them out, without staring, and so do I. They look like young professionals, maybe in their late 20s. Well dressed, well groomed, and a little nervous. Noelle looks at me and mouths the words 'First date.' Noelle forgets all about her romance novel and we stop talking and eat our tortilla chips as quietly as possible so we can listen in on the conversation at the next table. It's a game we play. No shame.

"Part of the game is that Noelle takes out a pen and begins writing notes to me on napkins. Things like 'Does she like him?' and then 'He likes himself.' I don't write notes, I just nod and agree with Noelle, most of the time.

"All the tables in our section have tortilla chips, and there's a steady chorus of chomping going on, but the guy is loud enough that we can hear every word. He's doing most of the talking, mostly about his job, and the woman is leaning forward a bit and showing him she's a good listener. The guy's job is not too interesting, except to him, but she's hanging in there as he goes on about it. So far.

"The guy's talking about a problem at his officeand he says, 'It is what it is.' And then he begins telling her about another problem at the office and he goes, 'It is what it is.' The third time he says 'It is what it is,' I notice the woman leaning back, her brave smile disappearing. The fourth time he says 'It is what it is,' she cringes. Her hands, resting on the edge of the table, begin to tense up.

"Noelle writes on the napkin, 'Trouble.' I nod and reach for a tortilla chip. Then the guy does a surprising thing. He stops and asks her about her job. He lets her talk for about 20 seconds and then he interrupts with 'That reminds me of this problem we have at my office,' and he's off again. The guy pauses just for a second to grab a handful of chips, and the woman leans forward and says, 'Well, it is what it is.' The guy totally misses the sarcasm and continues his boring office story.

"Then we notice that the woman is writing on a napkin. We can't see what she's writing, but then she holds the napkin in her hand to read it and says to the guy, 'Is it, what is it?' The guy gives her a funny look and she repeats the question, 'Is it, what is it?' This time he ignores her and goes on talking about his office. Noelle writes the woman's words on her napkin, and then writes them in reverse order, so it reads 'It is what it is,' and below that Noelle writes, in big capital letters, 'BRILLIANT!'

"Our food arrives about then, and we kind of tune out the guy at the next table. Noelle writes again and shows me the napkin. 'First date and last date,' it says. I nod and smile at Noelle, who is so good at this listen-to-the-strangers game. I'm thinking the game is over and we can just enjoy our dinner. But I'm wrong.

"The guy at the next table appears to be winding down, running out of office problems to talk about, and he's summing up (thank God!). 'But you know,' he says to his date, 'at the end of the day ...' I look at Noelle. I know this is one of her pet peeves. She looks at me, with that devilish grin of hers. She writes quickly on the napkin, 'Here we go again.'

"Now every other sentence from the guy is beginning with 'at the end of the day.' I lose count, but somewhere between a painful half a dozen 'at-the-end-of-the-days' and an unbearable full dozen, the woman does an amazing and wonderful thing. She stands up, stares at her boring date, and says, loud enough for everyone in our section to hear, 'It gets dark! It gets dark!' The guy is like 'What? What are you talking about?

"The woman doesn't answer at first. She looks at her watch. Noelle told me later that the woman looked at her watch because she was deciding whether she had any more time to waste on this guy. So the woman takes a deep breath and tells the guy, slowly and enunciating each word so he will get it, finally, maybe, 'At the end of the day ... it gets dark!'

"Then she picks up her bag and walks away, straight to the front door, accompanied by applause from Noelle, and myself, and a bunch of other people who have been listening to all this. The guy has a kind of shocked look. Then he shakes his head and goes back to eating his dinner. He doesn't talk to himself, for which we are grateful."

"Good story," I tell Richie.

"It is what it is," Richie says. Then he ducks because I begin throwing popcorn at him.

What happens when a character takes over a novel?

So here's a situation for you. Imagine you're writing a novel and it's starting out all right. You've written only the first three chapters, so you're not bogged down in the middle yet. You have a character you call Charley Meyers narrating the story first person and he's easy.

But ... and it's a very large but ... there's this other supporting character, a 19-year-old rodeo queen wannabe with big blonde hair and a bigger personality, and she's just about bursting to take over the story. Do you stop her? Leave her on the sidelines in most of the chapters?

Not me. I surrendered fast. At the beginning of chapter 4 Donna Cooper not only jumps into the spotlight, she begins narrating. Hey, I'm not going to jump in front of a blonde stampede. I let her run with it. Charley still has a number of chapters that he narrates, but Donna becomes the driving force in the novel, and she pretty much narrates any chapters she wants to. That was just fine with me.

Here's the opening scene from chapter 4 of Chasing Cowboys, where Donna decides to tell her side of the story.

Chapter 4: Donna

"Anything you can do, I can do better ..."

You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, so I’ll tell you. My name is Donna Cooper and this whole writing thing started early on a Friday morning when I stopped by Celia Moon’s new coffee shop, the Stella by Starlight Bakery and Gourmet Coffee Emporium. I just call it Stella’s. That’s where I caught Charley Meyers writing in one of those little black composition books. He tried to hide it when he saw me, but I was too quick for him. I sat right down next to him and made him show it to me. Turns out he’d started writing about Cody West, the new guy at Parker’s, the one who’s really cute but not for me because I’m going with Darryl King and have my hands full at the moment.

“Oh look,” I said, “you’ve got me in the first chapter.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that part,” Charley said, but it was too late.

“Seems pretty accurate, I can’t complain.” I read some more. “Oh, here you are spying on Cody in the store. Did that really happen, when he met that Lacey person?”

“Every bit of it,” Charley said. “You were there, didn’t you notice?”

“Well, I wasn’t putting my nose in everybody else’s business. I did see her, but I was busy trying on hats and practicing my rodeo queen wave.”

“How’s that wave coming?”

“I’m almost there,” I said. “I’ll be ready for the pageant.”

“Good luck, I hope you win,” Charley said.

“Thanks, me too, but if I don’t I’ll just try again next year. It’s hard to win on the first try. But I want to win. But it’s hard. But I want to win so bad.” I looked through Charley’s writing book some more, then Celia brought me coffee and I asked her to surprise me with a pastry, something rich and sweet but not too fattening.

“The shop’s looking great,” I told her.

“Thanks,” Celia said. “How do you like the new sign?It cost a lot because the name’s so long.”

“Don’t change a thing,” Charley said.

Celia smiled. “Can’t afford to,” she said. Then she left to get the pastry. I went back to reading what Charley had written about Cody and Lacey.

“So,” I said, “what is this going to be, some kind of novel?”

“Yep, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, ever since college.”

“I thought you went to college on a rodeo scholarship,” I said.

“True, but I took a lot of English classes.”

“Well, why don’t you write about rodeo? You must have lots of good stories from all those years you were riding broncs.”

“Maybe I will,” Charley said. “I’ll tell you what, if you make rodeo queen maybe I’ll write a book just about you.”

“Would you?” I said. “Like a big photo album, only with words?”

“Sure, and you can add the pictures. There should be one with you smiling, and one with you waving.”

“Heck,” I said, “that’s only one picture. I can smile and wave at the same time.” Charley laughed. I could always make him laugh.

“So tell me, Charley Meyers, what are you going to name this novel, the Cody one?”

“Been thinking about that,” Charley said, scratching his chin. “I think I’ll call it Chasing Cowgirls.”

“Not bad. How about Chasing Cowboys instead?”

“Depends on who’s chasing who,” Charley said.

“Whom,” I corrected him.

“Say what?”

“Who’s chasing whom,” I said, slower this time.

“Thank you very much.” He said it in a sarcastic way, but he was only teasing. Then he said, “Who’s the writer here anyway, me or you?”

Well, that’s exactly the moment that I got this big idea to write a book myself. Not that I have a lot of free time, what with running for rodeo queen and taking classes at UNR and keeping Darryl happy when he’s not working at his dad’s hardware store.But I thought I could squeeze in a couple pages here and there in my busy schedule. I’ve always kept a journal, ever since high school when Mrs. James had us all keeping journals. My journal is mostly full of rodeo queen stuff you wouldn’t be interested in. I think writing a novel must be a whole lot different though, but I wanted to do it anyway, partly because I’m very competitive and I wanted to show Charley that I could do just as well, or better than him, if I really focused on it. Mrs. James was big on focusing. I’ve been focusing mostly on making rodeo queen lately, but it’s good to take on new challenges in life.

“Okay, Charley,” I said, “you go ahead and write your Chasing Cowgirls book. Just promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?” He looked a little worried.

“No big thing, just let me peek at it now and then.That’s all.”

“Sure, why not?” Charley appeared relieved. “You’ll be my first reader. You can correct all the grammar too.”

“Be glad to,” I said. “Hey, Charley, do you think Lacey has a boyfriend already?”

“I’d bet on it. Lacey’s a city girl, so she probably has a city boyfriend. Hard for a cowboy to compete, especially if he’s not a real cowboy.”

“Poor Cody,” I said, “going to all that trouble. I’d hate to see him get shot down.”

“Let’s just see what we can do,” Charley said.“Maybe Cody will have better luck than I’ve had.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for you, Charley Meyers,” I said, waving my index finger back and forth at him.“Don’t even try it. You told me you’ve known lots of women.”

“Well, there are different prizes in life. Some are better than others.”

“No, no, no,” I said, waving my finger again. “Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. You’ll give yourself more wrinkles. And you have enough already.”

That shut him up. When we finished our coffee and pastry I said goodbye to Celia and gave Charley a peck on the cheek. Then I got in my truck and drove straight to the nearest store that had composition books. I bought half a dozen, for a start. I figured it would take one or two just to catch up with Charley, and the rest to pass him in the book writing competition.

Romance in the checkout line: Jen ... Cosmo ... and are you drawn to drama

We’ve all been there. The other night it was my turn, again. Waiting in one of the giant Kapahulu Safeway’s hundred checkout lines. It’s an interesting place to read. You learn a lot about other people’s lives, and how life is not so wonderful after all for celebs, what with romance going bad, and Brad having to sleep on the couch and all.

So there I am in line. The shopper ahead of me is having a problem with a debit card, so I have time to listen to the tabloids screaming at me from their racks. I only read two headlines, however, because those two are just about perfect.

“Jennifer Anniston Wants a Baby NOW!” reads the first one, and then, right there on the cover of the tabloid next to it, I see a large photo of Jen with a nice little “bump” and the headline “Jennifer Pregnant at 40!” Fast work, Jen, and I’m thinking that maybe the next headline should read “Jennifer Anniston Wants World Peace NOW!”

My favorite checkout magazine is Cosmo. I have subscribed to this amazing publication three different times in the past ten years, strictly as research. Each article suggests a new character, or a new romantic complication, for my short stories.There’s no end to the romantic complications. Looking for a way to get your character into some romantic trouble? Cosmois there to help you.

When I decided to write a short story about a man who marries a Cosmo girl I didn’t need to invent any of the headlines that appear in the story. In the spirit of the Cosmotitles I called the story “Seven Ways to Tell If You Married a Cosmo Girl.” Here’s an excerpt from the story, which appeared in Bamboo Ridge’s issue #91.

This is way #3, which falls between way #2 (“The Reference Library”) and way #4 (“The Tests Must Be Passed Before Bedroom Secrets Can Be Demonstrated”):

#3: The Cosmo Tests Never End

On Lucy’s night stand, right next to the latest Cosmo, a pocket calculator waits at its post, ready to add up the results of the latest test, and the tests never end. One month it’s “What Kind of Sexy Are You?” (I already know the answer to that one: Lucy is dangerously sexy). The next month it might be “Do You Feel Sexy?” (and if she didn’t feel sexy when she started the test she’s guaranteed to feel sexy by the end of it).

Just last month the test was “Are You Drawn to Drama?” Now I have never thought of Lucy as a drama queen. That’s not her style. She gets enough drama from the two soaps she admits to watching. After taking the Cosmo drama test, however, Lucy must have been intrigued by some of the dramatic possibilities, behaviors she had never tried before. Like the articles that reveal the amazing bedroom secrets, of course, the tests encourage trying new things. So Lucy did. All I know is that the day after she took the drawn-to-drama test I came home to a suddenly more dramatic Lucy.

“Lucy, I’m home,” I called out.

“I’m in the kitchen, Ricky,” came the reply. The kitchen? Not the bedroom? Were we going to have dinner first, preceded by a sophisticated cocktail hour and intellectual conversation? Was my Lucy finally changing?

I strolled toward the kitchen, suave as James Bond, wishing I were wearing a tux, imagining an icy Margarita awaiting me in the kitchen (my drink, not 007’s), Lucy eager to tell me about how she had visited Barnes & Noble that morning and discovered that there were other magazines than Cosmo, and what did I think about this global warning thing, and showing me the real book she had actually bought, and starting to read it to me and … then I reached the kitchen and my fantasy burst.

“We need to talk,” Lucy said. Uh oh. Instead of a Margarita and a book, she was holding … the large kitchen knife? My first thought was that the knife had something to do with salad.But why was it pointed at my heart? I kept my distance, foregoing the usual homecoming kiss.

“Talk?” I said. I looked at her face for clues, then at the knife, then back to her face. Both looked serious. I glanced quickly at the counter. No signs of a salad.

“Yes, I found out something today. Something …” She looked at the ceiling. Was she searching for a word, or was there something wrong with the ceiling? It looked all right to me. No cracks. No leaks. Then she looked back at me.

“Something disturbing,” she finally said. She nodded slowly, waiting for me to react. I looked back up at the ceiling. I wanted to talk about home repair issues, make some silly remark like Tim Allen, but I don’t think the audience was looking for comedy. Instead I began to nod with her. I felt like a bobblehead.

“Disturbing?” I said, still nodding.

“Very,” Lucy said, chopping the air with the big knife. One quick chop. Vegetables and husbands kept their distance. Actually the veggies were better off than I was at the moment, safe in their cool bin in the Amana.

“What’s wrong, darling?” I asked. The concerned husband.Clueless as usual, but showing concern. The “darling” part was good to throw in at such moments, of course. I saved my “darlings” for special occasions, and this seemed like one of them.

Lucy moved closer. I backed up a step, but was stopped by the counter. She moved closer. She lowered the knife, away from my heart, but now it was pointed at a delicate spot, just below my belt. I began to feel less like James Bond and more like a zucchini. Still handsome, but green and vulnerable. Lucy leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I found out that someone ischeating.” Then she moved her face in front of mine, staring into my eyes, waiting for my response. I stole a quick look downward and saw the point of the knife no more than an inch from my fly.

Think fast, I told myself. Let’s review. Someone is cheating.That’s not good. Normally I try to agree with Lucy whenever I can, to keep things smooth and calm. But what now? Was I supposed to confess? I had nothing to confess. I wasn’t cheating. Maybe with my eyes, but don’t all guys do that?Okay, I flirted a little with Danielle at the office, but that was completely innocent. Cheating? Not me. Think, dammit, think! What would 007 do now?

“Well?” She was still waiting. Then she raised her eyebrows.“Ricky, you’re sweating.” It’s true. I was.

“It’s the knife,” I said. It was burning a hole in my pants.

She ignored me. A drop of sweat dripped off my chin and onto the knife blade. I thought about zucchini again, how it looks all sliced up and ready for the pan, its length no longer so proud, reduced to a supporting role in a meal that nobody will remember for long.

“Don’t you want to know who’s cheating?” Lucy said. When she said the words “who’s cheating” she got this deliciously wicked look, like one of her bedroom looks, although the bedroom, at this point, seemed miles away.

“Of course, darling,” I said. I was using up my “darlings” fast.Soon I would have to switch to “sweetheart.”

Lucy turned sideways, showing me her profile. She held up the knife and studied its edge. I thought of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. I was no longer James Bond; now I was Michael Douglas. Except that I was innocent, damn it! Lucy paused, then raised the knife. She had my full attention. Then she lowered it … onto the counter. She smiled, an evil little smile. I felt sweat stinging my eyes. I looked quickly around the kitchen to see what other weapons were available to my darling. Ice pick? Blender? Nutcracker?!

Lucy moved in closer now. “It’s Craig,” she said.

“What’s Craig?”

“Craig is the one who’s cheating. Keep up.”

“Oh, it’s Craig.” Phew. God help Craig. Was there a nutcracker in his future?

“Who’s Craig?” I said.

“The dreamy guy. I told you about him.”

“I don’t know any Craig. Who’s he cheating with?” I didn’t care what Craig did, or who he did it with, as long as he was the one in trouble and not me.

“Jennifer. Craig’s cheating with Jennifer. And Madison just found out.”

“Jennifer? Madison?” Who were these people?

“Ricky, don’t you listen to anything I say? I told you aboutMadison just last week. Well, today she found out about the cheating. And tomorrow she’s going to do something about it, but she ran out of time today.”

“Ran out of time?” The sweat was slowing down, but now my head was spinning. Lucy had placed it in the blender and pushed the slow speed button.

“Sure,” Lucy said. “They only get sixty minutes a day. She’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

“Oh,” I said. The blender stopped, mercifully, but my head felt grated. “One of your soaps then.”

“Of course, silly. What did you think I was talking about?” She didn’t wait for an answer. For the next half hour I listened to, and watched, Lucy’s dramatic retelling of Days of Our Hospital,or The Young and the Horny, or whatever it was. The ice pick and nutcracker stayed in the kitchen drawer. The zucchini lay peacefully in the fridge, in one piece, at least for now. The only ones who had to tremble now were Craig and Jennifer.Madison could do what she liked with those two cheaters. I was off the hook, although technically I had never been on it. I looked forward to the rest of the evening with my Lucy. Maybe we would have Margaritas before long. Isn’t that why God gave us the blenders?

HawaiiReaders.com, a new site for readers and writers

It's alive! The Honolulu Advertiser's new website, HawaiiReaders.com, is out of the laboratory today and walking about in the Internet world. The new site (http://www.hawaiireaders.com/) provides a great opportunity for Hawaii's readers and writers to interact.

In addition to news from local publishers, reviews, and an events calendar, the site has four writer's blogs, including mine, "A Little Romance." I will be posting on romance fiction every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I see this as a great opportunity to promote Hawaii's literature and Hawaii's writers, to explore the always intriguing world of romance fiction, and to interact with readers by way of the site's comments and discussion features.

My topics this week are "Anticipation" and, on Friday, "How much romance can you handle?" (featuring responses to that question from some members of the Aloha Chapter, Romance Writers of America).

In the coming weeks I plan to write on a wide range of topics, including:

1. Romantic vampires (is it socially acceptable to bite and drink on the first date? ... with a guide to the Twilight series from Cami Nihipali ... thank you, Cami!).

2. Romance in tough times (why does romance sell even more in hard economic times?)

3. Earning the happy ending (why do lovers have to go through hell to get to heaven?)

4. Read the book, see the movie (a look at a few classics: Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice)

5. Feeding the Romance (What makes a good romantic dinner? Do romantic characters stop to eat?)

6. Designing Woman (an interview with Stephanie Chang on book design)

7. Local romance in Lee Cataluna's Folks You Meet in Longs

8. Romance with an edge: The Breakup Queen

9. Judging romance by its covers (a visit to the the romance shelves at Bestsellers in downtown Honolulu)

This is just a taste. I invite your suggestions and urge your participation! Please leave comments on the blog and join in the discussions, and please start spreading the news to your friends. Check out the book events calendar. If you have something to add to the calendar please let me know.

Mahalo to the Honolulu Advertiser and the Hawaii Book Publishers Association for bringing this new creature to life!

is anticipation making you late?

You may be old enough to remember a 1980 commercial for Heinz ketchup that featured Carly Simon in the background singing "Anticipation." Someone held a ketchup bottle upside down and waited, and waited, and waited for the ketchup to ooze out. Message: Heinz is thick, and worth waiting for. You can find the commercial on YouTube. Just search on "Carly Simon ketchup."

Carly Simon's words include "Anticipation, anticipation, is making me late, is keeping me waiting." Making you late? Really? Come on, it's just ketchup. In the commercial anyway.

But what if we use ketchup not as a condiment but as a metaphor? Let's say ... oh, I don't know ... as a metaphor for love and romance. Now there's something that's better than thick ketchup on your fries, although romance is not always waiting for you conveniently in aisle 5 of your favorite supermarket.

Isn't that one of the great features of romance, the anticipation? Whether we're reading romantic fiction, or perhaps chasing romance in our lives (or being chased by it), there are all those delicious moments, hours, and days, when we anticipate the experience: wondering, waiting, finally meeting, wondering some more, flirting with romance until it either runs away or draws us in like a powerful magnet (shifting metaphors here, so hold the ketchup for a second).

We look at the ketchup in the bottle and anticipate its rich sweetness, the way it looks on the fries, the way it will taste on our tongue. If the fries are hot and the ketchup is cool, that's the best.

So which senses do fictional characters use in their romantic journeys? Which senses do we use in ours? All of them. First we see the object of our romantic anticipation ... unless we meet first on the phone, and then it's a voice and we hear. Later there is the first touch, perhaps a handshake (which can reveal so much), first scent (stock up on good soap, and use it often!), and first taste (maybe just a nibble on an earlobe, or a licking of a neck, or the taste of that first kiss on the lips that makes you forget all about ketchup and fries).

And before experiencing these sensations, before you know the sound of her voice or the taste of her lips, there is the anticipation of those sensations. We are creatures of imagination. Before the fireworks begin, the romance is born in our minds. Before the fictional characters light up the pages of a novel, the romance is born in the mind of the writer, and born again in the mind of the reader.

So bring on the fries. Bring on the ketchup. Bring on the romance. As the Heinz commercial reminds us, the taste is worth the wait.

low hanging fruit

"Low hanging fruit." Easier to pick. There for the taking. Why venture higher when there's good fruit you don't even need a ladder for, or maybe just a short ladder?

I hear that phrase now and then in different contexts, often from someone on the radio or TV. When they use the familiar phrase do they see the image in the metaphor? Do they see a tree with low hanging fruit, and perhaps someone picking?

When I hear "low hanging fruit," an image of a mango tree immediately flashes in my head. Not just any mango tree, although where I live in Kapahulu/Kaimuki, on the island of Oahu, there are beautiful, fantastic Hayden mango trees on every block. I see a mango tree that is no longer there. It's the large old mango tree that used to grace the front yard of a sturdy Japanese-American home built by the family patriarch and his brothers in the 1940s. I came to know the tree because I had met and quickly married the younger daughter.

After a couple of years on Maui, I moved with my homesick honey to Honolulu, where we found an apartment just a couple doors down from that family home, and the tree whose branches gave shade to the whole front yard. We had moved in January, so I enjoyed watching the fruit develop on the great mango tree. On into the spring I anticipated the day when the first red-yellow-green fruit would be ready to eat.

I already knew how ono the mango would be, sliced and juicy, often served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. What I didn't know was the whole process of mango picking. One warm Saturday morning my wife invited me to join in the first picking of the season. The older sister was there with her husband and their two kids. The grandparents presided over the ritual--Grandpa perched in the tree and Grandma standing at the command post on the front porch. Bamboo and aluminum poles awaited us, and a child's red wagon to hold the prizes.

The picking began. After standing innocently by as a spectator for a while, I was presented with the longest pole. I gazed into the heavens, trying to see what everyone was pointing at, and there they were, the high mangoes. Now all was made clear, revealed in an instant. My job was to reach the high mangoes. Had the family given the younger daughter (all 4'9" of her) the mission of finding a six-footer for this very day? I was too polite to ask, but I had my suspicions.

Several years later, when I set out to write my first short story to be set in Hawaii, I chose to tell the story of that experience, the mango picking, told from the first-person point of view of the unsuspecting Caucasian man who had married into the short Japanese-American family and then waited two years before moving from Maui to Oahu to fulfill his destiny as the picker of the high mangoes on that magnificent family tree. The result was "Mango Lessons," a story published later on by Bamboo Ridge Press.

Low hanging fruit? Don't talk to me about low hanging fruit. I believe we need to aspire to something higher. Something more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding. That ancient tree still lives in the pages of a book, in the words of a story that reminds me of the long strange trip I took in my life from Texas to Seattle to Maui, and ultimately to my island home on Oahu, where in my mind's eye I can still see the family gathered around the great tree, pointing to the large beauties waiting in the high branches. Someone else can take the low hanging fruit. Hand me the long bamboo pole.

yellow brick road

Apart from the everyday world that I walk around in, there's another world I enter when I'm writing a new story. It's like a dream world because it has elements of my everyday world, but transformed somewhere in my mind into something strange and new. How strange varies from story to story.

In this dreamlike world, I quite willingly suspend my disbelief, and trust that most readers will be willing to do the same. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner guy, was the one who came up with "willing suspension of disbelief" as a necessity in the dream world of storytelling. In return for entertainment—a good story—the reader agrees to accept some fantastic elements in the story.

The storyteller must do the same, plunging headlong into the dream world, believing the story as it unfolds, taking a path less travelled and unpredictable, if only to see what's around the next bend in the road. Like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, for us the most important step is the first. All the adventures await her, and she must follow that famous path if she is find her way home. The writer, and reader, take that first step on the opening page of a story. Adventures await us, and we know that 15 or 20 pages later, or maybe 400 pages later, we will find our way home to the story's end. The end of the dream, the return to our waking world.

So let's think of that first page of the story as a first step on a journey. Everyone talks and writes about an opening page as a hook, and it is in a way, but that word has always had a sneaky, aggressive connotation for me. I imagine a writer in a long black cape skulking behind an innocent bookshop customer who has picked up a book and is seconds away from feeling a cold, heavy hook around her neck. Her only escape from the sinister hook is to buy the book and leave the store, thus freeing the writer to stalk his next victim.

How much better would it be to imagine the writer standing next to the reader, no weapon in hand, just browsing the shelves, then pointing down the yellow brick road of his story and inviting the reader to join him on the journey?

So here I am, having just finished dreaming, and writing, a short story about a young woman in Honolulu who is totally ruled by her emotions. I call it "The Manic Monday of Orchid Lefleur." This is a working title, but I doubt I will change it. Here's the opening page of that story (please don't call it the hook). This is my invitation to the reader to take that first step on the yellow brick road of this new story, to see what scarecrows and tin men and cowardly lions are waiting to befriend Orchid, what witches and flying monkeys are just around the next bend to threaten her, what poppy fields may delay her jouney home, and what great and powerful wizards live at the end of that road to give us all a happy ending. And so, gentle reader, I give you . . . Orchid Lefleur.

Orchid Lefleur—her real name—awoke on a warm Monday morning in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On an island, that is. On Oahu, in fact, in the single bed with the amazing Technicolor dream quilt she had bought at the Aloha Stadium swap meet, the one that perfectly matched her colorful inner life, for Orchid was a young woman who was ruled, as they say, by her emotions.

And yet who could have foreseen that this particular Monday would bring all the rainbow colors to the surface, as if Roy G. Biv himself had climbed through the window into Orchid’s bedroom during the night and shone his red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet rainbow self on her like some blinding psychedelic spotlight? Who could have foreseen it?

Not Faith Lefleur, her mother, the sweet Japanese-American lady who had done such a splendid job of raising the older daughter but somehow failed miserably with Orchid.

Not Henri Lefleur, the blustery, hockey-mad French Canadian from Montreal who had met Faith at the University of Hawaii when they were undergraduates and were both immediately attracted because each was so exotic to the other.

Not Lilly Lefleur, the older sister, the refined daughter who had her emotions under tight control and was carving out quite a career for herself in finance, currently the teller with the most seniority at her American Savings Branch in Kaimuki. (Lilly—just a side note here—would have been named Guy Lefleur, after Henri’s favorite hockey star, had not her mother insisted on a more feminine name. Some might say that a young woman with the name Lilly Lefleur was destined to become a porn star, or at least dance around a pole on Keeaumoku Street, but they would be wrong.)

Not Brad Pitzer, Orchid’s lingering-but-not-for-long boyfriend, who knew all about her emotions, first hand. Some said that Brad did not resemble the better known Brad Pitt enough to be worth the emotional investment of a long-term relationship, an opinion Orchid was beginning to share.

Not Deena-Anne Tamashiro, Orchid’s best friend since high school who was interested in Brad and had agreed to take him off Orchid’s hands. Orchid had second thoughts, however, when she found Deena-Anne and Brad entangled on the sofa that Saturday night when she went over to see Deena-Anne and discuss when would be a good time to hand off Brad but it had already begun. The green monster took over Orchid’s head and she had stormed in and made a big scene and then stormed out, and wouldn’t pick up when Brad and Deena-Anne kept phoning her that night and all day Sunday.