{"id":500,"date":"2011-01-29T22:15:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T05:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/?p=500"},"modified":"2012-08-31T13:26:02","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T20:26:02","slug":"pillow-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/29\/pillow-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Pillow Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"
When I finished writing my memoir, \u201cOver the Hills and Far Away\u201d, \u00a0I gave the manuscript to my wife all pleased with myself and asked her to read it.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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She \u00a0flipped through the pages briefly and asked, \u201cSo, what\u2019s it about?\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean what\u2019s it about? Read it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will, but you have to think about what it\u2019s about. Like the stuff you\u2019d find on a book jacket, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that night in bed I suddenly felt inspired and woke up my wife. \u201cIt\u2019s about my growing up more American than most Americans and then, in 1976, being ripped away from my home, my friends, and family and sent off to Irish boarding school with my big brother, Roger, and how he got drunk, cussed out the headmaster and broke a window, so the headmaster expelled him which left me alone and even more lonely and homesick than I already was. In retaliation my father moved me to Northern Ireland with the idea that my grandparents were just down the road a bit. Now I not only had to contend with being lonely and homesick, but also physical and emotional abuse. And, of course, the constant threat of terrorism. And while I was going through all that, Roger got himself kicked out of two more schools because of the old habits that caused us to be sent to Ireland in the first place and ended up on the Mediterranean tourist island of Majorca going to an American high school. It seemed he was constantly rewarded for doing wrong while I languished in misery. Oh, eventually, I returned to the States only to find that I\u2019d changed \u2013 I was no longer American at all and don\u2019t fit in. For years I blamed being sent to boarding school but asked myself if it was worth it for all the experiences in exotic places I enjoyed?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I realized wifey was snoring, so I nudged her awake. \u201cWell? What did you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Through a sleep haze she replied, \u201cYou haven\u2019t told me what it\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh? What are you talking about? I did so.\u201d And I started going on again about what happens in the book. By the time I stopped to take a breath, wifey was snoring once more. Another strategic nudge got her attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re telling me about the book, not what the book is about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it\u2019s about a lot of things,\u201d I replied. \u201cA lot happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but if someone asks you what it\u2019s about they\u2019ll be asleep before you get to the point. Narrow it down to a sentence or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d read about that. Advice for writing query letters said developing a one or two line synopsis \u2013 the hook, is what I needed. \u201cHow \u2018bout I go with the sex, drugs, rock \u2019n\u2019 roll and boarding school angle?\u201d I then rattled on about how my brother was always out partying, smoking dope, messing with the chicks. It all started when Dad went to Iran, or was it Japan this time, on business and Roger grew his hair long. Dad was not pleased when he returned. \u201cThose goddamned Beatles,\u201d he\u2019d say waving his fist. And thus the friction between Dad and Roger grew with Mom getting caught in the middle. Eventually I started getting in on the act thinking I was being cool, but I never got in trouble at school\u2026well, not too much at least. And I never got in trouble with the police. Of course Roger got busted for stealing a case of beer and Mom and Dad pleading with him to help them find a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cSend me back to boarding school,\u201d he said. And that\u2019s how I ended up in Ireland in 1976.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, did I mention Roger had already been sent to boarding school in Northern Ireland in 1970?” I asked. “And that my parents were British of Irish descent and…”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no!\u201d Wifey cut me off. \u201cYou\u2019ve gone and written a whole book again. Narrow it down to the overall gist of it. In the simplest terms, what\u2019s the book about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cit\u2019s a memoir about how I got caught in the current of my parents\u2019 desperate attempt to save my brother from himself, how I dealt with the circumstances I found myself in as a result and, ultimately, my realizing that things were not always as they seemed \u2013 that in order to move forward I had to let go of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just about perfect,\u201d she replied. \u201cNow, can we go to sleep?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I finished writing my memoir, \u201cOver the Hills and Far Away\u201d, \u00a0I gave the manuscript to my wife all pleased with myself and asked her to read it. She \u00a0flipped through the pages briefly and asked, \u201cSo, what\u2019s it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writinghelp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1622,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/1622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}