No Brrrrr

So, the ice storm of 2007 has been a bust so far. I’m not complainin’. It did get cold, but no rain, so no ice, so no closures and everything is running pretty much normal. I made it to court this morning. One judge was pretty funny, saying that she’d hoped for a snow day to close down the court system. Watching the wheels of justice was interesting. Though it wasn’t what I was there to see, I was intrigued by the personal interest the judges took in the people brought before them. It wasn’t just rubber stamps and cold, detached law being implemented. They seemed to be genuinely interested in doing whatever they could to help the defendants turn their lives around. When the defendants didn’t get on board with that program, the judge would quickly turn off that facet of their approach, but if there seemed to be a chance to keep a 19 year old out of prison for the rest of his life, the judge was willing to go the extra mile to see if that could happen.

My primary aim was to sit in on jury selection, but the trial-to-be never happened because of a 12th hour plea bargain. The jurors were curious about me, sitting in the back of the room right behind them taking notes but clearly not part of the process. Courtroom watching doesn’t appear to be a popular pastime, but if it were closer and at more convenient hours I think I’d spend more time watching.

The people involved in the legal system were all very cooperative and accommodating. The D.A. asked me if I had any questions, the judge spoke to me during a hiatus before the jury pool was brought in (he told me he hoped that I would depict the court system in a good light). The clerks helped point me to where I need to go. To most of them, I was just “an observer,” which is how I identified myself briefly. I only told the ones who were more curios I was doing story research.

Watched hours 3 and 4 of 24 last night. I have some problems with the immature behavior of that buffoon in CTU, the guy with the accent and the lead chip on his shoulder—and even more of a problem with the awkward resolution of that interpersonal conflict—but the story’s keeping me going. The last few moments took me quite by surprise. I expected the dad to be the hero of the moment.

I spent the morning keying in changes to Ghost Inn from by first reader, typos mostly, and printing out the corrected pages. Then I bundled the whole mess up, put it in a box and sent it off to my agent. Godspeed to it. Then I started my Storytellers Unplugged essay, which will go up tomorrow morning. I’m later getting started on it than usual, but I’ve already written most of it in my head so mostly it’s a matter of writing it down and then editing it to death.

My buddy Hans-Åke Lilja spent 45 minutes on the phone with Stephen King last week and is posting the transcript of his interview at his web site. Part 1 is up now. Check it out—King is as candid as ever in response to some of Lilja’s questions.