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Tyler on the Move
Tyler Oaks on the Move: The "M" Word
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I was sitting at my booth at the Sonoma County Book Festival when a woman approached to ask about my book, Ruby Rest. I said it was a mystery and she asked if it really had any murder. She apparently liked the cover, but after reading the subscript, she began to back away while looking me in the eye. She appeared startled and informed me that murder was evil and that she was, in fact, against murder. I told her I was as well, but she was seemingly frightened enough to continue backing away until she had safely escaped my presence. Her last words expressed her fear and I was left sitting there made to feel like a threat to peaceful mankind; a woman with murderous intentions wrapped up in novel form.
The anti-murder woman had the same reaction to Left Coast Crime at my neighboring booth. After reading the words “Aloha Murder,” she was obviously shaken up and I can still remember her wide eyes. Although her actions and admonitions to me that day in Santa Rosa were extreme, there have been a number of times over the past year that I have been treated with contempt for writing a mystery which contains murder in the plotline. In more than one bookstore I have been chastised, as if I had written a book on how to murder innocent human beings and was then sitting there with a smile trying to sell it to unsuspecting future victims. At least the people who really know me are not concerned for their safety. Whenever a stranger eyes me warily and rebukes me for defiling the sanctity of human life I always smile inwardly, if not outwardly, and take care not to make any sudden movements.
Do we really believe writers advocate every action of every character of their creation? This would be preposterous, yet writers are often treated as guilty of the words they have written. Scientists study disease not to become infected by it but to discover cures against it. Writers do not debase themselves by studying human nature but teach mankind about himself through their observations. Though murder itself is corrupting, its use in a plotline may be empowering once we understand the author’s purpose. We must always remember to read with our brains on and not label things good and bad without even grasping what they mean or how they are used. To censor something without understanding its content or intention is to lose our power of thought and give ourselves over to superstition and fear. Not talking about things, the “M” word included, doesn’t make them go away. It only makes us less able to deal with them because our eyes are closed.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Pomegranates - The Writer’s Crown
It’s early in the morning and I’m outside zipping up my jacket. Even though the afternoon will be sunny and warm, the days seem to be starting out cooler and cooler. I stop to stare up at the hot air balloon floating over my backyard. It’s so close I can see the people inside. While I was still warm in my bed they were drifting over the vineyards; the leaves on the verge of changing color as dark, ripe grapes hang heavy on the vines. I pick a fig off the tree by my shed and split open its purple skin, smiling at the red flesh before devouring it. As I walk downtown I notice pomegranates are beginning to blush. Change is in motion and it’s officially fall.
When we are taught Greek mythology, we learn that without the pomegranate we wouldn’t have seasons. Persephone is abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld. Even though Persephone knows that if she eats or drinks anything in the underworld she will never escape, Hades tricks her into eating a few pomegranate seeds. Persephone is doomed by the berries and her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, mourns her daughter’s absence. The earth becomes desolate. Zeus must intervene. A bargain is struck. Each year Persephone is forced to spend a month in the underworld for each of the pomegranate seeds she ate. Demeter annually mourns her daughter’s absence during those lonely months causing plants to hibernate and die. Persephone must be down below now because I can feel the cold days coming ahead.
For the writer, the cold is nothing to dread. Although it’s hard not to mourn the loss of those sunny days in the hammock or at the beach, as the pomegranates ripen into heavy ruby red orbs there is a hidden abundance of juicy arils inside. We remember Pietro Aretino’s dictum, “Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” As the landscape loses its lushness and we’re left with stark forms in the landscape, we will either be inspired by what was hidden during the overgrowth or we will dress the trees with our own imaginations. When it’s cold, our minds alight. We feel more than the cold.
Even physically I like to touch things when I write, feel their texture, study the nuances in color as I turn them around in my hands. Smooth, dense pomegranates are a favorite and I’ll soon be planting my own tree to be reminded of the nature of the seasons every time I’m out back. For now, I have my diverse and colorful hand-made ceramic pomegranates I’ve collected from Israeli artists over the years to inspire me. It’s said that King Solomon’s crown was fashioned after the crown of the pomegranate. Let’s let the cool months ahead be the writer’s crown as well. As you trade in your bathing suit for a blanket, allow your mind to be set ablaze in spite of the diminishing warmth of the sun. It’s nearly time to break open the deceivingly smooth outer layer to reveal the juicy red arils within.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Sheep as Nouns, Rams as Verbs
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There are certain fountains that I cannot resist running my fingers under. It’s as though the water is magnetic, and I have to feel it in order to experience the place. Each time I make my way up the steps to the eighteenth-century style chateau at Domaine Carneros, I stop when I see the ram heads. I always reach out to allow one of the two rams to spit a clear stream of water into my hand. It doesn’t matter that on this last visit, I was soaked by a three-year-old whose parents were out of view on the terrace drinking sparkling wine. Even the laughing child could not distract me from the water dripping from my fingertips and the dark rams.
As children, sheep are one of the first animals we sing about. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” run through our heads as we swing at the playground or construct towers of blocks on the living room floor. Sheep seem to be everywhere during those years in the nursery. Little Bo Peep lost hers, and you never could be too sure a wolf wasn’t hiding under all that fluffy fleece. Somewhere along the way, we’re told to count sheep to fall asleep at night when otherwise sheep would probably never come to mind as our heads hit the pillow. Later we become black sheep at times, and sheep take on a negative connotation.
Wherever we are along the way, sheep are never presented to us as brilliant. Cute, useful, idyllic even, but never as terribly bright or exciting. If we think back to Sunday school or even to George Orwell’s Animal Farm we know that sheep will follow each other in circles and are perfectly content to be, well, sheep needing to be led to be saved from nothingness or pure defenselessness. Somehow rams are different. Their very name is a verb, and a strong one as it forms on our lips. The mere mention of a ram and horns suddenly come to mind, not prey animals.
The ram is a symbol of several gods, including Khnum, the Egyptian creator god. Throughout mythology and both ancient and modern religions, the ram is a picture of strength, drive, energy and power. From the Phoenicians to the Babylonians and to the Greeks, the ram head symbolizes authority. In the Old Testament, it was a ram that was sacrificed instead of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Today, a ram’s horn is often made into the shofar. The ram not only creates but redeems.
Back at the fountain, the puddle of water in my hand represents another force symbolized by the ram. Carneros is Spanish for ram, the region of Napa and Sonoma that was once the pasture for General Mariano Vallejo’s flocks. The golden hills are now prime vineyards of pinot noir and chardonnay, but the rams are still here and they’re not going anywhere. My dress is soaked with their spit as I continue my way up the steps to the chateau. I can’t help continue to contemplate the relationship of rams to sparkling wine, whispering the verb as I feel the bubbles on my palate.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: A Wall of Inspiration - Cookbooks
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Recently I was at Copia, the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, to attend the opening of an Ira Yeager exhibition. After the reception, I found myself downstairs in the shop, starting at the long wall of cookbooks. I contemplated the beautiful photographs on the covers, the section dedicated to Julia Child, the local foods wheel, book after colorful book filled with meals I then imagined myself cooking. I knew I was in over my head but I couldn’t help ogle a bit, flipping through pages of bouchons au chocolat, fried zucchini blossoms, and garlic sausage in brioche. Cookbooks can be as captivating as novels, an inspiration to the cook in us all.
I suppose it was because I got married so young but when we were newlyweds several women gave me the same advice on the marriage front. More than once when my husband and I went out somewhere a long married woman would begin to talk and pat her husband’s stomach. She would then tell me the same thing: the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. I always glanced at the man’s stomach and then looked away quickly, happy that Joshua and I jogged together and could only spend forty dollars a week on groceries anyway.
Still, the wall of cookbooks at Copia reminded me of that secret dream, the dream of being called a good cook. While yes, I have the basics down, a repertoire of dishes I make well enough not to be shy about I’m still waiting for that breakout moment. It’s the moment where a big group of us is at the table and someone looks up into my eyes and says, “Wow! This is incredible. Now I can die happy.” You know, it could even be a child with a discerning palate; that would completely count.
Back at Copia, my favorite cookbooks are those of local restaurants, favorite to look at that is on that wall of inspiration. With the Napa Valley so abundant in good food, it’s hard not to be spoiled. Looking at the photographs of dishes at The French Laundry, Tra Vigne, and Mustards I’m happily reminded we’re more than just spoiled. Amazing food abounds, and buying local produce doesn’t make it too hard to make dinner taste good. Back at home as I flip through my copy of Thomas Keller’s Bouchon I finally admit to myself that I have no intention of making anything out of it any time soon. I’m really only trying to figure out what I’ll order next time we go Bouchon, and hopefully that will be very soon.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Getting Lost on Purpose
I get lost all the time. Sometimes my head is far away and I miss turns, sometimes I get in the car without remembering to take directions and sometimes the directions I do take don’t make a whole lot of sense anyway. Getting lost is something that happens to me so often that I’m learning to let go and just accept it. In fact, last week I decided to get lost on purpose.
Even with long walks and spontaneous escapes outside, alone time is hard for me to come by. I prize the rare moments in this universe that I can sit and stare and not have my thoughts interrupted. That’s why sometimes I need to just get lost, and do. I don’t see how I could ever write if I didn’t just disappear every once in a while.
Last week it was for four days: just me, my car and the state of California. Driving from Northern to Southern California was something I hated as a kid (Disneyland aside,) but can’t get enough of as an adult. There is something about an all day or all night drive alone that frees my mind. Four hours into my seven and a half hour trip, I looked at the clock and realized how happy I was. It had taken that long for me to clear my mind of my daily life and finally have the freedom to think by myself for myself, and beyond.
As a rule, what I write when I get lost on purpose is only for me to read. Still, when my mind is freed from everyone and everything else, I find the strength to write as I should when I return home. Maybe my recent trip was essentially about searching out some questions for myself, being at the beach and not having any plans except those that I made for myself at the last minute. What I never expected is how well I would get to know a troublesome character I had been working on before I went away. Although she had tortured me at home, four days into my trip I realized I had everything I needed to know about her. All that was left was to get it down on paper.
Some people are scared to be alone, but as writers we know that being alone is not lonely. Getting lost is a way to be free; to think without the influence of those around us, both those who adore or hate us. Yes, strangers we meet along the way add their own thoughts into our mix. But the beauty is that there is time to think through anyone or anything we allow into our lost time. And of course, there is always that unparalleled seven and a half hour drive home to get everything else all figured out.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Sharing Books
There is a scene I’ve always loved in the 2005 movie “Walk the Line.” It’s when June Carter gives Johnny Cash the book she’s just finished reading. She doesn’t want it back because she doesn’t keep books; she shares them. I like the give-it-away outlook; the idea that in sharing a book, it will enter someone else’s thoughts after it has left your hands. Even though I have a tendency to keep my books, wanting them on my shelves to go back to, I want to be more like June in that scene. Lately I’ve been trying to share what I’ve read with the people around me, whether I think they will connect with the story or not. When two people are willing to read the same text, they share a bond that years cannot take away because the story remains the same, even after our perspective changes and we end up seeing the story differently.
When I was a junior in high school, a friend gave me a copy of E.M. Forster’s “A Room with a View” to borrow. Because our classes kept us more than busy with required reading and studying, I wasn’t doing much outside reading. My friend saved me by introducing me to a book that I didn’t have to analyze or write a paper on. I loved the story, and it quickly became one of my favorites. “A Room with a View” even helped one of my teenage birthdays become very funny. I chose for everyone to watch the movie version and shocked the room with the scene of three naked men running around a swimming hole together. “How d’ye do? Come and have a bathe,” aside, I recently reconnected with that high school friend who lent me the book after all these years. One of the first things we recollected about each other was “A Room with a View.” What we read together as human beings influences us, inspires us and connects us even when the years change us.
My neighbor recently let me borrow a stack of books to take on a trip with me. I didn’t end up getting to read as much as I had anticipated, but one of his books wrapped itself around my travels. I ended up talking about Masaru Emoto’s “The Hidden Messages in Water” with almost everyone I met. The photos were fascinating to show to people, especially the people that looked at me like I was crazy, or worse, who wouldn’t discuss the book at all. Discovering people who are willing to talk about books we may or may not believe in is worth the occasional glance from people that can make you wonder if yes, you are in fact crazy.
Becoming more like June Carter is easy if you let it be. Yes, it’s hard to bring up an interesting subject your reading about or a story that intruiges you, only to be stared at strangely in silence. But for the people who look up at you with eyes that actually get it, opening up about books becomes worth the risk. Almost every book I’ve been given is one I never would have chosen for myself. That’s what I love about sharing. That’s why I’m working on the June thing and loving it.
View Tyler's BookExpo America 2008 Author Interview
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Castle Life
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine
Once, at the ripe young age of eighteen, I went away to work and live in a castle in Austria. I planned to stay a year, but my boyfriend proposed two days before I left. Always one to listen solely to my heart I left Austria only after a few short summer months. Even still, the mountains, lakes and twisted trails had their way with me in the few short months I was there. How could sleeping in the same barracks that the Nazi soldiers once lived in not fuel my imagination? How could I not wake up at sunrise before work to jog along the lake alone or walk through the village in the evening writing poetry in my head?
The closest castle to me now is Castello di Amorosa in the Napa Valley. Sure it’s a winery and it’s not old, but it’s built authentically and even has a genuine torture chamber with a used (!) iron maiden. I like to visit not just for the wine, but because seeing the rough hewn stones of the courtyard and turrets takes me back to other castles I have experienced. From the ruins of Nimrod’s Castle in Israel to the beauty of Warwick’s Castle in England, there is something about walking along walls that speak. From a soiled oubliette to a grand banquet hall, castles breathe the stories of former times into my ears. I walk along in silence, listening only to what the tour guide doesn’t say. If there are ghosts there, I’ve heard them.
Listening to stories both told and untold always inspires me to write, though I never write exactly what I hear and the settings always change. Although I enjoy period pieces I prefer to relate the past to the present; to write characters that breathe now but are connected to those who don’t. Since I’ll never be a princess, and hopefully not a maid, I probably will never live in a castle again. Still, the experience will always be with me, the memories of sitting up in the tower alone to look out over the lake or walking up the mountainside to discover a meadow of wildflowers. It somehow feels right to know that my own story, no matter how minor, will always be mixed in with all the others in the castle both past and present.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Who’s Intellectual?
A few months ago, a friend drove me to a book signing I was doing in her town. After she had fixed her hair in the rearview mirror and applied her lipstick, she pulled glasses out of her purse and put them on. I was surprised.
“I never knew you wore glasses,” I told her.
“I don’t,” she said. “I just want to look smart at the book signing. How do I look? I’m going for that Michelle Pfeiffer with glasses, sexy-smart look.”
I laughed. Then I started thinking about all the bookstores I wished I had worn glasses to over the past several months. Would it have made a difference? Once last fall, I was in a well-loved independent bookstore in the Bay Area. Since it was right before the release of my first novel, I told the owner about my book at the cash register. He looked me over and said I had a lot of nerve to come into his store and talk about my book. He then gestured rather intensely to the book display of a Pulitzer Prize winning author that would be doing a signing the following week. The bookstore owner informed me that I needed to honestly ask myself if I really deserved to be in the same store as people like the other author.
With all obvious respect to Pulitzer Prize winner, what alarmed me more than anything was that the bookstore owner had judged me, my book and my future career without reading one page of my writing. How is that intellectual? Read first, talk later. When we walk into bookstores, how safe are we from intellectual snobbery, or pseudo-intellectual snobbery as I call it? Unfortunately, sometimes not very. Are only books published by Random House even worthy of being opened? If so, then as readers we’ve been reduced to labels instead of design; names instead of substance. Buying a dress for the label instead of the fit is no shallower, image conscious or materialistic than buying books because we are told that those are the good ones.
Northern California is full of bookstores that I love, and I can attest that what finds its way on the shelves isn’t as narrow-minded as the selections as the aforementioned bookstore owner. When I was on my book tour, I did discover places where people were real and wanted to talk about books, letters and ideas. In college towns like Davis or places like the Gaslamp in San Diego, people were more comfortable thinking for themselves, discussing literature in their own terms, sharing ideas that were their own and not necessarily mainstream or, the more serious sin, marketable.
Lately, the irony of superior intellectualism and the glasses-wearing image stuck to it has struck me. Because I was always bookish, a studious girl and woman, I always considered myself to be wearing glasses even though I wasn’t. I forever wished I could play one of those scenes where the quiet woman in the library lets down her hair, takes off her glasses, looks across the table and suddenly is the sexiest thing on the planet. Fun, but honestly, do we really need to wear glasses to be considered smart anymore? Apparently to some people, but I don’t think so. Still, maybe just this fall, I will try those tortoise shell readers I saw at Urban Outfitters.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Books on Screen
The maxim is to never judge a book by its movie. Readers’ opinions tend to be strong when they watch favorite books play out on screen. Even when it’s Hitchcock, Manderley just isn’t Manderley. When we read books, we first meet the characters and are inducted into their worlds, even allowed inside their minds. The reader vanishes and we become part of another life. We’ve really lived at Wuthering Heights, and when Catherine haunted Heathcliff she haunted us as well. Books provide an insider’s perspective. The audience isn’t made up of spectators but active participants in the story. Readers create their own film version of books in their heads and are entirely present as the story unfolds. Anyone else’s vision on screen can be seen as competition, good or bad.
On the flip side, movies allow readers to visualize aspects of books that are foreign to them, especially with period pieces or stories set in less familiar places. The screen version of a book adds the powerful sense of sight to give the viewer a clear understanding of what the setting is like or what people really wear; everything is a visual backdrop of the characters’ everyday worlds. How can Mr. Darcy not look like Colin Firth? Sound plays this role as well. Before watching “The Lord of the Rings,” I never imagined what a wraith sounded like. Even though there is a gap between what is playing out on screen and the spectator in his seat, devices such as narration allow private thoughts to be revealed, the character’s head read aloud, I had a farm in Africa. And of course, nothing beats good acting and portraying a character for who she is, especially when a look alone reveals the character and her intentions to the core. The British do it best.
Truthfully, I’m fully guilty of loving both books and film so I recently asked friends in both industries which books make the best movies. The reality of the transition is that less than one percent of books even get optioned for film. Even after that, it’s safe to say that less than one percent of those books ever make it onto the screen. Books that are action-driven make for better screenplays, and that doesn’t necessarily mean bullets flying. It can mean following the wanderings of Alice in Wonderland. Movie makers do need to be able to play visually, much the same way writers play with language. Books that are inherently visual make screenplays much easier to write and the transition from book to movie much smoother. If while reading a book a reader is able to see, taste, touch and hear everything as it happens, then the story is already that much closer to film in its original state. Think “Babette’s Feast.”
Different arts call for different modes of expression. It’s inevitable that books must change in order to be expressed through film. The screen version of stories can be quite different than what the author intended, and authors take this in different ways. Alan Moore publicly disassociated himself from “V for Vendetta” when the film version of the comic book series he co-created was released. Other stories such as “No Country for Old Men” change very little from book to movie. Large portions in the dialogue of Cormac McCarthy’s novel remain line for line on screen. No matter what the author’s take, successful at the box office or not, loved by critics or hated by the public, the simple truth is that movies are great for book sales. There is no argument against the fact that a movie, good or bad, offers incomparable publicity for the story in its original form.
Yes, purists love books in their original form more than their movies, and I suppose I agree with them most of the time. Because the attention of movie goers is short, movie makers are forced to tell a story in less than two hours, no matter how compelling the plot. While my vote is for reading and imagination first (since I like the movies in my head best,) films are inspirational in their own right because of their individual artistic expression, think “Casablanca” and “Room with a View.” Besides, it does work both ways; movies influence authors and thus their writing. Admittedly, my life and pen wouldn’t be the same without that Hitchcock obsession early on.
Tyler Oaks on the Move: Writing on the Road
“Experience, travel – these are education in themselves.” - Euripides
Airports, taxis, hotels, no quiet, too much quiet: Writing while traveling is nothing like home. When we write in the towns we live in we have our own unique rituals. We find the hours, places and environments that suit our lifestyles and stick with what is most productive. Writing on the road, whether on a book tour or on a trip to the other side of the planet, mixes everything up. Without a doubt, travel is both necessary and inspiring. That said, it does take skill and an open mind to work a story far from home.
Every writer does it differently. When I travel I never take my laptop; just a small notebook. I jot down impressions and ideas, swirling them around the pages in a way I can’t on the computer. While exploring new terrain or sitting on a train I’m less concerned with typing narrations than watching and using my senses. I record thoughts the characters have as I walk through neighborhoods or eat downtown. Scenes play out in front of me, and I’m aware how my characters would react. Locations become real; experiences, first-hand. Even without a computer nothing will be lost because I’ve walked through the story and place in the flesh.
I’ve heard several writers talk about writing scenes set in cities they have never been to. They admit to using the satellite feature on Google maps. Although technology can take you down to street level, looking through a screen can never substitute for living a place in real life. I get lost often enough to love map programs, but even 360 degree vision is deceptive. The view is silent; there is no sense of smell or touch. To write a believable story, the location has to be tasted firsthand, even if only for a night. If the characters are new to a place, then the writer’s first impressions are even more valuable. Longer and multiple visits are definitely necessary if any great portion of a story is going to be set in a location where the author is unfamiliar.
Where to write on the road varies as much as a writer’s style. I personally haven’t mastered the art of writing well in public, whether on plane or at a busy café, which just so happens to be where I’m writing this column. I get up too much. I walk over to study a leaf or run my fingers along the rim of my glass. That is why notebooks work so well on the road. I can sketch, write down a single word while I’m in line or record a conversation in scribbles only I understand. Everything I write or draw can be used later when I’m back at home with my laptop. To me, traveling is all about random thoughts that can be strung together later. I would miss everything valuable on the road if I were overly concerned with structure.
I realize that this completely clear-headed method of writing will disagree with this column, but writing on the road means being led as much as it means leading. Stories change along with the people in them. A long, grueling trip becomes worth the aggravation it brings if only for the quick idea jotted down on the napkin. As I was waiting for a friend to join me for dinner recently, I found myself seated alone next to a fish tank. An excessively large orange fish stared at me through the glass. I stared back for a long time. Her scales, her eyes, the lonely way she moved; the fish revealed to me more about a story I’m working on than any measure of forced thought. I took out my notebook, jotted down a few words, and smiled at the fish. That couldn’t have happened at home.
