Author Archives: Murderati

nuking the ‘fridge

By now, I assume that anyone who was really in love with the Indiana Jones movie would have gone to see #4. If you haven’t seen Indiana Jones and the Crystal ~~McGuffin~~, er, Skull, there be spoilers here. The entire blog. I would warn you away from if you haven’t seen the movie yet and still wanted to, but I am doing you a favor. (And let me just stop for a second and to say to those of you who
enjoyed this film… I love you, you know I do. I think you’re smart
and funny and all kinds of great and your hair is really cute today, but I want to know where you got the
crack you used while you were enjoying this film, because clearly, I
needed some.)

This movie was so classically bad, so widely panned, it generated a phrase — "nuking the fridge" — a new way of saying "jumping the shark" — which occurs when a series has "passed [its] peak, since [it has] undergone too many changes to retain
[its ]original appeal, and after this point critical fans often sense a
noticeable decline in the show’s quality."

Near the beginning of the film, Indiana Jones has escaped from the Cold War Russian Bad Guys with Bad Accents in the dessert at area 51, and has managed to find himself in a small town… he goes to the trouble of climbing over a fence, if I remember correctly, and breaking into a house–his plan? To use a telephone to get help. I will go along with that. The initial sequence was bad, the whole magnetic skull thing bad (if you put a cloth over something strong enough to pull coins to it, the magnetization is not going to stop because of a cloth. Or a piece of wood, like the lid to a box. And if the box is lined with something blocking the strong magnetization, then you can’t use magnetization to find the box.)

So okay, I’m going to forgive the opening. Fine. Indy’s inside the house and he then sees that there’s a family sitting in the living room, and on closer inspection, realizes they are mannequins. Indy runs outside, only to have the camera pull back and show that there are plastic people on the lawn, mimicking real people–a child pulling a wagon, I think someone’s mowing or watering a lawn, whatever, all plastic.

Supposedly, the town is filled with mannequins. I’m not entirely sure how he missed all of those as he was making his way to the center of that town, nor why he didn’t choose to break into the house on the very outskirts of town (maybe only the center of town had phone service back then). A loud siren blares, with some sort of loudspeaker announcement that the nuclear blast is imminent.

You know, because those mannequins needed to be told to brace themselves.

So Indy runs back inside (after bumping into one of the nicely painted mannequins–and they needed to be pained… why? exactly who was supposed to be around to care if they were lifelike?)… anyway… he’s running back inside to try to find a solution (because saying, "I am so fucked" at this point in the movie is probably a bad thing) (which is what most of the audience was thinking)… and Indy’s great solution? He climbs into a lead-lined refrigerator (thank you Speilberg for that shot of the "lead lined" on the refrigerator, because without that? your credibility might have been completely questionable) and closes the door just as the nuclear warhead detonates, melting all of the mannequins and destroying the houses.

Whereupon we cut to a scene supposedly far outside the blast zone to see that refrigerator (and no other furniture or real debris) flying through the air and landing and rolling and then Indy popping out of the fridge. Safe.

I’ll be the first to say that story logic? Sometimes can out-maneuver a writer. Sometimes a writer will put in months of work and revisions and the story has evolved in their head to the point where they will give a character a reason for doing something toward the end of the book or movie that is completely illogical when taken in context of the beginning. Sometimes in the process of writing, a writer will figure out a better person "whodunit" or a better villain or a better piece of dialog, whatever, and they’ll have to backtrack, rewrite or polish… and when doing so, small threads or hints from the original plot may be left behind which can screw with the ultimate, final logic. Occasionally people don’t catch it, and it can make a reader not really trust that writer if they are yanked out of the story with conflicting information that’s never resolved; however, most of the time they will forgive the writer a bad sequence or flubbed clue if, ultimately, the story makes sense. If, in the final moment, the emotional journey they traveled on was worth the price of the toll, the reader will be okay.

But there are two kinds of logic at work in any story. There is the immediate plot structure (which can be told out of order, but at some point, has to have a cause-effect sensibility), and there is the logic of the world created (these kinds of things happen in this world, these kinds of things don’t.) That latter kind of logic skips hand in hand merrily down the street with tone.

If logic is skipping to a samba beat and tone is skipping to an aria, the audience is going to see the result and feel everything is off-kilter, out of focus, and feel like the world in front of them has been violated, out of sync.

I’m not sure what kind of movie Indy 4 was supposed to be; once they set down the road of hyperbole, someone somewhere decided, and then a whole lot of other people agreed, that the logic of the sequence of events–the set pieces–was more important than overall story logic. If your sequence works, but violates the point of the world, the audience is going to feel it. They’re not just watching that sequence–they’re watching it in the context of the entire frame of the story. In addition, the tone has to match. If Indy 4 was madcap camp–completely intended to be something like Airplaine or any spoof? It would have totally worked. But we were not lead to believe they were spoofing themselves.

There are rules to the world a writer creates. Always. Worlds built on reality, worlds built on hyperbole. No matter the genre, the writer has to take the rules of the world seriously and honor the characters they’ve created.

And in the world of Indy 4, Indy is supposed to come upon incredible obstacles and then outsmart them. The solutions may be outrageous, but they are within the bounds of the bigger-than-life world. He’s supposed to be this affable, sort of smart ass professor, who in secret, is really a kick ass archaeologist.

He is not supposed to be the kind of guy who could walk into a town, climb over a fence and not notice that all of the people he’s scurrying from have not moved even a fraction of an inch. And are plastic.

I maybe couldda forgiven them that, if the rest of the movie had made some sort of sense. The McGuffin: must return the crystal skull of super smart alien to its body. Don’t really have a reason, other than it told Indy to. Okay. Fine. When he finds the location that he’s to return the skull to, there are 13 crystalline skeletons in a circle, one with its head missing. The one that is all of the way across the room from the door. The way the skeletons are sitting there, all intact except for the one missing head, the implication is that the skull was stolen after they were all on their thrones.

Um, how, exactly? When the skull is returned, they all come back to life and merge into one. If they were so smart, why wouldn’t they have noticed that someone was tiptoeing across the room? Were there aliens strippers distracting them? What? And I’d love to give the storytellers credit at this point that the skull was stolen before the beings were all sitting on their thrones, but that’s not how they told the story–and that’s not how the scene is shot.

The movie was not only ruined for me, because the tone and logic were so out of hand, but the series* in retrospect just looks silly now, instead of the cool iconic hyperbolic heroic kind of story that it was: where intelligence was sexy and capable of adventure.

So, story logic: vital. Don’t leave home without it.

Instead of us all skewering specific writers (I feel like Speilberg and Lucas can handle the rant)… what are your pet peeves that break you out of the story and ruin the experience for you?

*I will admit to sort of loathing the second one, but it really wasn’t this bad.

And yet another Thrillerfest wrap-up

by Alex

I’m one of the ones who grumbled about TF being in NYC again this year – not that I don’t love New York, I mean, please! – but I felt last year’s con was very – UNintimate compared to that magical first one in Phoenix. To be fair, last year I was having a rough time personally – a longtime friend of mine had died that week and I felt like an open wound.

This year, though, every single thing that went wrong about last year went beautifully right. Con organizers bent over backward to make sure that this Thrillerfest was awesome in every way. I can personally attest to the remarkable efforts of Steve Berry, the truly amazing Liz Berry and Kathleen Antrim – can we just bottle them? – Jim Rollins, Jon Land, Laura Benedict, Michelle Gagnon, and I know there are many more that I should be thanking. The panels were imaginative, lively, and well-attended, the mixers seemed to be as well (I was mostly running around too much to attend), everyone’s energy was WAY up, and the banquet and awards show (which I personally was sweating bullets about after last year’s 17-hour debacle) came in at under three hours and played like a variety show with debonair sweetheart Jim Rollins emceeing. There was much laughter (including everything Jim said and a Dating Game style introduction to the board members and a hilarious send up to the NY Times Bestseller list by those gorgeous and multitalented Palmers, Michael and Daniel…) and some incredibly moving moments (Tor editor Eric Rabb’s heartbreaking tribute to NYPD Auxiliary Officer Nicholas Pekearo, slain in the line of duty, whose first novel The Wolfman was bought four days before his death)

I was so thrilled to see Doug Clegg post this on another message board:

“It is the single best, most professional writers’ conference I have ever attended in 20 years in this business. It reminded me of the way Hollywood might portray a writers’ awards and events weekend.”

That is I think exactly what ITW is going for, and it’s working like a charm.

As usual I was doing way too much at this con this year:

– Singing for the banquet with some of the Killer Thriller Band again, down and dirty garage style this time… with Heather Graham, F. Paul Wilson, Dave Simms and Jeff Buick (although singing without Harley Jane Kozak was like trying to perform with a limb missing…)

– Meeting with my fantastic editor, Marc Resnick, and the St. Martin’s crew. As JT said yesterday, it’s gold to have that face time with your publishers – the planning you can do for the year is exponential, and I’ve got to admit that having TF in NY makes that all easily possible. St. Martin’s also hosted their usual packed-to-the-ceiling cocktail party, this time without any alcohol whatsoever. (Yeah, right…)

– Meeting with Eric Raab, my Tor editor on the almost-out THE DARKER MASK anthology and getting the first copies of the book.

– A fantastically successful book reading/signing at Borders on Thursday at 7 pm called “Quick Thrills from Out-of-Towners, with Michelle Gagnon, Laura Benedict, JT Ellison, Mario Acevedo, Shane Gericke and Tim Maleeny, emceed by James Bond… I mean Lee Child. We were standing room only and it really showed that putting some group effort into an event can pay off in spades.

– A Screen/vs. Page panel on Hollywood and publishing with Paul Levine, Thomas Sawyer, John Gilstrap and Lorenzo Carcaterra, emceed to the hilt by the irrepressible Jon Land. Those guys put together are their own film school and so funny – we could have gone on for hours.

– A spiritualism/parapsychology panel with Heather Graham and Wendy Corsi Staub, Friday night. It was billed as “a séance” which the three of us quickly nixed (we’ve all participated in them but for numerous reasons didn’t want to do that for entertainment). All three of us write on topics of parapsychology and the paranormal from a very realistic standpoint, and we were privileged to have Dr. Lauren Thibodeaux, a professional psychic – and psychologist – from the Lily Dale spiritualist community with us to discuss the real-life explanations of psychic events. People from the audience shared some amazing stories. We’d dimmed the lights for atmosphere and halfway through the program the recessed spotlight above Lauren started flickering on and off. None of the rest of the lights –just her light. And the second the panel concluded, the light came on full strength, completely normal. Our audience ate it up.

– Lunch with my uber-fabulous agent Scott Miller… perfect combination of work and play. Unfortunately I had to miss the debauched 3-hour dinner with the Scott Miller posse (we do have the coolest agent on the planet…)

– An interview with NPR.

Plus all the usual conference magic and madness… an outside highlight of the trip this year was going to the drag restaurant (yes, that’s what I said) Lips, where seven foot (in platforms and screaming pink wig) All-Beef Patty served us frozen Cosmos and dinner in between hilarious Karaoke and comedy acts and “Bitchy Bitchy Bingo”.

I thought the debut authors’ breakfast (which I managed to wake up for) was a great success – it’s not unique to Thrillerfest but a really important feature. I was happy to meet Jordan Dane – what a lovely person, I just adored her instantly – and get a few moments with Kelli Stanley – a study in noir all on her own.

I heard mixed reviews about Agentfest – the speed-dating session with 140 writers and 40 agents (a few editors), but it’s a great concept and the lineup of agents was just stunning. I think they just need to work out some logistical kinks, and I have no doubt that will happen.

On the slightly darker side, maybe because I’m so comfortable with this group and the whole drill myself, this year I was more aware of some underlying pain and trauma at the con. Hopes are so high, and I know some people who attend looking for an agent or a deal feel like they’re putting all their eggs in this one basket, or all their chips on one number – whatever metaphor you want to use – they think they’re taking their one shot. That really isn’t true at all – for example, I see Agentfest as a chance for an aspiring author to get a good look at and vibe from 40 great agents – and THEN do the querying and follow-up with the agents they feel a click with. But there was a bit of an undercurrent of all-or-nothing desperation, and I’d really like to see ITW do more of a prep session for aspiring authors – on conference etiquette, on how to pitch, on how to make the most of this divine madness. A kind of mini-mentoring program for aspiring authors, just as there’s a mentoring program for debut authors.

Finally, I had to mention what I think is a canny move by ITW: they’ve abolished dues for active members. Read here. It’s really not about the money – what it means is that every traditionally published thriller author is automatically a member of ITW, dues free. Of course, you the writer have to reach out to ITW to get the benefits of the organization, but this policy instantly swells the ranks of ITW in a way that can be profound.

So okay, call me converted to Thrillerfest in New York. What ITW does pretty brilliantly is star power – and the agents and editors and publishers and reviewers and journalists flock to that light. Having the con in NY makes it easy for all those people to attend. And as for the cost? Well, what I say is – slumber party!!!

FYI, I’ll be a guest in the Writers’ Chatroom this Sunday evening, so please pop in if you’ve always wanted to know what I most like in…

Well, okay, maybe never mind that.

Sunday, July 20, 2008
7-9 PM EST.
http://www.writerschatroom.com/Enter.htm

A Thrilling Few Days

by J.T. Ellison

As many of you well know, we had Thrillerfest in New York this past weekend. It was a lot of fun reconnecting with old friends, meeting new, and in general, a pretty good time. The rumors are true, Thrillerfest will be in New York again next summer, which is good and bad news. The bad news is the cost of the weekend easily pushes into the $3000 range, once you add up airfare, hotel, registration, food, and of course, books. That’s
a pretty penny — fine if you’re only doing one con a year, but if
you’re anywhere near the circuit… well, you do the math.

The good news of Thrillerfest in New York has a razor’s edge too — it’s impossible not to take advantage of the fact that you’re in New York to do business while you’re there. Which means time away from the conference, no matter how well you schedule. This was my biggest problem this weekend, I had meetings galore and didn’t get to spend much physical time in the Hyatt. And I left early because I’m on a wicked close deadline and needed to get back to work.

I did have an opportunity to sign at the Borders Park Avenue, with seven dear friends (Michelle Gagnon, Tim Maleeny, Alexandra Sokoloff, Mario Acevedo, Laura Caldwell, Laura Benedict and Shane Gericke) with Lee Child as our master of ceremonies. It was a packed house, a wonderful, fun crowd, and we gave away snakes! Well worth the entire trip.

So. That said, there are some great round-ups of Thrillerfest here and here, so instead of repeating everything ad nauseum, I thought I’d talk about my panel, Blood Sweat and Tears: The First Year As A Published Author.
Moderated by Laura Benedict, the panel consisted of Rob Gregory Browne, Heather Terrell, Jason Pinter, D.L. Wilson, S.L. Linnea and me. It was fascinating to hear some of the stories, and I think we heard a great deal of what not to do, though the audience needed to sort that out for themselves.

But with that many people on the panel, we didn’t really get to cover much ground. Laura had prepared some great questions, so I thought I’d interview myself, answer them, and hope that a few other folks will jump in with their first year answers as well.

Did you make personal appearances or do a tour for the novel? What’s your most horrific tour story?

I did tour, extensively, though I hadn’t planned on doing so. I had several great opportunities that sprang up, and I couldn’t say no. Will I do that again? Probably not — there’s much less writing time when you’re on the road. But I had a chance to do one of every kind of event my first year, and it was great training for my future. And I don’t have a horrific tour story. It’s all been a joy. I’ve had a couple of awkward moments, but nothing that mattered.

How was writing number 2 (or 3 or 4) different from writing the first novel you published?

The first book I did, I had all the time in the world. I was pushing myself, but there was no deadline, no edits, no page proofs, no promotion. Book two wasn’t so bad either, I was halfway through it when books 1-3 sold. Book 3, that’s where the demands started catching up. Book 4, which I’m six weeks from deadline on now, has by far been the most difficult. I’ve been writing EDGE OF BLACK while page proofing 14, editing JUDAS KISS, promoting ATPG and 14. It’s been grueling, and I keep threatening that I’m not doing any cons next year. I may do one or two, but if it’s not local, I’m probably out, because it’s just too much. Now that I’m in my groove, it’s easier. I know what to expect, what to budget for time wise on a book. It’s all a learning process.

What is the one thing you wish that a more experienced writer had told you before you sold that first book? Is there anything that you’re reluctant to tell new authors?

I’ve been blessed with great writer friends who have helped educate me on the business. I wish all new writers, regardless of format, house size, or promotional budget, would learn the industry. What I’m reluctant to tell new authors is not everyone makes it. That’s just a fact, and it’s a disturbing one. You never know who is going to make it, and who isn’t. I did get some incredibly great words of encouragement this weekend. A writer with 40 books under her belt said "There are one book wonders. There are three book wonders. Once you publish that fourth, you’re really a professional writer." I felt a load off when she said that, for sure.

Many publishers ask their writers to submit a marketing plan with either a proposal or after the book has been accepted. If you submitted a plan, did it have anything to do with reality?

No, Mira did not ask me to submit a marketing plan. I know this answer varies from house to house, but Mira has an exceptionally brilliant marketing team, and they so didn’t need me telling them what I thought we should be doing. This also ties in with the most important element of your career — communication with your people.

How involved were you with the publisher’s marketing of your book? Did you have any interaction with the publisher’s sales team?

I had a great deal of interaction with the sales team at Mira. Jason Pinter, Michelle Gagnon and I all got to sign at BEA out first time out, meet the sales staff, schmooze with the company executives. It was very helpful. I’m still interacting with them weekly. My publicist talks with them regularly. It’s been a true joy to work with the publicity and marketing folks. I think the key is listening, learning the industry, then knowing what to pitch to them and when to stay out of their way. And that’s not something you learn your first year, I think it’s an on-going process. No one will fire you for asking questions…

What was your most successful promotion? Which promotional efforts will you keep and which will you drop next time around?

I didn’t do anything promotion wise outside of personal appearances and guest blogs for writer sites. I had some postcards, but I never made bookmarks or keychains or any other kind of swag. There’s an old joke in politics: "Yardsigns. Yardsigns will win you an election." Swag in publishing is the same. I think a bookmark or postcard is fine, and if you want to do something cool (or your house does) then go for it. But it’s not going to be the tipping point for your career. I think the best money I spent was on just plain old business cards. I’ve reordered them at least six times since I’ve started, and hand them out everywhere. This is a business, and if you act like a businessman/woman, you’ll be treated as such.

What is one illusion that you held about the business that was completely destroyed by your experience? Conversely, what was the most pleasant surprise?

Shattered illusions? That everyone wants you to succeed. It just ain’t so, unfortunately. There are people who would be just as happy to see you fall on your face than get a decent sell-through. The trick is to recognize these Januses quickly. Here’s a bit of advice. Don’t jump into any relationships, ease your way in. If people you trust are telling you someone is trouble, LISTEN. And don’t let people treat you like you’re an errant child just because you’re a debut. You should always, always be treated with respect, and you should treat people with respect in return. Even if you don’t like them.

And on the other end of that spectrum, I have been absolutely stunned by the outpouring of friendship, love, support and general goodwill in the mystery community. I have made some of the closest friendships of my life since I became a writer. People who support you no matter what, who cheer for your successes and gripe about your failures. Amazing, wonderful friends.

Do you track your sales? If so, how? And how often did you/do you look at those puzzling Amazon numbers?

I do to the extent that I watch the trends. If I have a radio interview, or an ad runs, I watch to see if the numbers move. You don’t really know anything until your editor gives you your numbers, because Amazon, Ingram, and the like are only reporting fractions of your sales. If we knew what fraction, we could all rest easier.

Were you told the numbers of copies of your book that would be published, and did you editor or agent tell you what sell through numbers they’d be happy with?

Yes, and yes. If you aren’t being told that, you need to jump up and down and yell and scream. Talk to your agent, talk to your editor. Tell them you want to be involved in the process, that you want to work hard and make a success out of your book. You should always know where you stand and what your goals are.

I’d love to hear from you. Writers, feel free to grab and answer any and all of the questions. Readers, do any debut author’s promotions stand out to you? Any advice for our soon to be war torn newbies?

Wine of the Week: 2003 Attilio Ghisolfi Barolo

ABC

By Brett Battles

Today I want to talk about four things that I think are essential in helping to write well and smarter.

I call them ROWE.

What’s ROWE? Simply this:

R –> Read
O –> Observe
W –> Write
E –> Experience

If you think about it, it’s pretty obvious. I’m sure most authors do all of the above without even realizing it.

The first teachers we have as writers, the first who really begin to shape our skills, are the authors we read when we are young. We didn’t even know we were in training then. But the way sentences were crafted, the way dialogue was presented, even the subconscious realization of point of view, all were seeded in us beginning with that first book we read.

But the learning process doesn’t stop there. The best writers continue to read everything they can. Learning, soaking it in, and just enjoying. Each book is like a classroom. Even the bad ones (perhaps even more so than the good.) We learn what to do and what not to do. What sounds right and what sounds forced. We learn that sure, sometime you can get away with short cuts, but we also learn that when short cuts aren’t taken how much better a story can be.

It doesn’t happened all the time, but when it does it always surprises me when I hear about a writer who doesn’t read much. Mostly, this has been people I’ve met in old writing groups. And when I read their submissions, more times than not, what was on the page was not very good.

We stand on the foundation of those who have gone before us. To ignore that is just stupid.

Reading is probably our most important tool…

…but it is not the only one.

Good writers are able to see what others do not see. We observe life. We watch the interactions of strangers. We sit in a coffee shop and try to guess at the lives of those around us. When we walk into a room, we not only see the person waiting there for us, but we also see the couch that’s slightly askew, the stack of comedy DVDs next to the television, the dying flowers in the vase across the room. We may smell the chicken baking in the kitchen, or the scent of rain that has followed us in from outside.

We see place. We see character. We see life in levels others don’t even care about. This is what we do. This helps to make us better story tellers.

Hand in hand with observation comes experience. You can’t always do everything your characters need to do. But you can do things that will help you understand them better. If your main character is a risk taker, then jump out of a plane or take hang gliding lessons or just drive on the freeway for an hour. If she or he loves to travel, then travel. If your character shoots a gun, go to a range and take a handgun lesson. Know what these things feels like as best as you can. Drink the wine that they drink. Watch the movies that they would watch. Go to the places they would go.

Experience your own life then use that in what you write.

And really, that’s what it comes down to. Writing. We must write. Every damn day. Even if it is just a paragraph that you toss in the trash as soon as you are done.
WRITE. WRITE. WRITE.

There is no excuse not to.

READ. OBSERVE. WRITE. EXPERIENCE.

Love to hear your own thoughts and ideas to writing smarter…so leave a comment and share with us.

——————–

Today’s Song: ABC by The Jackson 5

The Long and Winding Road

by Rob Gregory Browne

We missed our connecting flight by ten minutes.

Ten measly minutes.

The woman behind the airline counter had a sour look on her face. She clearly hated her job, herself, her country and undoubtedly all of mankind.

Which, of course, included my wife and me.

"The next flight to Philadelphia doesn’t leave for another five hours," she said. "I can put you on standby, if you like."

Standby? Did I just hear her right? Freakin’ standby?

That was the moment I nearly lost it. The moment when a mild-mannered writer of thrillers came dangerously close to turning into a sleep-deprived, ax wielding mass-murderer. Fortunately, my ax had been confiscated at the security gate in L.A. along with my switchblade, my Beretta and my bottle of Silky Boy shampoo.

Before I became a published novelist, I didn’t really travel all that much. Honolulu once a year. An occasional jaunt to San Francisco or Vegas. A few cruises to Mexico. But what they don’t tell you when you sign up for this gig is that you’d better learn to pack economically and carry an inflatable donut, because — thanks to the zillion and one writers’ conferences and book festivals out there — you’re going to be spending a lot of time sitting on your ass.

Not writing, unfortunately. But in planes, trains and automobiles.

And in terms of comfort and sanity, planes are by far the worst. (Trains, by comparison, are bliss.)

But back to O’Hare International, my favorite airport:

Being victim to a delayed flight/missed connection was bad enough, but what truly got my panties in a wad was discovering that not one single employee of the airline — including the woman behind the counter — seemed to give a damn about our dilemma.

And the missed connection was their fault!

Thankfully, my wife — who stayed amazingly calm throughout the entire debacle — managed to find the ONE sympathetic airline employee (okay, I lied earlier — so sue me) in all of Chicago and we were able to spend our unscheduled stopover in the VIP lounge.

Whooptee-freakin’-doo.

True, they had nice comfy armchairs, mini muffins, surprisingly good coffee (which I doctored with Swiss Miss) and free (but agonizingly slow) Internet access, but none of it made up for the loss of time in Philly. And at that point, even fem bots offering free sexual favors wouldn’t have made me feel any better.

Thanks to the world’s worst airline service — and I’m talking a major carrier here — our much anticipated two-day vacation — prior to Thrillerfest in New York — was virtually cut in half.

And I had to wonder. Was traveling by plane always this bad? Or is the tanking economy, the price of gas, the general fear of job loss, personal bankruptcy and corporate indifference turning customer service into a steaming pile of doggy dung?

Not everywhere, it seems.

Because when we finally caught our flight, then a cab, and staggered into our quaint little Philadelphia hotel — 24 sleepless hours after we’d started this endless trek — the kind and patient gentleman at the front desk listened to our tale of woe, then smiled warmly.

"Not to worry," he said. "You’re home now."

And those six words reminded me of what’s so great about travel:

Being there.

—

I know that those of you reading this have had similar — or even much worse — getting there experiences. So take a little time and vent.

Trust me, it feels good.

Is the thriller in trouble?

Normally I’m an optimistic person, but a recent conversation with a publishing professional worries me, and it has to do with the future of fiction sales in general, and of thrillers in particular.

“In the U.S.,” she said, “thrillers are dying.”

That startled me. I’ve long observed that thrillers dominate bestseller lists, far outselling mystery novels. (And I’ll let you provide your own definition of mystery vs. thriller.) Checking out the most recent New York Times hardcover bestseller list, I see that eight of the top fifteen slots are taken up by thrillers. So why on earth would this professional think the genre is in trouble, when thrillers so obviously rule the bestseller list?

“Look at the names on that bestseller list,” she pointed out. “Do you see any new names? Any author you haven’t seen there many times before?”

That’s where she had me. Among the names I see on the latest list are Patterson, Evanovich, Cussler, Deaver, Koontz… are you seeing the picture here? Hardly any new names are getting onto the list. The old reliables are there, month after month, year after year, but new authors are having a tougher time than ever.

And that was her point.

Now, this may simply be a perennial complaint, and I’m sure that every generation of writers moans that there’s no room for new voices. But this woman has been in publishing for decades, and she feels this is the worst market for new writers that she’s seen. Editors find it harder than ever to launch massive sales campaigns for debut thriller writers because there’ve been so many recent flops. In the past few years, I can think of a dozen thrillers, written by either debut or previously mid-list authors, that were given huge pushes because of white-hot in-house enthusiasm and terrific pre-pub buzz. These efforts were expensive. They included author tours and ad campaigns and loads of review coverage. I had the chance to read the galleys of a number of them, and I believed that several of them were sure-fire hits. The books, for the most part, were well-reviewed and well-distributed. They got acres of display space at Barnes and Noble and Borders. Then the books got out into the marketplace.

And they died. Or they had okay, but not stellar, sales.

For the author, the aftermath can be painful. He simply has to suck it up, finish the next book, and hope that he’ll get one more chance at making the list in paperback, or with his next hardcover release. But too often, you only get one chance at the golden ring, and if you’ve had a well-advertised flop, your reputation as a failure – and your poor sales figures — could follow you to your grave.

These recent flops have made publishers cautious about taking on new authors. Conversely, it’s increased the value of the old reliables, the authors who manage to hit the list with every book. Those big names may be expensive to keep in the stable, but after you’ve lost a bundle launching a few debut flops, a publisher re-appreciates the sure-fire names.

And there’s only a limited number of them.

So what’s a struggling author to do? An author who isn’t yet a big name, and whose sales are only middling?

Bestsellerdom is not forever out of your reach, because there’s an alternative way to be a hugely successful author, even if you never sell another book on U.S. soil. And that’s to sell like gangbusters everywhere else.

A few months ago, in Publishers Weekly, there was a pie chart showing worldwide profits, over time, of Bertelsmann publishing. What leaped out at me was the fact U.S. sales are a dwindling percentage of their profits, while sales in other countries make up more and more of their profits. Foreign sales seem to be pretty healthy. American sales seem more and more anemic.

When I travel to other countries, I see a vast array of bestselling books written by Americans, including names that are only midlist in the U.S. These authors may be considered unknowns at home, but overseas, they’re huge. And they’re making fine incomes – even better lately, since those sales in Euros translate to more and more dollars on your royalty statement.

The foreign markets, at least, seem to be doing fine. But in the U.S, we have a problem.

Should thriller writers be worried about the current book market? Yes. As should novelists of any genre. We should all be worried that U.S. book sales are flat and that kids are staring at computers and TVs instead of books. We should be worried that the digital age may mean an end to effective copyright protection. We should be worried that we’re the equivalent of buggy whip manufacturers.

But all we can do is keep writing.

Writer Unblocked

by Pari

Shhh. Come in close. I don’t want anyone else to hear. Yeah, I know my breath tickles . . .

Okay, here it is. I’ve found the literary Fountain of Youth, the equivalent of the Seven Cities of Gold. It’s been a long search, nearly fifty years of sacrifice, difficulties galore. Privation times two. But it was worth it. So what if I couldn’t afford food for awhile? I know how to live off the land. And I can tell you, when the Water Authority cuts you off, honeysuckle nectar is a fine substitute.

But that’s a different story . . .

This is the biggie, the jackpot.

Hey, maybe I should write a book about it. I know it’d go to auction. Sell for, like, a million bucks. I’ve always wanted a yacht. Nothing fancy, a couple hundred feet. I’d go to Tahiti, see if I could scare up an original Gaugin or two. You never know what you can find at those little markets. But I digress . . .

The secret. Here it comes, the key to never having writer’s block again.

Are you ready?

It’s . . . it’s . . . oh, hell, I forgot!

Just kidding.

It’s all in two words. "Look and do." Okay, that’s three, but you know what I mean. You don’t? Do I really need to spell it out for you? Okay.

LOOK
You can find inspiration in the most ordinary things.
Take this morning. One of my kids walked into the office while I was staring at the computer and biting a hangnail.
She tossed a set of keys on the desk. "What are these for?"
"Hell if I know."
"What should I do with them?"
Bingo! I had the beginning of a short story about safety deposit boxes, or a poem about smelting metal, or an essay about closed doors and open hearts. I could write a novel about a group of kids who go to this magical school and find this enchanted bunch of keys. It could be the next Harry Potter. Hey, Oprah might call!

Um, sorry.

AND
There’s not much to say about it. I’ve always found "and" to be useful.

DO
The trick is to actually take the stuff in your head and get it down on paper.
I don’t care how you do it. Tappity tap on the keyboard. Or use a tape recorder. Or hire one of those people that sounds like that club for brainiacs — a menses? No, Mensa. That’s not right either. You know, an amanuensis. Yeah, that’s it.

Well, maybe there’s one more word:
STOP

NO! Don’t stop writing!
Just stop that editor in your head that freezes your brain and makes you scared to put sentences together because they might all sound like a fifth-grader’s paper about the water cycle.
You see, when you’re trying to get your ideas down in the first place, you’ve got to go for the gusto, reach for the stars, make your dreams come true — even if every other phrase is cliche. Who cares? We’re not talking about editor’s block here.

So, that’s it. I’ve blessed you with solid gold. Diamonds. Gas at $.25/gal.

Just do me a favor. If Oprah calls, give her my number too.

Dead Men Do Tell Tales

Please welcome Murderati Alum Simon Wood, whose new book, WE ALL FALL DOWN,
is in stores now! Simon is guesting for me today as I rush about New York enjoying Thrillerfest! (Thanks, Simon!)

Certain
people, events and occurrences stick with me and no matter what I do, I
can’t forget about them. The death of three men in Bristol, England is
something I’ve never forgotten. They died a few months apart some time
in the late eighties. They weren’t murdered and it wasn’t accidental.
All three committed suicide.

What drew my attention to these
men was the circumstances of their deaths. All three died in the same
city, and they were all working on the same government project. The
first man walked into the sea. The second hanged himself from the
Clifton Suspension Bridge. The third tied a rope around a tree trunk
then around his neck, got into his car and drove away as fast as he
could until he ran out of rope. Needless to say, the deaths made the
news, albeit not on a national scale. The obvious questions were
raised. Why did these men kill themselves? And did it have anything to
do with their work? The questions went unanswered. The story sunk below
the surface as swiftly as the first victim.

Anytime anyone mentions Bristol or the Clifton Suspension Bridge, I think about these men’s deaths.

A
lot of my fiction is inspired by real life events, but I don’t like to
lift fact and fictionalize it. These men’s deaths intrigued me, but I
didn’t want to go trawling through their lives for entertainment
purposes. While I’m inspired by real life, I’m squeamish when it comes
to using real people’s lives in my books. Due to the sensitive nature
of the deaths, I was especially squeamish. Primarily, I want to
entertain, not offend. These men were somebody’s husband, son, brother
and friend. I don’t want their family and friends reading what is very
real to them in a fictionalized venue. I do this because if I were in
their shoes I wouldn’t want something very private to me made public
irrespective whether it is public domain or not.

So
when it came to writing, WE ALL FALL DOWN, I used the premise of a
string of suicides for the backbone of the story, but that was it. The
book is set in affluent Marin County north of San Francisco and the
work the victims were involved in is completely different. I didn’t
research these men’s deaths or their circumstances at the time.
Instead, I preoccupied myself with reasons for anyone to commit
suicide. I suppose this is a sensitive subject for me seeing as I’ve
known three people who have killed themselves. While I was searching
for reasons, a couple of unrelated news stories provided ample motive
for suicide—or in this case, staged suicides.

Seeing as dead
men can’t tell tales, I inserted a character with a similar background
to my own to unearth the mystery. I’m a mechanical engineer by trade
and through my middle to late twenties; I worked as an independent
contractor to a number of firms. Although I was one of the team, I was
an outsider. Office politics and rumor floated just above my
stratosphere. Every now and then, I’d catch a snippet that explained
the office dynamic. In WE ALL FALL DOWN, Hayden Duke is hired on short
contract to help a firm finish a hush-hush engineering project after
one of the employees commits suicide. He knows there’s something up at
the firm, especially when several other employees die. He takes an
active role after witnessing the death of his college friend and the
person responsible for getting him the job.

I
didn’t set out to answer the question why three men killed themselves
in Bristol. Instead, I’ve invented a story to satisfy my curiosity.
Whatever the reasons behind the original deaths, I hope these men are
truly at rest.

Yours respectfully,
Simon Wood
www.simonwood.net

Life, and Other Addictions

by Zoë Sharp

Today sees the announcement of the Crime Writers’ Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger Awards. The top prize, for the Duncan Lawrie Dagger itself, is £20,000 – a sliver under $40,000. Tonight I shall be putting on a posh frock – Alex’s wonderful description of ‘stunt dressing’ springs to mind – and mixing with the great and the good at the swanky Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane in the Aston Martin area of London. Sadly, I shall not be doing this because I’ve been nominated for anything, but because for the last four years I have been the Press Officer for the CWA.

And this is my last time.

They’re a nice bunch, the CWA, and I look back on previous Chairs with great affection, but a couple of recent minor nudges made me suddenly realise that the time has come to stand down. It’s not just the putting together of the 50+page press packs to be handed out on the night, the numerous press releases, and the mammoth task that is the gathering together of comments, synopsis and biog information on up to ten shortlisted authors for each of eight different awards. On top of fielding every day press enquiries, there’s also the shortlists and results for the Ellis Peters Historical Award, made towards the end of the year, and the announcements for the Cartier Diamond Dagger, awarded each May. Of course, the only time anyone contacts you about any of this is when you’ve made a mistake, but that’s just human nature and I expect and accept that as part of the job.

No, the realisation finally dawned that I’m trying to do Too Much and I need to shed some load. To coin a nautical phrase – better jetsam than flotsam.

That’s the trouble with having a pretty strong work ethic, you see. When people ask for volunteers I find it very difficult to sit on my hands and look the other way. So, I keep taking more on, and I’ve always found that the more you do, the more you’re capable of doing. Thus, I work full time doing a self-employed, self-motivated job that isn’t just a 9-5, five days a week, for someone else. We constantly have to go out and find fresh work or it dries up. We work weekends and evenings, regardless of public holidays. We don’t have TV, so we only tend actually to stop work for meals, or when we literally fall asleep over our computer keyboards.

And, somewhere in the midst of all this, I write the books, too. In the cracks of the day job, on my knee on a lap top in the car, in the early mornings and late into the night, in pencil in a notebook in snatched moments. A compulsion, rather than anything else.

Several years ago we took on the task of self-building a house, doing most of the construction work ourselves. While still working full time, and still writing those books. And then along came the CWA and fixed me with a hopeful eye and said would I mind taking on the Press Officer’s job? And, of course, I said yes.

And now I have to say no.

I feel selfish, cowardly even, but I can’t ignore the signs any longer. The temper, the frustration, the mood swings, the despair. The danger signs. They started off as background irritations, but now they’ve got too big and too loud to ignore.

Stress, they say, is not caused by workload. It’s caused by not coping with the workload. Well, I’ve loaded myself up with work about as far as I can be loaded, and now I need to ease off before something breaks. Tolerance to stress is an elastic property. We all need a little stress to keep the blood circulating, but too much of it can kill you.

And you can only stretch it so far. Like alcohol intake. A lot of people like a drink, but once you’ve tipped and fallen, the knack of moderation is lost and you can never take another sip. I’ve seen people broken in pieces by the stress of their high-powered jobs, only able to go back to the mildest of labours, if at all. I cannot envisage a time when I am unable to write, but we visited a friend last weekend who is in that position. I ached at his frustration, at the stories he writes from beginning to end in his head, that he just can’t get down on the page.

It’s a place I don’t want to go, not even for a temporary visit, and I don’t want anyone else to go there, either, if it can be avoided. We live life today at a frenetic pace, where any slackening or pause is taken as a sign of weakness, where doing less is a vice rather than a virtue. I’m not advocating stopping dead in the water. Far from it. But you have to identify what’s important – time with your family, your loved ones, your creative spirit – and prioritise it so that it’s allowed to thrive.

I’ve never wanted to do anything but write. I do not want to go to my grave with the song still in me.

This week’s Word(s) of the Week are jetsam and flotsam. Only a slight difference between the two, but an important one, I feel. A piece of jetsam is an object jettisoned from a ship in an attempt to prevent it from sinking, whereas flotsam is an object that has floated off a ship as it goes to the bottom.

Due to being present in London at the Dagger Awards, my replies to any comments may well be delayed and erratic. Apologies in advance!

What I Read On My Summer Vacation

By J.D. Rhoades

As I’ve pointed out before, one of my favorite things about the family beach trip is that it gives me time to read. Not just short stretches after writing and before bed, or stolen moments at lunch, breakfast, and while, ah, tending to certain bodily functions. No, I mean time to sit down and just get lost in a book, hour after hour, with an ocean before you, the blue sky above, a cold Corona and the shade of a rented beach umbrella to keep you cool.

I read quite a few books this last go-round, and, as is my habit, Id like to share a few of them with you:

Nothing to Lose, by Lee Child: Lee Child has brought the "lone good guy rides into troubled town and sets things right" style of western novel into the modern age, and done so in a fashion that keeps you turning the pages obsessively . Not quite as kick-ass as his previous book, BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE, but light-years ahead of the competition. Reacher makes some choices in this one that some readers have objected to rather strenuously, but I found them totally consistent with the character’s nature.
A Fatal Waltz, by Tasha Alexander: Alexander really hits her stride with this, the third book in the Lady Emily Ashton series, about a widowed noblewoman in Victorian England. This time, Emily (first introduced in AND ONLY TO DECEIVE) travels to Vienna to try to clear her good friend’s husband of the murder of his ex-political mentor. Along the way she makes the acquaintance of artists and writers in Vienna’s cafe society, tangles with anarchists and a particularly nasty British agent, and matches wits with a beautiful and sophisticated Austrian countess who happens to be the former lover of Colin, her fiancee. Emily’s a wonderful character, with a colorful and engaging supporting cast, and the plot moves along briskly. The descriptions of Vienna in winter are particularly evocative; anyone who can make me shiver with imagined cold on a Carolina beach in midsummer is doing something right.
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow: This book is technically a novel aimed at the "young adult" market, but it deals with some of the most adult themes imaginable. The Department of Homeland Security responds to a major terrorist incident in San Francisco by turning everyone, especially computer savvy kids, into presumptive criminals. One kid whose online name is "W1n5t0n" (like the book’s title, a nod to Orwell’s "1984") fights back with the cool hacker tools at his disposal, including gimmicked networked Xboxes, and pays some terrible dues. An excellent, scarily plausible vision of just how brutal and insane American life could get if we give in to fear and surrender our minds to the fear of terrorist attack. One of the best passages in the book deals with the argument that "honest people have nothing to hide": There’s something really liberating," W1n5t0n explains, "about having some corner of your life that’s yours, that no one gets to see except you….it’s not about doing something shameful, it’s about dong something private. it’s about your life belonging to you." I’m not sure I totally buy the ending, but this book is a must-read for this day and age. It reminds us that the real central front in the War on Terror is the American mind. If we let ourselves be terrorized into giving up our rights, the bad guys not only win, they turn us into them.
Pipsqueak, by Brian Wiprud: A dealer in taxidermy finds the long lost squirrel puppet from a 60’s kid’s show and stumbles into a conspiracy to control the world. If you can read that sentence without going "Whaaaaaa…..?" this book is for you. The wildly inventive Wiprud piles weirdness upon weirdness until you almost go "enough!" As a bonus, the book does provide a plausible if terrifying explanation for that whole "swing dance" craze of a few years ago. Worth the price of admission, if for no other reason than it contains the phrase "pillar of barking mud".
Bobbie Faye’s (kinda, sorta, not exactly) Family Jewels, by our very own Toni McGee Causey: Bobbie Faye Summrall, everyone’s favorite Big Ball O’Cajun chaos, takes off on another wild ride across the Louisiana landscape, in the company of bad-boy undercover man Trevor Cormier, with her good-guy ex-boyfriend in hot and aggravated pursuit. I liked Toni’s first book a lot, and I like this one even better. The plotting is tighter, but the perils of Bobbie Faye are still outrageous and uproarious. This book is huge fun.

So what’s YOUR beach read this summer?