Lights (My Camera) and Action. The northwest puts on some fantastic fireworks displays. Sometimes they shoot them over the water, which makes them even more spectacular. That smoodgy mark on the lower left isn't left-over pizza on the lens, it's a strip of mist or smoke that reflected some of the light when the fireworks exploded.

I was fortunate to see this dazzling lightfest from my friends' balcony. They have a great view of the sound looking west. While they were oohing and aaahing over the grand vista, I was squeezing my eye into this little viewfinder and getting a gnat-sized view of the spectacle, but even so, it was gorgeous. However, it wasn't easy to photograph. I didn't bring a tripod with me on this trip—I've been trying to travel light and I knew my hand was shaking through what were mostly one- and two-second exposures. I was surprised the pictures turned out so well. Well, okay, they didn't all turn out but most of them were pretty good. Digital cameras are amazing.

Seeing this gorgeous display cheered me up and helped me forget that my keyboard is almost completely dead now (I borrowed my friend's USB keyboard to write this since mine is at home). A lot more keys are going on my little laptop. I'm going to make a detour back home to pick up the new one Wednesday when it arrives and then I'll be hitting the road again for several days. --- Mya

By the time my brain was finally in gear enough to locate the strangers and tell them to be quiet, they had disappeared. After that I couldn't get back to sleep (which is a drag because on the road you never get enough sleep anyway). So I did what writers do—I sat down at my rapidly decomposing keyboard and tried to write (I gave back the USB keyboard last night and I don't want to disturb my hosts by sneaking through their bedroom first thing in the morning to retrieve it). The keys are so bad now, I have to hit almost every key twice and the spacebar about four times to get the hit to register. It's about as effective as poking a woolly mammoth with a toothpick to try to get it to move.

In spite of the keyboard problems, this is going to be an exciting week. I'm going to be pitching another book—well, sort of. I have an idea I've been researching for six years and I wasn't sure I was ever going to pitch it, I have so many books in the queue right now, but if I wait too long, someone else might have the same idea. So, this week, in addition to traveling to some book stores, I'll be meeting with an editor who will hopefully fall in love with the idea. We'll see how it goes. I'm optimistic, as always, and my track record is good, but I'm human too and I get butterflies every time—every single time. The other thing is, I've always sold books through queries and this will be a verbal pitch. This is something new for me and chances are I'll fall flat on my face the first time, but it will give me the experience I need to talk to editors face-to-face and add a few more skills to my writer's toolbox. The truth is, I'll probably end up selling this book the same way as the others, through email and phone calls, but I still think it's important to take risks and to continue to learn and grow. --- Mya

Now, honestly, how many people read a novel because the author is good-looking? Some, I suppose. But looks weren't important before the Web started promoting a different set of expectations and I personally don't care what an author looks like. Thomas Pynchon is a very reclusive writer who apparently declined to have his picture on his book flaps and that hasn't stopped the literary world from heralding his achievements (I haven't read Pynchon yet, by the way).

Not that this obsession with looks is anything new. When television came onto the scene, many people remarked that political electioneering would change forever and I think they were right. Charisma and personality, rather than ideological platforms and qualifications for a particular job, seem to have a lot of clout when candidates use television to communicate with the masses.

The rock industry certainly seems to have followed the path of looks-first, talent-second. Anyone who lived through the sixties or has seen documentaries of the sixties knows that many of the great rock stars were not attractive by conventional standards, but they were adored by their fans. These days, record company executives would probably laugh most of the sixties stars out of their offices for being "too heavy" or "too unattractive" or "not willing enough to express their sexuality on camera." Record execs are like that. They want to keep the "bean counters" (the accountants) and their investment counsellors happy. The bottom line is a long line and good-looking singers with a modicum of talent often have a better chance at success than average-looking singers with great talent.

If Looks Can Kill. Will that be the future of writers as well? Will the talented but not-necessarily-movie-star-looks authors be swept aside for talented-and-also-very-attractive writers? I'd like to say no, but I can't ignore trends. I see people talking in their blogs about how good-looking some authors are. I heard agents mentioning the "telegenicity" of a certain up-and-coming author. One author had to be interviewed for "telegenicity" for a mere $35,000 advance (for a book that took a couple of years to research and write). Now, $35,000 for a two-year project isn't exactly a lot of beans, so why was the publisher so concerned about her telegenicity?

Elizabeth Kostova went through "media training" when her book The Historian was being released (I've been following the Kostova story for the last year with some interest because of the big advance) and has been posing, in costume, for publicity pictures, so obviously her publisher is concerned about her physical appearance and image as much as anything else.

So, why do I bring this up now? Well, I've been talking to agents the last couple of days (along with many other people in the book industry) and I'm staying in a hotel room tonight. The hotel has TV. I don't have a TV at home and I wasn't really interested in watching it, but I wasn't tired enough to sleep, so I thought I'd channel-flip for a few minutes and then turn in.

Flight Crub. To my surprise, the clicker didn't deliver up Discover or the Playboy Channel (it is a hotel room, after all) or some shopping network. Instead, it was an interview with Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club. This surprised me. I didn't know talk show hosts (other than Oprah) were interested in interviewing authors, especially a few years after the release of the movie and book---old news, so to speak. I soon realized, however, that Palahniuk's telegenicity quotient is pretty high. He's charmin, quick, and quite funny. It was an interesting interview and I shot a quicky picture from the television screen to put on my blog.

Now ol' Chuck isn't a raving beauty, as you can see, but for men that's less of an issue where "telegenicity" is concerned. The tolerance of differences in looks and ages for men in the media is far greater than that for women. Men in their sixties and seventies can get leading roles in films. Women in their sixties and seventies rarely get leading roles in films. In fact, even women in their forties and fifties have difficulty getting leading roles unless they produce or coproduce the films. As the "songbird" in the movie Amadeus remarked, women are often more concerned with class and quality than looks. It's pretty hard to deny that our society has a double standard where looks are concerned for men and women. I think many women would consider Palahniuk very attractive because they would be taking in the whole picture, including charm, intelligence, and wit.

If Palahniuk were a female rather than a male author, would s/he be getting the same media attention? I don't know. I do know that most editors and agents are female, so maybe that has a balancing effect. Most high-level book industry professionals are male, however. When it comes to the big advances, the big marketing bucks, and the big push to create a new bestselling author, it's men who make many of the decisions. Or is that true? Certainly Susan Kennedy is an influential personality in publishing, first at Random House and then at Penguin. Maybe in publishing, there is a greater balance, in terms of gender, at the upper levels of management. I don't know if anyone's studied that, so statistics may be hard to find. I do know that the marketing guys at my current publisher have a say in which books are accepted for publication and also have a big say in the final selling price and most of them are male.

I'm not trying to imply that male execs and male agents are prejudiced against women in this industry, I'm basically just trying to look at the issues and different ways they might be interpreted. The men I've met so far in the book industry (primarily editors and agents) don't strike me as being prejudiced---just the opposite, in fact. My primary editor (who recently retired) was great. He was supportive and fair and really keen on producing good books. I couldn't have asked for anyone better and I was so sad (for my own sake, not for his) that he retired.

So, I don't have a lot of answers, only a lot of questions, but the bottom line may not have anything to do with editors' and agents' preferences, it may come down to readers. Readers vote with their wallets. If, since the birth of the Web, readers start leaning toward books written by good-looking authors, then editors and agents will take heed. The trend may not show up today or tomorrow, but what about five years from now? Will the face of publishing change?

Personally, I hope not. I'm hoping readers will buy well-written books by authors they enjoy rather than authors who look good on the Web. I guess we'll see. --- Mya

July 27, 2005 - A Walk by the Pond
Today I woke up to discover perfect weather. It's sunny, but not too hot, so I went for a walk. I like to walk in the mornings when there aren't too many people about.

July 31, 2005 - Rats! A Mouse (I think)
I thought my rat problem was solved. If you've been following my blog, you know I've caught several rats in my live cage in the last month (and let them go in a wild area near one of our parks). I didn't even set up the cage again in the basement, because I haven't heard (or smelled) any rats in there since I caught the last one. Instead, I put the cage on the deck and set the trip mechanism more out of habit than out of any expectation that I would catch another rat.

Topics: journal web log weblog blog diary journal writer author writing literature John Irving Mya Bell Anne Tyler Margaret Atwood Michael Ondaatje Mya Bell Irwin Shaw Neville Shute Anne Perry Mya Bell Peter Carey Elizabeth Kostova