Here to Cheer You Up - Cornelia Read

Cornelia Read went to kindergarten in New York, California, and Hawaii--all in the same year. She still wants to live in all three simultaneously, but currently finds herself in New Hampshire, which still comes as rather a surprise every morning. Her husband used to refer to her as "the lightning rod for entropy in the universe." She now refers to him as "my first husband."

Her third novel INVISIBLE BOY is due out from Hachette/Grand Central Publishing on March 30th. If there's anything else you would like to know, please check out her website at http://www.corneliaread.com

Here to Cheer You Up

By Cornelia Read

If you ever get to the point with writing where you feel that, as James Joyce once said, "writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives," here are some jokes to cheer you up:

A visitor to a certain college paused to admire the new Hemingway Hall that had been built on campus.

    "It's a pleasure to see a building named for Ernest Hemingway," he said.

    "Actually," said his guide, "it's named for Joshua Hemingway. No relation."

    The visitor was astonished. "Was Joshua Hemingway a writer, also?"

    "Yes, indeed," said his guide. "He wrote a check." 

Do you know the difference between God and an editor?

God doesn't think he's an editor.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"

She answered, "If I tell you, it will defeat the purpose." 

A writer died and was given the choice of going to heaven or hell.

She decided to check out her options before deciding. The writer descended into the fiery pits, where row upon row of writers were chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they typed, they were whipped with thorny lashes.

"This sucks," said the writer. "Let me see heaven now."

She ascended into heaven only to discover rows of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.

"Wait a minute," said the writer. "This is just as bad as hell!"

"Not quite," replied an unseen voice. "Up here you get published."

 Q. What's the difference between publishers and terrorists?

   A. You can negotiate with terrorists.

Once upon a time, a young boy professed his desire to become a great writer.

When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

Now he works for Microsoft.

How many science fiction writers does it take to change a light bulb?

Two, but it's actually the same person. He went back in time and met himself in the doorway and then climbed onto his alter-ego's shoulders so that they could reach the ceiling fixture. Then a major time paradox occurred and the entire room, light bulb, and both guys were blown out of existence. They continued to co-exist in a parallel universe, however.

How many publishers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Three. One to screw it in. Two to hold down the author.

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

One. But she has to stop when she's screwed it almost all the way in, then give it a surprising twist at the end.

How many blurb writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

"A VAST AND TEEMING HORDE STRETCHING FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA!!!!"

How many screenwriters does it take to change a light bulb?

Ten.

1st draft. Hero changes light bulb.

2nd draft. Villain changes light bulb.

3rd draft. Hero stops villain from changing light bulb. Villain falls to death.

4th draft. Lose the light bulb.

5th draft. Light bulb back in. Fluorescent instead of tungsten.

6th draft. Villain breaks bulb, uses it to kill hero's mentor.

7th draft. Fluorescent not working. Back to tungsten.

8th draft. Hero forces villain to eat light bulb.

9th draft. Hero laments loss of light bulb. Doesn't change it.

10th draft. Hero changes light bulb.

Q: How many copy editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: I can't tell whether you mean 'change a light bulb' or 'have sex in a light bulb.' Can we reword it to remove the ambiguity?

Q: How many editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Only one. But first they have to rewire the entire building.

Q: How many art directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Does it HAVE to be a light bulb?

 

Q: How many copy editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: The last time this question was asked, it involved art directors. Is the difference intentional? Should one or the other instance be changed? It seems inconsistent.

Q: How many marketing directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: It isn't too late to make this neon instead, is it?

Q: How many proofreaders does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Proofreaders aren't supposed to change light bulbs. They should just query them.

Q: How many booksellers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Only one, and they'll be glad to do it too, except no one shipped them any.

Three guys are sitting at a bar.

#1: "...Yeah, I make $75,000 a year after taxes."

#2: "What do you do for a living?"

#1: "I'm a stockbroker. How much do you make?

#2: "I should clear $60,000 this year."

#1: "What do you do?"

#2: "I'm an architect."

The third guy has been sitting there quietly, staring into his beer, when the others turn to him.

#2: "Hey, how much do you make per year?"

#3: "Gee... hmmm... I guess about $13,000."

#1: "Oh yeah? What kind of novels do you write?"

A male romance novelist was hiking in the mountains, and he came upon a shepherd who was tending a large herd of sheep that were grazing in the alpine meadow. The writer took a fancy to the sheep, and asked the shepherd: "If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I have one?"

The shepherd thought this was an odd request, but thought that there was little chance that the man would guess the exact number of sheep, so he said "Sure."

The writer guessed "You have 287 sheep," to the shepherd's astonishment, since this was exactly how many sheep he had.

The writer got excited and asked "Can I pick out my sheep now?" and the shepherd grudgingly gave his permission. The writer selected his sheep, bent over, and swung the sheep over his shoulders, to carry home with him.

The shepherd then asked "If I guess what your occupation is, can I have my sheep back?" The novelist was a

bit surprised by this, but figured that it was unlikely that the shepherd would be able to guess his occupation, and went along with the deal. The shepherd then guessed "You're a romance novelist, aren't you?"

The writer was very surprised and asked, "How did you know?"

The shepherd responded, "Put the dog down and we'll talk about it."

Q: How can you tell if a blonde writes mysteries?

A: She has a checkbook.

And speaking of Microsoft...

Got any more jokes? I could use a few....

********

Rhymes with "Duck"

Cornelia Read knows old-school WASP culture firsthand, having been born into the tenth (and last) generation of her mother's family to live on Oyster Bay's Centre Island. She was subsequently raised near Big Sur by divorced hippie-renegade parents. Her childhood mentors included Sufis, surfers, single moms, Black Panthers, Ansel Adams, draft dodgers, striking farmworkers, and Henry Miller's toughest ping-pong rival.

At fifteen, Read returned east, attending boarding school and college on full scholarship. While in New York, she did time as a debutante at the Junior Assemblies, worming her way back into the Social Register following her expulsion when a regrettable tantrum on the part of her mother's boyfriend's wife landed them all on "Page Six" of the New York Post.

Today, her Bostonian Great-Grandmother Fabyan's Society of Mayflower Descendants membership parchment is proudly displayed at the back of Read's tiny linen closet in Berkeley, California. She has twin daughters, the younger of whom has severe autism.

unny enough, here I am, down to the wire on completing my second book.

It is coming in large chunks, which I only hope are not written in Klingon. Or Portuguese. Either of which feel like a huge possibility.

I know whodunnit.

I know what happens at the end.

I know that there will be a helicopter blowing up, because my friend Sweeper Dave likes books in which helicopters blow up, so I promised him I would work one in.



(You may not think it sounds reasonable to blow up a helicopter in a book about a boarding school for disturbed kids in the bucolic Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Trust me, however, when I say that my working title, The Crazy School, is warranted when it comes to this place.)

But here is the one thing a number of people have asked me not to do in the second book:

swear.

The first person to comment on the swearing in book numero uno was Joan Fontaine, whom my mother met in a hardware store in Carmel, California, because Miss Fontaine has a taste for Belgian shoes—said shoes being the premier footwear fetish of my family.



Mom thought Miss Fontaine might be amused by my book, as Belgian shoes are in it. Miss Fontaine read an ARC of A Field of Darkness, but did not comment on the whole shoe thing. She basically said she thought the language in the book was appalling, which caused her not to enjoy the experience of reading it.

The flap copy on the hardcover starts out with the first three sentences of the book itself, which read as follows:

There are people who can be happy anywhere. I am not one of them.

When the house on the next street went up in flames for the second night in a row, I wondered again what the hell I was doing in Syracuse.

Only they took out the word “hell,” in the flap copy.

When I got to read over the flap copy, I put the word “hell” back in.


nlikely as this may sound, my very kind editor emailed to say that they couldn’t say “hell” in the flap copy, in case anyone who read the flap copy, in, say, a bookstore, would be offended.

Considering that one of the main characters is named “Ice [insert word- that-rhymes- with-‘runt’- but-does-not-start- with-the- letter-‘R’ here],” I wondered what would happen if people offended by the word “hell” ended up actually reading the book.

Here is what happens. They write reviews on Amazon which say things like:

“The foul language, which I think is supposed to be smart, sassy, and funny, is grossly overdone and gets in the way.”

Which is a sentiment that has been repeated on DorothyL. Repeatedly.

And I'm perfectly okay with that.

Seriously.

However I would like to state here, for the record, that the foul language in my first book is not supposed to be smart, sassy, or funny. It is just supposed to be foul.

And I would also like to state, for the record, that I respect the right of anyone not to swear.

Some of my best friends don’t swear. And I still even kind of like them, although admittedly they tend to be way less fun at parties than my friends who do swear, unless you get them really, really drunk.



I also fully understand that there are a lot of people in the world who dislike and eschew the use of profanity… people who say things like “shucky darn” when a Mack truck runs over their foot, or they get riddled with bullets, or find themselves being chased through the Amazon River Basin by a bunch of pissed-off Mensheviks who happen to be waving glittering machetes, or whatever.



I respect the hell out of those “shucky-darn” people, but to quote the second sentence of my first novel, “I am not one of them.”



I’m sorry, I love swearing. L-O-V-E. I-T. And I love hearing other people swear.

I think it’s funny. I think it adds spice to life. I think that sometimes, “shucky darn” just doesn’t express the sentiment that is yearning to escape from our heart of hearts, in the form of spoken language.

I love the part on the Woodstock Album where Country Joe MacDonald of Country Joe and the Fish yells “Gimme an F…” and the ginormous crowd yells “F!” and then Country Joe keeps going until he makes them all yell “K!” with equally resounding fervor. I am forty-three years old, and that still makes me laugh my butt off, although I’ve heard it several hundred times.

Perhaps this indicates a deep and abiding lack of mental balance on my part, but, hey, as I once said on DorothyL, chacun a son gutter.

As such, when my mom recently asked me whether I would tone down the swearing in my second novel, I laughed and said "[word-that- rhymes-with- “duck”-but-does-not-begin- with- the-letter-“D”] no.”

Especially since one of the central things about the book is that the school’s founder has prohibited everyone on campus from saying [word-that-rhymes-with-“duck”-but-does-not-begin-with- the-letter-“D”], ever. And requires that anyone who ignores this prohibition has to donate a dollar to the local Rape Crisis Fund, as he feels that [word-that-rhymes-with-“duck” -but-does-not-begin- with-the-letter-“D”] is inherently linked to violence against women.

oincidentally, this is based on an actual rule at an actual boarding school for disturbed kids in the bucolic Berkshires, in western Massachusetts.

An actual boarding school where I once worked, actually.

The students and teachers and administrators at that school were often required to donate dollars to that fund, though they were allowed to use any other swear word—in class and out, while jostling one another at the salad bar, say, or answering a question about Yalta in American history class—in fact, they could even say [word-that- rhymes-with- ‘runt’-but-does- not-start- with-the-letter-“R”], which just seems really, really stupid to me, but the founder-of-the-school guy was big on arbitrary prohibitions, which he considered “therapeutic.”

So, anyway, as a result, we couldn’t get ENOUGH of saying [word-that-rhymes-with-“duck”-but-does-not-begin-with-the- letter-“D”], in all possible combinations, declensions, and conjugations; as noun, verb, adjective, proper name, dangling participle, split infinitive, and even adverb—which takes some doing, the adverb thing—and, as such, it shows up rather often in the manuscript. It is on the first page. It was today applied to Freud and Jung and Werner Erhard (and his little dog too).



It will be uttered when the helicopter blows up, and it will probably be the last word at the very end, if I work it right.

It will probably not, however, appear in the flap copy.

So, if you are a person of the “shucky-darn” persuasion, let this be a warning to you… indeed a caveat, yea verily.

But if you are, on the other hand, a person who enjoys a good expletive, undeleted, this might be a book right up your alley. And all I can say, if so, is...

...gimme a














(originally posted with Naked Author Blogspot 6/13/06)