Truth: Memories of my breakfast with John Updike

Tortoise sees ...
Mort  Gerberg
Buy This at Allposters.com


It was about this time of year, twenty-two years ago, when I had breakfast with John Updike.  I was a freshman at Agnes Scott College, and he was visiting the campus.

There were a couple of public opportunities over a two day period to hear him read from his works and speak, and I enjoyed at least one of them.  But a Junior who was a fellow English Lit major encouraged me to show up for the early morning breakfast in the dining hall.  She said it might be a small group.  Any student could have joined, but few had expressed interest in getting up so early.

So I rolled out of bed, threw on a matching skirt and blouse (but no makeup) and headed over to the dining hall.  It was a bad hair day, but I felt sure John Updike wouldn't care.  I got my tray, looked around and sat down at a table in the middle.  I was a tad early.  Then he came, along with the Junior who had invited me, and maybe two or three other students.  Small, intimate group.  He sat down next to me, on my left.  I'm sitting next to John Updike and having breakfast, I thought.  He's talking to me.  I was a little starstruck.  In fact, I still have a hard time believing it.

John Updike was a very pleasant and affable gentleman, though.  His presence was not daunting or haughty, despite his enormous career and accolades.  He had a magnetic smile and wild, white, unruly eyebrows.  I mostly listened as he chatted with the other three or four students and entertained their questions.  But I did ask him one question.

In my 18-year-old exuberance and foolishness, I had begun writing a few stories which were more snapshots or scenes than stories, as I had no idea where they would go.  I had been told by more than one advisor that I needed to know how it was going to end before I started.  Phooey, I had said.  Let the story take a life of its own, I thought, and bend with the wind, or else it's all a mathematical equation.  This was the 18-year-old's know-it-all theory.

So I asked the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner himself.  "Do you always know how the novel is going to end before you begin?"

"Oh, yes," he answered me.  Then he told me that there were bound to be surprises and twists along the way.  He said he was open to things that would pop up and change here and there.  But he confirmed that he always had the end in sight before he even wrote the first word.

Then, and only then, did I believe that that is how it must be done.  This concept is so simple, so basic.  And yet, with my hard head, it took a world-renowned master to tell me before I believed it.  I could have asked him anything, and there are so many more complex things I would ask him, if I had that same opportunity today.  My question was so elementary, that it embarrasses me now.

An artist doesn't put the brush to his canvas without knowing what he will paint.  He doesn't just start dotting and swiping, hoping that it becomes something.  Nor can a writer craft a story without projecting what it will be at the end.

So I do bend with the wind, and sometimes my characters surprise me.  But I make sure my roots are firmly planted before I bend.  Posthumous gratitude to John Updike for sharing breakfast and wisdom with a whippersnapper like me.

Technological Upgrade for this Author

I am NOT, I repeat, NOT a computer nerd.  I have great respect for computer nerds, and despite the use of the sometimes-pejorative word "nerd," I am in complete awe of them.  I can turn a computer on, figure out how to post to my blog (obviously), update facebook, just barely manage to update my website, and stuff like that.  But when it comes to promoting myself as an author online, I am way out of the loop.

So when I see these other blogs with the RSS feed symbol (I don't even really know what that is), I feel very intimidated.  I know that being an author is 10% writing a book and 90% marketing.  Nowadays, that means internet marketing.  Sure, having a blog is important and helpful.  But the hundreds and hundreds of hits I have on my blog every month are not indicated in the fewer followers I actually have.  And I do wish I could set up one of those little buttons where people could share my blog posts on Facebook or Twitter, but that is so confusing to me.  I know I need help.  I am not afraid to ask for it.

So that's why I have enlisted the help of my publisher.  In the coming weeks, you will see some exciting new things for the technology portion of my writing career . . . and I will announce them right here.  Stay tuned!!

The Ballad of the Shirley T is here!!

It's finally here, y'all!  My book, The Ballad of the Shirley T and Other Stories, is available for purchase on iUniverse's online bookstore:  http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000489917/The-Ballad-of-the-Shirley-T-and-Other-Stories.aspx

It is also available on amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Perrin+Cothran+Conrad&x=12&y=18

And Barnes & Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Perrin-Cothran-Conrad?keyword=Perrin+Cothran+Conrad&store=book

It's a collection of short stories, some of which I wrote under the tutelage of the late Dr. Bo Ball at Agnes Scott, who was an award-winning author himself.  Others were written more recently.  A few have a definitive Charleston/Lowcountry flavor.

It makes a great Christmas present!  And if you're local, I will be pleased as punch to sign it for you.

Don't write a book unless you are very, very brave. (This one is serious, so don't read it if you need a laugh.)

It's an emotional process, getting a book published.  From start to finish, you are on a roller coaster.  Oh, the excitement when you begin to write!  But then you're like a raw nerve.  As you write, there are times when you feel like your heart is spilling out onto the paper (or the computer screen, as the case may be).  You become emotionally attached to the characters.  You're surprised when inspiration hits and the story takes a slightly different route from the one you planned.  You wait and wait while people proofread, and brace yourself for the ugly truth (which is never quite as ugly as you imagine).  An editor chops it up and tells you what you need to change (also never quite as bad as you imagine).  Then you wait expectantly for the release of your finished work.  You're elated!  But also nervous.  Will people like it?  Will people buy it?  Ultimately, you are surprised at some who buy it.  And you are surprised at some who don't.

It's a consuming process.  You have a story sitting on your brain.  You have to write and write and write until you get it out.  You wrestle with it.  You sweat and pray over it.  Then the editing and proofing takes longer than the actual writing.  Just when you think you are "finished," you realize that the publisher is going to take however long they take to get the book printed.  People ask you daily, "When is your book coming out?"

It's like having a child.  Simply carrying a child for 9 months isn't enough.  You eat well, get enough rest, try to do all the right things.  But even after the child is born, your job is not over.  It has just begun!  Now you must raise the child.  Same with a book.  Now you must raise your book, too, in the form of marketing.  This, like childrearing, is the hardest part.  Tom Petty had it wrong . . . the waiting is NOT the hardest part!  It's the marketing.

To be a writer, you have to be one of two things:  incredibly strong or somewhat sick in the head.  Maybe both.  You are going to experience rejection and pain.  And you have to know how to keep on keeping on.  Being a writer is not for the faint of heart.

So . . . in a few weeks, my new book will be ready to purchase, and I look forward to announcing it here!  Stay tuned.

Time Flies

Hey, everyone! Much has happened in the 6 months since I last posted. We are now (somewhat) settled into our beautiful new house. I have had 2 rounds of antibiotics and steroids for my mamma-jamma allergies. My son had a mystery virus with a really high fever (but is fine now). My brother-in-law moved to Charleston to take a new job here. My son also moved out of the crib and into the "big boy bed."

And, I have launched a new business! Please check out what I am doing here:
www.perrincothranconrad.com

Joining this century . . .

I have always been a little slower than my friends to plug into technology and high tech stuff. Just a couple of years ago, my best friend Marian and I were laughing about the word "blog" and wondering what a "blog" was exactly. Sounds funny - BLOG. It reminds me of the onomatopoeic word "BLOP," which brings me again to Marian and a story we made up about a Strawberry Shortcake-themed wedding gone awry with fruit melee and flying meringue. The story was inspired by a nervous Miss America contestant from somewhere like Oklahoma who told judges that she and her sister used to sing the Strawberry Shortcake song . . . which she then did, on national tv, finishing with a twangy "nee nur nee nur neeeeee." The sound that followed was frantic beeping . . . Marian and I were calling each other at the same time to say, "DID YOU SEE THAT? NEE NUR NEE NUR NEEEEE!"

So it has been a while in coming, I suppose, but the natural progression of my writing career has brought me here. Those of you who do not know will ask, "You SAY you are a writer, but I know you as ___________ (fill in the blank with lawyer, stay at home mom, Chip's wife, jewelry distributor, former travel agent, former secretary at Dixie Crystals, etc) I had some of my short stories published in the Agnes Scott newspaper when I was in college there. In my mid-twenties, I was also a columnist for South Carolina Homes and Gardens. Most recently, I have published a short book called A Quiet Cup of Tea, which was illustrated by my talented mother. See http://www.mosquitocreekpress.com/ I have been working on a novel this year, and am about halfway through. It's hard to find the time to write with a toddler boy in the house, but I do manage to write at least a couple of days per week. Hopefully, blogging will keep me in the habit of composing!