Didn’t I Already Write This?

If you read my last blog, you know that I recently traveled to Italy to do some research for my WIP. I love doing research like this. My husband and I ran all around Rome, Venice and Cortona plotting out scenes from the manuscript. We scouted the streets the characters would walk down, the places for romantic encounters, and the location of the dramatic conclusion. I mapped it all out. I had to. I only had 10 days to answer any potential questions that might come up.

Problem is that I had only written about 60% of the book before my trip. So in order to make the most of my travels, I had to create an outline for the first time in my writing career. This means I now know if the characters will fall in love. I know if the protagonist achieves her goal. I know all the twists and turns. In other words, I know everything.

This sucks.

Usually I write organically. I sit down with a vague idea of a character, an initiating incident and a climax. Then I fill in the rest as I go along. It just sort of pours out. Then about 75% of the way through, I’m usually positive that book is total crap so I spend a few days thinking about “what’s missing.” I wait for the brilliant idea, then “Eureka!” I add it in and charge toward the ending.

This whole process is completely different.

I feel like I’ve written the book already. But I still have about 30,000 words to go. You’d think the fact that I’ve already written it in my head would allow me to put it down on paper faster, but it’s sort of like watching a movie when someone’s already spoiled the ending. The element of surprise is gone.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my WIP. It’s my favorite project so far. I’ve put tons of time into the research, which I never did with my previous books. I mulled it over in my brain for almost a year before I got started. I’ve been talking to my agent about it endlessly. I think it may be my one GREAT idea.

Now if I could just finish writing the damn thing…

POP-CULTURE RANT: Saturday Night Live

“Where am I? Oh, yeah. I’m at Brett’s house.”

So I was on vacation and I’ve just gotten around to watching the last two SNLs on DVR (which is one of the most important inventions of my lifetime). They were the episodes with Shia LaBeouf and Steve Carell. Now, nothing against Shia (the guy from the Transformers movie if you’ve never heard of him), but I didn’t have high hopes for his episode. So when it sucked, and it sucked BIG time, it didn’t phase me. But Steve Carell? He’s funny. Really, really funny. And his episode utterly and completely blew. In fact the only funny episode this whole season was Tina Fey’s. I still laugh just thinking about her Rock of Love spoof. “I’m rocking one leg, jealous!” SNL, you need another Tina!

Vacation all I ever wanted…Back from Italy!

Ciao! I’m back from Italy a few pounds heavier (oh, the food) and a few Euros poorer (ouch, the conversion rate).

My husband and I had a wonderful vacation all the way from Rome to Tuscany to Venice. And I even did some work. Part of my WIP will be set in Italy, so I ran around a few cities scouting locations for upcoming scenes. It was a lot of fun. Forget the Internet, this is how you do research—sipping chianti and riding a gondola.

Now, while I could write an entire novel about the food (we had Bolognese sauce in Bologna and steak Florentine in Florence, ‘nuf said), I will keep my observations to these:

1. After you’ve seen the Vatican, everything else is just a duomo.
2. Burying popes in glass coffins on display in the middle of St. Peter’s Basilica is really, really weird.
3. If you’re looking to start up a new business, much of Italy could use a good power washer. Let’s face it, 2,000 years of soot (and graffiti) builds up.
4. $1 espressos, 10 times a day, rock.
5. A Fiat Punto can only drive so fast.
6. Those Italian spaghetti bowls at William Sonoma are actually MADE IN ITALY. We met the guy whose store hand makes them. He knows “William.” Coolest person ever!
7. Make sure you know when the last train out of Verona leaves and if you don’t, there’s a very helpful Best Western a few blocks away :-)
8. There is no place to lie down inside the Colosseum to reenact the death scene from Gladiator. “Go to them, Maximus…”
9. If you’re watching the next James Bond movie and you think you see some random person in the background who looks like me, it might just be! They were filming the next sequel while we were in Siena.
10. Watch that 20/20 special on the Secrets of the Sistine Chapel. I think I found at least two of the angels that Michelangelo painted to give the pope the finger.
11. If you’re on a bike tour in Chianti and everyone is passing you like lightening while you can’t move faster than a Slowsky in a Comcast commercial, you might want to speak up. Turns out that swishing sound your tire’s making could be a brake that’s been locked for several miles.
12. In Venice, the ratio of tourists to guys selling knock-off handbags is one-to-one. Avoid eye contact (and yes, a knock-off of an Italian bag bought in Italy is still fake – and still made in China).
13. Riding in a gondola at night kind of makes you feel like you’re in a scene from Phantom of the Opera.
14. I don’t care what sort of live music you’ve got going on in your outdoor café, but one beer is never worth 9.5 Euro (approx. $15 USD). I’m talking to you, San Marco’s Piazza.
15. All of Rome is constructed on cobblestone streets, and the Roman women walking around in four-inch heels deserve some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award from the fashion industry.
16. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is just a tower that leans– but it’s AWESOME!

And finally….
17. When you get back home and look at your photos, it’s hard to tell one vista from another. “Is that Cortona? Or Florence? No, maybe Chianti?” Yes, it is possible to over-vista.




POP-CULTURE RANT: David Cook, Whoo Hoo!

I am truly stunned. I’ve been a David Cook fan all season, but I thought it was a forgone conclusion that David Archuleta would win. I had a lengthy conversation with another American couple in Italy about this very fact (four grown adults discussing American Idol for an hour over dinner is somewhat embarrassing in retrospect). But, seriously, the judges practically gift wrapped the title and handed it to Archuleta last night with tears in their eyes. But I guess they weren’t the ones voting! The rocker took the title. And Simon ate his words—even better! Congrats Rocker David!

Witches and Psychics and Tarot….Oh, My!

For those of you who have read through my website (and if you haven’t, go ahead and do it now. I’ll wait… http://www.dianarodriguezwallach.com/for_writers.html), you know about my fated trip to a Salem, Massachusetts psychic in 2002. To sum up, back when I was living in Manhattan—working as a reporter and searching for career direction—my husband and I took a lovely trip to enjoy the autumn leaves of New England. While in Salem, I randomly visited a psychic who told me that I was not only a writer but that I would go on to write children’s books.

Prior to that, I had never considered writing a novel.

So now, years later, with the launch of my YA series on the horizon, I decided it was time to head back to that fated psychic. But, because this isn’t a Hollywood movie, I arrived to find out that she no longer works there. Maybe one day Oprah will track her down for me for an on-camera reunion after I sell a million books :)

Anyhow, I didn’t let a little thing like an absentee psychic stop me. So I made an appointment with the fortuneteller who was available.



While I was a little disappointed that she couldn’t tell I was writer, she did have a couple of keen insights. Here’s what she said:

I’m an artist (YA authors are artists, right? I mean, I’m not van Gogh or anything…). 1 Point

I’m a graphic artist (technically this is true, because I still do design consulting for a few clients). 2 Points

I’m in Public Relations (technically, this is also true because prior to selling my novel, I did PR for a nonprofit). 2 Points

I’m going to take a trip near the ocean (True! I’m going to Italy next month. Jealous?). 2 Points

I have plans to do many other things during my professional life (Not true. At least I hope not, Debbie Downer. I’m sort of banking on this book thing panning out). Minus 2 Points

She sees a “TV Camera” (This could be true because I was a broadcast journalism major in college, but I’m sort of hoping she was referring to the above-mentioned Oprah appearance). 1 Point
My current WIP draws more on my personal life (False! Amor is much more rooted in my real-life background). Minus 1 Point

My current WIP is more “intellectual” (True, I’m spinning a lot of history in this manuscript. For more info, check out my blog last week on Agent 006.5). 1 Point

The man who arrived with me was my “boyfriend” or “fiancé” (False. The man’s my husband. Hello, ring on my finger. What kinda psychic misses that clue?). Minus 2 Points

We’re looking to buy a new house (Half true. We already have a house but we look at new houses all the time on the Internet, we just don’t visit any of them. As Aerosmith says: Dream on, dream until your dreams come true…). No Points - call it a draw

She offered loads of insights on my current novel, editor and publishing process (I won’t share it all due to the amount of stories it would require to explain why they’re true. But trust me, she was freakishly accurate). 5 Points

All in all, I give this psychic a 14 out of a possible 20 points. This is a solid C-grade, which is fair given that she missed the big fish—that I’m an author.

However, she gets LOTS of bonus points for projecting that Amor would sell well and that my WIP would be even more successful. Plus, she sensed intense “heat” for my professional future to a degree that she’s “never felt before.” Hehe. Gotta love the glowing positive projections at $30 for 15 minutes!

Do you think she would have told me if she saw my career flopping? Has anyone ever been told by a psychic that they have two weeks to live? I’m guessing no. But then again, that’s not why we visit them. Salem is the Disneyland of psychics. And everyone goes home happy after a visit with Mickey.


POP-CULTURE RANT: General Hospital

There are two separate yet divided fan groups of GH: Team Sam and Team Liz. I’m a Sam fan. Odd, I know. She’s the bad girl and I, let’s just say, am not. But hey, no one’s watching soap operas for a dose of reality. I embrace the craziness that is Sam McCall. But where’s she been lately? The storylines all orbit around Sonny and Kate; and if they keep shoving this “Devil Wears Prada” rip off down my throat, I’m gonna have to insist they pay some sort damages for copyright infringement. Regardless, let’s get Kelly Monaco some more screen time. And please writers, consider never waking Michael from his coma. He’s annoying: you know and the fans know it. Put that little pre-teen character out of his misery.

My Covert Op with Agent 006.5

I sat on a barstool, a martini in my hand. Before the first sip touched my lips, an older gentleman appeared beside me. His head was clear of any hair that might have grown in his youth, but his face was confident with a strong brow and rounded cheeks. I could tell he must have been handsome in decades past.

“Look straight ahead,” he ordered, his deep voice displaying a thick Eastern European accent.

My eyes snapped to my wide-mouthed glass.

“Are you her?” He lit a cigarette.

“That depends. You got a name?”

He blew a cloud of smoke on the mahogany bar. “You want a name or do you want information? Because you can’t have both.”

He was one of the most wanted communist secrets agents of the Cold War and that was how I met him…

Okay, not really.

But it sounds WAY cooler than how things really went down. :)

Yes, I did really meet with a communist spy on Monday. And, yes, the Czechoslovakian government did have a death warrant on his head for decades. But these days Lawrence Martin-Bittman is a very pleasant older gentleman living in Rockport, Massachusetts who paints watercolors for a living.

It’s a far cry from his days as Deputy Chief of Prague’s bureau of black propaganda. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, the man scuba dived into lakes to plant false Nazi war chests, he organized trips to manipulate foreign reporters, and he spread pro-communist propaganda worldwide. But that was before he emigrated to the states under political asylum to escape the Soviet tankers that invaded Prague in 1968. And before he was sentenced to be executed if he ever stepped foot back in his home country. And before he became a professor at Boston University.

He kinda makes your life seem dull, doesn’t he?

I mean, seriously, I wrote a couple of YA novels. Lawrence Martin-Bittman has written about a dozen books (under his given name, Ladislav Bittman), all on his experiences as a communist spy. Heck, he even went on to teach a journalism course about how to detect the types of propaganda he was so successful at spreading.

And it was this expertise, in the field of disinformation, that led me to meet with him. I’m in the midst of new WIP that deals with international espionage and global propaganda, and how lucky am I that I happened to graduate from the one University linked with the foremost expert on the subject? Thanks, BU for hooking up an alumna!

The man couldn’t have been nicer. He invited me into his home, spoke to me for two hours, and offered me his opinions on everything from how to start a privatized espionage ring (more common than you might think) to whether the famous WMDs were the part of the greatest disinformation operation in world history (probably not).

He even gave me a print of one of his paintings. And he’s really good. Check it out.



It’s a view of his hometown of Prague, a city that welcomed him back in the mid-90s when they finally lifted their death warrant. A city I happened to have been visiting on 9/11 when my apartment (five blocks from Ground Zero) was being caked in dust. A city I remember vividly and am happy to have represented in my home.

It was an honor to meet Mr. Martin-Bittman. And I thank him so much for obliging me.

I mean, come on, it’s not often you get to meet a real James Bond. Though he doesn’t like to be referred to as 007. Instead, he named his artist studio “006.5.” I think that makes him even extra cool.


POP-CULTURE RANT: Dolly Parton

Okay, I get that she’s this big country music icon, but my God, did American Idol suck this week. Any one of them could be going home. And the fact that America had to cast those votes is a sad case of “blaming the victim.” Poor David Cook sang a song about a “Little Sparrow;” there’s no way to make that bird cool, no matter how well you sing it. And I realize that Dolly has had dozens of Number One hits with these records. But country music fan or not, that entire show, in the words of Simon Cowell, was “utterly forgettable.” What’s next? Idols very special tribute to line dancing?

I’d Like To Thank The Academy….and Google

Seriously, what did writers do before the Google Guys were born? I can’t imagine how long it would take to write a book if I had to go to the library and look at microfiche every time I wanted to know when the U.S. invaded Italy in WWII (September 1943). Or if I wanted to know when Woodstock took place (August 1969—the original, not the crappy commercialized one that caught fire in ’99). Or if I wanted to learn how to say “good morning” in Italian (“buongiorno”).

And don’t even get me started on Wikipedia. Yeah, I know it’s not technically accurate. It’s just a bunch of “facts” that can be altered by any schmoe with an Internet connection (as proven by Stephen Colbert and the Great African Elephant Incident of 2006).

But regardless, I still love how Wiki pops up on the first page when I do a Google search for just about anything. Seriously, I might have to give these wondrous cyber inventions top billing on my next Acknowledgments page, because that little Google toolbar saves me hours of time. Time I could be spending looking at funny cat photos on http://icanhascheezburger.com.

I keep threatening my cat that if she continues to drink out of the toilet, I will photograph it and post it on this page. In the meantime, I could just post this:



Isn’t she classy?

Her name’s Lupi, though in some circles she’s known only as “The Hisser.” I seem to be the only person she likes. My poor mother has bribed her with everything from lunchmeat to sirloin, and Lupi still hisses (but she eats the food, she’s not stupid).

My husband and I even adopted her together, saved her from a shelter in Harlem, yet everyday she hisses at him as if she has no idea what he’s still doing here.

She doesn’t hiss at me though; she follows me around like a little shadow. What can I say, she’s a good judge of character. ;-)



POP-CULTURE RANT: American Idol

I’m going to go out on a limb and say something that isn’t very popular right now—I am not a fan of David Archuleta. There, I’ve admitted it. Something about the kid reminds me of Zoolander and once I noticed it, I couldn’t get it out of my head (like that episode of “How I Met Your Mother” with the ‘glass shattering revelations’). Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good singer, but in a Michael Bolton kinda way. And unlike that scene from Office Space, I do not celebrate Michael Bolton’s “entire catalogue.” I am, however, rooting for David Cook, because of his talent, or Michael Johns, ‘cause he’s pretty and I can say that because my husband is totally crushing on that Carly Simon-looking girl, Brooke White. What can I say, we’re a house divided in Idol loyalties :-)