Author Archives: JimArnoldLA

Vonnegut Writing Advice

imgres Even though written in 1973, the “advice” given to writers is just as relevant today (if not more so). I really loved this.

“Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.

“If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.

“It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.”

–Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions (1973)

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Reasons Why I Rejoined Facebook

How embarrassing.

There I go with my anti-Facebook Manifesto, all righteous and everything, and now here I am telling you I’m back.

Go head and snicker. Surely, I deserve it.

Not that I still don’t think it’s generally a pretty bad idea, but here’s the deal kids:

basically everybody is on Facebook, and unfortunately, many of them are using the message protocol there as their de facto email. I don’t like it, but there you are.
I know many people and have lots of family in far away places. I’ve lived in San Francisco, Milwaukee, Palm Springs and have many friends on the East Coast as well. It’s unrealistic to keep up with them in person and this is really just the path of least resistance (especially for a lazy person).
I miss getting invited to things. Facebook has become the way people invite you to parties, events, personal meetings, etc. and I was missing that big love! Not that it can’t happen in other ways, but. . . see first point above.
Honestly, there were a couple of personal relationships that really blossomed in real time due to Facebook, and now those have waned. That’s the thing I liked most about this social media journey, and I want those people back in my life on a regular basis (and it wasn’t just virtual).
I do need the visibility. There’s still the remote possibility that people will look for staff or, heaven forbid, find out about books on Facebook. Again, like I said in my Manifesto, people don’t go to Facebook specifically to find books or writers, but the impression could be made. It could happen.

So I’ll rejoin, after all, it’s free. Still. Sort of. Though it’s not an equal trade at all. This time around, I’m going to try to:

“friend” or accept as friends only those people I know and like in real life.
avoid politics as much as humanly possible, though my fingers may get itchy.
I’ll just ignore the gross pictures of your food.
I’ll still share stuff, but hopefully this will be highly curated and mostly stuff from here (the blog) that I’d like to see distributed; I know Facebook will try to thwart that as much as they can, because they’d like to make money on wider distribution.
Will only share the barest minimum of digital assets — meaning photos, in particular. Naturally, I’m on Instagram as well, and Facebook owns that, so. . . any suggestions there?

OK, so now it’s Arnold 0, Zuckerberg 1. Don’t know how long I’ll be back, but stay tuned.

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Top Ten Things I Miss About Living in Palm Springs

Well, it’s Spring, and a young man’s fancy turns to . . . hot desert nights. Not that I’m, um, young or particularly fancy, but you know. . . This time of year it’s the height of the spring season out there, with the White Party and Spring Break and all the other stuff about to climax before the beastly summer heat settles in.

So I’ve been thinking about the desert recently and the things I miss. Here are ten, in no particular order:

The Hot Summer Nights. Seriously. As in seriously hot. I loved not ever having to worry about taking a sweater along (unless it was to a movie, then you needed one because they crank the AC up so much) cause you know the temperature isn’t going to go down lower than 86-88. And that’s at the “coldest” point just before dawn. And of course, perfect weather for walking around without a stitch on.
Koffi. I’m writing this blog right now in a coffeehouse in Studio City, also a great place, but there’s nothing quite like Koffi for atmosphere–not to mention the two fab locations, downtown and the south end. Different vibes and both very suited to writing. I’ve always found a spot to open up the laptop at either place. I also got a lot of writing done at (believe it or not) Starbucks at Sunny Dunes.
The Blessed Stillness. Is there another place on earth where it’s more blissfully quiet to sleep? Or is the quiet of a place like Palm Springs just the way it is if you don’t live in a huge noisy city? Whatever it is, I found it particularly conducive to a good night’s sleep. Those inky black nights.
The Camelot — movie house. Where they play unusual and art films in the middle of a low-population desert. I love that they continue to do this kind of programming there, even in the summer, when the houses are practically empty. It’s got to be losing money at that time of the year, so clearly it’s a labor of love. (This may be the real #1 on my list.)

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The Farmer’s Market (actually it’s right outside The Camelot)– Small enough to be manageable and the farmers were local, so that was really enjoyable to get to know where your food was grown (on the mountain behind you!). Only drawback to this Farmer Market is that it closes in the summer. Guess it gets too hot to grow anything!
Fresh & Easy — There’s lots of opinions about this store but it always worked for me. From their already cut up and washed fruit and veggies to the ready-to-eat entrees, and, of course, they had the bargain aisle where they’d sell totally good food a day past the expiration for basically peanuts. I hear since the chain itself went under, this location may have new owners. . .
Eddy’s Frozen Yogurt– Eddy has great froyo and toppings — if you’re in a healthy mood, there’s the fresh fruit, if not, there’s the chocolate and peanut butter cups and all the other bad sugary things. But the best part really is sitting and enjoying your frozen treat watching the comings and goings of the nearly naked men at Hunter’s next door. A favorite summer night excursion, for sure.
World Gym Palm Springs–at the corner of Sunrise and Vista Chino–one of the best gyms I’ve ever been member of. They have miles of equipment, it seems, and it never appears crowded there. Great friendly staff and instructors — I liked that exercise and yoga classes were included with the membership. Come here to find out what’s going on in Palm Springs. I found this an easy place to go to get fit – easy because it was so pleasant and non-stressful.
Mount San Jacinto–ah, the mountain. Avid hiker that I am, I loved going up the tram, especially during the horrendously hot summer days, and spending the day up on top of the mountain hiking in the magnificent forests that are up there. The last time I was there during the summer I got a pass for $60 – a great value if you plan on going up on the mountain even just a few times during the summer months.
Where Everybody Knows Your Name — which seems to be every restaurant, every bar, every store. I guess I liked this aspect of small town living — that when you go out, half the people in any one establishment are people you know. I thought that was a lot of fun. Not like that at all in the big city, where anonymity seems to rule. Sometimes that’s nice, sometimes it’s just sad.

Answerman Returns: Jim Arnold answers readers’ questions

author under duress

Today, Jim answers readers pressing questions! (If you have a question, please submit it in the comments or by email.)

How did you get the idea for “The Forest Dark”?

I wanted to do an “if these walls could talk” kind of story. Originally I envisioned it quite literally, i.e. I’d tell the story of successive generations of renters at a single apartment (what became Shirley Knolls in the book). That pretty much morphed into a story of friendship over time, and how people change from youth to midlife. Also, a big part of the story is acceptance of where one finds oneself in midlife. You might say that’s an ongoing personal challenge, so it resonates with me.

Are your characters based on real people, such as yourself or others?

When I’ve written mid-life white gay male characters, like Ben Schmidt in “Benediction” or Noah Baldock in “The Forest Dark”, of course there’s a lot of me in those characters. With Noah in “Forest Dark,” I tried to model a lot of the character’s behavior on someone I knew in the past who died fairly young, and extrapolating what I thought that person would’ve ended up as in midlife. That process was actually easier than writing from what your own motivations and reactions would be. And how much more refreshing, it is, too, for the writer to be invested in someone outside of him or herself. My other main characters in both books are based on a conglomeration of friends and relatives—sometimes enemies, too.

Have you ever thought about writing a novel series?

I never did until recently. I’ve gotten a bunch of comments from fans of “Benediction” wondering what happens with Ben Schmidt after the end of that book. And, more recently, I’ve had a couple of people express interest in my character Louis Ronald Reagan von Eiff White—thinking there should be more. I think it would be fun to revisit the characters—but the story and the situations have to be compelling and stand on their own. I’ll likely make a decision soon on what to write once “Kept” is finished— later this year.

What is your best experience with self-publishing?

Seeing “Benediction” start selling quite a bit of time after its launch—which would never have happened in traditional publishing because it would have been pulled from bookstores early on for not selling. I think that’s one of the advantages of internet selling and publicity—you have a lot more time to make your case, so to speak. In fact you might have practically forever in some sense.

And your worst?

Honestly, it’s probably the realization that I have to do everything with my books—yes, writing them but also marketing them—and coming up with continuous and hopefully fresh and cheap ways to do that. There’s an incredible amount of noise out there and certainly no right answers for all of that. I think you just hope that occasionally something you do will attract a reader. When that happens, it’s worth all the sweat.

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The Girl at the Bodega

not the bodega in question, but a famous one at Las Palmas and Fountain.

And why the future belongs to her.

I was at the bodega across the street from where I work part-time in East Hollywood. I go there on my work days to buy a soda, usually (OK, I can’t be Mr. Healthy all the time! at least it’s always diet soda) before repairing over to the LACC quad to eat my bag lunch and watch the college boys.

On Saturdays there’s a different, younger girl working behind the counter. A younger relative of the reticent, older woman who works there during the week? Who knows.

The future belongs to this Saturday girl because:

she is bilingual if not more, with no trace of an accent when she’s speaking English
she is multi-cultural, clearly comfortable relating to the neighborhood kids in Spanish and joking around with a middle-aged white guy in English
she grew up with agency in both a traditionally American world (probably through the public school system) and an old world immigrant one
Her beautiful brown face of the future of Los Angeles, and the future leadership of Los Angeles

I imagine she’s only here on Saturdays because she’s in school the rest of the week. She won’t be working here at the bodega forever; her job will be downtown or in one of the other centers of creative work.

For all of the naysayers who decry the myth of the American Dream (and with good reason), this the real deal, the real American Dream, or some small part of it, made manifest and human and standing right in front of me.

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Top Ten L.A. Locations in “The Forest Dark”

When I wrote “The Forest Dark,” I wanted to make L.A. as much a character as any of the actual human ones in the book — which takes a snapshot of Los Angeles in the 1980s yet is mostly set in 2009.

Only the reader can judge if it succeeds in evoking the real personality and feel of the place, but I’d say these are the top locations in the book:

Shirley Knolls – the apartment building where Noah lived for most of the time period, where Eden also lived (characters in the book). Unlike Eden and Noah, this is a real place, on Franklin Avenue near Commonwealth in Los Feliz.

The Tiki-Ti — This little shack has been on my L.A. radar for as long as I can remember, though I think I’ve only been inside once and certainly never hung out there. A certain person might, such as those characters in this book. It seems to have undergone a renaissance in recent years as the immediate area has gotten more of a hip cachet.

Hollywood Park — the race track, the horse race track! And it’s now closed, though it hadn’t when I wrote the book. Good thing, and good thing I got to go when I did research. Very historical location, now it belongs to the ages and I think it’s going to be a condo development – what else?

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel — Great and again historical location, I believe this is the location where the Oscars were first presented. Supposed to be haunted, it’s got a David Hockney art as part of the pool. That’s where Eden would want to stay on her trip to L.A., even though there are many newer and fancier places to stay in Hollywood these days.

Channel Road – Will Rogers Beach. In the book, one character works at a store near the beach, and later in the book, another character gets a beach rental close by. Many of my early summer days in Los Angeles as a twentysomething were centered around this street. (good good memories!)

Bourgeois Pig — always loved the name of this place and used to write here on occasion when I rented fairly close by in Hollywood, on a street called Ivarene. The Forest Room in back used to be kind of a casbah room, where I’d occasionally meet blind dates, men I found on the internet. Also some good memories!
Convent of the Precious Blood — Made up institution and features, but the location is based on a real place, which happens to be just down the road from the La Bianca House (Manson murders) in Los Feliz. The real joint is called the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on Waverly Drive. (no picture yet)

Glendower Place, Perelson Mansion. Off of Vermont Avenue near Griffith Park, a real location and a real story. A murder suicide that occurred in 1959, and a house that has never really been lived in since then. Fascinating story which I incorporated into my fictional narrative.

KCET Building on Sunset – originally Monogram Studios and Allied Artists studios, home of “The Bowery Boys” and possibly where “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was filmed, or certainly where the production company was located. In 2011 KCET sold the studio to the Church of Scientology (and so it begins another bizarre chapter in its existence).

Hollywood Boulevard and Gramercy – location of the little store where Noah is asked to commit a crime. I write at a coffeehouse on that corner, Sabor y Cultura. There’s this fantastic art deco building across the street – perhaps it used to be a car dealership or something of that nature back in the day — but it certainly gets the creative juices going for me.

One of the most fun things for me as the author of “The Forest Dark” was figuring how to weave these places into a story. If you’re not familiar with Los Angeles, perhaps some of these locations will be new to you.

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“The Forest Dark” wins Second Place in Reader Views’ Literary Awards

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone – and yes, the awards were announced today and “The Forest Dark” came in Second Place in the Gay/Lesbian category for the Reader Views’ Literary Awards!

Big congratulations to all the winners in all the categories. I know how difficult it is to write a book, just finishing it is quite an accomplishment. Having written one and then getting some recognition for it, well, it’s icing on that cake.

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“The Forest Dark” a Finalist in Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards

It’s been quite a week for “The Forest Dark” — I found out yesterday that the novel is a finalist in the Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards, again in the Gay/Lesbian fiction category.

So now Noah, Eden and Louie (characters from the book) add this recognition to their finalist status over at the Reader Views’ Literary Awards. [Noah would not have a comment. Eden would say “yes, it’s about time.” Louie would smile and nod, “sweet.”]

Check out the list of all the BOTYA finalists here. This is what happens next:

“In the next two months, a panel of more than one hundred librarians and booksellers will determine the winners of these prestigious awards. A celebration of the winners will take place during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Friday, June 27 at 6 p.m., with awards in over sixty categories, cash prizes for the best in fiction and nonfiction, and widespread recognition.”

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The Stages of Grief Apply Here — to the Long Term Unemployment issue

thus resulting in life change.

I guess even the cops can go out of business.

I just realized they apply to this situation, there is a definite “grief” process – when you lose a job, can’t find another, resulting in major changes in the way you think.

What am I talking about?

These are Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief:

anger
bargaining (if only)
depression
acceptance

Nobody exactly died, not physically anyway, but certainly the old self, employed in the way I was, doing the things I did, is no more. So that really is a kind of death, isn’t it?

How these played out for me:

Denial: Although I did not deny the fact that it happened, that I was laid off, I did likely deny it’s seriousness, its implications. The last full time job layoff for me occurred in November, 2009. I do remember thinking “well, might as well take the holidays off, as no one will be hiring between now and New Year’s, anyway. . .” I also didn’t think it too odd when my resume was not responded to, as in, not responded to at all. . .when that had never happened before. (this time, of course, it’s different: both the economy and the job market)

Anger: I can see this in two areas: 1) intense anger at the non-profit I worked for, which laid off an entire department (3 white gay men and one African-American straight woman, 3 of us over 50, all of us over 45) and the perceived age discrimination there (of course, it didn’t help that the person who laid us all off was herself gay and over 50) as well as the perceived age discrimination as the reason for the above-referenced non-response to any job I applied for.

Bargaining: I can see this most clearly as I looked at my previous jobs and some decisions I made: would I have resigned from that great tech PR job if I knew that the economy was set to implode? Of course, I would not! Why did I take long periods off between work, not even to do freelance? This was coming back to haunt me! Surely, if I’d had a more traditional working career, I’d be snatched up by now. I’d changed emphasis or industry in my 20s, in my 30s, in my 4os, and here it was again, in my 50s. Woulda-coulda-shoulda, over and over and over. And it’s still going over and over and over (these stages are not linear or easily abandoned, it seems!)

Depression: This has also been a long, ongoing slog. Depressed that work life as I knew it was over, depressed at frightening visions of never having an income, or a forced retirement and what that might look like. There were periods of lightness, where there’d be hope of going in a different direction or that there would be some other kind of life, then a return to depression. During this time there were a couple of real deaths in our family, which, of course, didn’t help much (but certainly put the rest of it all in perspective). In retrospect, I do see that much of this was necessary, that long night one must go through to get to that next place. So, finally,

Acceptance: The world has changed, the work world has changed, and I along with it. Now, I don’t even want what I had before, though it’s certainly not available to me if I did. The past four (four plus, now) years have changed me. I hope it’s for the better, for the depth of experience, that makes one a richer man. I am older, more ornery (if that is even possible) and have come to see the advantages of where I find myself along the work/not work/whatever spectrum. With that comes a certain resilience. We’ve (that’s the royal we) all survived thus far, there’s no reason to think it won’t continue, and that it will be an adventure.

No doubt.

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