All the Sad Songs

ALL
THE
SAD
SONGS

By Ken Bruen

Everyone has a sad story

How the world goes round

I’m not claiming this is the saddest one but it is the one I just heard

Two days ago, when I was not at me most convivial

I love that word…………….convivial

And maybe one day, I’ll learn to spell it

I was sitting in me favorite café, looks out on the water and I was doing what I do best

…………………….yearn

For what…………….who knows

Since me marriage broke up, I’m more than ever inclined to the razor blade music, the

sadder the song, the happier I am

I was listening to me MP3……………sent to me by Craig Mc Donald (Art in the Blood,

Head games, Rogue Males)

And hit on Lorena Mc Kenna……………..Raglan Road…………..God, what a song

And worse, a great friend of mine, Gretchen Peters, lives in Nashville (not far from the gorgeous Tasha Alexander), has written the ultimate end of relationship

song………………BREAKFAST IN OUR HOUSE

Jesus wept, when you both know it’s over and yet………cos you like have history and

she sings, like every awful moment you’ve ever had when you tried like fook to save it

and couldn’t

Barry Walsh plays the most beautiful back up bass you’ve ever heard and best of all,

Gretchen has found real love again and I’m……………ok………….screw it, I’m jealous

I was telling a female friend about this and she was stunned, went

“Guys think like that?”

Shite, I dunno, I only know that’s what I felt and she goes

“But you’re that hard arse, the hardboiled guy”

I apologized, said…………I’d lost the run of meself but hey, not to worry, I’d be fooking

granite tomorrow

Thing is, I had lost the run of meself and had met someone……………..and horrors, she

dumped me, in like jig time, cos I hadn’t been the person she’d read about

Then I’m sipping me expresso……………yeah, dark, bitter and a guy comes up, goes

Talk to you a minute?

Sure

He goes

“You know Cathleen?"

“Sure.”

Known her most of me battered life

A good girl, in the Irish sense, she’d lend you a few quid if you were stuck and

never………….and I mean……………never………expect it back

She was the one who knew, she heard me little girl had Down Syndrome, said

“Life is a hoor.”

So, I regard her as …….family

He goes

“I left her, met me a 20 year old student.”

I’m thinking

“Where’s me fooking hurly when I need it?”

And he goes

“Cathleen didn’t turn me on any more.”

I’m fookin outraged, spittin iron

I look at him, forty-five, balding, a pot belly, a weak mouth and real bad eyes and

GOD FORBID……………….GOD FOOKIN FORBID…………..he isn’t turned on

I’m so angry, I could spit

He asks

“So, cara, what do you think?”

I take nine deep breaths, let it slow, like bad poetry and say

“I think……………..I think you should get a long rope……………”

And then I stop………..Jesus on a bike, what do I know………….I get up, brush past him and go and feed the swans, me blood biling

I think

“I have Steve Mosby’s book, Jerry Rodriguez’s book, and Nick Stone’s brilliant sequel

waiting at home for me, not to even mention emails from Sandra, Craig, Duane, Laura L.

The Rabbi, Jason………..and The Big O………..so, like, how am I hurting?

And Ruth Jordan sent me a lovely email yesterday…………..so, what’s the matter with me, as Charlie Stella would say

There’s a hooded guy sitting on a bench, maybe 18, coming off a glue or speed jag and

his radio is playing, Shane Mc Gowan and Moira Brennan, with

“You’re the one”

Killer song

Killing him and me…………..I’m kinda used to sad songs

I move away and a local from the Claddagh asks, rather shouts

“The fook happened to your hair?”

I want to say

“Life”

But jaysus, that’s a bit too deep, even for Galway

Sustainable Writing

by Pari Noskin Taichert

A recent joy in my life is writing features for a monthly magazine distributed throughout northern New Mexico. Most of Local Flavor‘s articles center on food. Other contributors offer restaurant reviews and culinary advice. My newfound specialty is sustainable agriculture and the preservation of community identity.

In the last few months, I’ve written about Wal-Mart’s entry into the organic produce business; the New Mexico apple industry; how the cultivation of lavender has saved a failing economy; and conservation easements in a village near my hometown.

Sustainable agriculture means finding suitable crops for a particular area that provide a living for local farmers and result in good products for consumers. The idea is to waste as few resources as possible for maximum gain — all the while respecting and replenishing the earth from which the crops grow. It’s "Think globally, act locally" in action.

When I look at the publishing industry monolith, I marvel at its contradictions. Mammoth corporations gobble up big houses while smaller publishers inch toward renown. Writers feel powerless as a group and display astounding individual optimism.

Where’s the center in all this flux — editors leaving, contracts dumped, writers abandoned, the pull of copycatting vs. the desire for originality?

Where’s the most accurate snapshot of our industry?
Where’s the truth in the paradoxical information we get and propagate?

In college, I read Small is Beautiful by E.M. Schumacher. In it, the learned economist questioned the most fundmental assumptions of his field and eschewed many well accepted concepts including: centralization makes industry more efficent and everything is about money.

I’d forgotten the book’s profound affect on my youthful idealism for almost thirty years. Then I started talking to micro-farmers and other growers, to government leaders struggling to maintain the souls of their communities in the face of development, to architects and urban planners.

We writers now live with tremendous conflict. We rush to promote, to find commercial recognition, to network and work meaningfully. We want to make a living at our craft. We fizzle and burn out. Our creativity is affected by all this frenzy.

Part of the beauty of focusing on sustainable agriculture is its emphasis on long-term and continued success. It considers the entire operation — nourishing the ground, planting, harvesting crops, collecting seeds for the future, getting products to market quickly and closeby.

It’s a quiet, but powerful, way to frame one’s approach to the world . . .

I’ve been chided for some of my posts that are critical about the current norms in the publishing industry. Yet, I remain hopeful that if enough of us respect ourselves — and enough of our readers do, too — we might change a few of the truly dehumanizing aspects of this business.

I believe we writers could learn from the concept of sustainability. At the very least, it might remind us to stop and breathe deeply,
to take the time to meet with — and support — the people who matter,
to nurture a creative space and the calm within it to work.

All of these small affirmations will feed our hearts as well as our careers . . . and will help us to find our own truths in the middle of the maelstrom.

Sopranos: Onion Rings and Loose Ends

by Mike MacLean

If you haven’t heard about the Soprano’s finale perhaps you should crawl out of that cave you’re living in for a little sunlight. For you, my pasty skinned friends, I respectfully offer this SPOILER ALERT.

The whole season, I’d anxiously waited to find out Tony’s fate. Would he end up in prison? The grave? Maybe he’d wind up in a white-bread suburb somewhere, a guest of the witness protection agency. Sunday night all my questions would be answered. I couldn’t wait.

As the final minutes ticked off, the tension was masterfully brought to slow boil—impending doom contrasted brilliantly with cheesy 70s arena rock. Then the music cut out and the screen went to black.

Instantly, I fell into the stages of grief. Shock. ANGER! Despair. I didn’t make it to acceptance. Perhaps I never will.

Love or hate it, you can’t deny the final episode was something to talk about. For me, it sparked questions about the nature of storytelling and the responsibilities of the storyteller.

I’m not someone who needs to be spoon-fed his fiction. Writers don’t need to provide all the answers. It’s far more gratifying to interpret and speculate. Why were there so many oranges in film version of The Godfather? Why does Hannibal Lecter really agree to help Clarice? What’s with Hemmingway and the bulls?

And the Sopranos finale surely created a buzz of speculation. It brought the audience into the creative process, allowing them fill in their own blanks and to create their own ending.

Was this a brilliant, thought-provoking move, or was it a cop out?

I’d like to don my artsy-fartsy, literary cap and vote brilliant. But the storyteller in me leans towards cop out.

David Chase is obviously a fantastic writer who has given us a groundbreaking show. After several remarkable seasons, he must have faced tremendous pressure to create a fitting ending. In the end, he didn’t do his job. He brought us to the edge of our seats, made us sweat, and then failed to finish the story.

You might say it was a bold, artistic move on Chase’s part, but I wonder if fear didn’t rear it’s ugly head. Tony’s final chapter couldn’t live up to expectations, so he put the burden on us, the viewers.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. And you know what they say about opinions. Whatever the case, I still thank Chase and HBO for a great show that raised the bar for TV storytelling.

So I ask you murder fans, what did you think of the ending? Would you have written it differently? And of course, what do you think was Tony’s fate?

Are you from a writing family?

It being Father’s Day tomorrow, I thought I’d ask a family-related question.

Someone posed this question on my screenwriter board: Do you come from a writing family?

His hypothesis was that most writers actually don’t. And the responses certainly bore him out – there was only one out of the dozens of screenwriters who answered him who had a writing pedigree.

I didn’t, either – my parents are scientists. They’re educated and literate but neither has much flair for writing, and even though my mother had us going to dance lessons and piano lessons and museums and galleries all the time, both of them – as most parents! – were dismayed when I went into theater after college, and are still a little stunned that I’ve made a living at writing all this time.

BUT – my parents also are huge readers. There were overflowing bookshelves in every room of the house when I was growing up. My father was a huge genre reader, specifically, and he had, randomly, collected just about every sci fi and horror classic out there. So his reading taste had just about everything to do with my writing education.

And Mom did make me and my siblings write something every single day for a long time, even before kindergarten. That enforced habit was a critical factor in my writing training. And not just for me- my sister and brother also are great writers – my artist sister has a true genius for it, and my brother is a songwriter and very good with prose as well.

There were other things my parents did that prepared me for a writing career, but I think that the most important one was about gender. They were both incredible role models for me as a woman. My mother was fearless. Definitely not the cookie-baking kind of mom. Very early on I saw her going head to head with city councilmen and the mayor over community political issues and the message I got was very clear – women can do anything.

I got the same message from my father – he never made me think that I couldn’t do as well, as much, and more than any boy in any class. He expected me to make a living with my brain – and I never had any doubt that I could. Other girls my age were definitely NOT getting that message from their parents.

And maybe even more important than that – they both were passionate about their work. It was very clear to me from their example that you’re supposed to do what you love for a living. And although they may sometimes have regretted sending that message – I think it was the greatest gift.

Because it’s not just writing training that makes you a writer, is it?

So how about you all? What lessons did you get from your parents (whether intended or not!) that made you the writer – or other profession – that you are? Let’s see what patterns might emerge.

And Happy Father’s Day to all our fathers!

Never Underestimate The Power Of A Face-To-Face

By JT Ellison

How many times have we heard the old adage writers are solitary creatures? And how many times, upon hearing this statement, have you nodded your head in agreement? That’s what I was worried about. This statement has begun to define our existence as writers. Yes, we work in our own heads the vast majority of the time. Yes, we’re so busy creating that in our real lives, jobs, family, kids, we don’t have time for anything else. Yes, it’s very easy to nod and agree when people say writing is a solitary venture.

Guess what. It’s not.

Stephen King’s glorious book ON WRITING tells of a somewhat supernatural contract between writer and reader, a kind of ESP that exists because the writer puts the words on paper and the reader ultimately, well, reads said words and a psychic connection is formed between the two entities. Cool, huh? He writes in one time and space, and the reader is able to read his mind regardless of their plane of existence, simply by reading the words.

But what happens in between the writer putting the words on the paper and the reader reading them? A LOT.

Outlines, synopses, rough drafts, final drafts, revisions galore, agent reads, editor reads, revisions galore again, copy edits, galleys. Then ARC’s, reviews, sales to bookstores, inside sales, book tours, marketing and promotion dollars, conferences… okay, you’re getting the idea. I don’t disagree for a moment that there’s a psychic connection between writer and reader. There’s just a butt load that goes on in between those steps to make it happen.

And your editor and agent are a vital part of everything that happens with your book.

I’ve always said how lucky I am to have actually laid eyes on both my editor and my agent. Now I’m starting to realize that this is a must. I know, I’ve heard the stories too, of authors who’ve never met their editors or agents even after a forty year relationship. They’ve talked on the phone, they’ve emailed, sure. But they’ve never met face to face.

I don’t know if this scenario is good for the writer. There are ample opportunities on the genre calendar to find a way to meet up with your editor and agent. They don’t go to conferences? They don’t travel to symposiums? Well, go to them.

I’m not kidding. I always said that if I got a deal, the first thing I was going to do was fly to New York to sign the contracts. (Of course, this was back in my silly naive days when I thought that contracts happened in an overnight kind of time frame — I didn’t realize just how long everything takes in the industry.) Instead, right after I got that fateful phone call I learned that my editor was going to be attending Thrillerfest. Well, that took care of that. I met Linda in Phoenix, we broke bread, laughed, found lots of things in common we’d already touched upon on the phone, and started what I believe will be a long and fruitful relationship. And blessings on top of blessings, the MIRA team was at Thrillerfest to promote THRILLER, ITW’s great anthology, so I got to meet the bosses too.

When deadlines got in the way of my plans to go to Bouchercon in Madison so I could meet my agent, I made different plans. I went to New York instead. Scott, Linda and I had lunch, I reaffirmed that he is, in fact, quite a great guy who doesn’t bite, and all three of us were able to sit down together and discuss some of the plans for the series. THAT is worth its weight in gold, my friends.

I know this isn’t the cheapest proposition in the world. It’s expensive to go to conferences. It’s worse to take a two day trip in the name of research, trust me. But I wouldn’t trade actually meeting both of them face to face for the world. It’s an investment in my career. And it should be the same for you.

Name one business that doesn’t have meetings between clients and principles. Industries and businesses in this country and abroad still rely on that face to face meeting. Think about how many historic deals were done with just a handshake? A man’s word was his bond, spit in the palm, clasp hands, and Bob’s your uncle. Even now, with technology allowing instant access between a corporations offices, clients, etc., they’ve perfected the video conference. I think there’s something about human nature that tells us if we can look into another person’s eyes, we can judge whether we’re being sold a bridge or not.

Why should writers be any different from any other business person? Short answer. We aren’t, and we shouldn’t.

Go forth and mingle, friends. Meet the people who are helping you make that psychic connection. If you don’t have a deal yet, get thee to a conference where you can pitch. Make a good impression. Try. We don’t have to be solitary little creatures. The industry as a whole will be better for our active involvement in OUR futures.

"A most moving and pulse-stirring honor–the heartfelt grope of the hand, and the welcome that does not descend from the pale, gray matter of the brain but rushes up with the red blood of the heart."

–Mark Twain – The Begum of Bengal speech, 1907

Wine of the Week: Marques de Caceres 2003 Rioja Crianza

Are You What You Write?

by Robert Gregory Browne

My wife is concerned.

"I think you should blog about it on Murderati, Rob. See what other people think."

She works in the office of a public high school. When it came time for my first book, KISS HER GOODBYE to be released, she was sure to let everyone at work know, and helped generate a huge gathering of well-wishers at my Barnes and Noble launch.

A lot of her colleagues came out and bought a signed copy of the book, and I was, to say the least, grateful. Grateful to all the people who showed up and, of course, grateful to my wife for getting them out there. No one could ask for a more exciting and successful launch (we sold every book in stock — close to sixty).

But, as I said, she’s concerned.

You see, there are parts of my book that aren’t exactly politically correct. Some of the characters, being bad guys, are vile, bigoted creeps. One in particular, a guy by the name of Bobby Nemo, treats women as sex objects, utters profanities, racist, sexist and homophobic slurs, and is generally not a very pleasant guy. The words that come out of his mouth, the things he thinks, are not pretty.

And this is what has my wife concerned. She worries that all those people who showed up to buy my book, all of those colleagues — people she sees day in and day out — will read the book with its slimy characters like Nemo and wonder what kind of man she married.

She’s afraid they’ll read the book and think that its characters and situations are a reflection of me, of the way I think and feel.

I remind her that I’m writing crime fiction, that the people who populate that world are not very nice, and that unless my characters think and speak the way criminals and cops think and speak, I won’t have much of a book.

I also try to point out that I’m just about the polar opposite of Bobby Nemo —

— yet she still worries. Her colleagues don’t really know me, she says. And what if they assume that I’m some sort of racist pervert. How embarrassing.

To complicate matters, she recently listened to my first podcast with Brett Battles — a podcast on creating characters (battlesandbrowne.com) — and I happened to utter the words, "all of my characters are me" as I explained my approach to writing.

And this is true. In a way, all of my characters ARE me. I’m like a method actor taking on a role, using details of my own life to flesh out each character I’m trying to portray. It’s something that can’t be helped. By using my own experiences, coupled with imagination, I’m able to create what I hope are very compelling, three-dimensional people.

That still doesn’t mean that Bobby Nemo ever, for even a moment, speaks for me.

I seem to recall the young Stephen King running into all kinds of trouble with his early books. Who is this guy? people wondered. He’s gotta be sick in the head.

But as we all now know — or at least assume, based on his appearances on various TV shows — Mr. King is a relatively mild-mannered guy who, like me, shares little, if anything, with the whacked out characters he creates.

Or does he?

All of this gives rise to a question: how much of ourselves do we
consciously or unconsciously put into the people we create to populate
our novels? Do our novels give us an excuse to allow our long suppressed emotions and beliefs to come out?

I can confidently so no, that isn’t the case for me. I just make stuff up.

But what about you? Are YOU what you write?

Back Home on the Range

By Louise

I am now on a first name basis with two grocery clerks at Fry’s and a guy at Ace Hardware, in a city I don’t live in.

I spent last week in Arizona, visiting my mother. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations – I was there to clean and repair things, to encourage her to eat, to hold her hand and make her smile, even if that moment would be forgotten in the time it takes a hummingbird to bat a wing.

Walt at Ace Hardware down the block had helpful hints for the cleaning and repair part. I stopped in every morning at 7:00 with a new list. Thin wire and a patch kit to repair the screen door. A brightly painted toilet roll bar so she’d see it and not throw it out when she changed the roll. A real drop-the-slice-in-toaster instead of a toaster oven so she wouldn’t mistake it for a microwave. Oven cleaner for the pots she had inadvertently burned up.

By the fifth day, he was making suggestions for things I hadn’t even thought to repair. A hook and eye, set high up on the door, so she couldn’t wander. A flow limiter added to the hoses so she won’t flood the yard. Thank you, Walt.

Socorro and Natalie at Fry’s did the same. My mother, now in her ninth decade in Tucson, has decided that life is too short to eat anything but pasta. Spaghetti and meatballs one night. Shrimp and cream sauced fettuccine the next. “How about Beef Stroganoff tomorrow?” Natalie suggested. “With ground beef so she can chew it.” Socorro voted for albondigas soup with orzo added to the recipe so she’d still think it was a pasta dish. In the land of hard-shelled tacos and tortilla chips, I made soft food.

It was soft weather as well. Only a couple of days over a hundred, and evenings full of star-studded skies. My mother wore a sweatshirt and a lap blanket.

My daily visits to Fry’s were a diary of the Tucson I’d left behind thirty years ago, its aisles full of the memories of my childhood. An herb mix for menudo. Mexican oregano, chili de arbol, and safflower on the spice rack. Dried corn husks and fresh masa dough for tamale making. An entire aisle dedicated to varieties of refried beans.

There were new additions to the offered fare since I’d left town. Fenugreek, berbere, and niter kibbeh to satisfy the spice-loving community of Ethiopians that that moved into the neighborhood in the last several years. Gumbo and creole fixings for the Katrina victims who had taken over the apartment complex on Seneca.

The only better way to take the pulse of a community than the local grocery store is the yellow pages. Flip through the phone book next time you visit a new city. Is there a listing for “Churches – Satanic” (page 301 in the San Francisco phone book)? Do they offer Anger Management Services as well as gun retailers? Is there a category for “Water Witches/Dowsers” to help you site your well (page 476 in the Tucson book)?

One aisle of the supermarket hadn’t changed: the offertory candles. Fry’s dedicates one entire aisle to the eight-inch votive candles. Three for three bucks. Now that’s a deal.

Sometimes there’s an image and a prayer. Chango Macho, the Spirit of Good Luck. Chuparrosa, with a hummingbird’s picture, to bring you a relationship that is honest and true. Justo Juez, for a favorable ruling from a judge.

Sometimes it’s the color of the wax that counts. Brown wax for luck in court cases. Green for luck in gambling. Black when you’re conducting business in private and to keep your enemies away.

I bought three. A blue wax Milagrosa candle to bring my mother comfort, healing and rest. An orange wax Road Opener for myself to clear up old messes, setbacks and slow downs and start new projects.

And one green wax La Suerte de la Loteria in hopes of supplementing my advance from St. Martin’s.

All important issues covered now. Peace found for three bucks plus tax.

All in all, the visit was a good one. My mother’s mind was so much better than I expected. “I can still think,” she said. “It just takes a little more time and doesn’t hang around as long.” She laughs easily and still gets all the jokes. And the only times she got stuck on those ten-second loop tapes I’d come to expect was when she first got up in the morning.

“I’m not having any fun,” she’d call from the living room if I was wrapped up in a project for too long.

I wrote “Louise was here” across the first ten days in her June calendar and added hearts and exclamation points. Maybe she’ll glance at that page sometime and remember.

Random thought while making smoked salmon bowtie pasta in Tucson: If the lyrics to “Home on the Range,” say “and the skies are not cloudy all day,” does that mean that the clouds did arrive for part of the day?

What about your childhood grocery stores, my friends? What would you have found on those shelves that truly let you know you were home?

No Author Left Behind

by Pari Noskin Taichert

Any parent knows the joy of hearing a child mispronounce a word. Among our household favorites was "flutterby" for "butterfly." I cried when my younger daughter said it correctly for the first time.

But being mixed up isn’t always so charming.

Am I the only one confused by the marketing frenzy surrounding the last Harry Potter book? Here are a few paragraphs from one web article:

" . . . for those who somehow don’t know about Potter 7, Scholastic plans a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign.

‘This is so much more than the publication of a single book,’ Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Trade and Book Fairs, told the Associated Press. ‘It’s a true celebration of the Harry Potter movement and of the joy of reading.’

The Scholastic campaign is called ‘There Will Soon Be 7’ and will feature a Knight Bus National Tour, stopping at 40 libraries in 10 ‘major metropolitan areas,’ and millions of Potter bookmarks, easel backs and tattoos."

. . . uh . . .

"Celebration?"
"Joy of Reading?"

Um, okay, please help me here . . .

Since when does a business that is printing 12 million copies of a book NOT look at the bottom line? Pardon my skeptism, but all this marketing is designed to sell.

I’d just argue that the campaign isn’t really necessary, not at the level planned at least.

Our family has every Harry Potter book. My kids love ’em. So, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m kind of grossed out by what Scholastic is doing.

Why do the biggest books, the biggest name authors, get the biggest PR and the most advertising?

Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the old saw, "Go with the winners." But I don’t buy it as a sound business model.

In my sillier moments, I’ve thought about proposing a No-Author-Left-Behind program where publishers would try to meet the needs of all of their authors. Sure, this would require them to be, perhaps, a bit more discriminating about the number of books they purchase and publish each season. Standards would have to be defined and applied . . .

Would that be so bad?

Anyway, just imagine if Scholastic took those multimillions and spread some of them into the marketing efforts for the rest of their authors. Wow. I bet they’d still sell all of those Harry Potters.

What worries me is that authors nowadays worry about the wrong things.

What’s happened to the tear-your-hair-out-of-your-scalp concern about writing the very best books you can?

Most novelists I meet spend more time talking about marketing. Their concensus is that unless your book sells at auction or your print run is in the six digits, you’re just not going to get the publisher attention necessary to make a career of this business.

This same model can be found in other business sectors — especially when it comes to entertainment. However, sometimes, when a new product is introduced into the market, a business sinks relevant money into the effort.

Why wouldn’t publishers assume that EVERY BOOK they buy has the potential to make it big? Do they really have so little faith in their own judgment? Why don’t they want to invest well in ALL of their products?

I don’t get it.

Sure seems bass aackwards to me.

Daily Meal Plan

by Robert Gregory Browne

I don’t go to a lot of fancy restaurants. I’m more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Or meat and rice to be more precise.

If you’ve ever spent time in Hawaii — where I grew up — and had the local food, you’ve probably encountered plate lunches. A plate lunch is food at its most basic: meat, rice, macaroni salad. And if you go to the right places, like Rainbow Drive-In or Grace’s, the gastronomical experience is akin to athletic sex with the Girl Next Door.

Needless to say, I love plate lunches.

There are a number of fancy restaurants in Hawaii as well. Honolulu is big on Asian/European hybrid dishes, created by local cooking stars like Roy Yamaguchi.

Roy’s restaurant, which sits near the ocean in Hawaii Kai, serves exquisitely tailored meals that are the equivalent of, say, bedding that Exotic Movie Star you’ve always dreamed about — without the inevitable letdown.

But to my mind, Roy’s is an exception. Many of the other fancy restaurants in Honolulu try very hard to reach such heights but often fall flat. The atmosphere may be great, the service may even be top notch, but the meal itself leaves something to be desired.

What does any of this have to do with writing or publishing?

I recently read a novel that tried very hard to be a fancy restaurant. There were enough clever similes and tortured metaphors to choke a rhino, and it took three pages for the hero to walk across the room. The prose, while sometimes brilliant, was mostly borderline purple. As I read, all I could think was let’s get on with it! and finally ended up tossing the book aside.

There are writers who can pull this kind of thing off. Make their words sound like poetry and still manage to compel the reader forward, creating a meal that’s both exotic and satisfying.

But more often than not I prefer the meat and potatoes (or rice) served up by guys like Donald Westlake or John Sandford or Elmore Leonard, where the words never get in the way of the story. I have little tolerance for fancy prose. And just to prove to you that I’m not a complete ass, I’ll admit that this may well be my failing more than the writer’s.

I believe you can be clever without being pretentious. You can turn a beautiful phrase without calling so much attention to it that you might as well be wearing a sign that reads, AREN’T I BRILLIANT?

There is nothing fancy or clever about my prose. I always write from inside a character’s head, feeling and seeing only what he or she feels and sees, and speaking in a voice that reflects his or her attitude toward the world. This isn’t necessarily the correct way to write — there is no correct way, only what works. But it’s MY way.

So, barring a few exceptions, I think I’ll continue to avoid fancy restaurants and stick to plate lunches.

The Girl Next Door may not be as gorgeous as that Exotic Movie Star, but she rarely disappoints.

I realize, however, that not everyone shares this particular bias or sentiment or whatever you want to call it. So I’m curious to know:

What type of meal do you prefer?

Assassins and Missed Opportunities

By Mike MacLean

Sundays are typically slow for the Poisoned Pen bookstore. But not when Bestselling thriller writer Barry Eisler is in town.

Promoting his newest novel Requiem for an Assassin, Eisler spoke to a pretty good-sized crowd, all of us John Rain fans. I’ve been to two appearances by Mr. E, and neither time did he disappoint. Eisler speaks with wit and enthusiasm, and as much as any author I’ve met, he seems truly happy to meet and greet his fans.

According to Eisler…

His next novel will be a stand-alone thriller.

He might someday write a Rain prequel, where the origin of Rain’s code of conduct is revealed.

He has considered writing novels centering on other characters from the John Rain world… Dox the former Marine sniper and Delilah the sexy Mossad operative.

Everyone from Ken Watanabe to Keanu Reeves has been mentioned to play the role of Rain on the big screen. Eisler kind of warmed to the idea of John Cusack.

Along with hearing a tallented writer speak, I got a first-hand lesson in missed opportunaties.

While waiting in line to get Requiem signed, a buddy of mine ambled over with a copy of The Deadly Bride in one hand and a pen in the other. He wanted me to sign my story. I, of course, replied, “Oh man, don’t do this to me.”

Now, I could lie. I could say I didn’t want to John Hancock the book because it would appear hackish, like I was gloming off a best seller’s signing to promote my own work. But the truth is, a few people in line were watching us, and I felt embarresed.

I never liked being the center of attention. Among friends, drinking a few beers, I can tell stories with the best of them. But those are friends. The people watching us at the Poisoned Pen were strangers.

On the drive home, I realized I’d missed an opportunity. If I had signed my friend’s copy of The Deadly Bride maybe one of the people in line would’ve been curious enough to ask about it. Maybe they would’ve bought a copy. Maybe they would’ve told their friends about it. And their friends would check out my website, then check out Murderati. Then they’d buy Pari’s book, or Alex’s or…

It could happen.

I’m a good writer; I don’t feel arogant saying that. But there are tons of good writers out there. If I’m at a convention cocktail party, how’s my writing going to grab the attention of the agent, the editor, the movie producer?

I’m lightyears away from worying about public appearances. But if I really want to cut out a space for myself in this industy, I know I’ve got to start embracing my inner extrovert. The question is, how?

Thanks again to Barry Eisler for a nice afternoon at the bookshop, and a great read to take home.