What’s the experience?

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I’m teaching my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors Workshop at Left Coast Crime in Sacramento this week, so today I’ll be in and out when I can, you know how the conference thing goes, especially depending on how late I was at the bar last night.

I’m sure the workshop went well (it was yesterday); they always do. I hope I refrained from tearing the class a collective new orifice. Although with teaching, sometimes a good rampage is exactly what a student needs at the time; I’ve certainly been the beneficiary of some beneficial – and memorable – ones from my favorite teachers myself.

I had this fear going into the workshop that I might get, um, testy.  The thing is, when I teach a workshop, I always ask the participants to do a little homework up front – some exercises all you regulars are familiar with: 


I always like to get some info from workshop participants before the conference so I can tailor my examples to the people who are actually in the class. Obviously this isn’t mandatory homework, but it will pay off for you to do it.  😉  The whole principle of what I teach is that we learn best from the storytellers and stories (in any medium) that have most inspired us, and that we as authors can learn a whole new dimension of storytelling by looking specifically at films that have inspired us and that are similar to what we’re writing.  So here are a few questions/exercises to get you thinking along those lines:

1. Tell me what genre you’re writing in. All right, yes, it’s a mystery conference.  So tell me what subgenre or cross-genre you’re writing in.

2. Make a list of ten movies and books – at least five movies – that you feel are similar in genre and structure to your work in progress or story idea (or if you don’t have a story idea yet, ten movies and books that you WISH you had written!) 


3. Write out the premise of your story.  If you’re unclear on what a premise sentence is, here’s a practical explanation with examples:   


Not everyone does the homework, but the answers I get give me some ideas of examples to work with when I’m going through the Three-Act, Eight Sequence Structure.  In a long workshop I can also work a little with the idea of premise; I’m not able to do that in a 2-hour workshop.  Nonetheless, if I had a rampage yesterday, I can guarantee it was on premise.

I understand that people have problems with loglines, or premise sentences.  Believe me, I do. I would teach a class on writing premise if it weren’t so damn hard to do that it exhausts me too much to teach it.  After all, teaching is just this fun little sideline for me, and why should I wear myself out teach something so hard when there are much easier and more fun things to teach?

Especially after I got a reasonable number of homework assignments back, and almost half of them went like this: 

A professor (librarian, banker, accountant, divorcee) goes on holiday (to a high school reunion, to a Scottish castle, to his ex-wife’s wedding) and gets involved in solving a murder.

Uh huh.

Okay, I get the amateur sleuth fantasy about vicariously solving a murder. And maybe that’s all there does need to be to it to attract a certain type of reader. Maybe just that one situation in an infinite variety of settings really does get the job done, sort of like porn for the mystery-oriented mind. I’ve even picked up books myself that could be summed up the same way.  Except that they happened to be written by Agatha Christie or Elizabeth George or Ruth Rendell, and I knew I was going to be getting my money’s worth.

But why would anyone buy a book described like that by someone they’d never heard of?  And I’m not talking just readers – but how does that book even get read by an agent or editor to begin with?

Where’s the hook? Is it the quirkiness of the detective? Is it the fantasy aspect of the setting? Is it the jeopardy to the detective or to an excruciatingly sympathetic victim? Is it the startling and topical arena?  It is an untenable moral choice the protagonist will be forced to make?

I guess what is really missing for me in most of the premises I read – ever – is the EXPERIENCE that the story is going to give me.  Now, any of us know what that experience is going to be with an author we are already familiar with. I don’t need anyone to spell out what the experience is that I’m going to get from a Mo Hayder book  – I know that I will be wrung out emotionally from the experience of human evil so overwhelming it might as well be supernatural. And call it masochism on my part, but that’s why I buy her books.

As authors it’s not just our job to know the experience that our books deliver, and that readers buy us for, it’s our job to be able to communicate that experience in the logline or premise sentence of our books.  Myself, if I’m not making the hair on the back of people’s heads stand up when they read my flap copy, I’m in trouble.

Some of that knowing about the experience comes with – experience.  Readers TELL you what they buy your books for, and that makes it easier both to deliver it in the next book, and to get a feeling of that experience into your promotional material.

But you have to know it to say it.

So the question today is, authors, what is the EXPERIENCE you feel you deliver in your books?

And readers, what is the EXPERIENCE you look for in some of your favorite authors’ books?

Alternately, tell us about a great rampage you got from a teacher or mentor that changed your work or life!

I’ll be checking in from LCC with reports when I can.  Maybe I can rope some other authors into reporting with me!

– Alex

 

Never look back?

By PD Martin

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Buddha

I love this notion of living in the present (well, in theory at least). And I even think the notion of looking forward is infinitely better than dwelling in the past. What ifs, questioning your decisions…it’s never a good idea. We all know the past can be a road to heartbreak. Right? But still, sometimes it’s hard not to wonder how things may have turned out with different options or different choices during key moments in our lives. How would the different trajectory look? I adore the movie Sliding Doors for its core concept of playing out two different paths. Although I can’t remember how it ended. Did the two paths converge?

And I guess when it comes to our personal lives, I’m also a believer of dealing with the past (and perhaps it can be a fine line between dwelling in the past and thinking about it enough to move forward).

As for living in the present…well, I can’t seem to get the balance right on that one either. I’m constantly looking forward — making plans, setting goals. It’s part of who I am. And while it’s easy to say that in an ideal world we’d all live in the present, that world would actually look pretty grim. No one thinking or worrying about consequences? No one planning forward at a personal, national or global level in terms of money, resources, environment, strategy? Scary, as hell if you ask me.

I guess the key at a personal level, is not to worry about the future so much that you miss out on the present.

Recently, I’ve been questioning whether it’s a good idea to apply the notion of “never look back” to our creative lives. Yes, I have a vested interest in this. As I mentioned in my last blog, part of my 2012 strategy (yes, looking forward) involves taking a trip down memory lane and pulling out some of those earlier manuscripts that never quite made it into print. Is there enough of a spark for resurrection? I mean, everything’s a draft, right?

Like many authors, I also teach writing. And in the past I’ve always told my students that their first manuscript(s) — one, two, three, or maybe even more — are learning experiences. Ones for that top drawer that will most likely never see the light of day.

Still, I think back to my road to publication and there was at least one manuscript for which I found it hard to take no for an answer. In fact, many publishers also found it hard to say no. This particular young adult manuscript went through the very many levels of an unsolicited manuscript at the four top publishers here in Australia. This little book got through the readers, through the junior editors, right up to the acquisitions editors only to be booted out the door at an acquisition meeting. The dreaded vote. Of course, it’s all behind closed doors so I have no idea in each case who vetoed my book — marketing, sales, management? And I’ll never know.

But with the whole ebook thing (remember, I’ve been a bit of a dumb ass with this) it made me wonder whether this book could be resurrected. Since I last worked on my three YA novels (which I wrote between 1997-2002) I’ve learned a huge amount about the writing craft. And I’ve written another seven books. So what would that experience bring to my earlier novel(s)?

Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing the past three weeks. Digging out “the one that got away”. And with fresh eyes (it has been nearly ten years, after all) I could see the novel’s strengths and weaknesses, but more importantly I knew a few editorial passes would address the weaknesses.

Alexander Graham Bell said:  “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

But what if closed doors sometimes open for us, once more?

Is there anything from your life that you’ve decided to go back to, decided to “dwell” on, with positive results?

THERE AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS ‘NOIR LITE’

by Gar Anthony Haywood

(Yeah, I know what you guys are thinking: “Two posts by Haywood back-to-back?  Really?”  Well, don’t worry, it’s not a sign I’m taking over this joint.  It’s just a Murderati scheduling quirk.  Won’t happen again soon.  I hope.)

This weekend, like many of you, I’ll be attending the Left Coast Crime Convention in Sacramento, and one of the two panels I’ll be sitting in on is all about noir.

I find this somewhat amusing, as I don’t really write noir.  I skirt the edges sometimes — ASSUME NOTHING, my latest novel, comes the closest to making the noir grade, as I perceive it — but I don’t “do” noir.  And this isn’t by accident.

Here’s why:

Not so long ago, I did something I really didn’t want to do: I watched the movie Precious.  Lord knows I’d tried to avoid it; critical acclaim or no, any film about a poor, obese, teenage black girl growing up as the live-in slave of an equally obese, abusive, welfare-queen mother has to be the cinematic equivalent of root canal surgery, right?  Why would I ever want to subject myself to that kind of misery?

Well, surprise, surprise — the film was brilliant.  Well written, smartly directed, and performed by a cast of actors deserving of every accolade and award nomination it received.  In short, I’m glad I saw the movie.

But yeah, sitting through it was a living nightmare.

In part because its subject matter was cringe-inducing, yes, but mostly because it was real.  The people who made this film — and I would assume this is also true of Sapphire, the author of the book upon which the film was based — didn’t pull any punches.  Hell, no.  They took a story dealing with some incredibly sordid characters and situations and presented them in all their horrific, obscene, and gut-wrenching glory.  It could be argued that the language in Precious alone should have earned it an NC-17 rating.  I mean, nothing Linda Blair ever regurgitated in The Exorcist comes close to the bile that comes out of the mouth of Precious’s mother, in particular, throughout the course of this film.

And all for only one reason that I can imagine: authenticity.  A commitment to depict these people exactly as they would appear in the real world, grotesque warts and all.  Choosing to hew this close to the ugly truth could not have been an easy decision; the filmmakers had to know that doing so would cost them a sizable part of the crossover audience movie studios so covet.  Yet they held to their convictions and did it anyway, trusting that the quality of the film would win out over the criticisms it was bound to receive for its almost unrelenting darkness and vulgarity.

So what does any of this have to do with my aversion to noir, you ask?

Well, only days before popping Precious into the ol’ DVD player, I’d finished reading my first Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake) novel, THE HUNTER.  Following my reading of James Crumley’s THE LAST GOOD KISS, this was Step Two in my ongoing effort to finally read masters of the mystery/crime/espionage genres I should have read a long time ago (Ian Fleming, George V. Higgins, Rex Stout, etc.).  I had a particular interest in THE HUNTER — one of a series of books Stark wrote about a ruthless professional thief simply named “Parker” — because it served as the basis for one of my all-time favorite movies, 1967’s Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin.

In the film, Parker (renamed “Walker” for some odd reason) is a single-minded, sociopathic killer relentlessly blasting his way through the Mob in order to get somebody, anybody to pay him the $93,000 they owe him.  Walker is also driven by revenge — his former partner double-crossed him, stole his wife, and left him for dead in the aftermath of a heist, then used Walker’s share of the take to buy his way back into the Mob’s good graces — but his primary interest is recovering his money.  Because it’s his money, he earned it, and he wants it back, goddamnit: $93,000, not a penny more and not a penny less.

You’ve gotta love that kind of manic tunnel vision.

(Of course, were the film remade today [as it was earlier in the form of the 1994 Mel Gibson stinker, Payback], Walker would find his motivation in the fact that his backstabbing partner, who raped and killed Walker’s parents and kid sister fifteen years before, is now holding his wife and two children hostage in an impenetrable Mob fortress guarded by an army of ex-Special Ops psychopaths blah-blah-blah-blah-blah…)

I’d been warned by fans of Stark/Westlake that Point Blank’s Walker, as cold and violent as he was as portrayed by Marvin, paled by comparison to THE HUNTER’s Parker, so I was prepared to meet a somewhat less likable protagonist.  But damn!  Parker makes Walker look like a Salvation Army Santa Claus.  It isn’t so much that the body count in THE HUNTER is higher than it is in Point Blank, it’s the ease with which Parker adds to it that makes for such a jarring contrast.  Parker may only kill those who “need” killing in THE HUNTER, but it doesn’t take much in his estimation for someone to meet that qualification.  Simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or knowing something he doesn’t want getting around, is enough to make you better dead than alive in his book.  And remorse?  Forget about it.  That’s for relative softies like Darth Vader to fret over.

What I’m describing, of course, is the archetypical noir protagonist: a deeply flawed, self-serving lead character, who’s usually surrounded by a supporting cast cut from the same nasty cloth.  Altar boys and Girl Scouts need not apply.  To write fiction deserving of the “noir” designation, an author has to accept the fact that his work will probably turn off a lot more potential readers than it turns on.  He has to write about unpleasant people doing terrible things to innocents and scumbags alike, without remorse or regret, and to do it realistically, he has to show little or no regard for the reactions of his reader.  I call this “going there,” “there” being a place not everyone will care to visit, and I think embarking upon this journey is one of the most courageous moves any writer can ever make.

Because “going there” is entirely counter-intuitive to what we authors are hardwired to want from Day One: a wide, all-encompassing readership.  Deliberately choosing to write the kind of book you know going in will have only a limited appeal, and then writing that book as faithfully to the form as possible (which is to say, without artificially toning things down to soften the blow), is gutsy as hell, and not every writer has the cajones to do it.

Most only have enough to do the job halfway.  These people write, either consciously or subconsciously, what I like to call “Noir Lite”: novels that feature noirish characters and situations, but none of the hair-raising dialogue or on-screen violence that should naturally follow.  The latter elements have been either sanitized or, worse, excised altogether, to better reduce the author’s chances of offending those readers for whom “noir” is a dirty word.  This, to me, is a joke.  A kinder, gentler noir?  There ain’t no such thing.

Which is why I’ve actively avoided trying to write a legitimate noir novel to date.  I don’t want to go there.  I’ve got no problem writing dialogue that could peel paint off a wall, or describing certain acts of violence in gruesome detail, but I don’t want to write stories in which the good guys are, to all extents and purposes, completely indistinguishable from the bad, and can only end on a definite downer, as all true noir stories must.  It’s just not my thing.

And neither is faking it.

To write noir, you have to do what the people behind Precious did: You have to go there.  Not part way, not halfway, but all the way to that dark, funky, foul-smelling place in which noir resides.  Some readers won’t be able to stand the heat of your kitchen, but those are the breaks.

As I’m sure Parker would say were he around to ask for an opinion: “Deal with it.”

Questions for the Class: What examples of “Noir Lite” — or, worse, downright fake noir — can you name?

THE RIGHT MAN FOR THESE JOBS

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Like far too many Americans these days, I’m out of work.  Which is to say, I don’t have a day job that pays my bills.  I haven’t had one, in fact, for over three years now, or since I was laid off as a production artist for these people.  (The most rewarding and enjoyable work I’ve ever done, by the way.)

I’ve been in this position before, just as, I suspect, many of you have.  The writer’s lot, after all, is not generally filled with long, unbroken stretches of gainful employment.  So this vicious cycle of apply, wait, get rejected is nothing new to me.

Part of the problem in landing something is that I’m very rarely applying for the perfect job.  I apply for things I can do, and do well, but postings for work I know, absolutely know I could hit out of the goddamn ballpark are few and far between.

Go ahead and say it.  All together now: “Awwww, poor Gar!”

And that’s the proper response, of course, because there might be one person in every thousand in this world who holds his or her “perfect job.”  A job that is absolutely, ideally suited to one’s unique skill set and personal interests.  Everyone else, if they’re lucky enough to be employed at all, is doing work just for the sake of the paycheck.  Respectable work, maybe even enjoyable work, but work that falls short of making them deliriously happy, nonetheless.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But, hell.  This is Wildcard Tuesday, isn’t it?  If a man can’t dream on Wildcard Tuesday, when can he dream?  Today, I think I’ll stand this whole job search process on its head and, instead of yearning from afar for the positions of my fantasies, I’ll just openly state my interest in them here and hope the right personnel directors take note.  What have I got to lose?

Here, then, are my seven Perfect Dream Jobs:

Screenwriter of Dirty Harry 6

I’ve shown my mad man-love for Clint Eastwood’s seminal Harry Callahan character here before, so it should come as a surprise to no one that I’d love to write the last—and it would, sadly, have to be the last—cinematic chapter in that series.  Eastwood’s reluctance to play Callahan again, at this late stage in his life, is understandable, but I think I’ve come up with a story that addresses all the credibility issues such a sequel could present.  All I need is a phone call from Malpaso to run out to the Warners lot and pitch it to the man himself.

It would make my day.

Joke Writer for Bill Maher

Maher can be a sexist ass at times, but when he’s on, he’s funny as hell.  While, generally speaking, we see eye to eye politically, I think it’s the thing we least have in common that would make our partnership a winning one: Maher’s a raging atheist and I’m an imperfect Catholic.  Sometimes, when worlds collide, funny happens.

I’m down to write a few New Rules if Bill’s willing to give me a shot.

Staff Writer on Justified

Television and I don’t often get along, I must admit.  The only two series I’ve ever written for taught me I’m about as well-suited for turning out standard boob-tube fare on a timely basis as Rick Santorum is to be a tattoo artist.  But given the right, smart, kick-ass show to work on—say, one not only based on a character created by Elmore Leonard, but actually committed to representing that character faithfully—I’m sure I could churn out a teleplay or two worthy of WGA accreditation.

Publisher’s Weekly once called one of my standalone thrillers “the best Elmore Leonard rip-off since Elmore Leonard,” and I’ve never been prouder of a potential blurb in my life.  If I can do it in prose, why not in television?

Graphics Designer for the Los Angeles Lakers

I don’t often mention it here, but I am a crazed fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, and more than once I’ve used the team’s victory in a championship series to strut my stuff as a poster art designer.  For instance:

My skills as a renderer are severely limited—I can only draw something with any degree of accuracy if it’s sitting directly in front of me—but I wield a mean copy of Photoshop.  Should Kobe and company find a way to win it all again this year (and right now that seems rather unlikely), I’m sure I’ll create another masterpiece suitable for framing just to celebrate their achievement.

But I’d much rather do it not as a sycophantic fan, but as an employee on the Lakers payroll.

Audio Book Reader for the Works of Daniel Pinkwater

As stated here, Pinkwater is a favorite author of my entire family, and I used to get a real kick out of reading his wacky books aloud to my two youngest children at bedtime.  I’m quite a ham, as anyone who’s ever seen me perform at conventions can attest, so I never did fewer than six different voices when reading a Pinkwater book.  It was loads of fun, and the idea of getting paid to do it all over again, for middle-grade readers around the globe, damn near moves me to tears of joy.  Hamlet?  Forget about it.  But a Daniel Pinkwater recital?

I’m your man.

Book Cover Artist for the 6.4 Million Self-Published Authors Who Desperately Need One

Los Angeles Lakers championship posters aren’t all I like to design.  Every now and then, I try my hand at doing book covers, as well.  Severn House had their own ideas several years ago regarding the cover art for my novel CEMETERY ROAD, and fine ideas they were, too, as things turned out.  But before the ink was dry on my book contract, I’d created two mock-ups based on ideas of my own.  Like this one:

And this one:

Most recently, I did the cover art for SHAKEN, the short story anthology Tim Hallinan put together to raise funds for the earthquake and Tsunami victims in Japan last year:

Again, as I admitted in my paragraph about Lakers poster art design above, I can’t do everything a real artist can do.  But give me a premise and a subscription to a few good stock photography sites, and look out.  I can be dangerous.

An Actor on The Good Wife

Okay, I’m no Sir Laurence Olivier, but I’ve got a pretty face and I once had a speaking part in an Audubon Junior High School production of The Pajama Game.  Plus, I have real on-screen presence, as this clip from the book trailer for Michael Connelly’s ECHO PARK clearly demonstrates:

No, I couldn’t carry a show of my own, but I think I could handle playing Archie Panjabi’s latest love interest quite easily.  Or a witness being grilled in the courtroom by Julianna Margulies.  A FedEx guy delivering a package to Christine Baranski?

How about a lawyer being fouled by Josh Charles in a basketball game at the gym?  You haven’t heard someone cry “And one!” convincingly until you’ve heard me cry “And one!”

What about you, my fellow ‘Rati?  What are some of your Perfect Dream Jobs?

Fitting everything in

by Pari

Okay. I admit it. Sometimes my decisions verge on lunacy. The latest of these is to participate in an 8-week fitness challenge through the University of New Mexico. That decision, at least, is wise. I’ve been stressed at work and forcing myself to exercise daily for a strategic length of time is bound to be helpful.

Where it gets wacky is what I decided immediately after signing up for the program. I’ve committed to exercising 90 minutes a day. That’s the maximum the program will let a participant record in a single day. I know it doesn’t sound like much during the 15 hours or so I’m awake, but in reality, it requires a lot of planning.

My life is already full. Work takes about 9-11 hours most days. Every other week I get to be a full-time mom in addition to the outside job.  And I don’t think I mentioned that I’ve got two small freelance PR gigs right now. I also do try to fit in at least a small amount of creative writing daily.

As always, I’m not complaining here; I’m just showing you the challenge of trying to fit in that extra 1.5 hours to work out. My weekday routine seems to be to roll out of bed between 5:00 – 5:15 a.m. and hit the elliptical machine in my living room. I bought myself an Aeropilates machine and that lives in my dining room. Between the two, I’ve managed to get 1 hour in before driving the kids to school and going to work.

During the day, I take a break every once in a while to walk up and down the 2 or 3 flights of stairs (depending on which door I enter) to get to my office. I walk at lunch. And there’s a twice-weekly yoga class that I’m hoping to attend.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well  . . . I’ve just made it through my first week. On average, I’ve been exercising more than 100 minutes a day. Barring illness, I expect to be able to keep this pace through May 11 when the program ends. After that, I hope to be in enough of a habit that I can commit to 1hr/daily — no matter what.

I guess my point today is this: A few months ago, I couldn’t even manage 20 minutes of exercise on a consistent basis. Now I’m exceeding that mightily.

It’s a matter of priorities.

The same goes for writing or anything else that you know is important to you.
No excuses. Just find a way to do it.

Question:

What is something you’ve decided is essential to your emotional, creative or physical wellbeing and how do you regularly integrate it into your life?

 

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

 

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

I was sitting in the cafe and the girl with the backpack squinted at a textbook called Statistics and I asked her how the hell she made sense of it.

“I had a choice this semester,” she said. “History or Statistics. I hate essays–I never know the right answer. With math and science I know where I stand.”

I thought for a moment then responded, “Yeah, there’s safety in numbers.”

Me, I always went for the essay classes. The only time I understood numbers in college was if they were measured in ounces, pints, fingers and occasionally grams.

Most students hate essays. They want fill-in-the-blank exams. Or, better yet, multiple choice. Like what you get when you take your test at the DMV. What’s the speed limit in a school zone? How many car-lengths do I have to be from the car ahead of me on the freeway? It’s any man’s guess. Somehow, I always end up getting my driver’s license renewed.

Most students won’t commit to the cumbersome weight of the essay, with its introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, and the big close, tying everything together with a resounding punch. It sounds like too much work–and it is. But if you’re a bullshit artist, the essay offers the best chance for that last-minute save-your-ass pass.

You really don’t have to know shit to write a good-enough essay. Want a ten-page essay on the French Revolution? I can wing that. Splice together what I remember of The Three Musketeers, Les Miserable, and that article in Newsweek about Robespierre. Shazam–looks like I’ve been at it all along.

But it’s scary, making it up as you go along. I can see why the numbers people cling to their rulers and compasses.

What I mean to say is that numbers are safe. Chemistry works for a reason. If you’re a little unsure about where to place your feet in the quicksand of life, lean on the numbers. They’ll take you to the next step, and the next, and the next. Before long you’ve left a trail.

I never knew if I was going to ace or fail those essays. It really depended on my ability to read my teacher. Was he a good sport? Did he appreciate a student who bent the rules? Was she strict or old-fashioned? Did she have a bullshit meter, and did it matter?

In my opinion, everything I was taught was open for debate. It’s a good thing I didn’t study medicine.

Sometimes passion got in the way. Like the final exam I had in my Film as Literature class, which included five difficult essay questions. I can’t remember the nature of the first question, but I think it had to do with the development of “montage,” from Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin” through “Birth of a Nation” and on to the works of Martin Scorsese. I had this topic by the balls. I knew it backwards and forwards and I was intent upon writing everything I’d ever learned on the subject. I remember a friend sitting next to me, seeing my frantic writing, asking which essay I was on.

“The first one,” I said.

“The first one? Get moving, man.”

Twenty minutes later he asked again.

“The first one,” I repeated.

It was like that all the way until the end of class, when we were asked to turn in our papers. I had written a ten page essay on Question #1. It was perfect. I failed the exam. The teacher told me I got an A+ on that first question, however. And, in some weird way, that was good enough for me.

I’ve had the opposite experience as well, where I’ve saved my semester grade with an inspired, last-ditch essay that even I didn’t understand. That’s the magic of the essay – you don’t always know where it’s going. It’s malleable. It’s not what it seems.

However, I failed my Astronomy final because there was simply no wiggle room in the distance between Earth and the Sun. Fudging numbers doesn’t put a man on Mars.

I did take one science class seriously, however. Chemistry. For some reason I decided I wanted to learn, really learn, what chemistry was about. I figured out the math part and did the lab work and discovered for the first time in my college career what it was like to know, definitively, something. Anything. The liquids turned the colors they were supposed to and the numbers backed it up. It was comforting. Suddenly, I could sleep at night.

I believe there are two kinds of people: numbers people and essay people. I think the numbers people are generally happier. The essay people, well, I know a lot of them. They live turbulent, ill-defined lives. They pretend to know the answers, while knowing, deep inside, they don’t have a clue. They live life without a safety net. They sometimes fall, making a terrible mess when they land.

But when they fall, they generally fall from great heights.

And, before impact, they swear they’d experienced a moment of flight.

Of course the numbers people will tell them they hadn’t left the ground. And the sensation of flight came from the rush of blood to the brain.

They’ll say the sense of being released from gravity is pure fiction.

And the essay people will say, yes, that’s it exactly.

Man’s—and Woman’s—Best Friend

Zoë Sharp

I’m side-stepping my usual post, yeilding the floor to two others whose voices need to be heard today, both former Murderatos. The first is Ken Bruen, who surely needs no introduction here, and the second is Alafair Burke.

Their words speak for themselves:

GRAVE MATTERS?

Ken Bruen

In Ireland today, doctors are being paid for treating 513 dead patients.

Due to serious flaws in the HSE’s notification system.

In 2010, 5 million was written off by The Health Authority, when they discovered that 20,000 dead Medical card holders had been paid.

How seriously fucked is that?

And we wonder why, after Greece, we are in such serious financial shite?

But lest I begin to grim, we can get back to that later, here is my own grave story.

Last November, the sole remaining member of my family, my brother Declan, was found dead in his flat. His body was lying there for 8 months!

I kid thee not.

Always a very private person, disappearing for months on end was his gig. But he lived in a gated community, surrounded by pubs, his mates and right in the centre of the city.

After I had identified the remains, we had the funeral on a wet bitterly cold late November morning. Just before I was due to hold the rope that would lower the casket, the manager of the cemetery said

‘I need to speak to you urgently.’

WTF.

I snapped

‘Could it like wait, five minutes?’

No.

He whispered

‘There’s no room for you.’

‘Room, where?’

He indicated the open grave, where five of my family rested, said

‘When Declan goes in, it’s full, there’s no room for you.’

Jesus, how unhealthy did I look?

And I asked

‘Did you have to.. I mean absolutely have to tell me now?’

He was affronted at my tone.

Stalked off.

A metaphor if you will. As there’s been no room for me in my family in life, I was now banned from the grave.

Perfect for a writer.

The ultimate outsider.

 

I got a new pup.

Cross me bedraggled heart.

Named Polo as the vet said, I swear

‘He’s bi-polar.’

Well, he’s certainly the quietest dog I’ve ever had. Zen in his stillness. Maybe he’s read my recent reviews and feels silence is best. I, after all, dish out the grub.

So you know!

I remain convinced that one of the best treatments for depression is a dog. Very hard to be wallowing in the deep when a little pup is gazing at you in love and wonder.

And he’s funny.

Very.

Steals the case of my glasses, hides it, then looks like

‘Who me?’

 

To write for Murderati was one of the great joys

Privileges

Graces

Of my career.

Dusty

Louise

Alafair

Pari and JT

Alexandra and Zoe

and now new Murderati friends

Gar and Stephen and David

 

The crew of Murderati are just the very best I know. To be allowed to check in at odd moments is just bliss. To writer belong. Since I gave up cigs, I’ve become a gobshite.

Truth to sadly tell.

I started cycling, 20 miles every day, and worse, cut out brews since my trip to New York in December.

(Note to cemetery manager.)

I said to Reed, next

‘I’ll be writing cat mysteries.’

(Maybe a Zen bi-polar canine sidekick?, you think?)

Reed in his inimitable fashion, emailed back

‘Miaow.’

Flash fiction par excellence.

Read Craig’s El Gavilian

And the new Jason Starr.

Gems.

David Corbett continues to hugely entertain on the poetic nuances. I’m re-reading The Book Thief for the sheer joy and it reminds me of David in the best way.

I’m readying me own self for The German tour.

Sounds …posh………….The German tour

As opposed

To

Poor tour I guess.

The Germans have discovered my role as a dead Viking in the worst movie ever made

‘Alfred The Great.’

Which dovetails nicely

To

(always wanted to seem literary and dovetail)

My most recent news.

A role as an English professor in a new Irish –German TV series.

And my preparation?

Grow a beard.

And I suppose, act ..am.. literary.

I’ve been doing serious and intense me whole befuddled life so that’s a give.

 

The pup seems bemused by this new me, and barks when I rough house in the garden with him and won’t

No way

Bring back the old ball he used to love a month ago.

Not a grave matter you might think but in the world of pups

‘Significant.’

 

The second voice is Alafair Burke, whose French Bulldog, The Duffer, has been such a significant part of her life—and her posts during her time on Murderati.

 

Saying Goodbye to the Duffer

Wed, Mar 21, 2012

Alafair Burke

On Halloween in 2005, I walked into a pet store in the West Village, saw a black and white French bulldog puppy, and fell in love. I knew it was an irresponsible move. Bad lineage. Puppy mills. Imported.  All of that.

But I’d already looked into the piercing eyes beneath that furrowed brow and knew he and I were connected. My husband wasn’t my husband yet. We lived together. We knew we’d get married, but hadn’t bothered to set a date. Then we had this puppy, and somehow we were a family. We got married two months later on New Year’s Eve.

I wanted to name the boy Stacy Keach. There was an obvious resemblance, and the idea of a dog named Stacy Keach (not Stacy, not Keach. Stacy Keach.) made me laugh. The soon to be husband didn’t get it. Fine, I said. Come up with something better.

Duffer. Like a bad golfer. Like Duff Man from the Simpsons. And it kind of sounded like Puppy, which is what we’d been calling Puppy for nearly a week.

But not Duffer. THE Duffer. He was special, after all.

The hardest part of loving The Duffer was knowing that, despite my crazy, unprecendented connection to him, he wasn’t really human. Absent some tragedy on my end, he’d have to go first.

This week, the day I’ve feared at some level since Halloween of 2005 came. Sooner than I expected, but as late as we could hope under the circumstances. Th- I’e Duffer had a brain tumor. He got radiation last fall. He lived five extra, happy (extra-happy) months. We found out this week there were no more good days to be had.

As a good friend just wrote to me, “They live on in our hearts. He was a lovely little guy and he had a great life, and he was loved and cared for at the end. We should be so lucky.”

I will miss the Duffer, but find comfort in knowing that he never missed a thing. Thank you for letting me share him with you.

 

Our hearts go out to both Ken and Alafair. ZS

 

 

 

Boy, Do I Know How to Pick ‘Em or What?

 

By David

And another one bites the dust.

Just as I was getting utterly full-throated in my admiration for HBO’s thoroughbred racing drama Luck, I learned the series was cancelled after a third horse died on the set.

PETA was exploring a lawsuit and had referred the matter to the Los Angeles District Attorney. HBO issued a statement with executive producers Michael Mann and David Milch that quickly got hosed on the Internet for alleged hypocrisy in the first degree.

I’m reluctant to judge the motives of people I don’t know on the basis of evidence I don’t have. I’m funny that way.

But if animals are dying, the show’s gotta close. Absolutely. That’s not, however, why I’m bringing this up here. Luck also was suffering from bad ratings, which makes it only the most recent in a string of shows that have stolen my heart only to vanish before the romance could get beyond the moony sighs—all of them critical darlings. All of them struggling for viewers. All of them gone baby gone. In an eyeblink.

Last year’s Lights Out, the FX program about heavyweight boxer Patrick Leary making a fateful comeback, was a show I made sure I was home for. (No, I don’t have Tivo or a DVR. Nitwit.) Incredible breakout performance by Holt McCallany, and Stacy Keach doing his best work since Fat City. Great reviews! One season. Over. (On reflection, maybe it wasn’t the wisest idea to name the program Lights Out.)

That wasn’t the only series FX had last year that bit it quick, though.

The quirky crime drama Terriers went down so hard and fast I didn’t even have time to figure out how much I liked it. Kickass title song, too:

 

Again, the title didn’t help. The show had nothing to do with dogs—it was the two heroes’ “scrappy” temperament that inspired the name. Its audience base was passionately loyal, just unacceptably small. Some claim the show’s demise was due to lame marketing, but there were those who thought its low ratings were due to the most unforgivable element a show can possess: subtlety.

Prior to those one-and-done knockouts, I was smitten by:

CBS’s Robbery Homicide Division (another Michael Mann effort).

 

NBC’s Boomtown—once again, rave reviews but poor ratings. So the network heads played Einstein and neutered the program’s unique, ingenious premise: Telling the same story from multiple, contrasting, at times irreconcilable points of view. After the boneheaded tweaking, the numbers tanked even further, and the show died two episodes into its second season.

Before that?

The excellent Canadian crime drama Intelligence, from the same team that created the equally superb DaVinci’s Inquest. Intelligence did indeed live up to its name, and managed to survive a comparatively interminable two seasons.

All of these programs were inspired, smart, well-written, critically acclaimed efforts with great performances by gifted actors—and as soon as you can say “ratings whore” they were chasing tumbleweeds into the abyss.

I feel like a jinx. If I love it, it’s doomed.

Then again, it’s hardly a stunning surprise I fall for programs typically described by TV Guide as “the best show nobody’s watching”—the outliers, the best-kept secrets, the obscurities, the forgotten gems.

The highly respected and widely unknown.

That’s pretty much the lowdown on my books.

You read what you love, you watch what you love, you write what you love, verdad? And take your chances. Roll the dice for the thrill of the game. Or you step away from the table, and let the next guy try his luck.

What say you, Murderateros: Which TV programs have you simply loved only to find out they weren’t going to make it past the honeymoon?

What critically acclaimed but overlooked films or out-of-print books would you like to tout?

Sound off! Augment the audience! Crank up the crowd!

* * * * *

BREAKING NEWS: My short story “What the Creature Hath Built” kicks off the new collection Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes edited by the inimitable Gary Phillips and featuring stories from Reed Farrel Coleman, SJ Rozan, Kelli Stanley, Eric Stone, Seth Harwood, Lolo Waiwaiole and more! It’s available now (as of March 19th):

The Kindle version at $5.99. The Trade Paperback (POD) at $16.95. 

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: Speaking of highly respected but widely unknown, here’s a tune from a musician I’ll bet a number of you have never heard of—I’m ashamed to admit I hadn’t till recently—but he’s been around for quite a while and he’s sneakily, eerily, jaw-droppingly good: Otis Taylor.

FATHERING SONS OF SPADE

Jochem Vandersteen

SONS OF SPADE

Spotlighting the fictional P.I.

 

Isn’t the mystery community great?

First and foremost I’m a fan of mystery fiction—especially hardboiled private eye yarns—and a writer of crime fiction second.

Before the internet existed there were already fanzines, paper publications put together by fans of certain genres or music. It started out with SF, but mystery fans soon followed. These titles included Armchair Detective, The Not So Private Eye, and the fantastic Hardboiled, created by one of my favorite writers, Wayne D Dundee.

Getting these fanzines at the readers’ homes wasn’t an easy feat and costs of producing them made them relatively expensive. With the introduction of the internet a whole new way of creating fanzines was introduced. Available to anyone with an internet connection, no investment in paper or printing needed the e-zine or webzine quickly became way more popular than the paper fanzine.

As a fan of Thrilling Detective, Hardluck Stories and other such sites I decided to share my love of PI fiction with the rest of the world and get to know my favorite authors a little better. I figured it might also be a good way to promote the Noah Milano novel I was writing.

At the time, I had no idea how rewarding my blog would turn out to be. Not only was I surprised by the amount of fantastic writers eager to answer my interview questions but many publishers were happy to provide me with review copies of PI novels.

Through my blog I was fortunate to start friendships with mystery writers that helped me become a better writer and who selflessly promoted my work.

I’m still proud of the nice words fan-favorite writers like Jeremiah Healey, Les Roberts or James W. Hall had to say about the Noah Milano stories and my blog.

My blog, Sons of Spade, focuses on what that title suggests… The private eyes that came after Sam Spade, one of the most popular PIs ever. I focus on new writers, new shamuses, but never forget the great pulp fiction that inspired those. It’s great to keep an eye on all the new stuff coming out, all the new twists that are added to the PI-archetype, showing the basic premise of the lone detective never becomes old.

These people keep inspiring me to update the blog and keep writing about Noah Milano, son of a mobster and security specialist, always looking for redemption. Just read the new Noah Milano novelette, REDEMPTION to get a feeling of what I’m talking about.

I’ve had the opportunity to interview a few big names like James W. Hall and Lawrence Block. Especially the interview with Larry Block was special to me. Here was a guy whose stuff I’d been reading and admiring for decades and he was willing to answer all my questions.

A fun guest post was done by Bruce DeSilva, telling us about his Who is Reading feature on his blog. That one gets a lot of hits, because there’s a picture of rockstar Marilyn Manson in it.

The blog also gets a lot of hits based on the keywords private eye clichés. A lot of people apparently find this interesting.

Fun posts are the Prodigal Sons posts in which I track down a writer who hasn’t written about a PI in some time. I ask them if we can expect their PI’s to return. Sometimes I get great news―like I got from Les Roberts years ago about the return of his Milan Jacovich series―sometimes bad news, as from Jim Fusilli about his Terry Orr series.

I love sharing my favorite reads, through my reviews but also through my annual Favorite Sons post in which I tell readers what my favorite PI reads of the year were. Hopefully some great writers get the attention they deserve and readers are introduced to some great books.

So, if you like PI fiction come and have a look at my blog, or if you’re a fan of mystery fiction and want to have the same wonderful experiences I did go and start your own blog. It’ll be worth the effort!

Jochem Vandersteen is a Dutch writer and rock reporter, whose special interests are crime movies and novels, rock music and comic books. He started the Sons of Spade review and blog site in 2007, specializing in the genre of the private eye, and is also the founder of the Hardboiled Collective―a group of like-minded crime fiction authors.

 

 

An odd homage to e e cummings

by Pari

In just spring
the world is as mudluscious as ever it could be (in a desert).
I haven’t seen the goat-footed balloon man, but can hear the clip clop of his dancing hooves.
It’s just
                 spring and
Fruit trees quiver clothed in white and pale pink blossoms
they
dot yards
otherwise grayish and dormant with the remnants of winter. 
Tulips bloom in bright reds and yellows
Purple hyacinths scent the air
And  . . .
Verily, yay verily
I don’t want to do squat.

My productivity is in the pot . . .

Actually, that’s not quite true. I do want to garden and take long walks to admire the wakening world. I want to sprawl on my stomach with the sun warming my back. I want to bury my nose in the still brown grass in the park near my house and smell the earth as it embraces this magical new season.

I want to eat chocolate
and fresh strawberries.
I want to nibble on the first leaves of peppermint and fennel now pushing forth from plants I’d forgotten were there.
I want to gaze at brilliant blue skies and marvel at ever-changing cloudlets.

Why does glorious spring always do this to me?
Why do I look at my life —
no matter whether I worked by myself at home
           or now labor in an office with numerous cohorts
 — and ponder its lack of color and adventure?
Why do I want to shed more than the heavy, scratchy sweaters of winter and dance
free
   free
                                   free
in the crystal darkness of a perfect spring night?

And how the hell am I going to reconcile these urges with the necessity to work and tow the line for the next month or so until the sun beats down with brilliant mercilessness (in the scorching New Mexico summertime) and I once more want to be indoors in air-conditioned bliss? 

It’s just spring in Albuquerque
And I can hear the plants growing in my yard
can sense them calling for attention . . .
The words and work that fill my necessary days seem trivial compared to
                       the first-seen violet and orange iris bursting open at sunrise.
Like an alert doe sniffing the wind,
my nose and mouth taste the new greenness of each unfurling leaf
on each branch of weeping willow and sturdy elm.
Like Ulysses, I must tie myself to the mast of obligation and cover mine eyes Monday through Friday. 

Oh, but Saturday and Sunday are upon me and, lo, I do rejoice.

________________________________________________

What’s your favorite season? Why?

What’s the weather like in your corner of the world?