The art of the author website

By Alexandra Sokoloff

I’d venture to say that creating and maintaining a website is one of the bigger dreads of a professional author. You know you have to do it, but you’ll do anything to avoid it. Every couple of years you end up having to do a complete overhaul, which is a huge and stressful time suck when none of us have any time to spare, ever, anyway, and I’d bet good money that I’m not the only one who postpones it for as long as humanly possible.

But with my new series, I knew I had to bite the bullet. And I knew exactly who I wanted to hire.

Our David recently did a fantastic interview with the incomparable Madeira James of Xuni.com,  so I didn’t want to go over the same questions.  I thought it would be interesting to write about Maddee’s process of creating a website design – from the author’s point of view.

Maddee asks her clients to choose 4-6 images (pulled from any number of stock photo sites), and she designs the site from those images. She recommends that the images not be specific to one particular book, as that would date the site too quickly. It’s more about the overall, encompassing feel an author wants to convey to a potential reader.

Well, that’s a brilliant and also intimidating assignment. And I’m sure Maddee gets a fair number of control freaks who are very specific about what they want (of course none of us know any of THOSE!)  

I wouldn’t dare to guess where I fall on the control freak scale – I know I have my… moments… but I think in general I’m pretty good at maintaining supreme control of my own projects but going with the flow and trusting the process when someone supremely talented is in charge, as was entirely the case here.  I really encourage you to browse through Maddee’s portfolio so you can see what I mean.  Every one of her sites is like a movie trailer: a seductive tease about a story that you just can’t wait to see. (I WISH I could see the films of some of those websites…)

Having to choosing the specific images for myself was panic-inducing, though, especially because I write so many subgenres of thriller. Five images?  Six?  How could I possibly narrow it down?

I knew I wanted to emphasize my Huntress Moon series while being general enough to give a sense of ALL of my writing. I definitely didn’t want to get too supernatural, because the Huntress series is straight crime (pretty much!) and Book of Shadows is also less overtly supernatural than my earlier novels. At the same time I did have to suggest the supernatural to encompass my other books. Also, I generally lean VERY feminine in my tastes, and Maddee does some lusciously femme designs, but I knew I had to contain myself on that front because I have a LOT of male readers who would be turned off if I let myself go that way. And I definitely didn’t want the website to give the impression that I write paranormal romance (even though I do have a couple of books out in that genre with the Keepers series),  because what I write is much darker and more ambiguous than the required HEA (happily ever after) end of any subgenre of romance.

Also, there’s the whole issue of my non-fiction, the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors books on writing. How could I suggest THAT on top of everything else I was trying to do? 

(Are you starting to see the kinds of questions you’re confronted with when you sit down to create a website design?) 

Luckily Maddee is incredibly perceptive on this front, and when we sat down to talk about the design, she instantly got what I was talking about in terms of supernatural vs. crime thriller, male vs. female, fiction vs. non-fiction. This was also easy to do because when you have the examples of a portfolio as extensive and varied as Maddee’s, it was easy to talk about the qualities of her other sites that I wanted in mine (I gave her a word list just like the word lists I’m always encouraging writing students to do: dark, dreamlike, erotic, filmic….)  I was very confident that once I came up with the images for her, she’d have all my desires and concerns in mind when she was doing the design.

That still left the problem of coming up with the images.

So I browsed and I brainstormed. Horrifying process.  I don’t know about you, but I’m a WANT IT ALL NOW kind of person, and limitation is not my idea of a good time.  But I did know four solid things: I wanted to emphasize a polarity and an erotic tension between male and female figures. I wanted the moon to figure prominently.  I wanted a strong suggestion of film, and I’m a fan of the classic LOOK of an old filmstrip. And I wanted to suggest a shattered psychological state, broken glass or a broken mirror.  So I came up with images for those four things, and a couple of others: multiple doors and a ghostlike image. 

And then I turned it all over to Maddee and waited with bated breath.  

(No, not really, but yeah, sort of). 

And she hit it out of the park on the first design:         

http://alexandrasokoloff.com/ 

There are a million things I love about the site. The descending circles of moon, man, woman give me a sense that all of these entities are dreaming each other.  I can’t say enough about how much I love the fim strip with my name.  It wasn’t my idea to have my own image in the site design but I love how Maddee worked it in. The writing was also her idea and I swear, there’s writing on the moon – that’s so trippy and cool, and completely apropos. There’s gorgeous color in the site but subdued enough that I don’t think it will turn men off. The moon, the film strip and the font of my name give it a psychedelic carnival effect that makes me think of Ray Bradbury, one of my huge literary influences.

I could go on and on, and I haven’t even gotten to the clarity of the organization, which is obviously a whole separate post. But to say I’m thrilled is the understatement of the year. 

So obviously, I’d love your comments on the new website, but my actual question for the day is: What five images would YOU would choose to convey what you’re writing? Or – what are five images that convey YOU, personally?  I think it’s a powerful creative and spiritual exercise. Scary and fun and illuminating.  Let’s hear it! 

– Alex  

 

Apparently comments are not posting today, so I’ve posted this blog on my website blog as well if you’d like to comment there!  

http://axsokoloff.blogspot.com

 

PS: I’m thrilled to report that Huntress Moon made Suspense Magazine’s list of Best Books of 2012!

 

When the movie’s better than the book

By PD Martin

There have been posts on Murderati before about books being turned into films, including David Corbett’s recent post on Cloud Atlas.

However, I’m not setting myself such lofty heights (!). I’m looking at book versus film YA style. You see, the novel I’m currently working on is YA (primarily, at least) and so I’ve been reading in that genre, including some of the breakout hits. Two I want to talk about today are I am Four and The Hunger Games.

So, first off I should say that with I am Four my first exposure was the movie (loved it for the pure escapist, sci-fi, action-packed style that it was). And yes, I know it’s not high-brow. There, I said it. Problem was, the movie was obviously a part one, and ended with a cliff-hanger. So, I  Googled it to see when the next instalment would be out, only to discover there was nothing in the works. After dismissing it for many months (longer actually), I finally decided I wanted to find out what happened. Especially given I wanted to read in the YA space. And while I could have read I am Four, I cheated a little and jumped to the second book, The Power of Six. And this is when I discovered something interesting…the movie is actually better than the book (IMHO) – at least the movie was executed better than book 2 (and book 3, The Rise of Nine, for that matter). Now, we always hear about movies not living up to the expectation of the book, but this was reversed for me. I felt the characters were actually more well-developed in the movie than they were in books 2 and 3, and I found some of the writing mechanics a little clunky. That’s obviously with my author hat on, of course.

At the time I was reading The Power of Six, I was also doing the final stint of my Writing Australia tour, teaching writing. Anyway, one of my slides looked at what makes a book ‘good’. My list includes things like: engaging characters, well-developed plot, writing style and being a page-turner (to name a few).  Funny thing is, the I am Four books are complete page-turners. I finished them quickly and didn’t want to put them down. I may moan about the character development and writing style, but I ploughed through them, eager to lap up the next instalment. They were page turners and so using my own definition they are ‘good’. Yet they failed to tick any of the other boxes.

Move on to the next blockbuster film and trilogy…The Hunger Games. Again, I saw the movie first (really just to see what all the fuss was about) ages ago and then recently as part of my research decided to read the book. And this time I did read the first book. In this case, I have no strong opinion either way whether the book is better than the movie or vice versa. In fact, I think they’re probably pretty equal. But, once again I’m totally INTO the series. I finished the first book and downloaded the second straight away. I’m pathetically taken in by the romance element (I know, I’m hopeless!) and the sense of impending rebellion — I’m dying to see what happens next. I’m now 50% through book 2, Catching Fire. Sshh, don’t tell me what happens.

Another book-to-movie comparison that always comes to mind for me is Lord of the Rings. I actually think Peter Jackson did the most amazing job of adapting those novels. In fact, in some ways the movie version was an improvement (hope I don’t get hate mail over that one!). But seriously, who needed Tom Bombadil??

Anyway, Murderati, have you seen/read any of my YA examples above? Thoughts? What about Lord of the Rings movie versus book? Or what is your favourite or least favourite book-to-movie adaptation?

Finally, I can’t blog on 6 December without saying happy birthday to the most amazing girl in the world. Our daughter is six today!

NEXT? YES. BIG? JESUS, I HOPE SO.

by Gar Anthony Haywood

You know how, when you’re playing paintball (if you don’t play paintball, just roll with me for a minute and pretend you do) and you’re lurking around a corner, sniffing out the enemy, weapon at the ready, and you turn just three inches to your right and . . .

SPLAT!  You’re dead.  Shot right between the eyes.  And your first thought is, “Ugh.  They got me.”

Well, that just happened to me.  They got me.  Only in this case, it wasn’t a paintball game, it was an email from Naomi Hirahara.  Wonderful writer, wonderful friend.  Who could have guessed she would draw me into participating in the latest self-promotional time suck known as “The Next Big Thing”?

By now, you have to know what this is (even though I somehow didn’t), because even the lovely Zoe Sharp has done an NBT blog.

Here’s the deal: I answer a bunch of questions about myself and my latest work-in-progress, trying to avoid coming off as a self-absorbed drone in the process, and then I point you to the blog sites of some other suckers, er, writers, whom I either honestly believe you should be reading, or simply found to be dumb enough to agree to be named when asked.  I’ll let you decide which of the two is the case, respectively.

So enough with the introduction, it’s time to get on with the show.  Remember: This wasn’t my idea.  I’m just going along because I’m a man of my word, and such a man never knows what will sell a copy or two of his books.

What is the working title of your next book?

GOOD MAN GONE BAD

Where did the idea come from?

This is the long-awaited (well, at least I like to think so) seventh novel in my Aaron Gunner P.I. series, and the genesis of the plot sprang from an epiphany I had while sitting on a crowded Los Angeles freeway listening to a police helicopter drone overhead.  That’s essentially how the book opens, with Gunner stuck on that crowded freeway instead of me — and more than that, I’m not gonna tell ya.

What genre best defines your book?

Hardboiled detective, though I’d like to think the book is a little more complex than that label would suggest.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

As the character of Gunner is over 20 years old, the answer to this question is constantly changing.  But as of this moment, I think the best fit for Gunner would be Idris Elba.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

In the wake of an apparent murder-suicide that claims the lives of his cousin Del Curry and Curry’s wife, and leaves their daughter on the brink of death, Central Los Angeles private investigator Aaron Gunner tries to determine what chain of events led Curry to pull the trigger — if in fact, he did.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

That remains to be seen, though it will certainly be shopped by an agent initially.

How long did it take you to write the first draft?

I can only wish I was finished with a first draft.  A completed first draft is probably another five or six months away.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Can’t think of any.  I’m a complete original.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

It’s been over 13 years since I last took Gunner out for a full-length spin, and I miss him.  It was time to spend some quality time with him again.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Uh, good writing, hopefully?

And there you have it.  My Next Big Thing.  Curious as to what some other fine writers might be doing for their Next Big Thing?  Drop in at the blogs of the following people next Wednesday, December 12, and find out.  And by the way — I was just pulling your leg earlier.  All of these guys are terrific writers you should be reading right now, if you aren’t already.

Bruce DeSilva

http://brucedesilva.wordpress.com/

Paul Bishop

http://bishsbeat.blogspot.com/

Gary Phillips

http://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/

(NOTE: Gary’s NBT post won’t run until Friday, December 14.  Why?  Because he’s a contrarian, and who the hell is gonna argue with him, that’s why.)

Traditions

by PD Martin

In today’s Wildcard Tuesday I wanted to look at traditions. I’ve never been the sort of person who was/is ‘traditional’ or who was really into traditions much at all. Having said that, since I’ve become a mother I find myself feeling much more nostalgic (and warm and fuzzy) about traditions.

Two things that have come up recently…

First off, the photo with Father Christmas. It’s that time of year again, when there’s a Santa in every department store. Last week, my daughter raced home to tell me: “Guess what, mum. I saw Santa at Shopppingtown today.” Shoppingtown is one of our closest shopping centres (mall if the language needs translating!). It was also our local when I was growing up and I remember having many photos with Santa there.

It’s also where we got a photo with Father Christmas for our first Christmas as parents, when Grace had just turned one. So it seems fitting that we go again this year, our first Christmas with Liam.

The other nostalgic thing of recent…the Kew Traffic School. This Thursday is my daughter’s sixth birthday, and yesterday afternoon we had her birthday party (actually she’s having three celebrations (!) but this was the party with her friends). Anyway, back in January I booked out the Kew Traffic School on Grace’s request. Yes, she was planning her sixth birthday party soon after her fifth! And yes, you do need to book the Traffic School early for private functions.

Anyway, the Kew Traffic School has many memories for me, and for other Melbournians. You see, it’s been around for ages. It’s basically a mini street system complete with traffic lights, a railway crossing, a roundabout, a few stop signs, a school crossing, giveway signs, etc. I remember going there when I was about eight with school as part of bike and road safety education. I had a ball! You take your bike and helmet and off you go. They also open during school holidays, and you can rent the Traffic School for private parties.

Grace’s party there was a definite success – from all perspectives. From the kids’ perspective it’s a great party. You zoom around on your bike or scooter for two hours and get to eat party food. The parents were pretty happy too, and I had many of them grinning as they were leaving and saying: “They’ll sleep tonight.”

And from our perspective, it was a pretty easy birthday. There’s no real need to decorate the venue (we just did balloons at the entrance) and you bring all your own food in so you get to choose what you want to bring and don’t pay ridiculous prices for it. There’s also a BBQ there, so we had sausages going for the second hour, which were a great hit. Yes, the threat of rain was a problem (no contingency plan) and Melbourne is unpredictable even in December. However, yesterday was perfect weather. Warm and sunny, but not too warm.

Admittedly, I had it easy – Shane did the lolly bags, the cake (a chocolate ripple cake in the shape of a bicycle) and the sausage sizzle. Some of you may remember the fairy princess cake I did for Grace last year?? This year, Shane was keen. 

Anyway, the party was a success and we’ve decided to hopefully hold a party at the Traffic School for Liam when he’s six or seven, too. Although with a May birthday I think it might be too risky!

So, what are your family traditions? Or things you do that have become a tradition?

The New Cultural World Order

By Tania Carver

I’ve just finished reading SCALPED. Now I’m sure most of you know what I’m talking about and have probably been reading it too. But since I do have a rather solipsistic tendency to assume that if I’m aware of something then everybody else is, I’d better provide a little back story.

SCALPED was a comic series, published by DCs Vertigo imprint – their line that deals in supposedly more grown up subject matter. It started in 2007 and after sixty issues (which translates into ten trade paperback collections) has just wrapped. If I tell you the premise – and what the pitch possibly may have been – it sounds like any old generic crime drama. An undercover agent goes back to the place of his birth to bring down the gangster who he believes has destroyed his hometown and avenge the murder of his mother. Simple. Don’t know about you, but at the very least I’d have been only polite about that.

What Jason Aaron the writer of SCALPED did was, from the off, brilliantly subverted not only the set up but the expectations involved in it. The main thing is the setting. The Prairie Rose Native American Reservation in South Dakota is the backdrop. Dashiell Bad Horse, the undercover FBI agent, is the daughter of political Native American Rights activist Gina Bad Horse and a troubled young man trying to find peace within himself and struggling with his own identity. The head of the Tribal Council, Chief Red Crow, is Gina’s one time partner, now turned casino owner and head gangster. Agent Nitz, Dash’s FBI handler, is actually worse than the people he’s supposed to be taking down. It’s starting to sound a little more interesting now, isn’t it?

And that’s only scratching the surface. The scope of the series quickly broadened out from that initial premise as other characters were introduced, other situations developed and the Prairie Rose Reservation went from being the backdrop to the main character in the series. The characters also behaved like real people; no good guys or bad guys, just shifting, varying shades of grey so that by the end the reader’s sympathies and allegiances had become as fluid and nuanced as the storytelling.

It’s proper, grown up storytelling in a sequential art format. R M Guera’s art is stunning, the perfect match for Aaron’s words.

I’ve been with it from the start and I was sad to see it end but glad it got the ending it deserved. But when I put it down I started to think about it. And I’m still thinking about it. I know I can re-read it at any time, either immersively or just dipping in and out. Because it’s a comic. But it also got me thinking about whether there’s been some kind of cultural sea change in the way we enjoy stories, particularly (since this is Murderati after all) crime ones.

A few years ago we seemed to have more cultural absolutes. If you wanted something with strong characterisation, good stories, atmosphere, dialogue, subtext – all of the things I, and probably everyone else, look for in narrative art – you knew, by and large, where to go. Novels and films. And as far as novels went it was mainstream literary work that would supply that. Genre was for those who’d never grown up. Who still needed the comfort of silly trappings and conventions to enjoy things. Who didn’t want to confront and understand the world we lived in but ignore it, escape from it. Genre, in its most popular forms, was science fiction, horror, romance, crime. Real novels confronted real people in real situations with real emotions. Readers could empathise with them. They didn’t need murders or spaceships or zombies or romantic doctors to enjoy books. Just good writing.

Film was the same. Yes there were the Hollywood blockbusters, but not too many of them. And those that were around were treated as embarrassments, for the most parts. They make money, sure, and provide work for cast and crew, but really, we’d rather be doing good stuff. Certainly the actors. They would rather be doing Shakespeare at Stratford instead of talking in stupid voices wielding lightsabres.

And comics? Nowhere. Full of simplistic stories of men in tights and women in far less quipping away as they fought monosyllabic bad guys. Only read by children and the kind of adults who lived in their mother’s spare room.

But that was then.

This is now: The multiplexes are choked with Hollywood summer blockbusters, all year round. Big, gaudy spectacles, centring around the kind of characters who were once only enjoyed by children and the kind of adults who lived in their mother’s spare rooms. And they’re played by actors who have done Shakespeare at Stratford and find that this pays way better.

The kind of filmmakers who used to make complex, intelligent movies have mostly decamped to TV, particularly cable in the States, once the province of the kind of hacks churned out mindless drivel like FANTASY ISLAND and THE LOVE BOAT. This new breed, people like David Simon, Matthew Weiner, Vince Gilligan in the States and Steven Moffatt and Russell T Davies here in the UK, have taken popular – not to say populist – tropes and hoary old genre conventions and turned them into truly extraordinary drama. Because they’ve been showrunners and because their shows have been allowed by their networks to blossom and develop over several seasons, something new has emerged. TV series that engages and entertains on a single viewing, but that also rewards repeated and regular viewing.  Episodes become like chapters in a novel. And you’d no more think of skipping a chapter than skipping an episode.  

Mainstream literary fiction is still there but, ironically, it’s become just another genre. And, certainly in the UK, it seems, as a genre, to regard plot or storytelling as something wholly beneath itself. It’s also, and again I’m generalising as a genre, been reluctant to engage with the society we live in. That job has been left to crime fiction.

It used to be the case, certainly in the UK, where if you wanted to write a state of the nation novel you wrote a mainstream literary one. Now, you write a crime one. It seems to be the only form of narrative fiction (and again I’m generalising, please feel free to disagree) that actively engages with our society. Or that can. And that will also subvert the conventions of a genre ending; the villain may not be punished, the good guy may not win. Unthinkable a few years ago.

Which brings us to comics. And back to SCALPED. I think we’re seeing a new culture emerge. I know it’s generally regarded that comics came of age in the mid-eighties with Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN and Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. This was then confirmed when Art Speigelman won a Pulitzer for Maus, his (not so) funny animal history of the Holocaust with mice as Jews and cats as Nazis. Then  . . . well, for the most part, the promise wasn’t fulfilled and comics as an industry seemed to retrench with stories once again being dominated by men in tights and women in substantially less. And a whole nation of men living in their mother’s spare rooms silently rejoiced.

But that’s not the whole story. Because I think we’ve seen something new emerging. The absolutes of the past are no longer there. Take Robert Kirkman’s comic series THE WALKING DEAD. A story of survivors following a zombie apocalypse, it’s got more in common with Cormac MacCarthy’s THE ROAD than anything schlocky or genre-based that’s come before it. It’s also a TV series now, produced initially by an Academy Award winning director. Boundaries are changing. A comic series like SCALPED or THE WALKING DEAD has more in common with a TV series like DEADWOOD or THE SOPRANOS or, best of all, THE WIRE in its richness and complexity. And those series have, in their scope, breadth and ambition, more in common with Nineteenth century Russian novels or the work of Dickens than the TV of a decade or two ago.

Our mediums are blurring. Our absolutes are disappearing. New creators are coming through from unexpected places telling surprising new stories, making us look not only at the world around us in different ways and through different eyes but in formats we may have previously dismissed as not worth bothering with. It’s new. It’s our culture renewing itself.

And it’s damned exciting.

DON’T HIT ME, BILLY…

 

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

 

I really do believe that every single experience we’ve had is stored in our memories. Even the little nonsense nothings – a mailbox I passed twenty years ago on an old country road – is there, waiting, with perfect clarity, for something or other to trigger it to life before my eyes.

I’m constantly amazed by the odd places I go in my head when a particular scent fills my nose – sometimes it’s just a flashing image: a stream I ran beside at age ten; a kitchen in a forgotten friend’s house where I “invented” peanut-butter by coating peanuts in butter and slamming them with a hammer; or chasing garter snakes in the backyard with my dad.

Everything is there – glimpses of my Kodachrome life.  I’ve always claimed to remember the moment of my briss.  Eight days old, just after the cut, when large, hairy hands placed a fluffy, purple dinosaur in my crib. I remember thinking it was hardly compensation for what had been taken.

My wife says there’s no way I can remember this. She says it’s a made-up image, malarky all the way.

Malarky. Now, that’s a word from a different era. Brings memories of my wife’s stepfather who died recently at the age of 89. He was a swing-time jazz musician and his vocabulary was filled with jumpin’ jive words, like malarky.

So, I was shaving the other day and I saw a flash of myself at age 19, standing in a studio apartment in Santa Cruz, California, with a drink in my hand. My eyes downcast, listening to the stomping of feet toward me, seeing a glimpse of a muscled arm rising.

And me, repeating the words, “Don’t hit me, Billy. Billy. Please. Don’t hit me.”

I don’t know why the memory came to me at just that moment, as I held the razor to my cheek. Nothing to prompt it. Just me staring at my face.

It was only a year ago, right? Maybe ten. At the most fifteen. It couldn’t have been twenty-eight. But it was.

I had arrived at Christie’s home. We’d spent the afternoon together with her four year old daughter. Christie was twenty-three and she worked at the video store in downtown Santa Cruz, owned by the TV producer I had come to work for as an intern. The “TV producer” ended up being a flaky, local entrepreneur and coke dealer. It was the best internship I ever had.

Christie took a liking to me right away. But she had this “friend” named Billy, who seemed to hang around a lot. I never really saw Billy, just a shadow here and there. He was twenty-seven – a real man with dreams and plans that apparently included Christie. Her cute little daughter came from a previous relationship, so Billy had no claim to her. And, according to Christie, Billy was just a friend.

Christie had a car, which was more than I had, and she let me drive her and her daughter around that afternoon, getting take-out at Pizza My Heart and an ice cream at Baskin Robbins. This was a long time ago, when Pizza My Heart had only two locations–one in downtown Santa Cruz (by the bus station) and one in Capitola. 1985. Just yesterday.

We watched the sun as it set over the Pacific and then Christie asked me to take her home. Take us home. It looked like I’d be spending the night.

We drove to her place and then past it because there was a car hovering in the shadows.

“What’s Billy doing here?” she asked, rhetorically.

She told me to keep driving. We went back to the beach, watched the stars come out in the sky. Then I drove back and, still, Billy’s car in the driveway.

“I think Billy thinks he’s your boyfriend,” I said. “Maybe I should go home. While the buses are running.”

“No…no, Billy’s just a friend….” she said, without conviction.

We drove around town a bit then returned to discover that Billy had left.

I carried her sleeping daughter and put her in bed, which was uncomfortably close to Christie’s bed, which, from the way things were looking, would be my bed as well.

Christie fixed me a drink and we stood for what seemed like seconds when the white light of a car’s headlights flashed the window.

“Who could that be?” she asked, rhetorically. I was getting pretty tired of ‘rhetorically.’

There was a soft knock at the door and Christie opened it.

“Billy, what are you doing here?”

 His hands in his pockets, an “aw, shucks” slump, genuine and kind. “Where’ve you been tonight, Christie?”

Then he sees me over her shoulder. My drink in hand, a dopey smile on my face. “Hi, Billy,” I said, in ironic monotone. A slow wave of my hand.

He turned around quickly, a rush of anger. Stepped away from the door, stepped back and away again, then forward with determination, his hand moving through his hair, his cheeks blowing red.

“Billy,” Christie said, “what’s going on?”

I knew what was going on.

He stomped into the house, pushing Christie aside.

“Billy!” she screamed. “Billy, stop!”

And me, just watching him come. I was no match for him. I knew it. There was really only one thing to do.

“Billy. Don’t hit me, Billy. Please. Don’t hit me.”

A calm, pleading appeal. I made no move to defend myself. I guess in the back of my mind I pictured the tables turned – would I be able to hit a defenseless kid who meant no harm, a kid who clearly hadn’t slept with my girlfriend or friend or whatever I chose to call her?

Billy approached like a bear with his arm cocked all the way to his ear. He stood above me, a foot taller, knuckles shaking in a now-or-never fist.

In the background, Christie screaming, “No, Billy, stop, stop!”

In the foreground, a droning mantra, “Please. Billy. Please. Don’t hit me, Billy.”

The combination worked. He turned on his heel, brought the anger to his lungs. “Get the fuck out of here!” and pushed me from the house.

The door slammed behind me. It was a cold winter night. The buses had stopped running and it would be a long, long walk to my apartment on Pacific Avenue. Seven miles, was my guess. I sat in the shadows in the front yard, listening to Christie talking nonsense and Billy punching walls.

Somehow, she managed it. Explained that I was just a friend from work who bought her and her daughter some ice cream–on my way home when Billy came to the door. I don’t really know what all she said, except for the “I love yous” and “Oh, Billy, it’s only you, you know that.” After an hour he stepped through the door and came to me with his hand extended.

“Sorry, man. I totally misunderstood,” he said.

Me, I’m glad he didn’t show up twenty minutes later.

“Well, yeah, okay,” I said. “But now I don’t have a way home. I could use a ride.”

Billy wasn’t about to drive me home and he wasn’t going to let his whatever-she-was spend a minute alone with me in a car. We compromised and they let me borrow her car so I could drive to my apartment, where I slept lonely and alone in an ice-box room above the local Mexican club, the Acapulco Lounge. Mariachi music until two a.m.

A month or two later Billy took Christie and the kid back to wherever it was he came from, Minnesota, I think, where they could have a normal life among normal friends. She was twenty-three, Christie. She’d be in her fifties now.

How did this start? Oh, yeah. Memories. That one came while I was shaving.

Time is not what we know. I’m convinced that everything that ever happened to me happened no earlier than fifteen years ago. Whenever someone asks me how long I’ve known this or that person, or when I left Albuquerque, or when I went to music school, I always think, “Well it had to be around fifteen years ago.” Because that’s as long as anything has every happened in my life, right?

I’m one of the most sentimental, nostalgic persons I know. I love my memories, good and bad. I used to be the only one like this, until I met all the friggin’ authors. Now I know I’m not alone. It’s a gene we’re born with, me and the writers. We’re lost in our memories. We’re lost in our minds.

Not a bad place to be, if you have to be anywhere at all.

                                                    *     *     *

Come read next week’s episode, when Stephen finds Billy dealing blackjack in Vegas and says, “Hit me, Billy. Please. Hit me.”*

* The last bit is just a bunch of malarky.

Catching up

Zoë Sharp

I hope you’ll all forgive me this week if I do a little catching up with myself. It’s been a busy few months and I wanted to let you know that I haven’t been entirely idle during that time.

This year is passing so quickly, and the final month of the year is just about upon us. I’ve no idea what happened to most of it—it sped by in something of a blur.

Still, the latest in the Charlie Fox series—DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten—is out there in digital form, complete with a guest excerpt from the first in a new series by bestselling author Joel Goldman—STONE COLD. The US/Canadian edition of DIE EASY is due in January.

‘Sean didn’t remember finding out that I wasn’t to blame for ruining both our careers—that I’d nearly died for him. He certainly didn’t know that I’d killed for him.’

In the sweating heat of Louisiana, former Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, faces her toughest challenge yet.

Professionally, she’s at the top of her game, but her personal life is in ruins. Her lover, bodyguard Sean Meyer, has woken from a gunshot-induced coma with his memory in tatters. It seems that piecing back together the relationship they shared is proving harder for him than relearning the intricacies of the close-protection business.

Working with Sean again was never going to be easy for Charlie, either, but a celebrity fundraising event in aid of still-ravaged areas of New Orleans should have been the ideal opportunity for them both to take things nice and slow.

Until, that is, they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone.

When an ambitious robbery explodes into a deadly hostage situation, the motive may be far more complex than simple greed. Somebody has a major score to settle and Sean is part of the reason. Only trouble is, he doesn’t remember why.

And when Charlie finds herself facing a nightmare from her own past, she realises she can’t rely on Sean to watch her back. This time, she’s got to fight it out on her own.

One thing’s for sure—no matter how overwhelming the odds stacked against her, Charlie Fox is never going to die easy …

I’ve also just put together the first three Charlie Fox crime thrillers into a special e-boxed set—A TRIPLE SHOT of Charlie Fox, so you get KILLER INSTINCT, RIOT ACT and HARD KNOCKS, complete with a bonus standalone short story, Last Right.

And, following on from that, I’ve put together the second three books—FIRST DROP, ROAD KILL and SECOND SHOT—into another e-boxed set called ANOTHER ROUND of Charlie Fox, which also comes with a bonus standalone short, Tell Me.

And, of course, both Last Right and Tell Me are now available as individual downloads, alongside another standalone short story, The Night Butterflies.

On top of that, I’ve reverted US rights to SECOND SHOT: Charlie Fox book six, and that’s now out with a guest excerpt from LOST RIVER by highly acclaimed British crime writer, Stephen Booth.

‘Take it from me, getting yourself shot hurts like hell.’

When the latest assignment of ex-Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, ends in a bloody shoot-out in a frozen New England forest she’s left fighting for her life, with her client dead.

Simone had just become a lottery millionairess but she never lived long enough to enjoy her new-found riches. Charlie was just supposed to be keeping Simone’s troublesome ex-boyfriend at bay and helping track down the father Simone had never really known. 

But Simone’s former SAS father has secrets in his past that are coming back and haunt him. Did Simone’s money tempt him into engineering her death? And what happens now to Simone’s baby daughter, Ella?

With Simone gone, Ella’s safety is Charlie’s main concern. She’s determined, despite her injuries, not to let anything happen to the child. Even if this time Charlie’s in no state to protect anyone―least of all herself.

Is that enough for now? Well … no, actually.

 I’m currently working on edits for a standalone crime thriller, THE BLOOD WHISPERER. No links up for that yet, but I can let you have a sneak peek at the cover and the jacket copy.

They took everything she had, but not everything she was …

Six years ago, London crime-scene investigator Kelly Jacks woke next to the butchered body of a man with the knife in her hands and no memory of what happened.

She trusted the evidence to prove her innocent.

It didn’t.

Now released after serving five years for involuntary manslaughter, Kelly must try to piece her life back together. Shunned by former colleagues and friends, the only work she can get is with the crime-scene cleaning firm run by her old mentor.

But old habits die hard.

Sent to eradicate all trace of the apparent suicide of Matthew Lytton’s wife at their country home, she draws unwelcome parallels with the past. The police are satisfied, but Kelly isn’t so sure. She wants to trust Matthew, but is he out to find the truth or to silence the one person who can expose a more deadly plan?

Kelly quickly finds herself plunged into the nightmare of being branded a killer once again. On the run from police, Russian thugs and local gangsters, she is fast running out of options.

But Kelly acquired a whole set of new survival skills on the inside. Now she must use everything she knows to evade capture and stay alive long enough to clear her name.

Right, I think that’s enough for now, so I’m going to shut up … in a moment.

Before I go, however, I’d just like to thank my wonderful webmaster for the total revamp of my site. If you haven’t had a look, I’d value your opinion. Just click on my name at the top of this blog.

Also, I need to give much kudos to my extremely talented cover designer, Jane Hudson at NuDesign, who’s come up with all these stunning new images.

My grateful thanks go to our Alexandra Sokoloff for her wonderful mention on her last blog. I’d already done my Next Big Thing blog, so here’s my take on it.

A big thank you to Cheryll Rawling for a wonderful interview on her excellent blog site, CrimeWarp.

Tomorrow is also my last day as Author of the Month on CrimeSquad.com. Thanks to Graham Smith for that one!

And don’t forget David Corbett’s upcoming writing courses—Character Spines & Story Lines at Book Passage this weekend, and his online course in January. It would, as they say, be a crime to miss them.

This week’s Word of the Week is gormless, a lovely word that has certain lights-on-nobody-at-home connotations. It actually comes from an old English dialect noun gaum meaning attention or understanding, and also a dolt, but can also function as a verb meaning to behave stupidly. The most common spelling in modern times is gormless. I love the idea that one can have gorm—it’s a bit like using ruth instead of always ruthless, or to be ept instead of always inept.

 

Cover Quotes – Credible Praise or Irredeemable Corruption?

By David Corbett

First, some business to square away – I’m teaching a couple of courses I’d like everyone to know about. If you or someone you know would like to register, follow the links I provide below.

The first is an in-person weekend class and workshop at Book Passage in Corte Madera on December 1st & 2nd. The class is titled Character Spines and Story Lines, and will focus on how to integrate character with story to create focused, compelling, character-driven plots.

The second is a ten-week online course, beginning January 16th, offered through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. It’s titled The Outer Limits of Inner Life: Building Consistent but Surprising Characters, and covers the art of characterization from conception of the character through development and execution on the page.

Also, Open Road Media and Mysterious Press have re-issued my third and fourth novels — Blood of Paradise and Do They Know I’m Running, respectively — in ebook format with, imho, killer new covers:

 

 

They’ve also created a swift little video for the rollout, in which I characteristically talk far too quickly about nothing much:

Follow the links to purchase the titles, and remember there are two days left of the special November promotion in which The Devil’s Redhead (and 99 other stellar titles) are all available for $3.99 or less (TDR is a lean, mean $2.99).

* * * * *

Now, to our regularly schedule programming:

I had a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. I got to meet my girlfriend Mette’s parents for the first time – they spend much of the year abroad, living for several months in Bergen, Norway, another several in Izmir, Turkey – and spent several restful days at a lakeside cottage in the Putnam Valley (not far from Sleepy Hollow), eating sumptuous meals, hiking in the woods, and listening to vinyl on our host’s knockout stereo (his record collection ranged from Bowie to Herbie Hancock to Fela to Sonny Boy Williamson to, well, you get the picture).

I also received from my editor at Penguin, Tara Singh, a jpeg for the finalized cover up my upcoming book, The Art of Character:

Oops. My apologies. I tried to post the cover, but I only have a pdf file,

and apparently I need a jpeg or similar file. I’m going to try something here — let’s see if it works. If not, sorry.

 

The cover was completed after I was able to scrabble together some blurbs from assorted friends, colleagues, comrades in arms. Given the rather ragged path to publication this poor little book has endured – I’m on my third editor, for example – I was given a very narrow time window (two weeks) to gather these quotes, which all but guaranteed that we’d come up short-handed.

All the writers I know are super-busy, and asking for a quote in such a short time frame was almost embarrassing. Many of the writers I asked simply couldn’t oblige, but luckily there were a significant, generous few who were able to take the time and respond.

As you know, this past year there was a rather heated debate over the use of “sock puppets” to praise one’s own work and, in extreme cases, attack the work of others. Alexandra and Martyn both posted blogs here on the topic. And the resulting discussion all around the web brought into high relief the entire issue of garnering favorable opinion for one’s work – whether in the form of friends writing Amazon reviews, writing reviews oneself under pseudonyms, or good old-fashioned, genuine third-party praise.

Barry Eisler, in addressing the sock puppet phenomenon, put it in the context of acquiring blurbs, a system he considers “irredeemably corrupt.” I’m not quite as jaundiced as Barry, but I’m no fool. I realize that many cover quotes are written as personal favors or as a kind of quid pro quo for kindnesses or acts of generosity provided elsewhere. I also know they don’t always reflect a genuine knowledge of the work. As Robert B. Parker famously remarked: “I’ll blurb the book or read it, not both.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

I think most people understand all this. Readers don’t take cover quotes as gospel any more than they read Yelp reviews without a certain reasonable skepticism. Ultimately, we evaluate several reviews and/or blurbs, “weigh the source,” glimpse at the book ourselves, and form our own opinion.

That said, I was absolutely overwhelmed with the generosity, kindness, and respect my fellow writers showed my humble little book. My editor was frankly stunned – and ecstatic. Here’s a sample:

“David Corbett has written a wise, inspiring love letter to all the imaginary creatures inside our minds—so we might conjure them whole on the page. I predict that massively underscored copies of The Art of Character will rest close at hand on writers’ desks for many years to come.”  —Cheryl Strayed, Best Selling Author of Wild

“I once made the mistake of writing a story with David Corbett. The man smoked me. He can delineate the character and personality of an accordion in three strokes. I didn’t even know accordions had character. This act of generosity and wisdom from a very good writer will help anyone who is staring at a blank page, any day, any time. Highly recommended.”  —Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Finalist and Bestselling Author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter

“Corbett’s The Art of Character is no “how to” book or “writing by numbers” manual.  It is a writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.”  —Elizabeth Brundage, Best Selling Author of A Stranger Like You

Indispensable. Few are the writer’s guides that are written as beautifully, cogently, and intelligently as a well-wrought novel. This is one of those books.”  —Megan Abbott, Edgar-Winning author of The End of Everything

“David Corbett’s The Art of Character belongs on every writer’s shelf beside Elizabeth George’s Write Away and Stephen King’s On Writing. An invaluable resource for both the novice and the experienced hand, it’s as much fun to read as a great novel.”  —Deborah Crombie, New York Times best-selling author of Water Like a Stone

“The topic of character development begins and ends with David Corbett’s The Art of Character. This is the book on the subject, destined to stand among the writings of John Gardner, Joseph Campbell, and the others of that select few whose work is fundamental to understanding the craft of storytelling.”  —Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria

“David Corbett’s The Art of Character offers a deep inquiry into the creation of character for the novice writer, with valuable nuggets of wisdom for the seasoned storyteller. If you are a writer, it should be on your desk.”  —Jacqueline Winspear, National Best Selling Author of A Lesson in Secrets

“Clear-headed and confident, David Corbett takes us through the steps of characterization in a manner that resists formula while at the same time demystifying a process that has likely daunted every writer since Homer. “  —Robin Hemley, Award-Winning Author of Turning Life into Fiction

“David Corbett has combined his unique talents as a gifted writer and an extraordinary teacher to create a superb resource on character development. Deftly crafted and impeccably researched, The Art of Character is a thoughtful and insightful book that is immensely readable and practical.”  —Sheldon Siegel. New York Times Best Selling Author of Perfect Alibi

 “It is rare to find the deep philosophical questions of literature (and life) met with such straight-forward and inspiring instruction. But David Corbett is that writer, and The Art of Character is that book.”  -—Robert Mailer Anderson, author “Boonville”

“This fine book is about as thorough an examination of character and what it means in all sorts of imaginative writing as you’re likely to find anywhere.”  —Robert Bausch, Prize-Winning Author of Out of Season

Yes, they all could be lying, or exaggerating, or simply doing me a good turn. But I think, when readers look inside the cover, they’ll be able to determine for themselves whether the praise was warranted or not. In the meantime, I’m basking in the glow – and feeling very fortunate indeed.

So, Muderateros – how do you appraise the value of cover quotes on a book you’re thinking of buying? Do you agree with Barry Eisler that the system is so ridden with underhandedness as to be worthless? Or does the opinion of a writer you admire still carry weight?

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: I mentioned that I got to listen to Fela this weekend at my lakeside hideaway. For those of you unacquainted with this African megastar-hero’s work, this is an excellent introduction – “Zombie,” from 1976:

 

BLACK FRIDAY, CYBER MONDAY AND NOW: MURDERATI TUESDAY!

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Though I rarely take part in all the fun, cash-strapped as I am, I kind of dig Black Friday.  The idea of retailers throughout the country holding a joint super sale to end all super sales on a single day is kind of awesome, and when you extend that concept to a tech-only version the following week on Cyber Monday, well . . .  What’s not to like?

(Except for the crowds . . .

. . . the traffic . . .

. . . and the gunfire on Aisle 9, that is.)

But neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday is the super sale I’d really like to see.  The one-day discount extravaganza of my dreams would involve merchandise only we writers care about.  Things that we wish existed, but don’t.  I’d call this day immediately following Cyber Monday “Murderati Tuesday” (what else?), and the price-slashed goods would look pretty much like this:

 

A BIG-SCREEN TV THAT ONLY WORKS WHEN YOU DO


This set connects to your laptop or desktop computer via USB cable and monitors your daily progress toward the deadline and word count you’ve committed yourself to meeting.  Once your deadline passes, if you haven’t delivered a complete manuscript, the set can be programmed to either shut down completely or only tune in to over-the-air stations showing old Bosom Buddy reruns.  Want to watch the Super Bowl on something other than your smart phone?  Better get your ass in gear and finish that damn novel.

 

A GPS DEVICE THAT CAN TRACK THE WHEREABOUTS OF BOOK CONVENTION UNDESIRABLES

You know the kind of undesirables I mean.  You see the poor devils wandering the hallways of the convention hotel every year, and usually too late to avoid being cornered by one of them.  They wear quadruple-X-sized T-shirts and unisex khakis, and drag three fully-loaded canvas book bags behind them like balls-and-chain.  (Bags which, in total defiance of the odds, never manage to contain a single title of yours.)  They tell incredibly unfunny stories and rave about authors you wouldn’t pay to write a squirrel’s obituary.  This handheld device alerts you the minute one of these geeks steps within fifty yards of your present location, and it comes with a panic button that will sound an ear-splitting alarm should you fail to heed its warning and blunder into the men’s room where, say, good ol’ Bob Fussblott of Dunwoody, Illinois, is waiting for you.

 

INFLATABLE FANS


Sold in packages of 25, these rubberized mannequins can be used to populate the audience of an otherwise scorched-Earth-desolate, mall store book signing you don’t know why you ever scheduled in the first place.  Why read to yet another host of empty chairs when you can read to over two-dozen, somewhat human-looking blow-up dolls that have been specifically designed to appear as if they’re hanging on your every word?  They can’t ask questions or buy a book to be signed afterward, but then, none of them will fall asleep on you, either.

 

AN E-READER THAT TRIMS THE FAT


The Zook e-reader does what few professional editors have the guts to do anymore: It cuts all the unnecessary crap out of the books you download to it.  Never again will you have to suffer through 131 pages of drivel wholly unrelated to the story at hand.  The Zook scans e-book text for excess prose and sends it straight to the trash where it belongs.  The reader features four specific settings that allow you to fine-tune its editing functions to meet your reading needs: Verbosity, Digression, Literary Grandstanding and Filler Only Included at the Eleventh Hour to Meet the Author’s Contractual Word-Count Obligations.

 

HEADGEAR FOR THE CLICHE-IMPAIRED


Writing while wearing the ClicheBuster headset won’t make you a New York Times bestselling author overnight, but it will discourage you from filling your work with the trite and overwrought.  This brainwave interface device fits snugly over your dome to read your every thought, and the minute a cliche of any kind enters your mind, you’re treated to an electrical shock guaranteed to make you think twice.  Good cop, bad cop?  Zap!  “But all was not what it seemed”?  Zot!  The spunky female heroine dating the handsome homicide detective while sharing barbs with her feisty, irascible mother?  Zow!  (Note: The intensity of the jolt you receive corresponds to the degree of unoriginality the cliche being considered indicates, so first-time authors are warned to use the device only under the direct supervision of a professional writers’ camp counselor.)

 

A PROCASTINATION-PROOF OFFICE CHAIR


Ever wish your writing chair was as ruthless a taskmaster as your agent?  Well, now it can be if your chair is the beautiful, ergonomic restraint device shown here.  Sit down, strap yourself into the locking three-point harness and start writing, because you won’t be getting up until your agent calls or emails you with the lock’s combination, which changes daily.  Want to go to the window and blow a good hour watching that crazy neighbor of yours try to trim his shrubs with a weed whacker?   Forget about it!  Thinking about running downstairs to catch the last forty minutes of The View?  Not a chance!  Need a potty break?  Well . . . better hope your agent liked the last 30 pages you  delivered.  Otherwise . . .

Divorcing your characters

by Pari

Why do relationships end? Are there fundamental disasters sown in the first rites of spring? Do we crack the foundation with expectations before laying the first brick? And does any of the endless analysis and questioning result in better future relationships?

Hell if I know.

What I do know is that I’ve had a long-term relationship with Sasha Solomon*, my main character in my published mystery series, and it has been severely tested in the last five years. The most recent test came with the first volley in my husband’s proposed property settlement. He wants “One half of the community interest in the literary Copyrights of Pari Noskin Tachiert” (Yes, the typo was there; it added a little insult to the whole endeavor.)

When I read those words, I thought, “Okay, then, I’ll just never do anything with Sasha again.”

After that initial infantile reaction, I started looking deeper. That’s one of the dangers of being introspective and not particularly interested laying blame at other people’s feet. Though I could sense the intent behind the request, the stab at my self-identity, the stink of malice, in the end did it really matter?

Is my 17-year relationship with this character so shallow I’m willing to end it over someone else’s actions? And who would I be hurting if I did? The deeper I went, the more questions I had.

How much of our relationship — Sasha’s and mine — sits on shaky ground? How much has been in reaction to
*  The people who said I’d never get published?
*  The limits of being with a university press and trying to “break into the big time?”
*  My desire to be unique, interesting?
*  My insecurities and worries about self-worth?

I also wondered about how easily I could get thrown off track. Do I still love Sasha or have I just been using her for years? Have I been holding on to her because I was scared to let her go?

Deeper and deeper I’ve gone.  Why I haven’t written creatively in nearly 8 months? Is it really because I’m letting my wounded creativity heal quietly, to hibernate, until I can embrace it with the love of a true friend? Or is it because I’ve wanted to hoard it in, to hold it close, because I don’t want my husband try to possess any of it?

Wow. Is that weird or what? It feels so petty. And, frankly, a bit stupid. The only one getting hurt in this is me . . . and Sasha . . . and, maybe, readers who still want more of her stories.

Do other writers have these kinds of literary existential crises? I sure hope so.

So my main questions for today are these:

Readers & Writers:  Have you ever been faced with this introspective questioning?
What did you discover?

Writers: Did you ever divorce a long-term character you created?
Or were you able to get literary marriage counseling?

* the website referenced above was created by B.G. Ritts as a kindness years ago . . .