“Balance” is Bull

I used to be so sure of everything.

If I got good grades, I’d go to a good college. If I went to a good college, I’d get a good job. If I got a good job, my life would be great.

If I wrote a good book, I’d find a good agent. If I found a good agent, I’d get a great publishing contract. If I got a great publishing contract, I’d make a living as a novelist.

If I networked enough, I’d meet a lot of people. If I met a lot of people, I’d be able to market my work to them. If I marketed my work to enough people, they’d tell other people. My career would be made.

If I truly found love, I’d get married. If I got married, everything else would fall into place. If times got rough, love would conquer all.

And the biggest myth of all?

The Balance Paradigm: If I could just find the sweet spot, I’d be able to: work, write, get enough exercise, sleep, eat well, stay in touch with friends, be supportive to people I care about, be a good mom, find fulfillment — and it’d all flow beautifully.

Forever.

Well . . . with apologies to my Buddhist and Taoist friends . . . I now think the Balance myth is unproductive bullshit. You know that yin-yang symbol? It’s a snapshot; it’s not static. It CAN’T be.

Balance, for more than a moment, is impossible for any living creature. Do you hear me, people? It. Doesn’t. Exist. Tell me when you last met a person — other than the Dalai Lama — who achieved that perfect midpoint on the seesaw of his or her life.

Everything is in flux. So all the ifs we tell ourselves about trying to wrangle the numerous areas of our lives into some kind of blissful constant center is useless and emotionally exhausting.

Why do we do it?

The reason the Balance Paradigm continues to play such a large role in our collective mindset is that to admit it doesn’t exist is to admit that there’s never really going to be a time of rest – at least not until we die. This doesn’t exclude our ability to be satisfied or calm during certain moments in our lives, it just means that we have to give up the idea of “doing it all.” Because doing everything we want to do — all the time in perfect balance — is about as possible as perfectly singing the Queen of the Night’s aria from the Magic Flute with our mouths full of crackers.

So what can we strive for – what new paradigm is more useful – if we can’t manage to balance absolutely everything in our lives all at once in a perfect harmony?

Here are some ideas:

The Contentment Can Happen for Large Swaths of Life Paradigm

The Change Needn’t be Feared Paradigm (AKA The Stasis is Death Paradigm)

The You Can’t Do It All But You Can Do A Lot Paradigm

The Life Evolves and So Can You Paradigm

Hmmm.

What do you think?
1. Can people really find balance in their lives?
2. Is balance really the goal or has it caused us to shoot for a goal that, by its very impossibility, makes us miserable?

ONCE IS (NOT?) ENOUGH

by Gar Anthony Haywood

As I write this, my daughter Maya and son Jackson, eleven and nine, respectively, are sitting in the den, listening to an audio book: HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN. They are enthralled and amused, falling silent when things get scary and laughing hysterically when something funny happens. To listen to them, you’d think they were having the time of their lives.

And I swear to God, this has to be the 463rd time they’ve listened to this book.

They’ve listened to all the other Harry Potter audio books just as often, finding each no less consistently entertaining. And they re-read the actual Potter books just as zealously. Clearly, J.K. Rowling’s writing (and Jim Dale’s reading) loses nothing in the way of impact the second, third, or 265th time around.

This strikes me as incredible, because I am a devout one-time-only reader. I never re-read anything. God knows I’ve read enough books deserving of a second or third read — a lack of worthy titles isn’t the problem. So what is?

Three things:

Time. Every minute you spend re-reading a book you’ve already had the pleasure of knowing is a minute you can’t devote to something new and possibly just as remarkable. That motto booksellers like to put on T-shirts — SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME — rings all too true for me. I live in constant fear of missing out on a genuinely fantastic, undiscovered read somewhere, and I don’t want to blow it by giving CHILDHOOD’S END a second look, especially if, ultimately, that second look only serves to prove that one should have been enough.
Which leads me to my next reason for avoiding second reads. . .
Dashed expectations. Almost thirty years ago, I read Elmore Leonard’s novel STICK and loved it. It changed my life. My memory of it is that of a masterpiece, a how-to in crime writing. But is it really? If I re-read the book today and found it to be something short of all that, I’d be heartbroken. Disillusioned.
As I’ve aged and matured, I’ve become a more discerning reader. Harder to please and dazzle. Turns of phrase that I used to find mesmerizing irk me now as false and dissonant. My standards for genius have been raised considerably.

Granted, in this particular example, because it’s Elmore Leonard we’re talking about, it’s possible I’d find STICK to be even better than I originally thought. It’s for sure I’d still enjoy it. But why take the risk? Why mess with perfection, even if it’s a perfection based solely on the vagaries of memory? Wouldn’t my time be better spent seeking out the next Elmore Leonard, wherever he or she may be, instead?
Speed. Sadly, regardless of whether I’m doing it for business or for pleasure, I read the same way I write: at a snail’s pace. Even when a book grabs me, I take it in slooooowly. So the amount of time I invest in a book usually runs somewhere between a week to thirty days. That’s just the way I roll. If I could read something and enjoy it in two or three days, tops, maybe I could afford to do more re-reading. But I can’t. So I don’t.

Needless to say, not every reader has the same aversion to re-reading that I do. Some think life is too short NOT to re-read, depending on the book or books in question. Why deny yourself the pleasure of a great read, these people ask, just because it’s not entirely new to you? Surely, some novels are not only up to the challenge of re-examination, they can in fact only be fully appreciated that way. Just as some films require multiple viewings to be completely understood, some works of fiction demand multiple reads before all their surprises and nuances can be perceived and savored.

Hmmm. That’s a pretty convincing argument, even if I had to make it myself. Convincing enough that I find myself wondering if it isn’t time to reconsider my hard-and-fast position on this question. Maybe I’d see things in a second reading of STICK that I missed the first time; things that would suggest, not that the novel is less than I’ve always thought it was, but more.

Well, maybe.

Because I remain dubious — okay, I’m a chickenshit — I’m going to enter into this re-reading business very carefully. Tentatively. So I’ll be limiting my re-reads to three titles to start. These are the books I’ve always been tempted to re-experience, having had them blow me away the first time, that I most suspect will not disappoint under the merciless glare of a highly anticipated second read. In no particular order, they are:

IN COLD BLOOD – Truman Capote

I was only fourteen when I originally read this, so my impression of it as a work of literary genius could be colored by the naïveté of youth. But I doubt it. What I know for sure is that this was the first book I could not put down once I started it, and when it was over, I knew I had just read something that was on a completely different level from all I had read before.
DARKER THAN AMBER – John D. MacDonald

This was my first Travis McGee novel, and I only sought it out because it served as the basis for a movie of the same name, starring Rod Taylor, that I enjoyed quite a bit back in the late sixties. Little could I have guessed how much better than the film the book would turn out to be, and that I would go on to devour every other McGee title by MacDonald I could get my hands on.

I’ve never heard this particular title described as one of the best in the series, so it may ultimately disappoint, but I’m curious to see how much of MacDonald’s brilliance I actually got a glimpse of by reading this McGee first.
THE HORSE LATITUDES – Robert Ferrigno

I remember this as a terrific read overall, an Elmore Leonard-esque tour de force with an LSD twist, and I have always believed its first two paragraphs make for the greatest opening to a thriller I have ever read. Check this out:

It didn’t take much to set him off these days — laughter from the apartment below, a flash of blond hair out of the corner of his eye. Or, late at night, the sound of two car doors slamming in quick succession. Especially that. He imagined them walking to his place or her place, both of them eager but trying not to let it show, holding hands, tentatively at first, then the man slipping his arm around her waist while she smiled and laid her head on his shoulder.

There were nights when Danny missed Lauren so bad that he wanted to take a fat man and throw him through a plate-glass window. Just for the sound of it. Instead, he went swimming in the bay.

I don’t know when I’ll get around to these re-reads, exactly, but I plan to do a follow-up blog post on my reactions as soon as I do. So stay tuned. In the meantime:

Questions for the class: Do you re-read, and if so, how often? Do some books disappoint on re-examination, or do they always live up to your time-held reverence for them? If you don’t re-read, what are your reasons for abstaining? And if you could only re-read three books out of all those you’ve read in your lifetime, what would they be?

One Final Word: Look, I know I’ve been beating the subject of bland and unimaginative titles to death lately, and you’ve got to be sick and tired of hearing me gripe about it, so rather than write any more long Dumb Ass Title diatribes, I’ve decided to vent my spleen with the occasional addendum to posts on other subjects, an addendum I’ll call:

TITLES FIT FOR A MORON

Today’s winner: The upcoming Eddie Murphy/Ben Stiller Oceans 11/12/13 knock-off, Tower Heist.

TEn things I learned this week

By Cornelia Read

1. Les Paul was Steve Miller’s godfather. How cool is that?

2. It is possible to turn in the final draft of one’s fourth novel at three minutes after midnight, which technically means it was a day late, and then pack up your entire apartment and put it into storage in Brooklyn in 36 hours, but only if your new landlords are total lawyer-happy douchebags.*

3. Silent movies can actually be GOOD.

And we should all go see The Artist when it comes out.

4. If your kid gives you the wicked chesty cough that’s going around, Mucinex DM totally rocks. And it doesn’t taste like nasty fake cherry bullshit. Even though I am not a fan of those phlegm CGI commercials with the family of green slime-things living in your lungs.

p.s. What’s green and skates? Peggy Phlegm.

5. Brussels sprouts cut in half, tossed with olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, and black pepper and roasted for about 45 minutes in a 350-degree oven until they’re brown and toasty can make up for totally douchey landlords.

6. David Corbett makes the best mix tapes in the history of the fucking world. Seriously. Especially when you have to pack your entire apartment in under 36 hours because you have douchey landlords.

Okay, actually, the coolest song is “Dragnet for Jesus” by Sister Wynona Carr, but they didn’t have it on Youtube so here she is singing “Each Day.”

7. If you don’t feel like packing up your toaster, your curler things you bought at a garage sale five years ago and never use, three hors-d’oeuvre platters your mother gave you, and five boxes of books you don’t want to keep, you can totally leave them on your douchey landlords stoop with impunity. If you live in Brooklyn, which of course I actually DON’T anymore.

8. My pal Andrea and her two kids have adopted the phrase “I have to go see my lawyer” when they’re staying in this house in Montauk and really have to use the bathroom quickly and need whomever else is in there to get out in a big fat hurry.

9. Pizza is better in New York City than anywhere else ever ever ever, and it’s cheap. And it’s good fuel when you have to stay up all night packing up your entire apartment because your landlords are douchey.

10. If some guy comes up to my window at an intersection and tells me my car’s on fire, I should just shoot him in the face and drive the fuck away.

And how was your week, dearest ‘Ratis? (I will be on a train and then driving to Vermont tomorrow, but will try to check in on comments… hugs to y’all….)

* And may they get bedbugs. With chlamydia.

On Being A Victim

by JT Ellison

Oh look. It’s a woman. She’s an idiot. We can take advantage of her.

I am full up with men trying to take advantage of me this week. Don’t worry, this isn’t an anti-male screed. I love men. I love my men in particular. My darling husband, my awesome dad, my brothers, my best guy friends. Love them all – and they all get a pass from this. But I am here to lay the truth on you.

Sometimes it absolutely sucks to be a woman.

I mean, really. There are days that I would trade in my girl card in an instant if it meant I would be able to say no without guilt, get an oil change that didn’t involve a laundry list of things that MUST be done to my car to allow it one more moment of life on the open road, get my tires rotated without someone trying to tack on $15 for a “brake test”, have a storm door installed without a huge pitch for rebuilding the doorjamb and buying yet another door, have to carry mace in my purse to defend myself against idiots, cook, clean, do laundry (cook, clean, do laundry, cook, clean, do laundry, cook, clean, do laundry) and in general try to exist in a male-oriented world.

Yeah. It can be hell out there. And it burns my butt to have it happen, because I’m lucky enough to recognize when I’m about to be takne advantage of, and I can call them on it. Men. Sometimes, why, I oughta…..

I know a lot of empowered women who thing God is a she – I must beg to differ. Take one look at the monthly gift. Monthly? Really? Only a devious male could have arranged for us to only be rational twenty-six weeks out of the year.

I’m not even getting into the professional stuff. Not even going there.

I know you’re smiling. I am too. But I’m going to wipe that smile right off your face, because we need to talk about something very serious. Something that happened to me last Saturday that scared the living hell out of me. Something that would never have happened to a man.

Normal Saturday. We were working around the house. Randy needed to power wash the deck. We dropped my truck to get the tires rotated, had a bacon date, stopped at Home Depot, the grocery store, and headed home. I had a bunch of work to do before football prep – we had friends coming over to watch the game and I needed to whip up some football-oriented masterpieces to feed them.

As always happens when you have these kinds of busy days, you forget something. We got home and realized we needed two pots for the mums I’d bought. And I needed to take a few things to Goodwill, and stop at the UPS store. I hopped into the same car we took Saturday morning and headed out. Radio blaring, smile on my face. Distracted.

I was at a stoplight when a man came running up to my driver side window, shouting at me. I could hear his words clearly through the glass.

“Your car is on fire!”

I immediately put the window down. Dark acrid smoke was billowing from my left rear tire. The guy was still talking, about a mile a minute, so I dragged my focus from the tire to him. He had a card in his hand.

“You’re wheel bearing caught on fire. It’s metal to metal back there.”

“Is it still on fire?”

“Yeah. Flames. I have a hot rod shop. I can fix that for you.”

Hands me the card.

“I can fix it now if you want. You can come right back to my place and I’ll fix it, or I can come to your house and do it. My shop is just up there.” He pointed vaguely up the road.

My mind was processing too many things at once. Mostly – FIRE.

I’m not a fan of cars on fire. When I was a kid, new to driving, I had a car that caught fire whilst I was crossing a bridge. So this particular situation caused an immediate flashback, and all I wanted to do was get the hell out of the car.

I rolled forward a bit, threw on my hazards and started to get out. The guy, still in my window talking a mile a minute said, “No, no, you have to get it out of the road. Pull it up around the curve.”

That led into a neighborhood. I did what he suggested. He followed in his car, and pulled onto the grass behind me. (Just FYI – I was still in the intersection. I only went twenty feet. I did not leave the original location. I just moved out of the way like you’d do with an accident.)

And suddenly it hit me.

JT, what the HELL are you thinking?

As he approached this time, on the passenger side, my heart rate sped up. I didn’t look at his face, I watched his hands. I was positive he was going to have a gun. I saw every freckle, the shape of his nails. For a so-called mechanic, they were awfully clean.

I told myself I was being silly. But I grabbed my phone and speed-dialed home.

He made a motion for me to put down the window. I left the car in gear, my foot on the accelerator, and put it down halfway. This time I did the talking.

“I’m calling my husband.”

And those were the magic words. He skedaddled. Got in his car, did a three-point turn, and took off.

I got out of the car. No more smoke. No flames. No sign of fire. Nothing.

I had to call a neighbor to get Randy out of the backyard and onto the phone. We both immediately agreed something felt… off.

We made a plan to take the car to Sears immediately and have it looked at. I was to drive, slowly, toward the shop, he would be right behind me.

And still I’m thinking – Jesus, the car is going to burst into flames any second. I was literally coasting.

We got it to the shop and told our mechanic the story. The look on his face said it all.

I had been scammed.

As best we can figure, the guy was behind me at the light, got out of his car, and as he went by, either tossed a smoke bomb under the car, or splashed WD-40 on the rotors. Transmission fluid will create the same illusion of fire, but that would ruin the bearing as well, and they didn’t find any traces of anything. Thank goodness. That would have cost a load.

It took a few more minutes before it all sank in.

I had just been a victim of a scam. A good one. One that if pulled on the right woman, could have resulted in this idiot making some cash.

Or, worse.

Once I really had time to gauge what had happened, my hands started to shake. That didn’t stop for a few hours.

How easy would it have been for him to actually put a gun in my window, get in the car, force me to drive somewhere, and do who knows what?

The moment our mechanic confirmed the wheel bearing was just fine, I called the police.

Because this brilliant criminal mastermind had given me his card.

With his name, email, and a website link. Plus I had his car make and model, a pretty solid description, and since I’d been scared half to death, a perfect recall of every moment of the event.

So after the police filed the report and went to talk to him, I did a little sleuthing of my own. Because there was no way we could know if the card he gave me was actually his.

Took me about fifteen minutes online before I found him.

It WAS the guy on the card.

I was off on his age-he looked younger in the baseball cap he was wearing-but I’d gotten everything else right on the money. Which settled my nerves, because I hardly think a sex offender is going to be running around town planting smoke bombs and telling lone women their car is on fire, then handing them his name and email to follow up.

Then again, anything is possible.

So, today, I want you to pick out the six things I did wrong during my little run-in on Saturday. It was a real eye opener for me, and I’m damn lucky it went the way it did. It could have been much worse. I’m not accustomed to feeling vulnerable in my car. Now that I’ve had a taste, I’m going to overreact, because I never want to have this happen again. Concealed carry permit, here I come.

If you correctly identify the six things I did wrong – I’ll send you a free book. Tonight I’ll post an addendum to this to show what I should have done. And if you’d been a victim, or someone tried to take advantage of you lately, please share so we can learn too.

And please, please, please, take some care out there. We’ve all seen the email chain letters that talk about a man disabling a woman’s car, following her to a remote location, and doing bad things. Snopes always says False, or Hoax, but I’m here to tell you – this happened to me. Me. Miss Paranoid. Miss Mystery Writer. Miss Does Research With The Cops. Trust me, the patrol officer who took the report gave me a piece of his mind, and he was right to do so.

Wine of the Week: I’m going with a comfort wine this week. One of the hallmarks of an excellent bottle of wine is it’s ability to recreate the experience over and over and pver. So today, we go with Smoking Loon Old Vine Zinfandel. Brilliant, every time.

It’s a wrap

By PD Martin

On the weekend I attended the ten-yearly (yup, not annual, not bi-annual but once a decade) SheKilda. It was actually the second ever SheKilda, to mark Sisters in Crime Australia’s 20th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of the first SheKilda. Happily, they are talking about maybe having another one in five years! I’m going to push for two years.

Anyway, having attended Bouchercon once, I was hoping that SheKilda would follow a similar format and, of course, be as wonderful and successful as the US convention. And I was NOT disappointed. It was an amazing weekend. A time for authors and readers to talk, exchange ideas and, in the case of the authors, complain that our partners don’t understand what we do and how hard we work!

One of the key differences between SheKilda and Bouchercon is that SheKilda was conceived and produced by Sisters in Crime and so all the authors were women. In terms of the audience, I’d say it was probably about 95% women too, but then again most crime readers are female. What sort of gender break up do you think the Bouchercon audience is? I can’t remember from my visit a few years ago.

SheKilda was set up as a convention rather than a writers festival, with all the sessions and activities centred around the hotel venue (Rydges in Carlton, Melbourne). To my knowledge, this makes SheKilda the only one of its kind in Australia. They even served morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea in a common area near the venues, so we didn’t have to stray too far from the action or pound the pavement in the search of lunch.

The weekend kicked off with the Friday night gala opening. It was a chance for all the authors and attendees to mingle (with free champagne, red wine, white wine and beer – oh, and soft drinks too). There was also some extra yummy finger food! Then it was into one of the rooms for the official opening. MCed masterfully by Sue Turnbull (she’s an amazing interviewer and MC), it kicked off with a traditional welcome from Joy Murphy Wandin, who’s an elder of the Wurundjeri indigenous people. Then it was on to the entertaining (funny) City of Melbourne Councillor Ken Ong, then Mary Delahunty of Writing Australia and then the keynote address from Margie Orford, one of the three international guests for the convention. She gave a stunning speech about the setting for her novels and hometown (Cape Town). Apparently the murder rate there is so high that forensics will only be called if they think the murder might make the TV news. There have even been cases of people travelling to Cape Town to specifically arrange murder – hoping their victim will simply go into the massive pile of unsolved murder cases on some homicide cop’s desk. Margie’s police contact will often have 200 files on his desk.

Saturday kicked off with a joint session with all the international guests, Margie Orford, Shamini Flint and Vanda Symon. It was a great opening to the day’s events and was followed by Tara Moss launching Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut, a collection of award-winning short stories by women crime writers.

For my other morning session, I attended Drawing the Line: Whatever!, which looked at how the line is drawn between a young adult novel and an adult novel. YA authors Marianne Delacourt, Karen Healey and Nansi Kunze were led by Alison Goodman. It seems violence was one key determiner, but sex was a more important one. For example, editorial notes removing the word “straddled” were discussed!

After lunch, I was on a panel with Narelle Harris, Marianne Delacourt, Alison Goodman and Kim Westwood, chaired by Tara Moss. The panel looked at bending the rules in terms of genre — mixing genres, moving genres, etc.

After my choc-chip cookie at afternoon tea it was time for my second panel of the day, Conquering the World: Heroes Abroad. This panel was chaired by Angela Savage and together with Lindy Cameron, Malla Nunn and LA Larkin we all explored setting our books overseas. Angela’s are set in Thailand, Lindy’s Redback is set in several locations, Malla’s are set in South Africa in the 1950s and Louisa’s first book is set in Zimbabwe and Australia and her second in Antarctica. And then of course mine are set in the US.

Saturday night was the Davitt Awards, which were created to support Aussie female crime writers – who often seem to be overlooked in our other crime awards. The winners that night (from left to right) were:

Best true crime: Colleen Egan
Best YA crime fiction: Penny Matthews
Best fiction honourable mention: Leigh Redhead
Best fiction: Katherine Howell (who was my guest here in July)

And PM Newton, who’s not in the picture, won the readers’ choice award.

I kicked off Sunday morning as part of a panel called Brave New World: Or Death of the Book. As you can imagine, we spent the hour talking about ebooks in Australia and around the world. A recent stat for Australia is that the current $35 million ebook market will increase to anything from $150 million to $700 million in the next three years. Big numbers!

After morning tea, I was an audience member for In the Face of Evil: Encounters with the Guilty, where true crime writers Rochelle Jackson, Robin Bowles and Ruth Wykes talked about their interviews and encounters with real-life crooks and murderers. And then I sat in on Them that Really Do it, which featured authors who used their past/present careers in their writing. Katherine Howell (ex-paramedic), YA Erskine (ex-cop), Helene Young (pilot), Kathryn Fox (ex-doctor) and PM Newton (ex-cop) were on the panel.

After lunch was Body in the Pool, which gave the SheKilda attendees an insight into how things would really happen if/when a dead body is found. The body (Ms Manny Quinn) had been on display by the pool all weekend and the experts included someone from the police (actually our ex-assistant commissioner, Sandra Nicholson), bug expert Mel Archer and a forensic pathologist. Timing (real versus that portrayed in crime fiction and crime TV) was also discussed. The facts are: at least 6-8 weeks for the entomology report and 10 weeks for the autopsy report.

It was an amazing, amazing weekend. A chance to talk to other authors, share stories (often complaining about how badly we’re paid!!) and expose ourselves to some great authors who are new to us. I have to confess I didn’t make any purchases, but that was only because I’m sure Santa is bringing me a kindle for Christmas so I’ll wait and purchase the many fabulous books now on my ‘to buy’ list as ebooks!

Editorial note: I was very organised and wrote this blog on Monday, ready for today’s post. However, since then there has been some discussion/debate regarding the state of crime fiction written by women in this country. In fact, I’ll be blogging about the Sisters side of the convention in a fortnight’s time.

But my question for now: what authors have you ‘found’ at a convention and then bought their books?

THE JOY OF MY YOUTH, PART 2: BOY MUSIC

I’ll be traveling from 4 AM my time until late afternoon, en route to the Creative Lives Writing Away retreat in Breckenridge, Colorado. I therefore will be largely unavailable for responding to comments for at least the first half of the day — sorry.

I’ve therefore chosen a light topic, pure entertainment, beaucoup de fun, for your enjoyment. Chime in, please — “feel free to converse among yourselves” — and I’ll try my best to get back to everyone before the end of the day.

I wonder how much the music we associate with any particular type of story influences our attraction to it.

For example, I grew up when westerns seemed to be everywhere, and though there are memorable themes from such movies and TV programs — most notably those for Rawhide (composed by noted Cossack cowpoke Dmitri Tiomkin), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (by the fabled spaghetti saddle-buster Ennio Morricone), and my personal favorite, The Magnificent Seven (above, composed by Elmer Bernstein, the High Plains Hebrew) — by and large the tunes didn’t stick. They were as wholesome and hokey as the programs themselves. (I tried to go back and watch an episode of Have Gun, Will Travel, for example, which I loved as a kid, and found it godawful: predictable, sentimental, and paced like a glacier).

And though movies based on WWII were still all the rage — Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, The Great Escape (all, interestingly, with themes by Mr. Bernstein again) — and the music from those films not just inspired me but often brought me nearly to tears (cut me some slack, I’m a boy), it also had a back-glancing quality, straining for epic, as though to say the best of manhood was a dead letter.

Not exactly what a guy teetering on the brink of his teens wants to hear.

In contrast, the music for more contemporaneous crime and espionage shows always seemed to be sleeker, hipper, edgier — more conspicuously if fatalistically alive — even for a show that actually reached back further in time than the war, The Untouchables:

This theme was written by the ubiquitous Nelson Riddle, also famous for the quintessential road theme of the early 60s, Route 66:

Or consider the quirky, short-lived Johnny Staccato (“TV’s jazz detective”), featuring John Cassavettes, who played a jazz pianist PI — a program so forced in its artiness it was often unwatchable — but what a perfect theme (by Elmer Bernstein again; the dude got around):

I was a boy in central Ohio, I’d already found my way to a guitar, I had garage band aspirations and far-away dreams. I wasn’t looking to the mythic cowboy past for inspiration, but to the cosmopolitan present, and the music I heard on crime shows spoke not of mesquite canyons but smoky barrooms and shrill casinos and deadly back streets, of twisted hearts and savage dreams, of power lurking in a shadowy boardroom I’d never know, of lonely men and lovely women and an itch you can’t scratch, a hunger you never satisfy, an empty palm at the end of the mind.

Everybody tap your toes!

Where did it begin? All roads lead back to Perry Mason, I suppose, with a theme that managed to be driving, lyrical, passionate and dissonant all at once — and distinctly urban:

Little did I know that Paul Drake would be the model for my later incarnation as a real-life private investigator — and Drake is to my mind the most accurate portrayal of a PI ever on TV (though a little dim-witted and unambitious next to the massively mental Mr. Mason).

Henry Mancini’s vibe was a bit more cool and urbane, but he provided two of the most seminal inner anthems of my boyhood. I loved (and envied) the effortless masculinity of Mr. Lucky, despite — or perhaps because of — the ice-rink organ effects:

A spin-off tune from Mr. Lucky was Mancini’s sumptuous “Lujon,” which has inspired filmmakers ever since, cropping up in movies as diverse as Sexy Beast and The Big Lebowski:

And no kid who picked up a Gibson didn’t rush to learn the opening riff from Peter Gunn, a bit of reverb-cranked Mancini-esque testosterone reminiscent of John Barry’s 007 theme:

Guitars, of course, lead us to the Ventures, and though I was far more enamored with hits like “Journey to the Stars” and “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” their theme for Hawaii Five-O had a hook so compelling it’s single-handedly responsible for the show’s current reincaration on network TV (imho):

That theme would become almost as much a part of that time’s aural fabric as the theme from Mission Impossible:

Argentinean exile Lalo Schifrin — who in Buenos Aires played piano for the master of the nuevo tango, Astor Piazzolla, and went on to work with Clint Eastwood on the Dirty Harry films — was responsible for the MI theme, which was ripped off shamelessly for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a second-rate show in almost every regard (which I loved, naturally).

As testimony to the power of music, the most memorable part of the film version of Mission Impossible for me was the midpoint action sequence when this theme finally kicks in with a vengeance — I got chills the instant I heard that unforgettable intro. Still do.

But the shows that truly registered with me came from Britain, and not surprisingly their music was very much a part of that impact.

The first was Secret Agent, which ironically changed both its name (from Danger Man) and its original theme — which emphasized a somewhat manic harpsichord rather than the distinctive, slicing guitar of Johnny Rivers:

Even more compelling was The Prisoner, like Danger Man/Secret Agent starring Patrick McGoohan, and perhaps the darkest, strangest, most paranoid show from that era — or any era:

But the show that stole my boyish heart was, of course, The Avengers.

I wonder how many boys, sitting enraptured before TVs around the world, had their erotic imaginations seared into focus by Diana Rigg:

The show played on Friday nights, I always watched it at my best friend Mike Enright’s house, and when that theme played over the ending credits I always felt a wistful sense of loss and longing. The weekend lay ahead but The Avengers was over, at least for a week.

How would I live until then?

* * * * *

So, Murderateros — what music from childhood stirred your imagination, quickened your pulse, insinuated itself into your dreams — marinated the twtchy tedium of puberty?

* * * * *

Jukebox Heroes of the Week: On a much, much goofier, weirder, cheesier level, there were freakish “supermarrionation”action shows when I was growing up, such as Supercar:

And Fireball XL5:

which in turn inspired the demented imaginations of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, with their singularly perverse and perversely wonderful Team America:

America. Fuck yeah.

A Face In The Crowd

Louise Ure

Here’s a little something to either make you think our promised personal jet packs are right around the corner, or make you so scared that you want to rush home and pull the drapes closed.

Check out this site right here.

It is absolutely stunning. Zero in on any face in that crowd of more than 10,000 people, double click a few times and watch anonymity morph into a virtual line up.

It’s like the reverse of Pointillism, where the father back you stand, the more the picture makes sense.

With Gigapixels, there is no such thing as far enough back.

Gigapixels are the marriage of photography and Google Earth technology. Their photos are a patchwork of panoramic shots which are taken over a 10 or 15 minute period and then strung together to give you both a panoramic effect and a clarity of small detail. Just plug your old SLR or pocket camera into the Gigapan camera base ($499) and it does all the planning and panning for you.

The Gigapixel photo of that Canadian crowd is made up of 216 individual photos, taken over a 15 minute period, and in its final form is 69,394 X 30,420 pixels.

Jeez, it makes me almost want to wear a burka in public. Well, maybe a hoodie and sunglasses anyway.

Sure, it’s a cool technology, but, combined with advances in facial recognition technology, there’s something pretty “1984-ish” about it, too.

On the other hand, it sure does suggest some interesting plot twists.

How about you all? Is this nirvana? Orwellian? Or just great fictional fodder?

Titles (Again)

by Alafair Burke

We’ve talked a lot about book titles recently.

Gar got us all thinking when he catalogued the difference between a DAT (Dumb-Ass-Title) and a KAT (Kick-Ass-Title). In his view, DAT’s use one ubiquitous, predictable word (e.g., the new TV show, “Revenge”). A KAT draws the reader in, but does not rely on any secret or double meaning (Sophie Littlefield’s “A Bad Day for Sorry”).

Louise followed up with further refinements to the DAT recipe — puns and series unifiers — while defending the use of dual meanings.

The timing of their posts couldn’t have been better for my purposes. Or maybe worse. Because they came right as I was trying to come up with a title for the next Ellie Hatcher novel, and I happen to disagree with both of them.

I struggle with titles. A lot. I shared my inner title turmoil here at Murderati last summer. As I explained then, I’ve come to realize two things about titles, and from those two things come some lessons that push me away from Gar’s and Louise’s conception of a KAT.

First, a title’s main job is to create a first impression — not of itself, but of the book it adorns. An extremely unique title makes a bigger impression. That means it better be a REALLY accurate impression of the novel’s contents. Otherwise, it’s just as likely to turn off a well-matched reader as to make her say, Hmmmm (Louise’s test for a KAT).

For example, my first book was initially submitted to editors with the title The Final Verdict. The acquiring editor’s only quibble was with the title. The problem was the “feel” conveyed by the title. She thought (correctly) that it sounded like a courtroom thriller when my books (even those featuring prosecutor Samantha Kincaid) really don’t unfold in court. I renamed the book “Judgment Calls.” Maybe not a KAT, but at least it didn’t mis-introduce the book. Lesson One: Make sure the title matches the tone of the book.

Despite that first experience with a title, a made a mistake two books ago. I struggled like mad with the title of the third Ellie Hatcher novel. I honestly don’t remember now all of the many titles that I considered and rejected, because I became so passionate about the title that stuck: “212.” It’s the Manhattan area code. I also made it the name of the luxury building where a murder in the opening chapters takes place. It “felt” right to me. So modern. So New York. It was so cool and perfect that some of my Facebook friends found this t-shirt for me to rock on book tour.

But here’s the problem: The title’s really cool if you happen to know that Manhattan’s the two-one-two. If you don’t know that? You wind up asking the author on said book tour why she called her book “two-twelve.” You tell the indie bookseller who’s kind enough to handsell said author’s book, “No thanks. I don’t read science fiction.”

Oops. Lesson Two: Make sure your title isn’t so “inside” that it turns people off.

The second thing about titles is that, although they serve to create a first impression, they don’t fill that role alone. Usually people will see the title in the bookstore or online so will also see the cover art. They might also read the first chapter or the inside flap to have some minimal sense of the book’s “hook.”

Last year, I used Charles Nicholls’ “One Day” of an example of how title, jacket, and concept can come together.

As I said about One Day the title: “Kind of bland. Kind of makes me want to sing ‘One day, one where, we’ll find a new way of living.'” But if you see this jacket?

Gets your attention, right? Flip it over and learn that the novel depicts two people on one single day across twenty years? Suddenly it’s a perfect title.

Or take Lee Child’s new book, “The Affair.” I’m not sure what Gar and Louise would say, but does a two-word title that begins with “The” trigger the DAT rule? Regardless, I happen to like one-word titles because they can easily address my lessons one and two by fitting well with the contents of the book and not turning people off.

Simple titles can also be dressed up well with jacket and concept. The jacket for THE AFFAIR — a haunting picture of empty railroad tracks — is interesting enough that people will pick it up.*

*Note: This post assumes, falsely, that Lee Child still needs a good title or book jacket to persuade readers to pick up a book.

Then you find out that THE AFFAIR is a Jack Reacher prequel. 1997. A crime scene at a lonely railroad track at Carter Crossing. This is the story of how Reacher became a drifter. Awesome!

Lesson Three: Titles Don’t Work Alone.

So it’s that time of year again, and for the last month, I was struggling (once again) for a title. The working title was TO THE GRAVE, but on the “fit” rule, I decided it sounded too much like either a vamplre book or a medical examiner book. Then those excellent posts from Gar and Louise managed to get me all up in my head, struggling for a KAT.

I came up with WHEN DARK COMES DOWN. Pretty good, huh? Maybe even kick-ass. I ran it past some people who all loved the sound of it. But when I asked them what “type” of book they imagined from the title, I didn’t like what I heard. Noir. Darkness (funny that, huh?). Something about depression. It meets Louise’s “hmmmm…” test, but those weren’t the right kinds of hmmmm’s.

Back to the drawing board, but this time I didn’t think about KATs. I thought instead about the good fortune I’ve had this year with my first standalone. I’m quite sure the title, LONG GONE, wouldn’t meet any tests for being a KAT. But here’s the jacket.

The hook? Alice Humphrey thinks life is all well and good at her dream job until she shows up one morning to find the place stripped bare as if it never existed, vacant except for the dead body of the man who hired her.

I was lucky enough to hear something like the following from an awful lot of people this year: “I’d never read your books before but there was something about that jacket. I just knew I’d like this book.”

Keep your KATs. I’ll take a well-fitting, well-jacketed simple title any day.

I took to the Interwebs, asking my Kitchen Cabinet pals on Facebook and Twitter what “type” of book they thought of from the following potential titles: NEVER PROMISE, AFTER DARK, and LIGHTS OUT. The feedback was excellent, but the “fit” wasn’t quite right. NEVER PROMISE had too many readers thinking of sappy romance stuff. AFTER DARK conjured up too many thoughts of hookers. And LIGHTS OUT sounded like calamity during a black out. It also had this my editor and me singing this awful ditty:

(Have fun getting that one out of your head. You’re welcome.)

I went back to the drawing board once again, now armed with my market research about tone. I imagined possible book jackets. I read my draft jacket copy.

And then I named the next Ellie Hatcher novel: NEVER TELL.

KAT? Probably not. But it sounds like one of my books. It sounds like this particular book. It connects with content. It doesn’t send a wrong message. And those talented art people at the publisher will do something great with it.

So am I full of it, or am I onto something? Despite the allure of distinctive titles, do you think you’ve ever NOT read a book because the title, albeit creative, turned you off? And when you hear the title NEVER TELL, what TYPE of book do you imagine? (Thanks for the feedback!)

Charitable Contributions

By Allison Brennan

Three weeks ago, I had a new release: ENTANGLED. It’s a digital-only paranormal/urban fantasy anthology.

All proceeds from ENTANGLED will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. What makes this amazing is that all eleven authors who contributed to the anthology all donated our time and talent to benefit a cause we believe in. No one tossed out a story thinking it didn’t matter because it was for charity; every author took the time to craft a tale to please their readers, as well as new readers. The stories, the cover art, the formatting, the accounting–all donated.

The women involved are truly amazing in their generosity and enthusiasm for this project. We all know women who have had this dreadful disease. We all know women who have survived. We all know women who haven’t.

I especially want to single out Stacia Kane for her poignant forward. In part:

“What we can do, though, is hope. We can hope that one day our children or our grandchildren will be able to think of breast cancer the way we think of illnesses like typhoid fever, that once killed thousands but are now essentially eradicated and/or curable. There are doctors and scientists and really scarily smart people out there working hard to try to make that so, to re-write our world so “breast cancer” becomes maybe a little more serious than a cold, but with the same prognosis: Yeah, you might feel kind of tired for a couple of days, but you’re totally going to be fine after that.”

Here’s the summary of the anthology:

HALLOWEEN FROST by USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Estep (author of the Mythos Academy, Elemental Assassin, and Bigtime series) — It’s Halloween at Mythos Academy, but Gwen Frost and her friends are in for more tricks than treats when they run into a mythological monster intent on killing them.

THE FAT CAT by Edie Ramer (author of Cattitude, Galaxy Girls) — In a battle for the souls of seven women, a wizard has the god of war on his side; all the witch has is a fat, black cat.

MEDIUM RARE by Nancy Haddock (author of the Oldest City Vampire trilogy) —What’s spooking the spirits of St. Augustine? As the witching hour of Halloween approaches, ghost seer Colleen Cotton must team with a by-the-book paranormal investigator to locate the one ghost who can save the city’s specters. If she fails, her own great grandfather’s spirit may be lost forever.

SWEET DEMON by Misty Evans (author of the Witches Anonymous series) —When Chicago’s vampire king insists Kali Sweet join his empire, the vengeance demon must rely on her ex – the half-human, half-chaos demon who left her at the altar three hundred years ago – in order to escape the vamp’s clutches.

SIAN’S SOLUTION by Dale Mayer (author of the Psychic Visions series) — When a vampire discovers the human man she loves has been captured and hung in a blood farm, she goes against her own kind and risks everything to save him.

A BIT OF BITE by Cynthia Eden (author of NEVER CRY WOLF and ANGEL OF DARKNESS) — A killer is stalking the streets of Crossroads, Mississippi, and it’s up to Sheriff Ava Dushaine to stop him. But when suspicion falls on werewolf alpha Julian Kasey—Ava’s ex-lover and the man who still haunts her dreams—Ava knows that she’ll either have to prove his innocence…or watch the whole town go up in flames.

SINFULLY SWEET by Michelle Miles (author of the Coffee House series) — When Chloe bakes a little magic into her pastries, she attracts the attention of Edward, the sexy half-demon, half-witch, who’s come to warn her those who murdered her sister are now after her.

A NIGHT OF FOREVER by Lori Brighton (author of A Night of Secrets and To Seduce an Earl) — Who is Aidan Callaghan? Mary Ellen James is intent on uncovering the truth about the mysterious man, but as she soon finds out, some things are best left buried in the past.

FEEL THE MAGIC by Liz Kreger (author of the Part of Tomorrow series) — Jenna Carmichael’s magical attempt to rectify Jessica Manfield’s birth identity takes an unexpected turn when the past comes back to haunt her.

BREAKING OUT by Michelle Diener (author of the Tudor-set historical suspense novel In A Treacherous Court) — Imprisoned in a secret facility, powerful telekinetic Kelli Barrack and two other ‘special’ inmates grab a chance to escape, only to confront their worst nightmares on the outside.

GHOSTLY JUSTICE, an all-new Seven Deadly Sins novella by New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan (author of the Seven Deadly Sins series) — Demon hunters Moira O’Donnell and Rafe Cooper are dragged into the dangerous world of nocturnal predators to find “Ghostly Justice” for a virgin sacrificed to an ancient blood demon.

The reviews have been great … All Things Urban Fantasy said: “Like a great buffet, this anthology gives you the chance to taste a little bit of everything. Short and sweet, these stories did a good job drawing me in, setting the hook, and adding books to my to be read pile.” The Good, The Bad and the Unread gave it an A+. And Smexy Books gave “Ghostly Justice” an “A” calling it “dark and gritty.”

If you like paranormal romance or urban fantasy, you can’t go wrong with ENTANGLED. I’m giving away a digital copy of ENTANGLED to one lucky commenter. If you’d like to check it out, you can buy it for your e-reader or computer at Amazon, BN.com, or Smashwords.

And I wanted to share with you one more really cool thing: my friend Philip Hawley, Jr. has digitally released STIGMA, his debut novel, for $2.99. STIGMA first came out in 2007 and I loved it. Philip is a pediatrician and also is an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine. I greatly admire his dedication to his career, as well as his talent as a great storyteller. Trust me: you won’t regret reading this book.

See what others have to say:

“STIGMA pulses with tension and drama. Philip Hawley has written a top-notch thriller!” –Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author

“STIGMA is an explosive, page-turning thriller with depth and emotional complexity. Hawley is a master storyteller.” –Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

“STIGMA is a blast of a read from start to finish. Phil Hawley is the real deal and the thriller world has an authentic new voice.” –John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author

“Philip Hawley delivers a rare combination of taut plotting and brilliant writing. Sit back and enjoy. Phil Hawley is for real.” –Ridley Pearson, New York Times bestselling author

“Action-packed . . . rich with authenticity. Philip Hawley tells a great story.” –Jonathan Kellerman, New York Times bestselling author

“Destined to be a classic . . . upon finishing I closed it up and said ‘Perfect!’ ” —Terry Lewis, book critic, The Other View

I’m also giving away a digital copy of STIGMA to one lucky commenter. Check it out at Amazon.

Tell us about the a charity you are passionate about, that you’d donate your time, treasure and talent to support. Remember, two free e-books!

Nanowrimo Prep – narrative structure cheat sheet

by Alexandra Sokoloff

There really is something about fall for me, this huge jolt of energy. Thank God, because I have a lot to do. This week I did my taxes and a book proposal at the same time, two activities that should never be performed simultaneously. (At some point the brain does explode, doesn’t it?) This week I have to write another book proposal while doing edits for another book, and go to Houston to teach a workshop.

In the middle of all of this there is another book that I am dying, just dying to get done. This is why I’m a big fan of Nanowrimo. Even though, truthfully, like every full-time writer I have a Nano-like writing schedule most of the time, there’s something about having a designated month where all kinds of people are putting in this kind of insane writing time with the insane goal of having some rough approximation of a book at the end of it that makes it all feel okay, somehow, even doable.

For the last couple of years I’ve been doing a Nano Prep series on my blog in October, because I reel in horror at the idea of people just sitting down on Day 1 and starting to write to see what comes out. The chances of getting a viable book out of that process seem – slim.

I may finally have gone to the opposite extreme, though. The more I analyze structure, the more it seems to me that every story has the same underlying structure. In previous years I’ve come up with a checklist of story elements, and last year I really expanded on that one. But in the last month of some short workshops and my Nano Prep, I’ve actually tried to put the most important of those story elements into an almost narrative, a cheat sheet for story development.

So I’m running it by you all today, to see if it makes sense to anyone but me.

————————————————————————–

Narrative Structure Cheat Sheet

Act I:

We meet the Hero/ine in the Ordinary World.

S/he has:

— a Ghost or Wound

— a strong Desire

— Special Skills

And an Opponent, or several, which is standing in the way of her getting what s/he wants, and possibly wants exactly the same thing that s/he wants

She gets a Call to Adventure: a phone call, an invitation, a look from a stranger, that invites her to change her life.

That impulse may be blocked by a

— Threshold Guardian

— And/or the Opponent

— And/or she is herself reluctant to take the journey.

But she overcomes whatever opposition,

— Gathers Allies and the advice of a Mentor

— Formulates a specific PLAN to get what s/he wants

And Crosses the Threshold Into the Special World.

Act II:1

The hero/ine goes after what s/he wants, following the PLAN

The opponent blocks and attacks, following his or her own PLAN to get what s/he wants

The hero/ine may now:

— Gather a Team

— Train for battle (in a love story this can be shopping or dating)

— Investigate the situation.

— Pass numerous Tests

All following the Plan, to achieve the Desire.

No matter what genre, we experience scenes that deliver on the Promise of the Premise – magic, flying, sex, mystery, horror, thrills, action.

We also enjoy the hero/ine’s Bonding with Allies or Falling in Love

And usually in this Act the hero/ine is Winning.

Then at the Midpoint, there is a big Reversal, Revelation, Loss or Win that is a Game-Changer.

Act II:2

The hero/ine must Recover and Recalibrate from the game-changer of the Midpoint.

And formulate a New Plan

Neither the Hero/ine nor the Antagonist has gotten what they want, and everyone is tired and pissed.

Therefore they Make Mistakes

And often Cross a Moral Line

And Lose Allies

And the hero/ine, or if not the hero/ine, at least we, are getting the idea (if we didn’t have it before) that the hero/ine might be WRONG about what s/he wants.

Things begin to Spiral Out of Control

And get Darker and Darker (even if it’s funny)

Until everything crashes in a Black Moment, or All is Lost Moment, or Visit to Death.

And then, out of that compete despair comes a New Revelation for the hero/ine

That leads to a New Plan for the Final Battle.

Act III

The Heroine Makes that last New Plan

Possibly Gathers the Team (Allies) again

Possibly briefly Trains again

Then Storms the Opponent’s Castle (or basement)

The Team (if there is one) Attacks the Opponent on his or her own turf, and all their

— Skills are tested.

— Subplots are resolved,

— and secondary Opponents are defeated in a satisfying way.

Then the Hero/ine goes in alone for the final battle with the Antagonist. Her Character Arc, everything s/he’s learned in the story, helps her win it.

The Hero/ine has come Full Circle

And we see the New Way of Life that s/he will live.

—————————————————————————————

Let me know if this makes sense, or is at all helpful, and otherwise, who else is doing Nano? And for the happy, sane, non-writers, do you get that Back to School feeling about fall, too? What are you doing with that burst of energy?

– Alex