Welcome everyone to a brand new edition of the Writer's Revolution. I am your host, the author of
The Phoenix Blade, Andrew Hess. This week we have a special guest with us. She is an actress, a director, a blogger, a photographer and now an author. She is Christine Elise McCarthy
Tell me a little
about yourself.
I am originally from Boston but I have lived in Hollywood
for the last 30 years. I have been
acting professionally for 25 years and am recognized primarily for my roles as
U4EA-popping bad girl, Emily Valentine, on Beverly Hills, 90210, as Harper
Tracy on ER, and as Kyle, the gal who killed Chucky in Child’s Play 2. I have also appeared in recurring roles on
China Beach, In the Heat of the Night, and Tell Me You Love Me. Among my other film roles are Abel Ferrara’s
Body Snatchers and two films starring Viggo Mortensen: Vanishing Point and
Boiling Point.
As a writer, I have written three episodes of Beverly Hills,
90210 as well as characters and storylines for the series, a pilot that was
optioned by Aaron Spelling, and comical true-life essays that I performed at
the Upright Citizens Brigade and Naked Angels theaters in LA. I also maintain an irreverent food porn blog
called www.DelightfulDeliciousDelovely.com
for which I provide recipes, photographs and sometimes share the details
of the triumphs and, more frequently, the humiliations of my life. I also have
a great passion for photography (www.MyPinUpArt.com) and I have shown my pin-up
and decaying Americana imagery in the United States & Paris. I have been on the selection committee of
Michigan’s Waterfront Film Festival since its inception in 1999, I am
co-director of the Victoria Texas Independent Film Festival, I program for the
Self-Medicated Film Festival and The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival, and consult
& judge for many others. My
directorial debut, Bathing & the Single Girl, was accepted into over 100
film festivals and won 20 awards.
Bathing & the Single Girl, inspired by the short film,
is my debut novel.
Wow, that’s one
impressive resume. I remember watching 90210 growing up and thinking Emily was
an awesome character that helped bring along some of the other casts
characters. But with such an impressive acting resume, what inspired you to
start writing?
I have always aspired to be a novelist & have always
been an avid reader. The success of my
short film built my confidence that I could tell a story – about almost
anything – and make it funny. So – that
is what I set out to do – to write the funniest novel ever written! I wasn’t trying to change the world or make
people think. I just wanted to make
people laugh – out loud – as often as possible.
There’s nothing
better than a good laugh or making others laugh. My grandfather used to tell
us; you should always start your day off with a laugh because then you’ll start
your day off in a good mood.
Now I’m very
interested to hear more about your novel: Bathing & the Single Girl. Can
you tell us more about it?
BATHING & THE SINGLE GIRL is my smutty, mercilessly
irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel. Inspired by my one-woman short film of the
same name, it’s the kind of novel Jonathan Ames might write if he’d dropped out
of college and had been working as an actress in Hollywood for the last 20
years. At least – I hope!
The book is summarized as follows: The life of an actress in LA isn’t all
glamour, money, and bedding rock stars.
Sometimes it’s more about humiliation, red wine hangovers, and the bad
decisions they fuel. Ruby Fitzgerald has
barely worked in years, not that anyone remembers her for anything but her
short stint on a long-canceled but iconic TV show. But that was back when her career prospects
seemed on the upswing -- longer ago than Ruby cares to admit, and awkward sex
with regrettable partners is doing nothing to take the edge off. Everything
once functional in her house is going on strike, but the unemployment checks
barely cover the mortgage, and a self-respecting girl needs to be able to pay
her bar tab -- so repairs are on hold.
One more bubble bath and a few more cocktails. A gal can always get responsible tomorrow.
With everything mounting against her, a cranky and
increasingly despairing Ruby will have to find out if her life’s larger
indignities are the result of bad luck, or a chronically bad attitude. What follows is a walking tour of the
hilarious depths you can sink to if you stop exercising your best judgment.
This sounds like a
great story and am looking forward to diving into it. In the meantime, can you
tell us more about Ruby? What makes her unique?
Ruby Fitzgerald is a bit of a cranky miscreant. She isn’t unique in her disappointing career
as a struggling actress in Los Angeles – but her level of self-involvement
keeps her from realizing that. She
distracts herself from the slings & arrows of life with a steady stream of
wine & a nearly steady stream of criminally underwhelming romantic
encounters. The marginal success of her
past acting career remains the carrot that keeps her on the treadmill –
continually striving to fulfill her dream of being respected as an
actress. In the meantime, she faces
humiliation after hilarious humiliation – whether they result from ill-advised
& wince-worthy sexual encounters or degrading professional
opportunities. The question is – will
Ruby succeed or will she have to take her place in mediocrity, like so many
other aspiring actors before her?
Ruby sounds like
quite a character. I think there are many struggling in the business that can
relate to doing anything to find a way to make it in the business but I feel
Ruby will have us enjoying the trip along the way.
So tell our readers
what inspired you to write this novel?
The short film (of the same name) was so well received
(screening at over 100 festivals) that it built my confidence as a humor
writer. Every question & answer
session in which I participated at these fests had someone in the audience
inquiring if I did stand up – or if the stories in the film were true. Then someone just said it. They said, “You should turn that into a
novel!” Incredibly, that suggestion
immediately resonated & I knew exactly how I could turn a 2k word short
into a 115K word novel – so – I set about getting it done.
Now we briefly touched on some of your
other writing in the past; such as your food porn blog and writing for 90210.
I’d like to just go into that a little more.
Can you explain to our readers that
might not know what a food porn blog is?
Food porn is just a provocative short hand for the
glorification – fetishizing, even – of preparing, presenting & serving food. Food porn consists of food lovingly composed
& lushly photographed. The recipes
themselves can often be decadent & might coyly suggest that the foods are
substitutes for sex – the way lots of women’s fiction represents chocolate. It is a playful term for a serious business –
EATING!
How different is it to write for TV as
opposed to writing a novel?
I wrote for the original 90210 but that is a very structured
writing environment – as characters & stories are all pretty well-defined
when they ask you to write an episode. All
serial TV is that way. As a guest writer
on a show, your job is really just filling in dialogue & bringing their
outline to life logically. Being a staff
writer for TV means a lot more creative input but I have never yet been on
staff. Beyond my short, the only writing
I have done is for my food porn blog –
www.DelightfulDeliciousDelovely.com.
The novel – the first draft – was written stream of
consciousness-style. I drew up no
outline. I didn’t know what the next
chapter would bring – let alone have an ending in mind. I just sat down every day, after the gym, and
wrote until 5pm – or until I felt I had come to a natural stopping place. I usually tried never to stop writing without
having some idea of where I would be starting the next day – in an effort to
avoid a block. The first draft took
eight weeks precisely, I think, because it was so free form & without
constraints or expectations. The final
version is about 50% different from the first draft so, clearly, the first
draft was far from perfect but I just had to pound it out & get something
“done” before I could begin to look at it critically.
I enjoy both kinds of writing. They both have their pressures & freedoms
& their own rewards. Seeing a
produced episode of TV & hearing actors say your words is thrilling &
TV writing is a union job which has other important rewards. But writing the novel provided a total
aesthetic freedom – both as to content & work ethic – that I also very much
appreciate. Doing both in tandem would
be heaven.
Who is your greatest
writing inspiration?
I am a huge fan of Charles Bukowski. I have always been impressed at how well he
combined grit & honesty with humor & sentimentality. He is often mistaken as a vulgar novelist but
the man was a poet first and his is the only poetry I have ever enjoyed.
Also, actor Frank John Hughes is a friend of mine. He is an inspiration to me as a writer
because 1) I love his writing and 2) he just writes! And writes and writes. He writes screenplays & poems & short
stories – whatever - and just fetishizes
the act of writing so much as the Godhead of all art - he bleeds writing. He makes writing sound so noble &
warrior-like & divine & so important – it is hard not to want to get
right to it & earn your place in the heavens with other great writers. He makes grinding it out, alone, in front of
a computer – unpublished, unread, unrecognized – sound fucking exciting &
saint-like. And, I think you have to
approach writing from that place – that place of “I simply MUST write and keep
writing” – to do it with any happiness and authenticity because most authors
will never get read – or achieve commercial success. So – you must write for yourself first. My boyfriend, Miles Miller, is a
writer-director and he, too, has a work ethic like Frank John Hughes & will
hole up & write just because he loves it – but he approaches it from a
quieter place – maybe a bit less confrontationally than Frank’s attitude. But they are both prolific & write to
keep their souls from withering. I
admire that very much. For me – these
men are true artists – and they take their art very seriously. That has also been an important lesson for me
– to take myself seriously as an artist (as they do) & not dismiss anything
I do as crap or “less than” or something to be sort of – presented wincingly –
or apologized for. I am very proud of
the book and despite the fact that is churlish & vulgar at times – I feel
it is very well written & I hope that the humor & vulgarity come across
as intelligently as I intended them to.
Real life can be ugly & drag you through the gutter just as some of
the funniest comedy can – but that doesn’t mean stories about those elements of
life deserve less respect.
