You Wanted To Know

Where did you get the idea for Carpool Diem?

The first glimmer of an idea for Carpool Diem came to me—surprise, surprise—as I was standing on the sidelines at a soccer game.

I was with a very well-behaved group of parents. We ought to have been well-behaved. We live in a town that has its very own “Anti-Soccer-Rage” program, to make sure things never get out of control.

On this particular day, the parent who was our team “Anti-Rage rep” came to the game with an idea. She told us she'd heard that lollipops were a good way to keep parents from yelling, cheering too loudly, or using verbs.

She then pulled out a bunch of lollipops from her pockets and passed them around. And it worked. Try to yell while you're licking a lollipop. You can't. It turns out to be pretty much impossible to take yourself seriously with an all-day-sucker in your mouth.

By the end of that game all the parents were sticky fingered and red tongued as we licked away at our cherry lollipops. Meanwhile, our young daughters were playing on the field like little warriors, with complete seriousness and focus.

That's when the thought struck me: Would an outsider think we had all gone insane? There we stood, a group of adults, turned docile by candy, while our sharp-thinking young daughters performed like well-trained soldiers.

What would be next? Would someone give us Playdoh or Slinkys to keep our hands busy? While the girls ate their nutritious sliced fruit at halftime, would we each get ten animal crackers and be admonished not to bite the heads off first?

These were the thoughts that led to the creation of Annie Fleming, a woman booted out of a high-powered job who returns to life in the suburbs without a game plan or a clue.

What I really want to know is, are your characters based on real people or do you make this stuff up?

My own experiences, the experiences that other people share with me, everything I read, see and hear all help inform my imagination. But at the end of the day, it's me making it up.

The one exception is that I did write a minor walk-on character based on myself in the May Morrison mystery, UP NEXT. It's in a scene where a guest comes onto the fictional “Paula Live” show to promote her tipping guide. In a little joke at my own expense, I made her the absolute worst guest in talk show history.

But even that’s made up since I never actually did appear on Oprah. But more on that later!

Short answer: I make it all up.

However, if you think you recognize the characters, thank you! I take that as a compliment. It means I got it right.


Come on. Isn't the main character in CARPOOL DIEM really you?

I like Annie, but I am definitely not her. Of course, when I was writing the book, I had to become her in my head. In that way, novels can be like dreams where every character is really the dreamer. So in CARPOOL DIEM, when I was writing from the point of view of Winslow West, the egomaniacal coach, I had to imagine that I was an egomaniacal coach. When I wrote from the point of view of Roy, the frustrated angry plumber, I wrote as if I were a frustrated angry plumber. I guess you could say I am all of my characters, and none of them.


Tell me the truth. Am I in your book?

No. Sorry! I wanted to put you in my book but I couldn't because you wouldn't do exactly what I needed you to do for the story. So I made up a character instead. That's the great thing about fictional characters versus real people. My characters don't always do exactly what I want. If they're well created, they do end up with their own ideas. But at least they listen to me. They'll consider my opinion. You, not so much.


Is CARPOOL DIEM your first book?

It’s not. I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Actually, I've been writing for longer than I can remember. And the first book I published was a non-fiction travel guide about tipping around the world. I wrote it while working full time in New York as a movie exec for the Samuel Goldwyn Company.


Tipping? Really? Why?

The book came about because of a writer's best friend: serendipity.

At the time, I was traveling a lot overseas. And I was often perplexed about how much to tip. This was before there were internet ports in every hotel room, so I couldn't just google and find out.

After one particularly confounding trip to London, I asked a friend who had recently joined a New York publishing company if she could please publish an international tipping guide so that I could be better prepared for my next trip.

She loved the idea and proposed it at her next editorial board meeting. Turned out everyone loved the idea, but they needed a writer. A sleep-deprived year of research later, my first book was born.


How did you manage to write a book while you were working full time?

Nothing heroic there! There's a storied history of writers who've produced great work while holding down unrelated full time jobs. Wallace Stevens comes to mind. He wrote poetry while working as an insurance agent. William Carlos Williams wrote while working as a physician. And then there are countless people like me--writers who toil away in the early hours of the morning, in the middle of the night, on trains, subways and planes, trying to balance their need or desire to write with their need or desire to pay the mortgage and feed their family.


So do you consider yourself a writer hyphen tipping expert?

No way! I'm just a writer. Yes, for several years after the publication of my tipping guide I was invited onto TV and cable shows as a tipping expert. Yes, my tipping guide ended up in the bibliography of several articles in scholarly journals written by academics who study the sociology of tipping. But I have retained very little of what I learned about tipping around the world. Luckily I have my book on the shelf, so I can consult myself when necessary.

Note to the nice man who delivered flowers last week: Sorry. I wasn't able to find the book in time!


When did you start writing fiction?

I started writing fiction full time after I left the movie business, which coincided with the birth of the older of my two daughters. The first novel I wrote was BURIED LIVES. My second novel, the mystery UP NEXT, came out several years later, followed by its sequel, NOW THIS.


How did you get the ideas for those books?

BURIED LIVES was a psychological suspense novel inspired by one of my favorite movies, Gaslight. The movie, directed by George Cukor, stars Ingrid Bergman as a woman whose husband is manipulating her to make her feel as if she’s lost her mind. It's a classic, wonderfully creepy movie, and I love it.

As for the May Morrison mysteries, UP NEXT and NOW THIS, their inspiration connects back--who would have thought?--to the tipping guide.

I had just started working on a novel with a main character who was a producer on a day-time TV talk show, when out of the blue a real producer from a day-time talk show called me. And it wasn't just any talk show. It was Oprah.

The producer told me Oprah was going to be doing a show on tipping in a few days. They'd heard about my guide and wanted me to come on the show as an expert. I was slightly terrified, having already forgotten everything I ever knew about tipping. But when Oprah calls, you don't say no. So I said, Great!

I quickly re-read the book. I called all my friends and family to share the big news. I confronted the challenge of what in the world to wear.

It was about five hours after the first call when the original producer called back to say, Thanks so much, but never mind, we've decided to use someone else.

That's when I decided to take May Morrison, my talk show producer character, and put her in a fun mystery where talk show producers start turning up all over town--dead.

Note to Oprah: This was years ago. Now, I'd make a wonderful guest. And I'd be delighted to come on your show.

Note to Oprah's producer: No hard feelings, I hope. You couldn't have been more gracious, smart and kind.


I want to write a book. In fact, I am writing a book. Do you have any advice about what you think is the key to success as a writer?

There are so many clichés and they're all true! But to me, the most true thing is this: to be a writer you have to be able to sit down, face the page, and write. You have to write even when you have no idea where the story is going next, even when you think it might not be any good, even when you wonder if anyone other than your mother will ever care. In other words, to be a writer you have to write.

Being able to recover from rejection is also a handy quality, unless you're the lucky writer who blithely glides from success to success, and has never stumbled. If that is you, please give me a call. I'd love to meet you and hear what that's like!