"Everything we do is in the service of the self - and there is no self." - Traditional Zen saying



So the election is over and my depression is starting to lift with cessation of the negative ads.

During the last week of campaigning, the general air of pessimism and gloom became so pervasive, my feelings of self-doubt escalated exponentially. If I had been on the ballot, I would have voted for the other guy.

Depending on who won, of course, I may recover my rosy outlook, becoming giddy as Leo Trotsky on May Day, dancing the tropak with my fellow Cossacks, as the wealth is redistributed in my direction.

But then, I may plunge so deep down the dark, dank hole of despair that I may never dig myself out, not even to collect my promised $5,000 so I can catch a bus to Nebraska and find a friendly HMO.

I digress, however.

This was supposed to be about my idea how to get lazy novelists off the dime, off the schneid, off their big fat royalties and provide me with more entertainment for my literary buck.

I mean, here I am paying $26.99 for Michael Connelly's new mystery "Brass Verdict." Well, actually I forked over more like $15 because the store had a discount in the new books section, but that's beside the point.

The thing is, I read all 422 pages in about 41/2 days. Come on, Connelly, you're good, but give me a break. My proposal is that novelists, good novelists, at least the ones I like, should be made to really work for my money.

Connelly has created two of the most fascinating characters in contemporary crime fiction - L.A. police detective Hieronymus Bosch and defense lawyer Mickey Haller, who finally meet in "Brass Verdict."

But instead of leisurely turning out a novel every other year or so, authors like Connelly should keep me entertained with at best daily, or at least weekly, updates of their characters' exploits.

They could do it on the Internet. It would be like Charles Dickens used to do in weekly installments of his novels for newspapers. Dickens, now there was an author who didn't just put on his pants one leg at a time. When the going got tough, he got going. He threw that rule book out the window.

Good writers are writing a few good TV shows these days on a weekly basis, so novelists have no excuse.

Like screenwriter Alan Ball, who won an Oscar for "American Beauty" and now has created the scary, sexy, socially symbolic series about modern-day vampires "True Blood."

"True Blood" casts vampires as the new target for racists and bigots in America, using humor as a calming element just when things reach fever pitch.

The series is based on Charlaine Harris' series of Southern vampire novels, and this is something I never thought I'd say: Thanks to a TV show, I have discovered a new favorite novelist.

OK, Charlaine, get ready for the daily or weekly Internet hookup as soon as the series ends. I'll be in touch when I finish all your novels.

You probably want to know my other favorite novelists, and so would I. But the list keeps changing because they pass into other realms.

Like, Norman Mailer would have led the list of writers whose stuff I would want to read daily. Thankfully, Cormac McCarthy is still with us. So are Diablo Cody, Annie Proulx and Susan Orlean, who aren't exactly novelists, but who cares?

And if you want to check out some good writing besides Ball's on TV, turn the dial to "30 Rock," "Picking Daisies," "Life on Mars," "Chuck" or "Life."

"Life" just might be my favorite show ever based on a cop, who's an ex-con, now a multimillionaire because of a wrongful prosecution lawsuit against the police department where he works, who uses his prison experience to think like the evildoers he pursues, while using Zen philosophy to cope with a tangled conspiracy that ...

Oh, it's way too complicated. Much like ... life.



Jim Guthrie's journalism career has spanned 41 years with newspapers in California and Washington. He is interested in play writing and poetry and lives in Port Angeles.