Chapter 4

  “Lucy, are you sure you are going to be alright?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine Laura. This isn’t my first interview. It’s my third, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. I swear I was more nervous than the applicants for the first two.”

  “Right, well think of it this way. You already have the job, they want a job. They are trying to impress you. At least they should, that’s the whole deal with job interviews. If you really like them, offer them a two week trial, to see if they can deal with my quirks. Make sure you tell them the owner is eccentric. See if that scares them off or not.”

  “Don’t you have to get to the Writer’s Workshop welcome party, the Meet and greet?”

  “Not if you need help.”

  “I don’t, I can interview and still handle the store. If I wait on a customer and the applicant is in too much of a rush to leave, then that says something about the applicant, right? It’ll be like a mini test. Rolled into the interview, see if they can handle a high stress environment.”

  “Well, if you are sure?”

  “I’m positive, if something comes up I’ll text you, you are only going to be out on the lawn.”

  So I walked out the front door of the store and started toward the large white tent the rental company had set up the day before. I thought if we are going to keep having these it might be cheaper in the long run to build a gazebo. But that is up to the collective. I’m just hoping I get some takers for my ebook proposal. But that won’t be until tomorrow.

  “There’s our bookstore owner, now. Laura, I’d like you to meet Jade Burden. Jade’s a playwright from New York City.”

  “Hi Jade, the theater is the one thing that I miss about living in the city. I’ve been here for ten years, you are too young to have staged a play that long ago?”

  “I’ve sold a couple plays, Laura, but so far none have yet made it to the stage.”

  “Well at least you are not a screenwriter, they usually get optioned, multiple times. I knew a novelist who had her novel optioned seven times. She said it was like they were paying me to not make a movie out of my book.”

  “I hope that doesn’t happen to my plays.”

  “No, I’m sure it won’t. Hollywood is crazy, they just spend money like it was a neverending supply. It always seemed like the theater producers would only spend money when they were ready to go to production. I’m sure one will get produced very soon.”

  Next I met Vera Cullen. She's a travel writer for an online travel magazine.

  “So Vera, where is the strangest place you have ever been?”

  “Well the most surreal has to be Snow Village, it’s an ice hotel in Finland. You eat at a fine restaurant, inside of a giant igloo. Fantastic ice sculptures of everything from gnomes to octopi. There is a full bar and disco. Apparently disco never died in Europe, even a movie theater carved out of ice, and it wasn’t playing ‘Frozen’. Dog sledding and Reindeer sledding give you something to do during the day. After you are all tired out, you return to your carved ice room and go to bed on your ice bed. If you get chilly and feel like warming up well just head to either the sauna or the hot tubs. While you are soaking up the heat in a hot tub, you might get to see the Northern Lights.”

  “That sounds lovely, Vera.”

  “It was Laura, I loved every minute of it.”

  “So was that a work trip, or something you did for yourself?”

  “It was my signing bonus when I joined the company, but I also had to write a series of articles about the trip. So I guess you could say that it was both. But while I was there, I was making notes and snapping pictures. But that’s something most travelers do as a matter of course anyway. Just my notes were probably more detailed because I knew that I had to have fodder for the articles. So in the back of my mind, I was always thinking about the article I guess so in a way I was working the whole time I was there. But I also never would have been there without the job. It’s not terribly expensive, but it’s not cheap, not student hostel material in any way.”

  “So do they send you on many trips like that?

  “No, not nearly as glamorous. I’ve been stuck on domestic travel since that initial trip to Europe.”

  “It sounds like an expensive business to run?”

  “The places we stay at usually provide everything, except for alcohol.”

  “So the company just has to pay for the airfare?”

  “No not even that, the hotel covers basic coach tickets. We can upgrade the tickets but that is on us. Some of the larger hotels even include business class airfare, we are also pampered by the staff from the moment we arrive till we depart. It is designed so that the travel writer sees the hotel, at a level that it would be impossible to maintain if every guest were treated like we are. But when we write our article we can honestly report what an amazing time we had and just how wonderful the hotel staff are. You are not told by the hotel you must write a favorable article, nor does our editor insist on it either. I think it is just a tacit understanding. If we write a bad review, that hotel, usually part of a chain, will not be compensating for a trip, for our magazine anytime soon. If you look at the website, all the expensive trips get very high marks, especially the hotels. We need to quibble, so it’s usually about a meal we had in town, not the resort that is financing the whole thing. All complaints about the airports, transfers, that kind of thing are common.”

  “Actually that makes a lot of sense, the website can’t make any money if expenses are high and the site probably runs on ads, plus they have to pay people to take the trips and write about them. The ads are travel related, no one is going to buy ads on a site that prints bad reviews of travel. That would inspire people to stay at home. So it’s a lot like a known food reviewer, the restaurant is going to treat them to their absolute best. Best server, food cooked to perfection, or it doesn’t make it onto the reviewer’s plate. You can’t expect your meal to attain that level of perfection. No matter how hard the chef strives too. So I assume this happens on every travel blog, not just yours.”

  “Yes, all the commercial websites are run the same. Even many of the popular private vlogs and blogs run just by the individuals are the same. If they want to continue getting free trips, they need to write positive reviews.”

  “But Vera, I can see there is a problem just writing good reviews. I see it on book review sites all the time. When the reader reviews every netgalley free read five stars. It means they either have no taste or that they feel compelled to write positive reviews to continue receiving free e-books. But as a reader when I see that I know that I can’t rely on that reviewer so I stop visiting their site. So does your site have writers all over the country or perhaps the English speaking world, who travel locally, talk up the sightseeing but are perhaps extra critical of the facilities or perhaps the food? That way your site can be seen to average a little over three star reviews. So it looks like you are maintaining your credibility, while in fact your site is just running hit pieces for places close to where the reviewer lives.”

  “Yes, it’s true. But as you also pointed out, it happens from ten dollar e-book reviewers all the way up to thousands of dollar hotel stays.”

  “So is that why you are here? To trash Lake Placid? Or to trash the Writers Workshop?”

  “No, Laura, I swear to you, No. First off most of our readers wouldn’t even click on an article about a writer’s workshop. Our readers either think of themselves as someone who wants to be pampered or the adventurous type who wants an authentic experience. Maybe one percent fancy themselves as writers. No, I’m frankly getting tired of our business model. I did use it to obtain a free hotel stay at the Saranac Hotel, it might not be five stars but it has its historic charms as does the town. I particularly like the Waterhole, a great venue for music. I’d like to come back for the Winter Carnival. No, I’m here at the workshop, to improve my writing and also I’d like to write travel books. I’m tired of working for someone, I want to work for myself. Not like review books but books where I talk about great trips I’ve taken and the ones that I’m looking forward to taking. After the workshop is over, next week I’m sticking around. I had no idea that Robert Louis Stevenson lived in Saranac until I started researching for this trip. Now there was a travel writer.”

  “I really liked Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, and a couple of books I read of contemporary authors who’ve followed in his footsteps. If you are interested in Adirondack history, check out the museum in Blue Mountain Lake. They also have a great research library, always useful if you are writing a book. Have you considered writing a road trip novel?”

  “No, I’ve never written fiction except for one creative writing course in college. It’s way too hard. It makes writing nonfiction seem effortless. If you take good notes, and I take excellent notes.”

  “What do you use for a note taking app, Vera?”

  “Evernote.”

  “I used to use Evernote, too. But I switched to Obsidian, I wanted my notes stored locally and I wanted access even when I didn’t have an internet connection. I like that it is free and future proof.”

  “Laura, what do you mean future proof?”

  “The files that it produces are all readable in a text editor. But it doesn’t look like plain text in Obsidian because the files are called markdown. If you want a label called fiction you just put a hash symbol # before the word fiction with no space. If you want a heading you use the same hash symbol with a space in between and now you have a heading. There are five different heading and you just put two hash symbols for a heading two and so forth. If you are interested I can show you some time over the weekend. But as far as fiction versus non fiction did you study structure in your creative writing course?”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “No Laura, the professor thought it led to wooden writing.”

  “Just take the hero’s journey, one of the basic structures of fiction. Was the Odyssey or the Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars wooden? Let’s say you have all of these travel notes. On top of that you lay out a hero’s journey. Your main character lives in New York City and is estranged from their parents. Maybe the main character is gay and has been rejected by their conservative religious parents. But now one of the parents is dying and the other has Alzheimer so the hero has to decide, does she go back and tell them what she really thinks of them for being the bigoted and hurtful parents that they are or does she go back to tell them that she forgives them. They were good parents up to the point that she discovered that she was gay. But you also throw up obstacles to her getting home. It’s getting tougher and tougher, the conflict is ramping up. Then you decide what happens, are her parents still the bigoted zealots that she left or are they hollow shells that are devastated that they drove their daughter away, and have wasted all the time they could have had together. There is a book because it has stakes, you show those stakes in the beginning, maybe the main character explains how she was rejected by her parents to her assistant or best friend. The best friend encourages the main character to make the journey, to find closure. People keep reading because they want to know what the main character will do, they even want to know what the parents will do.”

  “Laura, are you a creative writing teacher? Are you teaching a class at this workshop?”

  “No not at all, I was an editor for a publishing house for over twenty years and I’ve been a reader for over sixty. My bookstore stocks only fiction. I believe that you can tell more truth in fiction than you can in nonfiction. I learned most of my values through fiction. I even learned how to think through fiction in ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. If you want to write a novel and you love traveling, have your main character travel, but not wander. It’s alright to get lost, that can be a form of conflict. Impose a structure to have the freedom to tell the story you wish to.”

  Just then a man walked over and said.

  “Flynn Stewart, True Adventure, nice to meet you both.”

  “Hello Flynn, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Laura, I own the bookstore. Last Chance to See.”

  “Hi Laura, nice to meet you. What’s ‘Last Chance to See”

  “Flynn, it’s my favorite True Adventure book, it’s written by one of my favorite authors Douglas Adams. He and a British conservationist travel around the world to see endangered animals on the brink of extinction. I loved the juxtaposition of Adams in his first novel; he blows up the planet in the first couple of chapters of his novel. But in his nonfiction book, he’s concerned with the very animals he blew up.”

  “That sounds interesting, I’m more like the One Hundred and Twenty Seven Hours. Man versus nature.”

  “Has your book been published yet?”

  “No, I’m still looking for an agent for it.”

  “This is Vera Cullen, a travel writer.”

  “Hello Flynn, nice to meet you. Laura was just trying to talk me out of writing nonfiction and start writing fiction. She made a very compelling case.” said Vera.

  "Don't do it Vera, I personally never read fiction. I only have a limited amount of time to read so I want to maximize what I can learn.”

  “But Flynn, don’t you think a well crafted psychological thriller, can shine as much light and be retained far longer than a dry psychology text book. What can ignite a person’s passion for science more than a great science fiction novel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard astronauts, real life True Adventure in the flesh, say I saw Star Trek and knew what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve heard Nichelle Nichols talk about the POC fans who saw her show when they were young and say they were inspired to go into science because of her. Of course nonfiction is important too, my store only stocks fiction and our sister store only stocks nonfiction. But I read both, mainly fiction but Walden and Civil Disobedience are two of the most important books I’ve read, they have had the largest impact on my life. But what are you hoping to get out of the festival?”

  “I’m hoping to find an agent if any attend, or talk to other authors for a strategy on finding a good one. I want an agent with ties to Hollywood, just writing won’t pay the bills. I want a movie deal. So I can afford to go on some adventures of my own. What about you Vera?”

  This was not my idea of a writer. Krakauer, Junger, Adams were perfect examples of True Adventure, sure they made movies and tv shows from their work, but I don’t think their aim when they were writing the book was to make a movie. If that’s the aim, why not just write a screenplay. That would get you one step closer to the movie. I left Vera and Flynn to get to know each other. I went over to the bar and grabbed a bottle of beer out of a cooler. Nothing like a bottle of beer on a warm summer night.

  “Hi I’m Luke, would you mind handing me a beer, Laura.”

  I handed Luke a beer and a glass but he turned the glass.

  “Nice to meet you Luke, what do you write?”

  “Boring finance and investing books.”

  I loved his British accent, but after being drawn in by Paloma last weekend, I wasn’t going to inquire about it.

  “Why would you want to write boring finance books, Luke?”

  “Because Americans all want to be rich. I think it’s something in the water over here. They are willing to buy lots of books to make that happen. Which is nice because I can write lots of books about how to get rich and get rich doing it. How about you Laura, want to know the four stocks to buy Monday morning to double your money in a year?”

  “No, thanks, I’m the exception to the rule. I positively do not want to be rich. I want a sure source of food and a safe place to sleep. In fact right now, I earn about two thousand dollars more than I want or need.”

  “An Epicurus fan, I see. But why the specific amount of two thousand dollars?”

  “A finance guy who knows Epicurus? I’m intrigued. I make two thousand over the poverty line with my pension. Therefore I pay tax on that money, making me complicit in the funding of the government.”

  “Laura, my grammar school had a classics requirement, hence Epicurus. But I was really really poor, so he didn’t resonate with me. It was only after making a lot of money and buying a lot of possessions that what he said started to make sense. When I took the time to read the articles that neurologists wrote about the happiness center in the brain. Buddhist monks seem to have some of the most developed areas of the brain associated with happiness. The science posits that it’s from all the meditation that they do. Mindfulness is important in stopping self criticism, self doubt. But I’ve often wondered if it isn’t the fact that a monk owns the robes on his back and a bowl. That is the totality of their possessions. What if the happiness center isn’t responding to the meditation, instead it is responding to a stress free lifestyle. I mean if he loses or someone steals his bowl, someone will give him another right. Compare that to a wall street trader, those clips where you see them shouting orders back and forth. It’s amazing those guys live to be forty, under that much pressure.”

  “Well as you said, Luke, it is every American's dream. They start before school, your parents telling you you can be anything you want. Then it continues once you start school. But when they say that they mean, you can pick any job you want. They never just give you the option to be happy. Maybe the reason the monks are happy isn’t about the bowl or the meditation, maybe it’s because they are following Epicurus’s prescription for happiness. So what is a rich writer doing at a writers workshop?”

  “I’d like to branch out from the investing books. There are only so many ways to tell people don’t put all your money in one thing, unless you don’t care about that money. I’d like to write a book about a tech guy and a finance guy who save the world.”

  “Do they create a Star Trek style utopia?”

  “No, although that is a book I’d definitely read. In mine, after a world wide banking collapse. A tech guy creates a small clean machine that makes electricity out of air. It is a tiny machine and only outputs a small amount of electricity, but in series the power output doubles so pretty soon that small amounts become large enough to power a block worth of homes. With unlimited power, food can be grown in any climate year round. Each group of homes that joins the already powered homes becomes part of their coalition, it takes less than a year to get the US powered again. They get the navy working again, load a boat with the electric generators and head to Portugal. The navy brings plenty of food and when they land they distribute it and start spreading through Europe.”

  “I see what the tech guy is doing, Luke, handing out free electricity. What’s the finance guy doing that makes him necessary to the story?”

  “He’s the balance guy, they are giving out free electricity in just the right ratio to keep everyone firmly in the tech guys camp. So roving bands of marauders, can’t seize the tech guy and force him to create generators for them. It’s really about abundance versus scarcity economics. Played out on a world wide scale. The finance guy makes some errors so the potential for conflict is always high. Especially because he is so focused on the tech guy’s safety he doesn’t take his own into account. So he is captured. Introducing more conflict.”

  “Luke, that is exactly a Trek style utopia. You don’t have replicators, but you turn the free electricity into food, which is essentially a replicator for the most important thing for human life. Food, water and shelter. Those are the must haves.”

  “Crap, I didn’t think it had anything to do with Star Trek. How did you know, before I even started my pitch?”

  “Just because of a tech guy and a finance guy, what else would they build together besides a utopia.”

  Next I met Audrey Williams. I’d noticed her, she was hard to miss. She was in her early thirties I’d say but she hobbled around on a cane and her face was horribly disfigured yet she hobbled from group to group introducing herself to the other writers. She introduced herself to me when I was at the snack table.

  “Hi, I’m Audrey Williams, medical thrillers.”

  “Hello Audrey, I’m Laura, bookstore owner and retired editor. Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain was one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. I loved the science and the suspense. I wanted to work in a lab like that, I just thought it was so cool. Have you read it?”

  “Yes, I love Crichton and that book was easily one of his best.”

  “So why, Medical Thrillers Audrey?”

  “I was in medical school when a couple of questionable actions resulted in an accident that made practicing medicine impossible.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, that must have been really tough, having to pivot from what I can only assume would be your dream job?”

  “Yes it was, but I had to pick myself up and start supporting myself. So I took the one thing I knew about, medicine and learned how to craft a novel. Now, I’m making enough to keep food on the table and while it might not have been the job I imagined, at least all those years of study weren’t completely wasted.”

  “I’m sorry to say, I haven’t read any of your novels, but I definitely have sold a bunch of them. If you have some time over the weekend, maybe you could sign a few copies. You have a lot of fans here, I’m sure they would be thrilled to have a signed copy.”

  “Sure Laura, I’d be happy to do that.”