November 2007 Archives

I don’t know about you, but I’m growing wary of expiration dates. Reach for the Tylenol in your medicine chest, and it seems that the expiration date on the bottle has just come and gone. Same with a tube of Neosporin, a container of Airborne, or a sheet of cold tablets. Same with eye drops and rubbing alcohol. Same with vitamins. And these are non-prescription items. Prescription ones are even worse.

A doctor’s prescription is only good for a year – and I can understand that, given the all-too-frequent abuse of prescription drugs. But once you have a tube of prescription face cream in your possession, is there a problem using it past the “discard after” date on the label? Is it about potency – that the strength decreases with time? Or simply that when you toss the old one, you have to buy a new one, which means more money for manufacturers and vendors?

What made me think about this was the Thanksgiving holiday, when my son was home and looking for mayo in the fridge. There was an unopened bottle … whose expiration date was last month. He chose to use mustard on his sandwich instead. So, was there a danger in using the mayo? Had it gone bad by the expiration date, even if the bottle hadn’t ever been opened?

What about bottled water, whose expiration date is a year after it is produced? Does it go bad after that first birthday? Does canned soda lose its fizz? There looked to be plenty of fizz last month when I systematically opened a dozen cans of soda and dumped the contents because the expiration date had passed. What about all those canned juices, soups, and fish that some of us stockpile for the epidemic of bird flu about which the media terrifies us from time to time? Does it go bad by the expiration date, even if it’s sitting unopened in a cool basement?

Some things we can eyeball, like lettuce. The printing on the bag says, “Best sold by such-and-such a date,” but does that mean we shouldn’t use it after that date? What if it looks, smells, and tastes perfectly good?

Tea bags have an expiration date. Same with oatmeal. And olive oil. And toothpaste. Even my cat’s food has an expiration date, and it is dry, hard food.

Are expiration dates nothing more than scare tactics to ensure new sales? Or is there a very practical and important purpose for them?

I’d love some feedback on this. Any of you work for drug companies and want to give it a try?

It’s amazing. Of twenty pieces of mail that arrives in a day, easily fifteen are ads, whether catalogues, flyers, or postcards. It’s the holiday, of course. Who can blame merchants for offering deals, what with a worrisome economy?

Advertising is a way of life. We’ve learned to sort through and quickly toss junk. Ads on TV are something else. Occasionally we look forward to them, like on Super Bowl Sunday, when corporations treat us to a parade of their very best – and most expensive – efforts. Like with junk mail, though, most of us have learned to turn off a mental switch during commercial breaks.

Now it’s easier than ever to avoid ads, thanks to digital recording devices like TiVo. In the past, when all of us watched programs live, we still might have memorized a jingle or internalized a logo despite multitasking during commercials. These days, when we record programs for later viewing, we can zap ads completely.

Ironically, now that I’ve begun making multi-media trailers as previews for my books, like The Secret Between Us and Family Tree, I can almost sympathize with advertisers. Making a trailer is a labor of love. It takes weeks to perfect a script, find the right images, record the audio, and put it all together in polished form. I’d hate to think that no one is watching it!

So I have mixed feelings about ad zapping. Time is precious. I’m all for saving what minutes we can. But ads pay for the programs we enjoy, and advertising is losing its value. If companies stop pouring big bucks into TV programs, what will happen to the shows we love?

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and here I am, at six in the morning, with a little window of time. The prep work is done -- turkey in the fridge, counters lined with feast-makings, sofa-beds pulled out and made up, PackNPlay assembled, car seats installed -- and, on their end, the kids are getting ready to leave home for the airport to fly to see us.

My family is well and happy, and I have four beautiful grandchildren to celebrate this year. I am thankful for that.

I am thankful that my husband and I are healthy, and so looking forward to having our whole family around us. It isn't often that it happens. Once adult children get married, they have to split holidays between in-laws. This year we've lucked out and are having everyone here. I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for my friends, who have put me so well on a path toward a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for my agent, my editor, my assistant, who take care of business while I write.

I'm also thankful for you. Without my readers, I'm no writer at all. So please know how appreciated you are, wherever you are, on this Thanksgiving. And have a wonderful holiday!

I did not set out to write a book about race when I wrote Family Tree, but that is the issue many readers have grasped, and no wonder. Race has always been a hot-button issue. But have we finally turned a corner?

There was a wonderful article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal. It points to a new poll showing that 63% of registered voters believe that a qualified African-American can be elected president. This is up from 29% in 1986.

The discussion, of course, is sparked by the candidacy of Senator Barak Obama. The Journal quotes Shelby Steele, a black research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “The very essence of Obama's appeal is the idea that … race is something that America can transcend. … A lot of Americans would truly love to find a black candidate they could comfortably vote for for President of the United States."

Coincidentally, on November 10, the same day that the WSJ article appeared, a review of Family Tree appeared in The Times, the oldest national daily in England. It is a fabulous review that concludes by saying that Family Tree is “a page-turner that also asks some serious questions about America’s relationship with its past.”

I can’t delude myself into thinking that all of those questions will be answered in my lifetime. Massachusetts did elect its first African-American governor last year. But, as the Journal piece points out, race has a way of sneaking up at the last minute, when the voter is all alone with his biases in the privacy of the polling booth.

I haven’t yet decided which of the candidates I’d most like to see elected in November ’08. But I do look forward to the day when we are color-blind enough to make our choices based on issues and qualifications, rather than skin color.

I’m thinking of libraries that have suffered from fire or flood and are trying to rebuild. I have a book stash in my basement and would love to send a CARE package of backlist titles, but believe it or not, I’ve had trouble getting the names of libraries in need.

Do you know of any? I don’t mean libraries with funding problems. Sadly, they all have those. At this time, though, I mean libraries that have been hit by catastropic damage. Katrina victims are obvious targets, but I’ve already exhausted those.

Help!!!!

Maureen Johsnon has suggested, in a comment to my last knitting-related blog, that rather than my trying to figure out how to adapt hat patterns myself, I ask readers to send them in.

OK, readers. Here’s your chance. I’m looking for childrens’ hat patterns to knit with sock yarn. If you have one, send it on in. You can do that either by adding a comment to this blog, or by sending me a note here. Thanks!

When you were a child, did you have plans for your life? Did you know what you wanted to be or do? How have those plans panned out? Have there been any surprises in your life?

I think about this every time I pass a professional milestone. The fact is, I never planned to be a writer. Writing wasn’t on my radar screen at all. I came from a family of male lawyers and didn’t plan to have a career, period. I had never met an author in the flesh – was even kicked out of Honors English in high school.

The trade paperback pub of Family Tree did it for me this week – made me think about the twists and turns life takes while we’re looking the other way.

But then, is it ever possible to plan out a life? Is it wise?

It’s like plotting a book. Early on, I learned that too much planning precludes spontaneity. If I had done that, I wouldn’t be a writer today.

Which do you think is best -- planning or spontaneity?

And I do mean BUSINESS, in the truest sense of that word. To be a successful writer, it isn’t enough just to write a book. One needs to be a a businessman. Among other things, that means writing scripts for book trailers.

I didn't know book trailers existed until last year, when I was redoing my website and my new web designer suggested that readers needed a preview of my book that had visuals and was narrated by me. So I made a multimedia trailer for Family Tree (view here), and I just did it again for my new book, The Secret Between Us (view here). My web guru, Steve Bennett, and his team handle the visuals, but the audio script is the first step in the process, and guess who writes that? Yours truly.

It’s been a learning experience. When I did the script for the Family Tree trailer, I wrote a description of the book and whittled it down to the allotted minute-and-a-half. Steve helped me edit it, then he took it and added visuals. And we did have a challenge at times. I mean, my books are about concepts and emotions. But how do you find a visual for trust? Or doubt? Or prejudice? Or fear?

I approached it differently the second time around. This time, I thought about visuals first. The Secret Between Us opens with an automobile accident (click here to read Chapter 1), so rather than launching the multimedia trailer with emotional issues, I went with the accident. Let me tell you, it’s much easier finding visuals for rain, windshield wipers, squealing brakes, ambulances, and police cars, than it is for a backfiring lie!

Live and learn.

I love reader mail. Thanks to my Contact page, I have the opportunity to hear from you often. Your notes range from “Love your books!” to personal anecdotes to questions about my novels.

Occasionally I’ll see the same question pop up over and over. One that’s caught my fancy has to do with a reference in Family Tree’s acknowledgement page where I thank two important people for information on Iraqi life and speech. You’re asking, “What does that have to do with the story?” Well, the answer is in the book!

Can you find the page in Family Tree with an Iraqi character? If so, send me a note in Contact with the page number and name of the character. In return, I’ll enter your name in a drawing. One entry per person, please. The prize? Ten copies of the new Family Tree trade paperback and my DVD called Barbara Delinsky Talks About Writing and Books, all perfect for your book group discussion of Family Tree. Hurry! The deadline is November 30.