Chuckerman Makes a Movie: A Novel

By Francie Arenson Dickman

"Love matters a little, but luck matters more."
The words of thirty-five-year-old David Melman's Jewish grandmother still haunt him. He's scared to settle down. Instead, he dates twenty-something pop stars that he meets through his celebrity-branding business. But when his niece and nephew inform him that he's hit "rock bottom" with his latest inappropriate relationship, David realizes that change might be in order-so when his sister Marcy, with her own ulterior motive, pushes him to take a film-writing class taught by her friend Laurel, he agrees.
Will writing a movie about a childhood visit to his grandparents in Florida, an unforgettable driving lesson, and a 1977 Cadillac bring David love? Luck? Or both?
Alternating between David's present-day life and his past through his movie script, Chuckerman Makes a Movie is a romantic comedy blended with a comedic coming-of-age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781631524868

Francie Arenson Dickman

Francie Arenson Dickman has been using her family as the source of writing material her whole life. Her personal essays have appeared in publications such as The Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Today Parents, Motherwell Magazine, and Brain, Child Magazine, among others. She lives in the same suburb of Chicago in which she grew up, with her husband, twin daughters, and dog, Pickles. She received her BA from the University of Michigan and her JD from The George Washington University School of Law.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1:

The Ride to the Bottom

My official arrival at rock bottom occurred on May 7, 2002, the day of the annual Slip Melman Birthday Ride—something I invented five years earlier to honor my grandfather. On Slip’s seventieth birthday, back in 1977, my father gave him a cutting-edge, fourth-generation, two-door, yellow Cadillac Coup de Ville. The yellow Caddy was the crème de la crème of cars, and Slip drove it until he could no longer drive.

The surrender of his license occurred around 1992, the same year I dropped out of medical school. I was floundering, so he loaned the car to me. When he died a few years later, he left it to me, along with a pile of illegally acquired cash. I’ve been driving it since then. And every year, on Slip’s birthday, my niece, my nephew, and I bring a cake to the car, and I retell the Story of the Cadillac so we never forget who we are and from where we came. It’s our tradition. Our personal Passover. But traditions, I suppose, are made to be broken, and it seemed my sister Marcy was looking to bring ours to an end.

The threats began as soon as I pulled up in front of her bakery last Sunday to collect Estie and Ryan. As usual, the bakery was bustling. On Sunday mornings, folks—mostly women from the various and sundry walks of Marcy’s life—fill the bakery because Marcy offers the Melman Special, a discount on the donuts of the day. After 9/11, Marcy said it was our duty to build community. And if I can do it with discounted pastry, I will, she declared to anyone who would listen.

Apparently it was working, since when I honked that morning, the kids came running from a store teeming with women. Marcy, with apron on and hairnet in place, followed with the birthday cake. After handing me the cake, she told me, as always, to be careful and to not buy them any more presents.

Then the derailing began. Marcy turned her skinny neck toward the backseat and winked—a disturbing, mouth-opening, eye-scrunching gesture. The kids gave maniacal winks back at her. A cop could have positively identified them as her children on the winks alone.

Subtle, I said.

Enjoy the cake, Marcy answered. Then she slammed the door and ran back to the bakery.

What was that all about? I asked, looking into the rearview mirror.

What? Estie said. She glared at Ryan.

Ryan shrugged.

I’m not going anywhere ’til someone spills it. I saw the winking. I wasn’t born yesterday.

They both stared straight ahead, trying not to laugh.

I threw the car into park and pulled out my wallet. I waved a dollar in the air. Everyone in the Melman family except Marcy is genetically programmed to respond to money.

Ryan and Estie looked at each other and then at me.

We’re good, Estie said.

I pulled out a five. They again looked at each other. Each? Ryan asked. Whatever it takes, I told him. Done, he said.

Two fives floated into the backseat, and the news flowed forward that I was too old for the Ride.

We don’t think you’re too old, Ryan clarified. Mom does.

Why am I too old? I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t want an answer.

You’re thirty-five, Estie said as she folded her five-spot and tucked it into the light blue purse she started carrying this year.

So what? I answered.

If you don’t wake up and smell the coffee, you’re going to die alone, Ryan explained.

There you go again, listening to your mother. You know, you’re not supposed to listen to her. We are all young enough for the Ride. Ten is young. Thirteen is young. Thirty-five is young.

Thirty-five’s not that young, Ryan said.

It’s kind of young, Estie qualified. It’s probably young enough for the Ride, but not young enough to be dating your clients. Share’s only seven years older than me, and you still babysit for me.

She had a point. I’d never really thought about age. I generally don’t dwell on an issue long enough to experience an emotional reaction to it. I do feel fear; fear is my friend. Though fear is an instinct more than an emotion. Nonetheless, I must admit, I felt afraid of Ryan’s smelling-the-coffee comment. Not afraid that I was going to fail to smell the coffee and die alone, but that my niece and nephew were buying my sister’s dubious opinion of me. Or, worse, that they’d formed dubious opinions of their uncle on their own. Was Uncle Davy, marketing and fragrance genius, cool and rich brander extraordinaire, somehow letting them down? This, I did not want to do. I was, after all, the family historian—the keeper of the Cadillac.

Ryan came to my defense. It doesn’t matter how old Share is, because Mom says Share isn’t even a real person anyways. She’s manufactured by you. She says Emily Kaplinsky would have been perfect for you, but you wouldn’t have given her the time of day.

When did she say this? I asked, turning around to face them. Ryan was now on the floor, his five dollars plastered in embarrassment over his eyes, but Estie scooted toward me and, with her hands on the back of my seat and her chin resting on her hands, began to talk.

Before I showed up at the bakery, she explained, Marcy’s friends had asked where she and Ryan were headed at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning with a car-shaped cake. Ryan said they were going to celebrate their great-grandfather’s birthday in their uncle’s Cadillac, which was really their great-grandfather’s but now belonged to their uncle. When Ryan explained that we do this every year, my sister raised her brows and said to the women, Don’t ask. Then she added, He’s stuck in the seventies.

Estie claimed she came to my defense with, No he’s not. He’s dating Share. How can he be stuck in the seventies if he’s dating a pop star?

Marcy, according to Estie, came back with, She’s not a pop star. You can’t be a star if you only have one song. And he’s not dating her anymore, thank God. Talk about hitting rock bottom.

Apparently, the remark about smelling the coffee also came out in this general time frame.

But don’t worry, Estie reassured me now, no one was listening. Most of them were still asking questions about Share, like if Mom’s ever met her and if she’s ever going to release another song.

Ryan crawled back onto his seat to join the recounting. But Laurel was listening, and she told Mom you should take her class.

Who is Laurel? I opened the cake box and swiped a bit of the frosting. Yellow, to match the car.

You know, Mom’s friend Laurel from yoga? Ryan asked.

I shook my head no. He rolled down the window of the car and pointed to someone through the window of the bakery. She’s right there. You can see her legs. She’s wearing cowboy boots.

Who wears cowboy boots with shorts? I asked.

Laurel, Estie answered. She, too, was now licking yellow frosting from her finger.

Dad calls her The Mormon Rodeo, Ryan said.

She’s some sort of movie writer, and she teaches a movie writing class, Estie chimed in, and when Mom said she had no idea how to make you get a grip on reality, Laurel said that you should take her class.

I told my niece and nephew that their uncle has a perfectly fine grip on reality.

You might want to take the class anyway, Ryan said. Laurel said it’s usually full of single girls. And she said she’d let you take it for free, to pay Mom back for all the free food.

So you are in, Estie said. Whether you like it or not.

That’s what the wink was about, Ryan said.

It starts after Memorial Day, and you need to come with an idea for a movie. Estie grinned.

At this point, the car door opened and I found myself presented with Marcy’s Knead Some Dough apron.

Why aren’t you going anywhere? she asked. She looked at our yellow fingers, then reached down and slammed the cake-box closed. Seeing the frosting licked from one of her creations is her pet peeve. Her one and only peeve, she claims, in effort to distinguish herself from me and my other sister, Rachel—we have thousands.

We’re going. Right, David? Ryan asked. He sounded as panicked as I felt at the notion that the Ride would not go on.

Yep. Leaving right now. Don’t worry, Sis, I’ll be back in time for the writing class. I gave her an exaggerated wink.

Marcy poked her head toward the backseat. What happened to keeping your mouths shut?

Ryan waved his five-dollar bill in the air. Estie patted her purse.

I told you not to give them anything.

You told me not to buy them presents. I just bought myself some interesting information.

Marcy rolled her eyes and rested a knee on the passenger seat. Don’t knock the class until you try it.

I flipped my baseball cap around on my head. You seriously think I’ve hit rock bottom?

She shrugged. I think you need a life based in reality.

’Cause I’ll be honest, I said, if I ever thought you’d bottomed out, I’d offer up more than a writing class to save you.

Let’s hope it doesn’t ever come to that.

If it does, will you get us a dog? Ryan asked.

Maybe you should get a dog instead of taking a writing class, Estie said.

Marcy backed herself out of the car and said there would be no dogs.

The Melmans don’t do dogs, I said, which was true. We can barely find compassion for each other, let alone for animals.

Then the writing class it is, Estie said. What are you going to write about?

He’s supposed to write about himself, Marcy said. Laurel says that’s the best way of getting to the bottom of things.

I thought I was already at the bottom of things.

You know what I mean. She sighed and adjusted her hairnet. The elastic at the bottom of it had imprinted against her forehead, further detracting from her already low credibility. Marcy is not known, at least in the Melman family, for her logical reasoning skills. Nonetheless, she continued to counsel me.

You obviously have a blockage of some sort—a hang-up or insecurity that is keeping you from becoming a fully realized adult. I don’t totally understand it. I’m a baker, not a shrink. But Laurel is deep, and she recommends writing. She says a person should always start with his worst fear. Laurel is—

The Mormon Rodeo, I know, I said. You get a lot of information for five bucks.

Well, Laurel suggested that you write about your worst fear.

This is my worst fear. That my sister, in full baking regalia, will, right here on University Place, interrupt the Birthday Ride to tell her kind and supportive brother—the same brother who just bought her a minivan for her birthday—that he is leading an unproductive life. That is my worst fear.

I never said you were unproductive, Marcy said. I know you’re successful. But who wants to drive a minivan in New York City?

The same person who drives this Caddy, Estie said.

Well then, I would very much like to see the day you buy a minivan for your own family and not for mine, Marcy said.

"We are his family, Ryan said, looking up at Marcy. Nothing is better than having a guy on your team. He threw his torso into the front seat and said to me, And I think your greatest fear should be losing your sense of smell, because if you did, your perfume business would go under and then you wouldn’t be able to buy a minivan for anyone."

That’s not bad, I said. I pulled my baseball hat off my head and put it on his. A sign of camaraderie. If I was ever going to write a movie, that’s the route I’d take. Comedy.

Marcy said she thought I could do better. Estie said we should go for the Ride now and think of an idea later.

I agree, Marcy said. I’m going to tell Laurel that you are on board. She squeezed my shoulder before slamming the door shut.

So you’re actually going to do it? Ryan asked.

I grabbed my hat and returned it to my head. I didn’t say that. I also didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. Could it be that I felt the slightest-ever gravitational pull toward the class? At the time, I assumed the draw was the promise of girls. That I might be seeking something more didn’t cross my mind.

Of course he’s doing it, Marcy hollered through the window. You are about to take a journey. Onward and upward! she yelled as she backed herself toward the bakery door. This is so exciting! she screamed as she disappeared behind the door.

Had there been a billboard, it would have appeared just then: Welcome to Rock Bottom. We hope you enjoy your stay.

CHAPTER 2:

What Do You Know?

You’ll know her when you see her." My brother-in-law Broc’s words looped in my mind as I carted myself to Room 702 of the Tisch School on Broadway and wedged myself into a chair—the tiny kind that attaches to the desk, like at Baskin-Robbins on Columbus. I glanced at the syllabus on my desk. Sixteen lessons lined up one after the other, starting with today’s, entitled, June 11: What Do You Know?

Not much about film writing, that was a given. But I did know how to dish out a name, and I was anxious to analyze whether my brother-in-law had chosen the right name for Laurel. In fact, I realized as the gentleman next to me introduced himself as Don and the woman next to him as his wife, Helene, my dread of this first day was trumped by curiosity.

The Mormon Rodeo? I had to meet her.

I figured she had to be big—not fat, but large, strong like a bull, curvy, perhaps, and buxom, the stock of rough-and-tumble Utah pioneers. And, of course, Mormon. Most novices of the naming game go purely according to the superficial. Take Broc, for example. He’s forty-five and still going by his fraternity nickname. (At Colgate, where he met Marcy, he was tall and wiry, with a mess of dark blond, curly hair, like a stalk of broccoli. He’s since lost his hair but he’s still saddled with the name and my sister.)

My point being, if a name is going to help a person emerge into his or her true artistic self, as I tell my clients, and stand the test of time, as I tell their agents, it has to hit on aspects beyond those that meet the naked eye.

That said, seeing the person you are assessing never hurts, and thus far, I’d yet to lay eyes on the Mormon Rodeo. I’d yet to lay eyes on much, actually, as the shades in the room were drawn and the lights were out. There was enough light from the hallway for me to find an open desk and realize a dearth of the as-promised cute girls—at least in my area, where the average age was sixty-five. I could also see, crouched beneath a television stand at the front of the room, her back to the group, the silhouette of a woman.

Moments later, from her knees and above the whine of a tape machine and the chatter of the class, the silhouette announced, Thank you all for being here. She paused to play with buttons and click a remote. Clearly, she was having technical difficulty. But her voice, so raspy I would have liked to have offered her a lozenge, did not convey it.

Despite outdated technology, she said, I assure you that you are about to embark on the most progressive film writing class around. I like to start off a new session with an inspirational montage. She went on to explain that she’d pieced together clips of movies that have shaped American dramatic film and which she hoped would help to shape our own scripts. My selections reflect my opinion, she clarified as the machine started to make noise and the screen came to life. I apologize upfront if I’ve left out anybody’s favorites.

Apology accepted, I thought, as I had a hunch that my own chart-toppers, The Big Lebowski and Caddy Shack, were not going to make the cut. And they didn’t. But others’ apparently did. Within seconds my classmates were oohing and nodding with approval over clips I didn’t recognize. I did suspect the Jews in stripes being loaded in black-and-white by Germans onto cattle cars was from Schindler’s List—which, much to my mother’s shame, I refused to see.

I’ve never been a huge fan of death. Or of movies, for that matter. Due to a fear of the dark, I never sat through an entire movie until I was ten. I’m still not a big fan of the dark, although I was doing okay—not great—in that dim classroom.

My anxiety eased somewhat when I started to see familiar scenes. The Godfather. The Graduate. Midnight Cowboy. Terms of Endearment, my mother’s second favorite behind Schindler’s List, was also featured. The montage took us all the way to present day—Memento—and by the time we got there, I’d settled in for the show. I might even say I was enjoying myself when suddenly, without warning, without a conclusion or credits, the montage ended, the lights popped on, and there she stood, front and center, the Mormon Rodeo.

Welcome to Drama for the First-Time Film Writer, she said. She was applauding. I’m excited to have you all, and I promise that if you commit yourselves to me and open yourselves to my process, you will leave at the end with a script in hand.

As she began her welcome speech, my eyes went to her boots, the same dirty-brown shit-kickers I’d seen through the window of Marcy’s bakery. I’d assumed the Rodeo nickname had something to do with her footwear. Perhaps the association stopped there, because I was at a loss after the shoes. She was tall and thin, not big and buxom. Although her breasts were nice. And they were real. Most of my clients’ boobs, they didn’t budge. A bus could whack Share broadside, and her breasts would not so much as jostle. But the Mormon Rodeo’s bounced beneath her T-shirt as she now paced the front of the room—as did her hair, which was wild and curly, with a considerable layer of frizz outlining her head. Her face seemed nice enough, from what I could see beneath the hair. She didn’t seem to know from makeup or accessories, other than a thin gold necklace. She was jeans and T-shirt. Au natural. I might have gone so far as to label her granola, had I not had my new classmates to compare her against. They—primarily the faction in the front rows—took crunchy to new levels. A ring in every nose, a sandal on every foot. Against the backdrop of my peers, this teacher was a conventional beauty.

But would I, I asked myself as she promised to teach us the nuts and bolts of the craft, like to, you know, get her in the proverbial saddle?

On looks alone, probably not. Clearly, I assumed from his choice of names, Broc had come to a different conclusion.

When I tuned back in, the Mormon Rodeo had moved to the front of the room, her hands in prayer position. To write stories that are real and true is to take an unpredictable journey, she was saying. We must be prepared to go deep, to entrust ourselves to the organic nature of the process, to throw away our outlines if our characters go a different way. She moved her hands into her back pockets and again began to pace the front of the room, her hips moving in a motion-of-the-ocean sort of way, matching the measure of her speech.

We will start by getting to know each other. I want you to think of this class as your home, a supportive place in which we all feel safe to share our work and bare our souls. Her body turned back to the front of the room, her hands came back to prayer. If that sounds good to everyone, let’s begin.

The plan did not sound good to me. Had I not been jammed into my chair like a piece of dental floss, I would have bolted. I did not soul bare.

Neither, apparently, did my neighbor Don, who, I would soon learn, was from Long Island and a member of the seniors couples club that had settled itself around me. He snorted and whispered something that prompted Helene, his wife, to turn her back to him and the woman behind him, his sister Susan, to give his chair a shove. This activity occurred as the Mormon Rodeo set forth the ground rules for our introductions and sweat began to conveyor down my sleeves. We were to say our names, share where we were from, explain our movie concept, and reveal an interesting fact about ourselves.

I’ll go first, she said.

Well, I’m certainly not going first, whispered Don.

His fellow couples club members chuckled, but those in the front row, the group going for their master’s degrees, turned around and snarled. The first lesson wasn’t yet underway, the first introduction not even made, and already, a rift. I felt like telling the Mormon Rodeo to save her breath. We could play getting to know you ’til kingdom come, and we were still going to be a house divided. The goody two-shoes versus the nogoodnickas, a word coined by my Grandma Estelle to define a lesser form of scoundrel and most of the members of my family.

The Mormon Rodeo turned out to be Laurel Rene Sorenson, a thirty-three-year-old native of Manti, Utah—which, she said, was south of Salt Lake City and home to the annual, two-week-long Mormon Miracle Pageant. She’d been living in New York for fifteen years and teaching for ten, and was now writing a movie about a Mormon father of nine who commits suicide in order to provide his family with insurance money after he loses his cattle fortune in a pyramid scheme involving dietary supplements.

Oh my, said Helene, whose high voice did not jibe with her significant height. What a terrible tragedy. I hope it’s not auto-biographical.

Laurel smiled at Helene as she gathered her hair into a sizable mass and clipped it to the top of her of head. The rearrangement made an immediate improvement, as I’d suspected. Out of habit, I’d been making a mental list of how I’d go about transforming Laurel Sorenson if she ever stepped into my office asking for a makeover and an eponymous fragrance. Tinkering with her hair—smoothing her frizz and possibly highlighting the blond—topped the list. I wasn’t yet sure what to do about the boots.

Helene, you hit the issue of the day on the head. Is my story true? She turned her gaze on the rest of the class and asked, What is truth when it comes to writing? Are we talking about actual truth? The essence of truth? Her voice and arms went higher with each question, like a preacher with laryngitis. We could discuss it for days, she said. But for now, let’s be patient.

What about your interesting fact? Don reminded her.

Right, she said. She pulled the charm on her necklace back and forth while she thought. Here you go: I am Mormon by birth but I’m taking Jewish conversion classes.

As a vigorous reaction to this news rippled through the couples club, I made a note to tell Broc that the Mormon Rodeo might not be Mormon, and Laurel called on her first candidate.

Rhonda was an Asian woman who wore a red bandana around her forehead and was writing about a girl who drops out of college to help her parents run the family store. Rhonda was followed by Judd, who explained that he was writing a movie about teenagers who sneak into the Central Park Zoo after hours and find all the animals dead. It’s going to kick off with this totally vile scene, he said, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. "Working title is Vile Bodies."

As I wondered whether he was working from a place of actual truth, Laurel commented that the title seemed appropriate, given his description. I thought she might have said ironic, as Judd’s own body was covered only in a yellowed undershirt, jean shorts, and the aforementioned Birkenstocks, and nothing is more vile than sandals on guys.

The introductions revealed a real mishmash of folks. A conglomeration of undershirts, attitudes, NYU undergrads the same age as Share, senior citizens far older, two women in burkas, and finally one asshole in an Armani suit. Me.

I stood out of habit. My name is David Melman.

You don’t need to stand. This was Candy, who’d introduced herself right after Judd and whose sweet name, I could tell already, was an oxymoron.

I dropped back to my seat, embarrassed and still apparently susceptible to being bossed around by girls, the effect of growing up with older sisters.

I usually stand when I present to clients, I explained to my new friends in the couples club. Then I told the class that I’d be writing about a perfume maker named Mort Chuckerman who loses his sense of smell.

My concept was met with silence, and finally broken by the clomp of cowboy boots as they headed down the center aisle. I held my breath as the Mormon Rodeo came at me. She paused when she reached my desk and nodded slowly to herself as she sized me up, as if for the first time appreciating the magnitude of the mess she’d volunteered to take on. Then, as the class stared and I loosened my tie for more oxygen, she smiled.

So you are Marcy’s brother?

I heard Don ask his wife, Who’s Marcy? as I exhaled and forced myself to look up at her.

For better or worse, I am.

She tucked a clump of fallen frizz behind her ear. It’s a pleasure to meet you. She held out a hand, and I quickly wiped mine on my pants and held it to hers.

Firm shake, soft hand. Part Rodeo. Part not.

It sounds like you’re writing a real tearjerker. She winked.

Was she flirting with me? Flirting was familiar ground. I regrouped. You never know, Miss Sorenson, I might have Mort Chuckerman commit suicide at the end. I winked back.

Laurel shook her head up and down and played with the charm on her necklace, which I could now see was a Jewish star. Touché, she said.

I wondered how far along she was in the conversion process, and if she wanted my professional help, because the last thing she looked like was a Jew.

She smiled, all Utah-friendly. You are right, Mr. Melman. You never know what might happen. I should withhold judgment.

As hard as that may be, added Candy, the bully.

Laurel came to my defense by telling Candy to withhold the commentary. Then she ordered me to issue my interesting fact.

I’m not sure I have one. I have a lot of facts, I’m just not sure any of them rise to the level of interesting. The rest of the class set the bar pretty high. I was speaking in earnest. Don had survived prostate cancer; Susan, his sister, was recently widowed; and Candy had just revealed, naturally, that she’d donated a kidney to her dying brother, only to have him die anyway. How could I compete with that?

I find that hard to believe, Laurel said. You think about it. I’ll get back to you.

Forty-five minutes later, we came to the end. Laurel turned to the blackboard, apparently having forgotten my missing fact. All of your topic ideas, she said with a knock on the blackboard. Take a good look.

People did as told: eyes went to the board. As they did, Laurel grabbed an eraser and with a few swoops of her arm, did away with our entire collection of intended works.

Her tush shook as she erased. I couldn’t help but notice. Don did too. He elbowed me as Laurel said, Kiss your concepts goodbye, and the class gasped.

She’s got one hell of an ass, Don whispered.

Helene kicked his seat again, while the recently widowed Susan tapped my shoulder and asked, Are you single?

I nodded yes. Was she hitting on me? She was old enough to be Share’s grandmother.

You’re adorable, she said.

Thanks, I said. I wondered if Marcy would be happy if I came home with Susan.

Don leaned toward me. You should go after the teacher.

She’s not my type, I whispered. Besides, she’s converting to Judaism. She must be engaged. Why else would you convert?

He has a good point, Helene told Don.

Maybe the conversion has something to do with the suicide, Susan suggested.

Helene pointed out that she wasn’t wearing a ring.

I said I hadn’t noticed.

Susan told me she had a single daughter in the city, Betsy. I have a good feeling about you. You should take her out. She wrote Betsy’s number on a corner of her syllabus, ripped off the corner, and handed it to me.

Because I was passing notes, I didn’t hear the portion of the lecture during which Laurel informed us that instead of writing a script based on our movie ideas, we were to write about our interesting facts.

New writers tend to start with stories they think they want to tell, but those aren’t the stories asking to be told. She grabbed a syllabus from Judd’s desk and read, Lesson 1: Familiarity v. Discovery: What Does It Mean to Write What You Know?

I had no idea what she was talking about. In my experience, stories don’t ask to be told. People just tell them.

Let’s take the couples club, for example. Laurel nodded toward the group. You want to write a movie about a cruise ship that runs aground in the Greek Isles?

The club, all five of them, nodded and smiled.

My guess is that your own cruise ship ran aground in the Greek Isles.

Just like the Titanic. Except our boat didn’t go down, Don said, and the rest of the club laughed.

Laurel rested herself against the empty desk next to Helene. And you plan to recount the episode.

The nodding and smiling continued.

Then came the Mormon Rodeo’s knife. Rule number one: writing what you know does not mean recounting an experience. You folks could probably tell us the tale of your trip in five minutes. We’d all have a good laugh and that would be that.

It’s one hell of a story, said Don.

I don’t doubt that it is, said Laurel, "but the purpose of writing is not to simply inform but to discover something about yourself or life in general, and you can’t discover when you just retell facts.

Likewise, she rasped, "you cannot discover when you write about characters or situations to which you have no connection or know nothing about."

Medical school was less confusing, I was thinking, when I heard my name.

David. Tell me a little bit about your idea. Mort Chuckerman, the perfume guy. Why are you interested in writing about him? What is your personal connection?

I held back that Mort Chuckerman was the name I gave my medical school cadaver. Although, as far as interesting facts go, I could have gone toe-to-ugly-toe with Judd if I’d offered up my obsession with that cadaver, an obsession that’s likely connected to my dropping out altogether.

Mort and I both market fragrances for a living, I said.

Okay. She nodded and hopped on her desk. Anything beyond what you do for a living? Is he married? Where does he live? How old is he?

I haven’t ironed out the details, I admitted.

Candy groaned. Laurel nodded again and told the class that my idea was a perfect example of writing about what you don’t know.

"Discovery lies in a middle ground between what we know and what we don’t. When we stick only to the familiar, we don’t give ourselves a chance to discover. On the other hand, when we have no personal connection to the