I think I'll skip Rosemary's Baby this weekend

From the moment I heard about it, I was hostile to the idea of a TV remake of Rosemary's Baby. You can't remake perfection. Roman Polanski's movie based on Ira Levin's novel is a faithful visual presentation of the book. Scene for scene, it's the book come to life.

It seemed to me the TV remake would be like the sad and embarrassing remake of Psycho in 1998. Seriously, you cannot remake perfection. You just have to move on. So I was predisposed to dislike the "new" Rosemary's Baby, which will debut Sunday at 9 pm on NBC. (The next episode will air on Thursday night at 9.) Hashing it over, I decided not to watch the show. And maybe that's a sound decision, in light of this review of the mini-series in today's SF Gate.

I liked the following snippet from the review. Dave Weigand, the reviewer, is dissecting the fact that the press release for the TV mini-series failed to mention the earlier perfect movie by Roman Polanski.

Then again, why mention the baked Alaska from last year's gala dinner party when you're about to serve Hostess Twinkies at this year's pot luck?

Sounds about right. So, are you going to watch it?

Name anagrams in literature and life

I've always enjoyed the appearance of anagrams in literature. Rosemary's Baby comes immediately to mind. In Ira Levin's masterpiece, Rosemary has to figure out an anagram, a clue left by her mentor, Hutch, now sadly deceased.

First she plays with the title of a book he supplied, called "All of Them Witches". But she comes up with nothing. (Mind you, the title of this fictional book is an anagram, according to the always trustworthy internets, for "Hell a Cometh Swift".) Finally, she tries the name of the witch, Adrian Marcoto, and realizes it's an anagram of Roman Castavet, the name of the sweet old man next door.

The second instance that comes to mind is Armistead Maupin's name, which is an anagram for a man I dreamt up. I always liked that. And of course the name of one of the characters in "Tales of the City", Anna Madrigal, the fabulous trans landlady, is also an anagram, in this case for a man and a girl.

When I was thinking about this last night I decided to check my own name out. I sat down with the letters of my name, Keith O'Connor, and fooled around with them. It's surprising to me that I had never tried this before. You'd think on some boring school day a younger me would have given this a shot. Nope. A sad oversight on my part.

In any case, I quickly came up with the prosaic Cookie N. North. You wouldn't think you could make Cookie N. North out of Keith O'Connor, would you? Of course another variation is the racier-sounding C. Nookie North. But after noticing the second variation, I had a horrible thought. Poor Cookie N. North's name might actually be Cookie Nookie North, in which case, either way she wrote it, Cookie N. North or C. Nookie North, it would be an anagram of my name. The poor woman!

Have you ever played around with the letters of your name? What did you come up with? Or can you recall other books where anagrams played a role? Tell me about them.

The Hutch school of writing

In Ira Levin's "Rosemary's Baby," there is a character who taught me something important about writing. Do you remember Rosemary's elderly mentor, Edward "Hutch" Hutchins?

There is a scene where Rosemary visits Hutch at his apartment in Manhattan. For those who haven't read the book (or seen the movie), he is her current landlord as the movie opens. He is a writer of boys' adventure stories, and he invites Rosemary to his apartment to tell her that his research has uncovered some unsavory facts about the Bramford, the grand, old building into which she plans to move with her husband. (For those who read the book, do you remember the Trench sisters who ate children? It was Hutch who told Rosemary about them.) Okay; scene set. Let's jump in.

Rosemary asks Hutch why he has two typewriters on his desk, each loaded with paper. In response, Hutch offers a simple and sensible answer: he writes one book on one typewriter and when he reaches a point in the story where he's uncertain how to proceed, he switches to writing a different book on the other typewriter. The process refreshes him.

I always remembered this bit of advice and as a writer, I found it to be a productive way to do things. I don't own a typewriter but I do have several books in Scrivener and often work on more than one, so it's easy to use the Hutch approach.

Of course, there are times when I'm deeply enmeshed in writing a book and won't pause until it's finished. It seems from the mid-point forward, I tend to work on one book to the exclusion of all others.

But I don't use the Hutch rule only in the narrow sense suggested by the character. I apply the concept widely. For me, switching between any writing-related tasks is helpful. Recently, I wrote here about switching from editing to writing because I felt burnt out. I do this all the time and benefit from the switch itself -- each activity refreshes the other. Moving from task to task seems to sharpen my mind. And it's not just writing and editing I'll switch between. It's editing and thinking, plotting and writing, coming up with new ideas and planning how to publish my books. There are many writing-related tasks, and switching among them seems productive -- at least, it does to me.

Slipping out of one task and into another is like taking a shower after a workout -- it's invigorating. So I am an official member of the Hutch school of writing. It works, and I like stuff that works.

Have you ever gotten a helpful writing tip from a fictional character?