SHOW NOTES

Quick overview of this week's show:

• My writer's sketchbook and why it is invaluable to me and my career
• A page from 2011 during a people-watching session.
• Full sketch is available below the transcript

TRANSCRIPT

The funny thing about malls is that everywhere you look, people are waiting. Old men in the leather chairs that a measured out every five hundred feet, young girls and boys on benches outside of stores eating ice cream and watching the passersby, husbands waiting at the entrance of clothing stores for their wives to return, employees in empty stores waiting for customers to enter, customers in busy stores waiting to check out, janitors waiting for tables in the food court to clear so they can be wiped down. Everyone is waiting for something to happen. And it never does. 

***

Hello Anchor Nation, and welcome to chapter 2 of the podcast. Thanks for tuning in this week, where I share some author’s notes.

One thing you may not know about me is that I keep very detailed notes. I like to people watch, so I make notes about people’s behaviors, words, and gestures that I can use in a novel later.

Any time I come up with a random idea, I write it in my sketchbook. I use the book for inspiration whenever I hit a rough spot in my novel. Seeing all kinds of different ideas jumbled together does wonders for my creativity.

I’ve been doing this for nearly fifteen years, and I literally have thousands of notes.

I’ve never used most of my notes, so I thought it would be fun to dig these out, jazz them up, and share them.

Today’s sketch is from all the way back in 2007, during a people-watching session at a local mall in my neighborhood that seems to be dying more and more every day. The food court, in particular, is pretty pathetic. Here’s an excerpt from what I noticed sitting in the middle of the food court. I did change a few names here and there to preserve some anonymity.

[CUE ETHEREAL MUSIC]

“To my left is a place called David’s Sack Lunches, a new restaurant that I doubt will be here for very long. The lights are turned down low, and I wonder if this is on purpose. Then I see a piece of paper attached to the cash register with tape that says “Sorry, We’re closed. Reopening Monday at 10AM”.

I wonder if the restaurant is open because I see a thin, tattooed guy behind the counter cleaning up while an Asian girl leans over the counter, flirting with him. Her long brown hair falls toward her back, and she is wearing dark blue; a color that compliments her skin very well, though I cannot see her face. I notice Japanese or Chinese tattoos all over the guy she is talking to, and his hair is a dirty blond with neat, square patches of black all across. His head looks like a tiger, or worse, a bumblebee. This patchy, stripy design reminds me of a jail cell. I don’t know why; maybe that’s where this guy is headed.

I wonder what he and the girl are talking about. I notice the lights in the kitchen on in back, but no one’s there. Maybe she’s applying for a job, or perhaps they know each other. He waddles out from behind the counter through a half door, and her body follows his direction. He tells her not to step back; there is a nasty soda spill behind her sandals. She giggles when she sees it, and sidesteps.

The guy, who is wearing long jean shorts, plan white shoes, and no socks, motions to a janitor in the distance wiping down empty tables to come here. The janitor is a tired Latino man with a paunch who looks like he is going to fall asleep any minute. He makes his way over to David’s Sack Lunches and the guy holds out his hand and says, “Better watch it buddy, there’s a nasty spill right here.” The janitor grumbles and asks the man a question, which sounds as if he is asking where the janitor closet is, which is funny, because he is the janitor. He and the guy, “David” (I’ll call him) disappear around the bend into the expanse of the mall. The girl waits. And waits.

She checks her watch and puts her elbows on the counter. David and the janitor return several minutes later, the janitor trailing behind with a mop cart, pushing the cart with the hilt of the mop. Flecks of water splash out here and there. David smiles to girl, and she smiles back, as if those minutes she spent waiting were seconds. He hops over the counter, flips a light switch, hops back over the counter and walks away with the girl, laughing and flirting all over again. “You got this, right?” he asks the janitor. The janitor grumbles. “Chain of command, dude,” David says. “Chain of command.”

***

Hope you liked that. That’s half a page from 7 pages that I wrote.

I was a young college student learning how to observe back then. I was writing poetry, I believe, and I remember having an apprentice mindset. I wrote pages and pages of stuff back then just to get in the habit of “feeling” like a writer.

Know what the funny thing is? I never used any of the material in this note until now. It was a fun trip to reread this, and when I did, I felt like I was still at the mall on that quiet, sunny day.

If you would like to read the rest of the sketch, visit the show notes at michaellaronn.com/podcast.

***

Next week, I’ll be going behind the scenes of my new urban fantasy series, the Sound Mage Sonata. As the series takes place in the Middle East, I’ll be talking about research I’ve been doing.

Until next time, I leave you with a quote.

“I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota.” Gustave Courbet

CREDITS

Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

Hold My Hand (Ambient Mix) by Ars Sonor: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ars_Sonor/In_Search_of_Balance_Among_the_Shadows/07-Hold_My_Hand_Ambient_Mix_1984

Sound effects courtesy of Freesound.org.

Full Version of This Week's Sketch

Lightly edited from my sketchbook (pardon any grammar errors or typos)

The Food Court is a tired, tired place. I am sitting in a tiny chair with a metal back at a purple table that has been poorly washed (and recently, too, because I can still see streaks of ammonia across the shiny lavender surface that hasn’t evaporated yet) as I think this. This place is like any other food court in any other mall in America. Sunlight washes down from skylights cut in the ceiling, rays that seem so pure, you could touch them. The sun rays have a sound of their own—-something like that of a pond, or the sound of rushing water or water fountains. Maybe it’s all this sunlight that is pouring down that makes the place so tired. I wonder if the architects had planned this on purpose, ruminating over their blueprints in the design of this mall how to make people buy as much as possible. Although I wonder how being tired can affect your spending habits. There are strange people here, although I notice them only after taking a long look at the restaurants, most of which have been long gone and only exist in the form of a ghostly thin wall that bears an imprint of neon signs and food counters and coming soon signs. To my left is a place called David’s Sack Lunches, a new restaurant that I doubt will be here for very long. The lights are turned down low, and I wonder if this is on purpose. Then I see a piece of paper attached to the cash register with tape that says “Sorry, We’re closed. Reopening Monday at 10AM”. I wonder if the restaurant is open because I see a thin, tattooed guy behind the counter cleaning up while a Asiantian girl leans over the counter, flirting with him. Her long brown hair falls toward her back, and she is wearing dark blue; a color that compliments her skin very well, though I cannot see her face. I notice Japanese or Chinese tattoos all over the guy she is talking to, and his hair is a dirty blond with neat, square patches of black all across. His head looks like a tiger, or worse, a bumblebee. This patchy, stripy design reminds me of a jail cell. I don’t know why; maybe that’s where this guy is headed. I wonder what he and the Asian girl are talking about. I notice the lights in the kitchen on in back, but no one’s there. Maybe she’s applying for a job, or perhaps they know each other. He waddles out from behind the counter through a half door, and her body follows his direction. He tells her not to step back; there is a nasty soda spill behind her sandals. She giggles when she sees it, and sidesteps. The guy, who is wearing long jean shorts, plan white shoes, and no socks, motions to a janitor in the distance wiping down empty tables with a dirty rag to come here. The janitor is a tired Latino man with a paunch who looks like he is going to fall asleep any minute. He makes his way over to David’s Sack Lunches and the guy holds out his hand and says, “Better watch it buddy, there’s a nasty spill right here.” The janitor grumbles and asks the man a question, which sounds as if he is asking where the janitor closet is, which is funny, because he is the janitor. He and the guy, “David” (I’ll call him) disappear around the bend into the expanse of the mall. The Asian girl waits. And waits. She checks her watch and puts her elbows on the counter, her behind sticking out into the air. David and the janitor return several minutes later, the janitor trailing behind with a mop cart, pushing the cart with the hilt of the mop. Flecks of water splash out here and there. David smiles to the Asian girl, and she smiles back, as if those minutes she spent waiting were seconds. He hops over the counter, flips a light switch, hops back over the counter and walks away with the girl, laughing and flirting all over again. “You got this, right?” he asks the janitor. The janitor grumbles. “Chain of command, dude,” David says. “Chain of command.”

There are four little girls at the table next to me. On one side is a blonde girl in a tye-dye shirt. Her shirt is an indicator of her age; I rarely see any one except children in tye-dye shirts anymore. Sitting across from her is a girl who looks too high-maintenance for her age. While she is young, I have seen her face and her aura on people twice my age. Rouged cheeks, brown hair that falls down to her shoulders, a blouse that shouldn’t be worn by girls her age. I wonder who she will be when she grows up. I wonder if the baby fat that is still gathered over her face, across her checks, and in her stomach will give way to a statuesque physique. This is, of course, years into the future, something that I will never know. Next to this girl is a little Asian girl in a black and white checkered dress that almost seems like an overcoat. There are buttons on her sleeves that are undone, and her short sleeve is sprawled out across her arm, like the petals of a delicate flower. Her hair hangs down in front of her face, the rest behind her head, and she texts on her phone. I do not remember the other girl sitting at this table. I expect them to be talking about boys, or silly things, but this is too stereotypical. To their credit, I try to imagine them having a more sophisticated conversation, at least for twelve year olds. Maybe they are talking about how tired this food court is—-something I’m thinking myself—-and how they wish they could escape tired old Des Moines, Iowa, and do something with their lives.

There are immigrant families here, mostly Latino, but some Indian, Bosnian and Chinese, too. There is a Latino family who passes through from the Kohls’ entrance, their young children running out like scouts in front. They are smiling, enchanted to be here, where, to them, everything in the world is happening and everyone in the world is watching. Their parents trail behind them with a heavy, invisible weight on their shoulders, their faces riddled with financial burdens or the burden of not having any money at all. They smile to hide this frustration, but I can see it nonetheless. I remember being a child, running around in malls in front of my parents. We almost never bought anything; we just grazed through, window shopping, secretly wishing we had the money to buy all of the things that we didn’t need anyway.

From the Kohls’ entrance I see an interracial couple emerge. It’s a young black guy, probably in his twenties and a young white woman of the same age. He is smiling wide, and I can see his teeth gleaming from halfway across the food court. She’s wearing a green football tee.

And then I realize that despite all the things in the mall, all the things for sale, all the things we pay money for, what’s really on sale is ourselves. Just like the window displays with airbrushed shirts of Goofy, Optimus Prime and Cadillac Escalades, underwear rimmed with rhinestones, basketball hoops and diamond earrings—-we are all windows, hoping that the world will buy the image of ourselves that we have brought to this mall. For what purpose? To feel as if we are the people we want to be, not who we are. Even though the eyes of the passersby will probably never see us again, it’s enough for us to be a stranger to strangers, a stranger to ourselves. 

The funny thing about malls is that everywhere you look, people are waiting. Old men in the leather chairs that a measured out every five hundred feet, young girls and boys on benches outside of stores eating ice cream and watching the passersby, husbands waiting at the entrance of clothing stores for their wives to return, employees in empty stores waiting for customers to enter, customers in busy stores waiting to check out, janitors waiting for tables in the food court to clear so they can be wiped down. Everyone is waiting for something to happen. And it never does.