Novelist Didn’t Just Skate Through First Book

Nellie Reeves and Eric Strutt were in top form, as usual, at the Friends of the UCI Library’s annual meeting.

Reeves’ generosity to aspiring student writers has been unflagging for the last 15 years. At last Monday’s meeting at the Sherman Gardens it was even more so--$250 more so.

Usually six finalists in the student essay contest are awarded $250 each, provided by Reeves of Balboa Island. This year Strutt and his judges arrived at a tie vote, making seven winning essays out of a field of 20. Strutt suggested splitting evenly the prize money between the tied contestants, but Reeves thought otherwise. Award them both the full amount.

Strutt has chaired the essay contest for four years, at each yearly meeting coming up with a fresh new batch of funny stories. This year’s favorite for me was one he told about the mice who went to heaven, a very large place, and complained to St. Peter that their legs were so small that they were having difficulty getting around. St. Peter solved that by giving the mice tiny roller skates.

This was a big hit with heaven’s cats. They told St. Peter that the best things about heaven were those meals on wheels.

Strutt comes by his funny stuff from past professional experience. Before he retired in Newport Beach, he was a comedy writer for Edgar Bergen, Woody Woodpecker and Disney studios, and wrote 300 documentary and industrial films.

The winning essayists this year are Susan E. Smith, Lara Ruffolo, Pamela Stoddard, Dee Dee Delgado, Brett Fallavollita, Jo Parker and Shirley Travis.

Another winner at the meeting was T. Jefferson Parker, the 33-year-old Laguna Beach author, whose first published novel, “Laguna Heat,” a murder mystery set in Orange County, has reached best-seller status, as well as having been translated into 10 languages. Negotiations are nearly completed to produce “Laguna Heat” as a television drama. He has seen the second draft of this screenplay.

Parker, the meeting’s featured speaker, said his second novel is half completed. Also set in Orange County, it is another mystery story, dealing with the Vietnamese of Westminster and Garden Grove. Its working title is “Little Saigon.”

Working under his publisher’s editor at St. Martin’s Press, Parker said his first book was rewritten a couple of times. This was in addition to six complete rewrites over five years before “Laguna Heat” left his Laguna Beach home. All this was done on an old typewriter, while he worked during the day as a reporter for the Newport Ensign and at an aerospace firm. He said he “learned a lot about a book” during those extensive rewrites. His advice to aspiring writers: “Gumption gets you through it.” He writes daily from 8 a.m. until noon.

Parker grew up in Tustin with a father who “was a great talker, a great yarn spinner” who stirred the imagination, and a mother who encouraged him to read. She would allow him to stay up late reading from the family’s extensive library, but not watching TV. He credits his parents with creating the environment that nurtured his writing talent. He knew he wanted to write in junior high school.

What does the initial T. in his name stand for? “It’s a decorative initial put there by my mom and dad,” he said, amused at the question.

Although the name T. Jefferson Parker has a slightly pompous ring to it, one of its bearer’s chief charms is his humility. Parker seems amused at himself and his success. He possesses the true writer’s curious ability to regard himself in a detached way.

While attending UCI, he worked for a couple of years as a waiter. He admitted getting fired a lot, saying he was “the world’s worst waiter.” Now he is writing full time, and on a word processor, no less, bought with income from “Laguna Heat,” and enjoying the process immensely.

He couldn’t imagine writing a book on a typewriter now. It’s like a mouse without roller skates trying to get about in heaven.