This week I’m staying in the category of “what to expect from my blog”. Last week I talked about “truth” so if you didn’t see that one you better go back and read it now. I don’t want to trick you into reading this stuff without being very clear about what I’m doing here. Six or ten weeks down the road I don’t want to hear any complaining about “You lied to us!” If you had started from the beginning you would know was going on.

Well, today’s things-to-expect offering, or “warning” if you will, is Variety. I have what some might consider a pathologically diverse range of interests. One of my issues (a nice way of saying “deep seated problems”) is that within that range there are no favorites. Sure, like anybody else, I have favorite things. I prefer pizza to tofu even though I like both. I prefer to listen to classical music live rather than from a recording. Things like that. However, if you were to ask me “Would you prefer to go to a classical music concert in the park or go get a pizza?” My answer, as likely as not, would be “Yes.”

This might not be an issue if my only interests were classical music and pizza. They aren’t. In fact I don’t even know what they all are but I do know more get added all the time. Sometimes a new interest is harmless – Food Production comes to mind. Sometimes a new interest causes people to step away in case things get weird – don’t get me started on how the multiverse predicted in Quantum Theory actually forms a pretty firm foundation for certain New Age wacko belief structures. Occasionally a new interest, Bee Keeping for example, can turn into a real problem.

Sure, Variety may be the spice of life but it’s possible for things to get too spicy. That is really the crux of this conundrum. As a writer my job is to always start with the question “What if….?” Couple that question with the unconventional spectrum of things I’d like to write about and the question could become: “What if bees from a parallel universe invaded the vegetable fields of central California?” That would not be a good thing. Some restraint on my part will clearly be called for. Somewhere there’s got to be a happy medium – a target to shoot for.

First off, I am not going to be able to suppress my urge to diverge completely. I fully expect my writing, both in this blog and in my other offerings, to cover a lot of different topics over a lot of different subjects. Depth, on the other hand, should not be expected. From a literature standpoint I will definitely be staying in the kiddie pool and maybe only sitting on the edge. Hey, that’s just who I am. You want socially responsible stories of poignant characters struggling against the misfortune of their shortcomings and the hand which fate dealt. Puh-leese. Check behind Door Number Three. You won’t find it here. Maybe you’re looking for tragedies of hapless fools spinning down Life’s drain faster and faster despite their best efforts? That’s in the room down the hall. I like to think of myself as literate but I am so not literary. Catcher in the Rye? Great Gatsby? Moby Dick? I’d rather go to the dentist. 

In my stories you will find nothing but poorly-cast characters wandering aimlessly through unrealistic storylines. My action and dialogue will revolve around slapstick scene settings and jokes made at the expense of those less fortunate among us – retail clerks for example. I will woo you with cavernous similes as big as all outdoors where you will struggle to find a speck of meaning. In my writing, if I’m lucky and I work hard enough, you will find Popular Fiction.

I was still bedeviled by my underlying problem of Variety. I needed to find a mentor – a guide. I looked first to one of my favorite modern authors – Lee Child. Now Mr. Child, you may or may not know, is an Englishman living in New York who writes about a character named Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is a retired US Army MP who now wanders the country with a six-figure bank account and a marked disdain for personal possessions. What, you may ask, could a Brit know about a US Army MP? The answer is Nothing. He even says “only in Britain” things like “Hell you say” and “Brilliant.” I was introduced to Mr. Child’s writing by a friend who swears that Jack Reacher is a real guy. “What a guy.” My friend would say. He gave me a book – One Shot – and that evening I began to read. I made it through two pages, stopped, then started over. I reread the same two pages with the same results. Again, I went back and this time read aloud. There it was in black and white – the first two pages of a bestselling novel and – maybe – one grammatically correct sentence therein. This guy is a God! Mr. Child sells books like McDonalds sell burgers. I’ve read everything he’s written. Sadly though, he cannot be my guiding light. That is because he writes basically one story. Mr. Child’s what-if is “What if Jack Reacher is in ___________ and gets caught up with the bad guys/bad cops, has to stop and think, makes a mistake, gets the girl or maybe two, and fights his way out at the end saving the good guys and leaving the bad guys dead in a pink mist?” That’s it. Same thing, different fill-in-the-blank, same bad guys/bad cops, same Jack Reacher leaves town at the end. Mr. Child may be my hero but, from a Variety point-of-view, he cannot be my role model.

I cast about. John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, Dan Brown?  Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.  Then, almost by accident, I discovered him. Actually, I rediscovered him. This was the guy that rewrote the book considered to be the first true example of English literature – as an action novel. This is the guy who when once asked “Whatcha writing?” replied “The most expensive movie ever made.” This is the guy that asks “What if __________?” and the “___________” ranges, as they say, from Hell to breakfast. This guy is, well ‘was’ now – Michael Crichton. 

He was trained as a doctor but his first book Eaters of the Dead is Beowolf retold. One of his concepts is “What if a nasty ______ got out?” When “_________” is “virus” you get Andromeda Strain when it’s “nanobots” you get Prey, when “dinosaurs” you’ll be reading Jurassic Park.  He’s even stuck “giant monkeys” in the blank and come up with Congo. That’s just one of his formulas. How about his “cover-up” theme? That yielded Rising Sun, A Case of Need, Airframe for example. Historical fiction? Try Timeline or The Great Train Robbery. The list goes on and on. I don’t presume to have Mr. Crichton’s gift but when looking for a light to guide me through the fog of overwhelming Variety I will turn to him to find my bright tower leading me through the mists. He is Popular Fiction. 

Which, all-in-all, is a very long-winded way of saying you can expect a number of different topics to be talked about in my blog and in my other writings. Mr. Crichton may have written the book on writing Variety. But he didn’t write all the books. I now have a mentor to look to when I need to suppress my natural tendencies. I’ve found someone to help me realize my goal to offer Variety in moderation. I wouldn’t get my hopes up though. Wiser people than I have pointed out that you should seek “All things in moderation. Even moderation.”