"I believe my subject is bewilderment. But I could be wrong." Donald E. Westlake 1933-2008Yesterday, while doing time in the seasonally long checkout line at the supermarket, Christmas muzak forced itself in my ears: It’s the MOST wonderFUL TIME of the YEAR….  Ha. More like, over-rated. No, over-advertised.  

What’s a synonym for advertise?  Hypnotize. Via TV, radio, facebook, google, twitter, tablets, phones, you name it, vendors use it to do it. From Black Friday through New Year’s Eve, everywhere you go, eddying masses of shopping-bag-encrusted people with glazed eyes at half-mast get in the way. Especially in parking lots. Oh joy.

From behind me in the queue, a woman’s voice broke up these festive thoughts, “Did you get the croutons?”

A second female voice answered, “Capons? I thought we were going with turkey. Do they even carry capons here? Awfully fancy.”

The first voice said, impatiently, “Croutons!”

The second, “Coupons?”

The soundtrack changed to Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it and I was at the OJ Bar & Grill, standing at the bar with Dortmunder, my favorite thief, waiting for Rollo, the meaty, blue-jawed bartender to notice us. Meanwhile, the regulars at the bar talked amongst themselves. Oh joy!

Overhearing the regulars at the OJ is the best of all possible interludes in this best of all possible worlds: a Dortmunder caper by Donald Westlake. (Also in this, the real world.)

As you know, Westlake is my favorite author.  The reasons are many, and here’s another. In every stream of action there are lulls, during which people around us talk, and who listens? Westlake. Master alchemist, he takes this dross and makes comedic gold.

At some point in every Dortmunder caper— Oh, when? The anticipation!— the gang meets in the back room of the OJ. Which means passing by the bar where the regulars take sloshy slugs at life’s pressing conundrums. And miss.

Let's listen. We gotta wait for Rollo anyway.

When Dortmunder walked into the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at four minutes before six that evening, Rollo, the bulky, balding bartender, was painting MERY XM on the extremely dusty mirror over the back bar, using some kind of white foam from a spray can, possibly shaving cream, while the regulars, clustered at one end of the bar, were discussing the names of Santa’s reindeer. “I know it starts,” the first regular said, “’Now, Flasher, now Lancer, now—‘”

“Now, now, wait a second,” the second regular said.  “One of those is wrong.”

Donald Westlake (1933 - 2008)

“And what are you reading, Miss ---?” “Oh, it is only a novel! replies the young lady: while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame.  It is only… some work in which the most thorough of knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.” Jane Austen 

Born the year prohibition was repealed, Westlake’s writing career took off in 1962 with the publication of The Hunter, (written as Richard Stark), the first Parker novel, a ground-breaking noir masterpiece, and didn’t slacken till he had the nerve to die in 2008 with close to a hundred books behind him and some still in the oven. 

No more Westlakes. It’s cause for wailing, gnashing of teeth, and obsessive hunting in used bookstores for out of print books. 

Westlake wrote quirky, smart stories about quirky, smart people living full lives outside the law. Sure, they go down quick and easy as escapist trash. But to think they are trash would be a mistake, like falling for Columbo’s dull bulb act.  Single-handed creator of the comedic caper and noir crime fiction, Westlake is THE Grand Master. 

You can read him for belly laughs. (And you should. There is nobody funnier than Westlake.) You can read him for the worldly vitamins and knowing minerals missing from your diet. You can read him to figure out how he does his magic. However you read him, his writing is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Here is the first sentence from Watch Your Back!, the thirteenth novel in the Dortmunder series: 

When John Dortmunder, a free man, not even on parole, walked into the O. J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue that Friday night, the regulars were discussing the afterlife.

Already I’m laughing.

For David and Lorraine 

Here’s the thing about posting once a week: first you have to write something. No write, no post. Usually ideas ricochet around my head. Me! Me! Use Me! Not this week. Maybe they’re on vacation. Or sleeping in. Or on strike. 

OK. Let’s see. Hmmmm. Surely there’s more to milk from our trip to the UK. For instance. People there are so well spoken, so droll, so understated. The national ethos is reflected in business names and public notices. “Keep Edinburgh clean. Bin your trash!”

“I’m from the States. I’ve never seen “bin” used as a verb before!” I exclaim to the rain-coated older lady standing under the bus shelter with this exhortation running along the roof rim. She looks at me politely. Too politely. I smile broadly and tip my chin up at the writing above her head, then step back to point and shoot. 

She looks up. “Ah!” 

“Mind you,” she lilts in a beautiful Scots accent, with a twinkle in her eye. “There’s not a bin to be found anywhere up or down this street!” 

OK, good start. Now what?  

Nothing.  I want to grab my brain and shake it: Wake up! Ordinarily, the first idea ignites a second, which sparks a third, and so on, the writing rushing forward like a brush fire. I resist feeling discouraged. I must be patient. Receptive. Something will come.

“You’re so busy! How do you do it?” I’m asked, not infrequently, about my writing process.

“With difficulty,” I usually quip. But, it got me thinking. How do I do it?  

It’s simple really, but not obvious.

It’s all about identifying your Modus Operandi (M.O.), your fundamental operating assumption(s).

By definition, we don’t question assumptions. Until…. 

One day, I noticed— very important, the act of noticing— that when I’m writing regularly, I am happy.

Yet— I also noticed— that I wrote only after taking the garbage out, at the end of the day when I was tired, or on edge that Son would interrupt my train of thought to ask for a ride. What’s up with that? I asked my self.

A-ha!  I wrote last, and then only with the dregs of the day’s energy. No energy left, no writing.  Sound familiar?

There it was, my self-defeating M.O., naked in the light of awareness. In a flash, I got it, and— Ciao baby!— committed to the new M.O.: