Whatever Happened to Fan Mail?

When I was a pre-teen girl (age 9 to 12 maybe) in a small West Texas town growing up I read fan magazines by the dozens. Falling in love with male and female stars both, No, I wasn't confused about my sexuality. I had no idea what homosexual or heterosexual was, I just loved to see beautiful movie stars and handsome movie stars and dreaming about being a movie star myself someday.

Girls my age wrote fan letters to stars back then: Dear Miss Monroe, I thought you were really, really good in The Seven Year Itch. I saw it 3 times. Sincerely, Jan Barrow

Yet my absolute favorite stars were in Westerns: Roy Rogers and Dell Evans.

Dear Mr. Rogers, Did you really fall in love with Miss Dale Evans when you first saw her? Sincerely, Jan Barrow.

We wrote letters to those we admired. Put them in envelopes, addressed them after we searched and searched for an address, licked a stamp to put on the envelope. We made sure we put out return address in big letters, both inside and out. Jan Barrow, Box 413, Post, Texas. Then walked the four long blocks to the post office to mail it. Surely you remember waiting and hoping day after day that you might one day get an answer back.

Just when you had given up hope a letter came. Oh no, it wasn't a letter BUT it was an autographed picture of Roy and Dell and Trigger. Does anyone remember the name of Dale Evans' horse†?? (Answer at the end. And I didn't have to look it up but it did take me a couple of minutes to remember it.) I would guess that Trigger was one of the most famous horses ever who wasn't some race horse. Oh yeah. How could I ever forget the Lone Ranger's horse Silver. He yelled, Hi-yo, Silver at least 3 times in every movie.

Even when I was a grown woman and had three kids I wrote two fan letters. One was to a television star, Dennis Weaver, who played in a series called McCloud. About a lawman working in Manhattan, riding his horse, cowboy hat and all. I wrote to him just to tell him how much we enjoyed his show and wished it was on every week. He wrote a nice note back, with an autographed photo and asking me to write to the network which I did. I think the show was on for five or six seasons, can't remember for sure now. But my husband and I really enjoyed that show.

The second fan letter I wrote as an adult was to Isaac Asimov. Thanking him for all the wonderful stories and books he had written through the years. Told him I was hoping to be published one day. He wrote me back on a postcard thanking me for writing and telling me to keep writing. I was lucky enough to meet him in 1988, the first time I ever went to the Edgars in NY City.

Isaac Asimov. Yes, that's me in my fancy hat.

The first ever fan letter I ever got was from Tom Piccirilli. He and I had appeared in a couple of anthologies. I don't have that letter anymore. Wish I did, since Tom has passed away. Tom became one of my non-favorite, favorite writers with Choir of Ill Children. I'm not really a fan of horror and yet this book is so beautifully written and it's proclaimed as Southern Gothic. I personally like his crime noir books best. I especially liked The Last Kind Words.

I got to write to Tom when he was undergoing cancer treatment to tell funny story about his fan letter to me in hopes of giving him a laugh. A few days after I got this letter from Tom, I was visiting my daughter and her family in Ft. Worth. I mentioned the fan letter and since I had it in my purse, I pulled it out and read it out loud at the dinner table. Her husband, Stin asked me to repeat the man's name. I said, Tom Piccirilli. And Stin said, that sounds like the name of a newly discovered disease. "Sorry, ma'am. you have Pictorial. Hate to tell you we don't have a medication to treat Piccirilli yet, but the CDC is working on it and we hope to have a Piccirilli vaccine soon."

I only got a couple more fan letters after that because suddenly we had the Internet and people could write to you via e-mail. Now they write to you on FB or Twitter. They write nice notes but somehow I miss real fan letters.

† Dale Evan's horse was named, Buttermilk. Whatever happened to Trigger and Buttermilk and their German Sheppard, Bullet, I'll suggest you Google, it's interesting. If you're curious about that sort of thing.

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Art Taylor, we congratulate for winning the macavity Award for Best Short Story “Parallel Play” (Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning, Wildside Press).

Bonnie Stevens, we congratulate for winning the Anthony Award for “The Last Blue Glass” (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Dell, April 2016).

Curiosity

by Leigh Lundin

It’s Bouchercon and no one’s left in town to read my article. Everyone’s in Toronto drinking Canadian whiskey, Canadian beer, and Canadian maple syrup, at least at breakfast, sadly recalling when one’s passport between countries was a friendly wave.

With no one to notice, we can talk about anything we want, free of political correctness constraints that galls thinking people. Okay, okay, all six of you readers remaining in the USA unanimously tweeted you never noticed I particularly restrain myself.

I want to mention a web site called Curiosity.com , a drug for the peripatetic brain. I first became aware of Curiosity as an app for Android, iPhone and iPad. Each day, Curiosity pulls together an eclectic handful of articles found on the web.

Subjects may range from the history and psychology to humanities and science. Curiosity provides a mental vacation from the political glut of news saturating media and minds. The also provide original content.

A number of articles aim at readers and writers… unique book reviews, the psychology of writing, crimes, and historically unusual books such as Ernest Vincent Wright novel Gadsby (written without the letter E), and another take on the Voynich Manuscript. Then there’s the touching article about the little girl who loves bugs– and God love her supportive mother. How can you resist? Walk with me…

Bullied for Loving Bugs, 8-Year-Old-Girl Is Now Co-Author of a Scientific Paper

Motivated Reasoning is Why You Can't Win an Argument Using Facts

Mandela Effect Is When Groups Have Same False Memories. How the paranormal plays into this effect.

Where Comedy Comes From (Chicago Podcast Festival) Curiosity Episode 014

What Is The Indecipherable Voynich Manuscript About?

Imaginary Friends Have Real Benefits. What imaginary friends might teach your kids.

Why Did Old-Timey Bikes Have One Giant Wheel?

Why Key West is filled with Hemingway's 6-Toed cats.

Scientists Exhume H.H. Holmes, America's first Serial Killer, "The Devil in the White City"

Why You Should (and How You Can) Read a Lot More

How I Wrote THE BIG REWIND

Libby Cudmore, the Girl with the Impish Smile

Welcome Libby Cudmore. She’s the author of The Big Rewind (William Morrow, 2016) which received a Starred Review from Kirkus, as well as praise from Booklist, Publisher's Weekly and USA Today. Her work has been published in Beat to a Pulp, The Stoneslide Corrective, PANK, The Big Click and the anthologies Hanzai Japan, Welcome Home and Mixed Up. She is a frequent contributor to Vinyl Me Please, Paste, Albumism and the Barrelhouse blog, and hosts the weekly #RecordSaturday.

Meanwhile, she answers those forever questions… How do you get your ideas? How do you bring them to fruition?

You can live-tweet her @libbycudmore.

— Velma

---

by Libby Cudmore

I spent the first few years of my crime writing career trying to emulate others. With The Long Goodbye, Sin City and a soundtrack of early Tom Waits albums as my bibles, my early stories dripped with pulp pastiche like a half-scabbed wound.  I was successful to some degree—short stories published across the internet, some awards and notoriety, a few close calls with agents and editors, but with three novel manuscripts wasting away on my hard drive, I knew I had to try something different.

The Big Rewind didn’t come to me as a fully-formed plan. Rather, it came as an exercise in late-winter nostalgia, on the bus home from work, listening to songs that an unrequited college crush had given to me on a mix CD. I got thinking about the mix CD as a piece of ephemera, wondering what someone might think of the relationship between us if they were to find this document 200 years down the road. I began to write a scene where a young woman, named Jett Bennett, came across a tape meant for her downstairs neighbor, KitKat, and goes to return it. But because I am me, and because I have a background in crime fiction, there had to be a dead body, and that dead body turned out to be KitKat’s.

I then realized that I had stumbled upon the greatest idea I had ever had.

It was a great idea because I was able to write it from my heart. I was able to create a modern, likable protagonist with none of the worn clichés of the genre. And where there were conventions—the fact that she works for a private investigator as a temp—I was able to playfully twist those conventions to tell a story that felt true to me. Not to someone else. Yes, there are references to Raymond Chandler and The Shield, but I was able to look at the tools I had been given and use them to build something of my own design.

The book came together in about eight months, writing just a few hours a day, often doing my first drafts in a notebook on the bus and then typing those into the document at night. It was fun finding a voice for Jett, building her a world instead of trying to stuff her into someone else’s variation of New York or LA. Age had made me weary of violence, so I let myself have fun, keeping the book as lighthearted and generous as a murder mystery can be. And I was able to weave in my second love, that is, music. With references to Warren Zevon, The Vapors, Steely Dan and countless others, I shared my love of music with the reader, a narrative mix tape.

(FUN FACT: After the book was released, The Vapors, best known for their hit “Turning Japanese,” reunited. They have been playing gigs around the UK ever since. I’m not taking credit for this, buuuuut…)

And when I was finished, I cold-queried Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary Management, and he agreed to take me on as a client. Another quick polish and it was off to William Morrow, where editor Chelsey Emmelheintz acquired the book for publication in Feb. 2016. It received a starred review from Kirkus, as well as praise from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist and USA Today.

One of the hardest parts of writing is finding your own voice. It’s easy to play in someone else’s sandbox because they’ve already done the hard work. But it is important to dig deeper, to find a narrative that is meaningful to you as a writer and as a reader.

American Gun Mythology and the Role of the Writer

--Thomas Pluck

It's been a little over a week since once of the worst massacres in the history of the United States committed by a civilian. And there's been a lot of talk about "what could have been done" to stop him. Because it's nearly always a him, but that's another can of worms. Once the shooting began, there was little anyone could have done. The terrorist chose a high vantage point. He moved between two windows. He set up cameras in the hallway to alert him, and fired at the door once security arrived, and killed himself.

The Internet tough guys are out in force saying that "if only..." If only what? Anyone in Nevada who wants a gun can get a gun. They have extremely lax gun laws. The crowd was not disarmed. More guns would not have saved anyone, short of having snipers at every public event. Which I am sure, will be suggested as a solution by the arms dealer lobby of the NRA, over sensible legislation for consumer ownership of military hardware.

I am a gun owner. I live in one of the states with the strictest gun laws, and I do not think they are enough. But I don't want to talk about gun control. I know I'm not going to change your mind, and you're not going to change mine.

And besides, what can writers do?

For one, we can stop promoting gun mythology. Guns are not the only solution to a problem. They are not magic wands. You don't get to decide if they wound or kill your target. You can try, but the bullet decides if it will nick the femoral artery and make that "leg wound in the meaty part of the thigh" bleed you out. The bullet decides if that shoulder wound passes through "just the muscle" ... and kills the baby in the woman's arms behind your thriller protagonist who started a gun battle on a crowded street. We perpetuate the myth of the gun as a protective talisman. It won't protect you.

After all, it's only a tool. "It is the hard heart that kills," as Gunny Hartmann would say. Sometimes it's the frightened heart that kills. I nearly shot a friend of mine one night thinking he was an intruder. I had been taught firearm safety. It was nearly not enough to save my friend's life. I train in self-defense with and without weapons. The majority of this training is to commit actions to muscle memory, because humans do not perform well under stress without such training. Yet some characters is cool as a cucumber in battle, never misses a beat, and the gun saves the day.

Horse puckey.

That's what that is.

Ask any officer about gun retention training and the "21 foot rule." That's the distance a determined individual can cross while the average officer clears their holster and readies their sidearm. It takes a little over or under a second. I've trained it. I'm a big, slow guy, but unless you're Quick-Draw McGraw, I'm going to flatten you like a rhino chasing an ice cream truck before you can get a bead on center mass. And yet, I recently read an otherwise fine novel where the protagonist shoots two armed people, one who has a battle rifle, with his .45, during a conversation. He's dead-eye dick. Never misses. And they never get off a shot. I kept reading, but this was a story that bought into our mythology about guns. Another fine novel had a character shoot four security guards "in the leg" and you know what I just said about that. This isn't Terminator 2. Those men will die or live in pain for the rest of their lives, but it's played off as merciful. It served to make the character seem a bad-ass and start things off with high tension, but all I could think of was four guys in physical therapy because that was the best the writer could do.

“We don’t sensationalize guns,” he said. “Society sensationalizes guns.”
“Have you ever watched a movie with guns and violence in it?” he continued. “Have you ever played Call of Duty, or any video game where there is shooting involved? I haven’t heard one person who said ‘no’.” --owner of Machine Gun Vegas, who advocates for stronger gun control.

Is it possible to write violence without glorifying it? Filmmaker Francois Truffaut said that it's impossible to make an anti-war film because the excitement onscreen inevitably glorifies it. I'm not so sure. Fury by David Ayers stripped me of any desire to fight in World War II. When historians and pundits opine that they never got to fight in a war, they sound like petulant children. Are they really listening to veterans? My great-uncles, before they died, confided in me about cowardly acts during wartime without shame. Because they survived. Another cried for the Germans he killed, because "they were just doing what I was doing." And yet Couch Colonels want to see millions suffer so they can get medals? If historians are pushing this sociopathic garbage, what hope do we who deal in fiction have?

Here's an interesting anecdote from John McTiernan, the director of Predator, on "gun pornography":

There were some studio types who were basically into gun pornography. They wanted to sell gun pornography. They said I wasn’t doing enough close-ups of guns and stuff. So I said, “Why don’t I just do a whole scene?” But I also made it one that had something to do with the story, because all of these guys have giant guns and the whole point is that they’re helpless in the face of this monster. That’s the whole point of the story. They’re these enormously, heavily-armed guys, and they’re not prepared for this. So the whole point was, we hit nothing. But it also got rid of the gun pornographers because I gave them five minutes of nothing but guns. So they were quiet after that. - From this interview at Cinephilia & Beyond.

Violence will always be a subject for storytelling. Nature is brutal, and we are part of it. But we must look past the logic of the victor, the survivor, who looks back as if this was destined, just, and the only solution at hand. That's a defense mechanism. "I had to kill him. It was him or me."

In self-defense, we laugh at this. You couldn't cross the street? Shut the door and call 911? You had to stand your ground? Were you defending your life or your "honor"? We say the best defense weapon is a good pair of running shoes. If you must strike, you hit until they are down and escape if you can. Because people have friends. Even jerks who want to rob you or push you around have friends. And they may not like how you kicked their friend when they were down because it felt good to show that jerk who dared to threaten you what they get for besmirching your honor.

How many stories play fast and loose to give us a villain who simply must be killed? They won't give up! They have no fear of death. The endless henchmen who file into John Wick's house made me laugh. I mean, no one thought to toss a few Molotov cocktails and burn his house down? Or tell the boss to engage in aerial intercourse with a rolling pastry, then head home? Not saying you should feel bad about liking the movie, it was good entertainment, but it's the kind of fantasy we take for granted. The kind of fantasy that makes internet tough guys think they could hit a sniper on the 32nd floor, or make it past his machine-gun nest to get to his hotel room and get him.

No, the bad guy thought of that. The hotel room door was found riddled with bullets. Just enough time for the terrorist to take out "a large, silver revolver--probably his favorite, I wonder what he named it?--and blow his own brains out. As planned.

So how do we not glorify violence? By showing the consequences. By not going Shakespeare on our characters' behinds, and killing them off for convenience. You might think this is death for a pulp story, but Billy Jack laid a whuppin' on the bad guys and he was a pacifist. He was so kind he took off his cowboy boots before he kicked you in the face. Your bad-ass heroine can learn Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and use arm locks. Your super-agent can be tired of assassination and use the defensive aspects of tai chi. Or be a boxer who simply sidesteps and slips punches and gets out of there. If you've never seen a pro boxer dodge punches by street thugs and amateurs like myself, it is really funny. You can't hit those guys! Just ask Connor MacGregor...

I would've been much more impressed with the scene I mentioned earlier if instead of shooting the guards, he disarmed them. That's still violent, your trigger finger often gets broken when a gun is wrenched out of your hands, but I'll take a finger splint over a lifelong limp. But this is nitpicking, really. It's the big pictures that matter. Are our villains human, or caricatures? Are guns tools, or dei ex machina? Is violence an easy solution that gives us a place to end the story, or is it a trauma that affects the characters for the rest of their lives? And I don't mean one that's solved by all those whiskies they drink without seeming to be affected, but that's a third can of worms, and that's my limit.

These are questions we have to ask when we write a story.
Because stories matter.

Fun With Funerals!

As you know, this blog's birthday was yesterday, two days before my birthday, which is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Aaar!   So, all these festive occasions having put me in a reflective mood, I have been consdiering what all of us have been talking about here.

And it seems to me that each of us has his or her own themes.  I see emphases on: true crimes current, true crimes historic, professional experience (as cops, soldiers, spies, psychologists, etc.), childhood memories, current family news, book reviews, favorite books, authors, or films, and of course writing techniques.

In any given week any one of us might write about any of those subjects, and do, but we each seem to have favorites.  I suspected I knew what mine was but I tested it out by tossing all my columns for the past two years into tagcrowd, which pulls out the fifty most commonly used words.  (Incidentally, I also use Tagcrowd on any piece I am about to send to an editor.  It helps me spot words I have overused.) 

-->

ago author best book called case character course crime enough example fiction friends going guy happened hitchcock idea library lot magazine man mystery name novel people person piece plot point probably published read series short something start story stout think thought times used week wolfe work writer writing wrote year

created at TagCrowd.com

Which supports my theory: my main theme is the writing life.  I have been blogging here, mostly, about how it feels to get an idea, grind out a rough draft, edit, submit, get rejected, etc.  Here are a few examples, describing different parts of the process:

Restless Brain Syndrome
Backtalk
The Rising Island Method
RSI
Picking More Black Orchids 

My conclusion is that I use this space as a sort of writing diary and you good readers are my excuse for keeping it up.  I hope you don't mind.

And I hope that you will put up with me and my fellow bloggers for a long time.  Because they - and you - are good company.

The Devil Loads Empty Guns

Back in the late Bronze Age, when I was a kid going to summer camp, the NRA was a sportsmen's organization. They taught firearms safety, and sponsored marksmanship competitions, and published The American Rifleman, which was pretty much the only gun magazine available, aside from maybe Shotgun News, which was basically classified ads. I learned to shoot at Camp Chewonki - I was ten or eleven, if memory serves - and I was awarded the NRA pins and patches for whichever level I got to.  I think Sharpshooter, that first year. We shot prone, sitting, kneeling, standing. Single-shot .22 bolt actions. Paper targets at fifty feet. Ten rounds. You needed to score in the black. I want to emphasize, though, that riflery was one of a mix of activities, swimming, canoeing, lanyard-weaving, woodcraft. They wanted to keep us busy, that critical mass of boys.
My dad let me buy my own .22 when I was fourteen. He was from Ohio, he'd served in the war, and like a lot of people his age, it seemed perfectly natural for kids to learn basic shooting skills. How not? He and I shot up a lot of tin cans.

I went in the military, then, with a little preparation, and qualified Expert on the .30 caliber carbine. Now, the .30 carbine is a lightweight compared to the M-14 the Marines were still being issued at the time, or the M-16 the Army had transitioned to, and they were shooting at distances out to three hundred yards, but still. Iron sights on a little gun that fired what wasn't all that much more than a pistol load? I thought I did okay.

In the years since that first .22, I've had a few other guns, a couple of single-actions, cowboy guns, a couple of auto-loaders. One of the things I've always liked about guns is their simplicity of function. I'm no good at working on cars, I couldn't take a carburetor apart, but guns are straightforward, mechanically, like a watch. The single-action Army, for example, a design that dates to 1873, has six moving parts, with three springs. There aren't that many more in a .45 auto, the 1911. Guns you can drop in sand, or salt water, and they'll still operate. That's why they were military-issue.

This is prologue. I'm telling you so you know where my sympathies lie. It's a familiar story. Anybody of a certain generation, or anybody with a certain background, is going to say more or less the same thing. They grew up in a culture where hunting and shooting were part of the metric. It didn't make you a nut. Of course, this is also a culture where military service was often the norm. So, it depends on your attitude toward that. If you can't see yourself in uniform, you might be unsympathetic. Same with guns. Or broccoli.

But my actual question here is, What the heck happened to the NRA? How did they shape-shift from a generic bunch of hunters and recreational shooters, back in the day, into this pack of rabid crazies? (Exaggeration for effect, of course, but that's how they're perceived by many.) The answer is that there was a coup, at the national meeting in Cincinnati, in 1977.

Forty years ago, a dissident group led by Harlon Carter waged a floor fight, and voted the NRA board of directors out of office. Carter's platform was simple: on 2nd Amendment issues, there's no room for compromise. Compromise means erosion, and the end result of gun control can only be confiscation and tyranny.

This is how the argument continues to be framed. If the gun-control advocates suggest banning high-cap mags, to take an example, 2nd Amendment absolutists say this is gradualism, a wolf in sheep's clothing. They've got a point. Once you start loosening the bricks in the wall, you hasten its collapse, and gun rights people simply don't believe it, when you tell them these are just common-sense measures. They know your real agenda is getting rid of guns, period. And when you come right down to it, there are people whose real agenda is getting rid of guns, period. It flies in the face of reason and experience to say that isn't true. So the problem isn't just the gun guys. The problem is that both sides believe themselves to possess the True Cross, and Satan rules their adversaries.

Where do I stand, personally? Like more than a few gun guys, I'm for gun control. But the dialogue, if you can call it that, is owned by the extremes, and what's in short supply is trust.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Dietrich Kalteis and the Process of Writing

One of the things I really enjoy in the writing game is the process of writing. Both my own and other people’s. Everyone seems to do it just a little bit differently. Of course, there’s the big stuff like pantsters vs. outliners, but there’s also things like whether you try to write a specific number of words a day. And, whether I’m on a panel or reading a blog, I always find these little subtleties in the way various writers work interesting. I also often pick up pointers, so I might change how I do something or at least try something new. If it works fine, if not that’s fine too. But there’s always room to learn and grow.

To that end, I thought I’d talk to Canadian author Dietrich Kalteis about his process and his new book. Dieter’s fourth novel House of Blazes won this year’s silver medal for historical fiction in the Independent Publishers Awards. Kirkus Reviews hailed it a cinematic adventure. And Publishers Weekly called his third novel Triggerfish high-octane action that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Crimespree Magazine said it satisfies the need for all things dark and leaves the reader breathless. The National Post called The Deadbeat Club a breakout for Kalteis, and his debut novel Ride the Lightning won a bronze medal for best regional fiction in the Independent Publishers Awards, and was hailed as one of Vancouver’s best crime novels. Nearly fifty of his short stories have been published internationally, and his screenplay Between Jobs is a past-finalist in the Los Angeles Screenplay Festival. He lives with his family in West Vancouver, British Columbia, and is currently working on his next novel. His upcoming novel Zero Avenue was released just this week through ECW Press.

So here goes, and maybe there’s something new here that will help your writing too:


Paul D. Marks: Did your new novel Zero Avenue end up as the book you anticipated writing from the start?

Dietrich Kalteis: I started with an early scene where the main character Frankie del Rey walks into Johnny Falco’s club. We learn she’s an aspiring rock star who runs dope for a dealer named Marty Sayles, and that Johnny’s club’s in financial trouble. Sparks fly between Johnny and Frankie which leads to a major conflict between them and Marty Sayles. From there, the first draft just flowed out scene by scene.

I don’t plot a story out ahead of time, so during the early chapters I never know where the whole thing will end up. As I’m writing and the story takes shape, ideas drift in for what’s ahead, and those ideas are better than anything I could come up with if I plotted the whole story ahead of time. Working this way makes writing more of an organic process for me. And these ideas can come from something I’ve experienced, or something I read or saw somewhere, and with just the right twist they find their way into the story.

It’s not the only way to write a story, but it works for me. Once I’m through a first draft, I create a timeline to make sure the sequence of events makes sense. I guess it’s a little like outlining in reverse.


Zero Avenue is your fifth standalone novel. Have you ever considered writing a series?

I love a good series, but I haven’t come up with one that I want to write. Right now I’m working on a story set in the dustbowl days of Kansas, and I have a first draft for the one after that: a present-day story about a guy on the run up in the Yukon. Usually by the time I finish one novel, I have the next one in my head, ready to go. I love creating new characters and dropping them in different settings and situations. Having said that, I did borrow a minor character from my first novel, and she became a main character for my second story, The Deadbeat Club, although I wouldn’t call that a series.


Your characters often come from the wrong side of the tracks, do you like taking an outlaw’s perspective? 

My characters have been bounty hunters, cops, ex-cops, criminals, ex-cons and then some. They often end up in that gray area — not all good and not all bad  — no matter what side of the tracks they’re from. Some don’t follow any rules while others bend them to get what they want, or catch who they’re after. I find this helps make the characters less predictable and somewhat more realistic.

Just like in real life, nobody is all one thing. And when I drop characters in a scene, I let them take their own course and develop as the story progresses, and I try not to interfere by imposing my own values or principles.


Being a prolific writer, do you set a daily word count?

I never have a word count in mind. Typically, I pick up where I left off the day before. Sometimes I back up and rework some of the chapter I was working on the previous day, and by the end of it I may only have written a couple hundred new words. Other days I charge through a couple thousand words. The only thing that matters is that the words that end up on the page are good ones.


Do you cut and save your unpublished gems? 

I used to keep a file for scenes and ideas I cut, thinking I might be able to use them down the road. That’s never happened so far, so I stopped keeping the file. Sometimes when I’m doing a second or third pass through a story, I find something that isn’t working and needs to be cut, and it’s not always easy to throw something out, but I’ve come to realize there are always fresh ideas coming.


You’ve written crime novels set in present time and some that are historical. What determines the setting?   

It comes down to what suits the story. For Zero Avenue I liked the anger of the punk rock scene, and Vancouver was this sleepy backwater town back in the late seventies. And that combination just seemed the perfect setting for the story I had in mind. Also the late seventies was a time before Google Earth and satellite imagery, making it easier to hide some pot fields, which was necessary to the story.

I’ve written stories set in present-day Vancouver, and I like the setting since it hasn’t been overused in crime fiction. Also, the city’s a major seaport sitting on the U.S. border, and that’s just begging for a crime story.

For House of Blazes I set the story in San Francisco in 1906 at the time of the big earthquake. It was a time of debauchery and corruption, and it also had a wild west meets a modern city feel to it. Some people rode into town on horseback carrying sidearms while others drove cars wearing three-piece suits. After the earthquake hit, the fires that swept the city for three days took on a character feel as they raged and forced people to run for their lives.


What’s coming next?

I’m pleased to have a story included in the upcoming Vancouver Noir, part of Akashic Books’ Noir Series, edited by Sam Wiebe.

The next novel to be released is Poughkeepsie Shuffle, due out next year from ECW Press. It’s set in Toronto in the mid-eighties and centers on Jeff Nichols, a guy just released from the Don Jail. When he lands a job at a used-car lot, he finds himself mixed up in a smuggling ring bringing guns in from Upstate New York. Jeff’s a guy willing to break a few rules on the road to riches, a guy who lives by the motto ‘why let the mistakes of the past get in the way of a good score in the future.’

Thanks for stopping by, Dieter. And good luck with the new book.

***

And now for the usual BSP:

Please check out the interview Laura Brennan, writer, producer and consultant, did with me for her podcast, where we talk about everything from Raymond Chandler and John Fante to the time I pulled a gun on the LAPD and lived to tell about it. Find it here: http://destinationmystery.com/episode-52-paul-d-marks/

www.PaulDMarks.com

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BSP For You & Me

On the heels of Janice's excellent discussion of how to prepare for an interview...
This year has been a good one for short story sales (for me, anyway. Most of the other contributors to this blog sell more in any given month), but it's still stacking up as my first losing season since 2013.

Yes, I have more books available than I did then (so far, twelve novels and a collection of stories), but both my close friends know that the annual sales and royalties from those self-published books won't pay for our cats' prescription diets for a week.

The bulk of my writing income--and "bulk" is a misleading term here--comes from other sources, mostly editing and conducting writing workshops. Over the last two years, the State of Connecticut has been plagued with horrendous budget problems that have been passed on to libraries, where I usually hold those workshops. In 2015, I led sixteen sessions, my all-time high. This year, I did one in April and only had one more scheduled until last week. I know three other writers going through the same straits, and for the first time ever, we're competing with each other for the same few gigs.

How do you get more business without bumping off the competition?

Packaging.

Years ago, comedian Bill Dana, AKA "Jose Jimenez," had a routine in which the interviewer asked him, "How did you get the title 'King of the Surf?'" and he replied, "I had cards printed."

 That's not quite as outrageous now as it was then. We need to figure out the continuum of shrinking violet, effective promotion and obnoxious BSP. It's a fine line, and when you're offering to teach, it gets even finer.

Most people want to drive a car before they buy it. I have yet to buy a guitar online because I need to hear it and touch it first. It's the same with writing. People need to believe that you can help them write better, so you have to show them what's under your hood. Obviously, your own books can help, but some people don't have time to read them before hiring you.

When I began editing, I offered a freebie through Sisters in Crime. I would examine the first twenty-five pages of a manuscript for free to the first three respondents in exchange for a reference letter I could post on my website. The requests arrived in my email so quickly that I ended up reading five samples. Satisfied customers give you more cred than anything else. If you're a writer, nothing tops reviews from happy readers...except maybe blurbs from other writers who have a large following.

Those references are on my website, and I keep a printed copy for when I meet a librarian or--as happened last week--the head of a writer's retreat that plans to open this month.

I also bring blurbs that better-known writers (practically everyone) wrote for me. These are people I met at various conferences. In a few cases they mentored me or led workshops I attended. Reviews written by a real person, especially a legitimate critic or Publishers Weekly or Kenyon Review mean a lot, too. I print out a list of my awards and nominations because they mean that someone who knows the business thinks I won't stink up the joint. Besides, it's great being able to say I lost an award to Karin Slaughter or Dennis Lehane.

Be flexible. I have a printed description of my workshops and can make them last from about sixty to ninety minutes by encouraging more questions or giving people more time to work on the activities I include. I taught high school English for thirty-three years, so I know how to create a decent worksheet.

One of the first rules of grant writing is that you have to show how the public will benefit, and it's the same here. You're working with the library, bookstore or other venue. Remember the new writers retreat I mentioned above? Instead of charging my usual fee for workshops, they will charge the students and we will split the fee. I'll get less money than usual, but the Story Teller's Cottage will get some money in the coffers right away, which means they can grow...and invite me back again. You can spend "less," but try spending "nothing."

I gave the new director some of my business cards (yes, thank you, Bill Dana), which mention my editing. I gave her several bookmarks, too. The front is a head shot with my website and Facebook page. Easy to read, and won't need updating. I can use it forever, especially since I don't plan to age at all. Ever. I assembled the list of books on the back three years ago when I had the titles but they weren't out yet. Planning that far in advance meant I could buy the bookmarks in bulk (lower price) and use them longer. Starving writers go for cheap, OK?

The bookmark serves two purposes First, it shows people that, yes, I did write a book, which suggests what's under the hood. Giving the titles means people can find the books and read them, which does even more of that.

Sure, it's creating an image, but it's also content and credibility. I don't wear a tie when I meet people, but I don't wear cut-offs and a Playboy tee shirt either.

I've learned to ask a few questions, too. These help the venue and me work together and help that professional image again.

Do you have Wi-fi? Most places do, but I'm beginning to sell more books at events by card than by cash, so it's good to know, especially if I post the event on my website or Facebook page. If you take a credit card, it suggests that you're a "real" business, too.

Will you print out my handouts? If the venue takes registration in advance, they know how many copies they need. That means I don't show up with a bunch of extras I'll have to recycle. It also means that if someone decides to attend at the session at the last minute, the venue can print up more copies and I don't have to ask someone to share.

Do you have an easel or dry marker board (I hate power point!)? I can bring one, which shows I have my own equipment, but it's easier if you have to cart less stuff around.

Finally, I encourage librarians and other people to take pictures I can use on my sites for further credibility. But do I really look that funny?

Yes, it's BSP, but it gets your foot in the door. And the best promotion in the world won't hide a lousy workshop.

Does this all work? I picked up three workshops last week. They satisfy my teaching Jones. And since this is a new venue and we're guessing at the best times and days for the sessions, I'm adding an evaluation sheet that asks participants about the format, content, presentation, time and space. It also asks if they'd like to take another workshop. Criticism and suggestions are how you get better.

The Story Tellers Cottage (check their website and Facebook page) held their open house last Saturday, and I made a point of showing up with more bookmarks and to meet more people. They're doing the same thing I am, but they're taking a bigger risk, so they have fewer chances to get it right.

I think they're on the right track.

Hospitals and Murder in One Step or Two

“Hospitals are a great place to kill people” said MC, during our interview, “You can kill people in one-step or two.”

I would like to reintroduce MC – Mystery Cardiologist. He is a doctor who opens up blocked heart vessels with stents, puts in new heart valves and uses defibrillators to bring people back from the brink of death. He is also a voracious reader of mystery novels. What can be more delicious than a man who saves lives and ponders how to kill people? After he read my last blog, he felt it made him sound a bit ghoulish. So I would say, unequivocally, that he is a great guy. A wonderful husband, father, puppy owner who has never murdered anyone. He is safe to have over for dinner and introduce to your children.

Although his one-step and two-step murders are worth hearing about, what is equally as interesting is the character of a hospital murderer.

“There is nothing more creepy than someone like a nurse, doctor or paramedic who kills.” said MC. “That is the person with the most access to the patient, the knowledge to kill and the person everyone trusts.”

MC is right. The best person to know what drugs could kill and at what dosages, is a person who is medically trained. Further, they would know, for example, that in death, all cells break down, release sugar, and make an insulin overdose difficult to detect. However, a sample of the vitreous humour (fluid in the eye) could be a perfect way to catch this murderer.

Setting a murder in a hospital opens up avenues of murder but also allows for the creation of a complex character. What makes someone who has devoted a great deal of time educating themselves on how to save lives, who has a career of service to patients, turn themselves into a killer?  It could be a latent aggression finally coming to the fore, or it could be a character up against hard times who changes and becomes embittered. Or it could be a character who becomes a doctor or nurse to compensate for a sense of helplessness but gradually develops a sense of arrogance and invincibility, coupled with the a distain for those who are helpless like they once were.

One-step murders in hospitals can involve numerous methods. If someone is admitted to hospital for routine surgery such as an appendectomy or even for a heart attack that they survived, then finishing them off in hospital is an interesting option.

In hospital, people have IVs that provide a portal to inject them with something deadly. An overdose, of insulin, epinephrine, or potassium are some of MC’s suggestions.

A two-step murder is another intriguing option. Perhaps a murder attempt - a car accident, or bludgeoning on the head - has failed to completely kill off the victim. Bringing them to hospital provides an opportunity to try to kill them again.

Here a principle of reversing medical treatment is key. For example, if the victim has brain swelling after a thump on the head, in hospital they will give drugs to reduce swelling. They will also raise the head, using gravity to get rid of excess fluid in the brain. A visit during which the hospital bed is positioned to lower their head will send enough fluid into their brain to kill them. It is a gruesome way to die as the brain swells and pushes into your skull and again, it takes a certain twist of character to make a person trained to save lives, now take them.

Killing via an IV line is of course an option when a murder is botched and someone wants to complete the kill. Insulin injected could bottom out their glucose and put them into a deadly coma. Adrenaline could cause a fatal heart attack. And someone who has survived a murder attempt would be frailer and more susceptible to most drugs. Air injected into an IV is a perfect way to kill someone.

Once you have decided to set up a hospital murder, either in one or two steps, there is a wealth of internet info to look at. For example, if you are set on killing someone with air injected into an IV, I would like to recommend the blog by James J Murray, Prescription for Murder, as a great starting point. Another intriguing find is a book about murder by insulin.

For me, the intriguing part of my interview with MC was the hospital setting as an opportunity for murder with a necessity of developing the kind of complex character who would murder in a hospital. I truly think this hospital killer allows a writer to develop a character that embodies the saying: ‘As we get older, we just get more so.'

All our vulnerabilities, our fears and frailties, can be hidden under work and purpose. However, in the end we all become ourselves and more so. What haunts us eventually will consume us and that, in essence, is the making of a murderer.

Writing for the Record

Like many of my fellow writers, I've had my share of unusual experiences. I once had three stories in four months in AHMM (the March, May, and June 1999 issues); I once did a signing at a flea market, right in there among the T-shirts and yard ornaments and velvet paintings; I've twice had stories in Woman's World that listed someone else's byline; I've published poems in places like Volcano Quarterly and Appalling Limericks; one of my short stories was rejected twelve times before it finally sold; I've had stories published in Braille and on audiotape and translated into Russian; and I once drove 150 miles to do a library presentation where only two people showed up (and both of them worked for the library). Etc., etc., etc.

But something happened recently that was even stranger than any of those. A writer friend from Los Angeles named Eric Guignard, who has also edited several anthologies I've appeared in, contacted me with information about an opportunity. He began his email with "There's this little project I stumbled across that you might be interested in . . ."

The project was an attempt by a publisher in South Africa to--again, in Eric's words--"create the biggest book of short stories ever for The Guiness Book of World Records."

Here's the deal:

CEA Greatest Anthology Written, published by Celenic Earth Publications, will include 111 original short stories, each between 3000 and 8000 words, written by 111 different authors around the world. The book is an attempt at a Guiness World Record for the most authors contributing to a single volume of short fiction.

Shaun M. Jooste, a writer/publisher from Cape Town, South Africa, began working on the project in April. He applied to Guiness World Records, challenged the existing record of 50 writers, and stated that he could double that number in an anthology that he would then publish. After GWR granted him permission for the attempt and sent him a truckload of requirements and guidelines, Shaun put out a call for contributors, read all the submissions, and categorized them by genre. The book will then be "authenticated and verified" according to specifications by Guiness. To attain World Record status, 1000 copies of the book must be printed and at least 500 print copies and 500 e-book copies must be sold. (For anyone who's interested, it is available now for pre-order here and will also be sold via Amazon.)

The anthology, which will be about 600 pages, will feature authors from South Africa, the United Kingdom, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Nigeria, Mexico, Bolivia, and Switzerland. The main genres included are mystery/crime, fantasy, science fiction, horror, and romance (with about 2% children's, 4% LGBT, and 4% historical).

Eric and I received word last month that our stories will be included. Mine, which is called "The Tenth Floor," is a 4000-word fantasy tale about a teenager who buys an artifact from a pawn shop as a gift for his grandmother and then finds that it's also a portal to another world. Not a mystery, but it contains several plot twists, and one of my favorite endings. And the timing of the anthology call was perfect: when I found out about the opportunity, this story was already completed and sitting here in my to-be-submitted stack.

Everything about this project is a little unusual--including the five-page contract I received a few weeks ago. It stated that authors will retain reprint rights but will not be offered royalties; their payment will be the permanent inclusion of their names in The Guiness Book of World Records. I decided I could live with that.

Eric, a Bram Stoker Award winner, agrees. In fact he told me that inclusion in Guiness World Records has always been one of his bucket-list items. I had honestly never thought about it--but now that it's a probability, I'm pretty excited.

Maybe if I talk about that at one of our libraries, more than two bored employees will show up.

Or maybe not.

More About Inspirations

I started writing in high school and in college, nothing publishable. When I became a road deputy (patrol officer), I took note of what I observed and felt. Notes I'd use to inspire stories. When I became a homicide detective, I knew - this is what I should write about. While my first two novels were not inspired by real cases, the anecdotes in the books were. The small stories and the way the characters talked and thought.
My third novel BLUE ORLEANS is based on a real case we worked. Not only a whodunit, it was a whoisit as it started with a dumped body. Didn't take long to identify the victim as a New Orleans drug dealer, which led to his family and friends, which led to the solution of the case. I jazzed it up in the novel, put in a little sex and violence, created a femme fatale.

   LaStanza Novels 3, 4, 5

My fourth novel CRESCENT CITY KILLS is a telling of another dumped body case, the case of two young New Orleans women executed on the river batture (land between the levee and the water's edge, in this case the Mississippi River). In real life, the murders occurred in Jefferson Parish. In my book, I moved them back to New Orleans were my recurring character NOPD Homicide Detective Dino LaStanza could work it. Condensing the 13-month investigation wasn't hard but pacing the novel was difficult.

Those books also had strong ancillary plots - LaStanza's personal life. But I was fortunate to have a framework. Real cases.

The inspiration of my fifth novel, THE BIG SHOW, came from a phone call from Harlan Ellison who said he had an idea for LaStanza. He gave me flashes of an opening scene and suggested I run with it. I did. All he asked was for me to put an acknowledgement: Thanks Uncle Harlan. Which I did. I made up the rest of the story. Inspiration from a phone call.

The third novel in my Lucien Caye Private Eye series - HOLD ME, BABE (which was a finalist for this year's SHAMUS Award for BEST ORIGINAL PAPERBACK PRIVATE EYE NOVEL) - was inspired by a conversation with my literary agent Joe Hartlaub (who is also an agent for musicians). He relayed an emotional story about a lost song. I got caught up in the emotion and was inspired.

Hurricanes are inspiring. Look at the flood of Hurricane Katrina-inspired books. I waited eight years before penning CITY OF SECRETS, a story triggered by the haunting poem "Eternal Return" by James Sallis. Sometimes you just have to let an idea ferment.

We writers get inspiration from a lot of sources. The night my wife walked into my home office with a catalog (either a Victoria's Secret or Frederick's of Hollywood catalog) and showed me a new product - the kissable cleavage bra. I made note of what she said, then wrote a story "Kissable Cleavage" that's been published three times. Sorry, don't have a picture of the brassiere to share.

Sometimes it's the little things, sometimes the big ones. Whatever causes emotion in a writer can cause emotion in a reader if well written.

That's all for now.

www.oneildenoux.com

Born a Rebel

by Brian Thornton

"She picked me up in the mornin'

And she paid all my tickets.
And she screamed in the car,
And left me out in the thicket.
Well, I never would have dreamed
That her heart was so wicked.
Well, I'm goin' back tonight,
'Cuz it's so hard to kick it."

                        –Tom Petty, "Rebels"

"It was nearly summer,
We sat on your roof.
Yeah, we smoked cigarettes,
And we stared at the moon.
And I showed you stars
You never could see.
It couldn't have been that easy
To forget about me."

        -Tom Petty, "Even The Losers"

Someone a whole lot more articulate than I once said, in effect, that art was simply stepping into the spotlight and telling the truth. By that definition, rock icon Tom Petty, who died Monday at age 66, defined "art."

Petty probably wouldn't have cared for that description. Not a pretty face, uninterested in cultivating either connections or an artist's image, Tom Petty died counting the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Roy Orbison (until his death), George Harrison (ditto), and many, many others as friends and collaborators. It was an irony worthy of a Tom Petty song.

And it was a long, long road from his origins in Gainesville, Florida as the son of an alcoholic and abusive father who beat him mercilessly throughout his childhood. A brush with fame in the person of a meeting with Elvis Presley (who was in town to shoot a movie) during his early teens is supposed to have provided the spark that lit the fuse on Petty's towering ambition. Petty scoffed at the notion in later interviews.

"You Don't Know How It Feels"

This is not to say that Tom Petty was not ambitious. On the contrary, bandmates in the late-60s blues-rock outfit Mudcrutch marveled years later about how Petty had more ambition than native musical talent. Petty himself was known to joke about how as a lead guitarist he was actually a pretty good rhythm guitarist. He didn't play a solo on any of his albums until he laid down the lead track on "You Don't Know How It Feels" for his 1994 album  Wildflowers.

None of that mattered, though. Tom Petty's art was in the songs he wrote, and in the crystal clarity of how he envisioned them sounding in the final cut. In service of that vision he surrounded himself with musicians possessed of a particular set of chops. Two key players in Petty's long-time band The Heartbreakers were guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench.

Left-to-Right: Keyboardist Benmont Tench, Petty, & Guitarist Mike Campbell–core of the Heartbreakers' sound for decades

It's Tench whose swirling organ kicks off the iconic "Refugee" on 1979's Damn the Torpedoes, considered by many to be Petty's breakthrough album. Campbell's searing guitar leads provide the counterpoint of a call-and-response with Tench's keyboards, and hovering over it all is Petty, whose trademark wail both sells and punctuates the lines:

"Baby, we ain't the first.
I'm sure a lot of other lovers been burned.
Right now this all seems real to you, but it's
One of those things you've got to feel to true."

Petty's music contained on-going homages to the likes of country-rock stalwarts such as the Byrds (whose lead-singer Roger McGuinn, tapped Petty to collaborate with him on his 1991 "comeback" album, Back From Rio.), the Buffalo Springfield, Bob Dylan (another frequent collaborator, and not just with The Traveling Wilburys), Del Shannon (Ditto), and yet still managed to be strikingly original. And his lyrics dealt with universal themes usually having to do with the personal consequences springing from one's life choices.

"Refugee," his most recognizable song, is about not being a victim. Petty the child abuse survivor was many things, but never that. Other songs such as "You Got Lucky," "Change of Heart," and the above-referenced "Even the Losers" are often bitter ruminations on the cost of relationships. Still others, like "The Waiting," and "Deliver Me" are the exact opposite: hopeful, even optimistic:

"Oh baby don't it feel like Heaven right now
Don't it feel like somethin' from a dream                            
Yeah I've never known nothin' quite like this
Don't it feel like tonight might never be again
Baby we know better than to try and pretend
Honey no one could have ever told me 'bout this"

                                  –Tom Petty, "The Waiting"

"Sometimes I wonder if this is worth the trouble.
Sometimes I wonder if this is worth the fight.
I never have made my mind up about it.
I've just decided to let it all ride."

                                     –Tom Petty, "Deliver Me"

And Petty knew about fights. After suing his first record company over the disastrous deal he'd made with them (he won), he went on to immediately piss off his next one by nearly naming his latest album The $8.98 Record Album in order to keep the record company from jacking the price of his records to $9.98 in the wake of the success of Damn the Torpedoes. The record company caved, and the album (which contained "The Waiting") was eventually released as Hard Promises.

And his fans loved him for it.

When he died on Monday, Tom Petty was fresh off a 40th anniversary tour with The Heartbreakers. At 66, he had survived abuse as a child, exploitation by rapacious record companies, the destruction by fire of his large Southern California home, and the disastrous spiral of his first marriage downward into serious drug addiction for both himself and his ex-wife.

He had always come back with an answer to these big life challenges: leaving his parents' home at seventeen and decamping for California while "Runnin' Down a Dream," Damn the Torpedoes for his first record company. Rebuilding his burned-out house. And finding sobriety and love with the second wife who now survives him.

And when he was found in full cardiac arrest late Sunday, it even seemed as if he might pull back from the brink yet again, as reports of his death were initially hotly contested when they broke on Monday.

Not this time.

The refrain from the last song on Petty's 1982 album Long After Dark runs like this: "Don't have a wasted life." Looking back on his impressive body of work, it's pretty damned clear that Tom Petty took his own advice.