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DEAR MR. BLUE: Murder, she wrote
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Dear Mr. Blue, A couple of years ago, I had one of those midlife crises and left my wife for
a younger woman who I thought was my soul mate, my lost half. Well, it
didn't work out. I came home to my wife, who was pretty sporting about
it, and life went back to normal, only now I appreciate "normal" much
more. The problem is my wife's new book. She's a pretty successful mystery
writer, and I just got a look at the first chapter. It's about a middle-aged
woman whose husband dumps her for someone younger. The someone
younger has a name close to the name of my someone younger. Out of the
husband's mouth comes a lot of nonsense about soul mates and lost halves.
And he's the one who gets murdered. I don't know what to do. What if this becomes a bestseller? All our
friends will recognize the situation. The husband resembles me enough
that I think even our children might guess. I really thought she'd forgiven
me. This is just bringing up all the mess again. Foolish Man Dear Foolish, You are the victim of a very witty joke, a delicious and
clever and richly deserved one, so smile, be sporting, and when the time
comes, tell everyone that you think this is your wife's best book ever.
Hard feelings are never good form, especially in this situation. Your wife
was gracious about the nasty deed you did her, but she is also clever. And
how better to forgive you than to make the nastiness into an amusing read.
Hope for a bestseller. If it sells well, send her a bill for research
assistance. Dear Mr. Blue, I always thought of myself as a good writer and editor of workaday
reports, not a creative writer, and now I find I have a sort of knack for
writing pornographic stories. In my humble opinion, my stories are better
than most things out there, stylish and very naughty without being
disgusting. Mr. Blue Garrison Keillor's column appears every Tuesday in Salon Books.
Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue. Does writing porn make me a bad wife? I love my husband a lot and I don't want anybody else, but I feel guilty about the fantasizing that is involved in this kind of writing. Second: How can I get published? I wouldn't mind getting paid for what seems to me like a pretty fair talent. And third: How can I keep this a secret, and should I? I'd be mortified to have my husband, or anyone else I know, read what I've written, but I've mentioned to him that I wouldn't mind getting paid to write porn and he seemed fine with it. Scheherezade Dear Scheherezade, Having an active sexual fantasy life doesn't make you a bad person, or a bad wife, and as for the morality of the writing, each writer needs to decide this for herself. If you believe that your writing can dispel shame, offer pleasure to mature people, perhaps give courage, then you needn't apologize for it. You get published by sending a chapter, or a story, to a legitimate book publisher with a reputation for sexually explicit writing and waiting for an answer. And you create a pen name, like Sharon DeSade. Eventually, if you sell your work, your husband will suspect what's up and you'll want to tell him. Good luck. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a chronic procrastinator. I just can't follow through. On anything. This has been going on for years, and I can't seem to stop, maybe because I've always gotten away with it. I have a master's degree, a good job and plenty of friends and colleagues who like and respect me, but I have an overdue assignment at work, my apartment is a mess and I can't bring myself to clean it. I put things in envelopes with stamps but don't take the final step to drop it in the mailbox, even though I sit and look at the damn envelope for days. I'm wondering if I'm acting out some sort of quiet, childish defiance, but against what? It makes no sense. I'm scared it will come back to kick me in the ass. How do I make myself complete tasks? No Follow Through Dear N.F.T., I'd like to feel concerned about you, but I'm afraid everybody suffers from this to some degree. Everyone has stamped envelopes sitting around their messy apartments. My desk is so messy I can't even find my envelopes. You seem to be doing OK. You remember to pay your rent, right? You bathe, you stop at stoplights, you go to the dentist, you file your tax return more or less on time? Sorry, but if this is your major problem, you haven't been getting in enough trouble. Dear Mr. Blue, I am eking out a living as a painter at the tender age of 24. Every grant I apply for requires that I furnish a little piece of prose called an Artist's Statement. I am absolutely flummoxed. My work contains no elephant dung, it does not portray my alcoholic father hanging on a cross made of American flags, it's representational and it doesn't require explanation. If I could say it, I wouldn't need to paint it. Are writers required to submit little pencil sketches of themselves in order to get their novels looked at? Could you help me write one of these things? I need something weighty, pretentious and impenetrable. A big, leathery beefsteak of prose. You can see the paintings if you want on my Web site Bombastically Challenged in Vermont Dear Challenged, This is great, a letter from a painter, a first for Mr. Blue. I must confess to some lingering resentment toward the visual arts, based on my visits to Washington to lobby in Congress for the NEA in the wake of a big outcry over photographs of men with whips up their butts and so forth, but never mind about that. That's all urine under the crucifix now. As for the A.S., no mystery about it. Jurors like to hear the defendant testify, that's all. They sit in a committee room, wading through big envelopes of slides and prints, and their eyeballs glaze over and they'd like the bozo who committed all this art to say a word or two. I mean, you can learn so much more about a person that way. Painting is all very nice if you're into decoration and home furnishings and so on, but it's the use of language that separates the men from the boys. So sharpen your pencil and sit down and do it. You don't need to explain your work, just put forth a few lines that suggest, in a serious but not pretentious way, what is new and different about you and your work, your ethos, your sensibility. Sensibility is a good word to use. Luminous might be another. Just set down some artistic principles that your own friends could read without falling on the floor and choking to death and that would bring tears of admiration to the jurors' eyes and give them reason to award you the Hermione Loomis Gould Fellowship for Vermont Landscape Artists Under 30. Honk your horn, Brush Boy.
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