While working on my new book yesterday, I wrote these three sentences:

"I’m tired of catching noodles. I’m tired of colanders and sieves. I don’t want to be a piglet on a skewer anymore.”

In context, they make perfect sense.

Someone forwarded this photo to me this morning. I just had to share. (Thanks, Nicholas.)

I recently read Robert B. Parker's new Jesse Stone novel, Stranger in Paradise. Enjoyed it, just like I've enjoyed them all. No, I didn't mistake it for "serious" literature, but that's not what it's intended to be. It's only meant to be a quick, entertaining read. My books fall in to the same category, as does most genre fiction.

What makes Parker's books so easy to read? Short, quick chapters. Lots of dialogue. Every scene moves the story forward. Witty banter. Plots that are easy to follow. Interesting (if sometimes unbelievable) characters. As with many books, you have to be willing to suspend disbelief at times. Would Stone be so accommodating of a killer in his midst? Why would he promise to bust the guy if he can, then do so little to actually catch him?

Sure, I took issue with various developments as the story unfolded--but I kept reading anyway. Doesn't that make the book a success?

Any thoughts?

I should've posted this last week, but we lost a fantastic actor when Roy Scheider died last week. Jaws (funny how I mentioned it in my last post--maybe it's just on my brain) is one of the best movies ever made, and Scheider was one of the reasons, probably the biggest reason, for its success. It's one of those movies that, if I stumble across it on cable, I'm watching it. Doesn't matter how many times I've seen it. Probably forty or fifty times by now. The writing is absolutely brilliant.

The Statesman did a piece on Scheider last week, and I was glad to see the recognition. The article said that Scheider's best line--"You're gonna need a bigger boat"-- was ad libbed. If so...wow. That's just magic.

He was the perfect hero in the movie. Courageous, but scared at the same time.

That Hitchcockian shot of him in the lawn chair on the beach was purely classic.

He made a bunch of movies, but if had only made Jaws, he still would've earned a place in history.

I try not to worry too much, but I'm as susceptible to anxiety as anyone else. When I do worry, it's usually about the rising cost of health care, whether I can continue to write successfully, whether my current novel will be any good, the rising cost of property taxes, whether I'll become fat and bald, whether the Iranians or some other group of idiots is gonna nuke us the first chance they get, or the war in Iraq.

What I don't worry about is coyotes.

Here's the story: My neighborhood is kinda sorta countrified, meaning it consists of large lots in the country--but by no means are we all farmers and ranchers out here. We're twenty miles from downtown, and there are plenty of semi-tame deer wandering around, plus foxes and rabbits and possums etc etc. Recently, some residents saw some coyotes.

So, now, the newsgroup for our neighborhood is atwitter with trepidation. Most of the people are showing some sense, saying that it's not much of a problem. But several of them are worried about it, and they want to take steps to eradicate them (which, really, isn't possible). One guy in particular seems to think the coyotes are going to maim us severely, and then the wild pigs will show up and finish us off. Maybe the foxes will join in. Hawks will fly away with our entrails. He even mentioned shotguns and cyanide in one of his posts.

Here's what I want to tell them, but haven't yet: If you want to worry about something, worry about the drive into town each day. That trip is WAY more hazardous than the coyotes. Worry about slipping in your bathtub, or getting salmonella, or even getting struck by lightning, which is more likely then getting attacked by a coyote.

Worry about a short in your electrical system leading to a fire, or worry about a home invasion, or worry about a neighborhood dog escaping from its yard and biting you, because that is HUNDREDS of times more likely to happen than a coyote attack.

Okay, I will admit this: If you have a small pet that spends time outdoors, yes, you need to be careful. A coyote will eat him or her. In fact, just before the coyote posts showed up on the newsgroup, a woman posted about her missing shih-tzu. I don't mean to be flip on this point, but it reminded me of the scene in Jaws where the guy on the crowded beach is wondering why his retriever is no longer visible in the surf.

Here's my point: You can't worry about everything, so you might as well focus on the things that are more of a danger to you or your family, like your high blood pressure, or your huge amount of debt, or the fact that your kids play video games six hours a day, or the way your spouse gawks at the poolboy.

My wife will probably read this and say it's the pot calling the kettle black--because I DO worry about things. Just not coyotes.