tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86459429462756704422024-03-05T14:27:44.432-08:00Eric BeetnerI commit crimes on paper.Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.comBlogger280125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-20785428696920759362015-03-06T01:07:00.003-08:002015-03-06T01:07:46.542-08:00NEW RELEASE!2015 is a busy year for me and will see the release of 5 books (!) It all starts now with the release of the full omnibus edition of The Year I Died 7 Times from Beat To A Pulp press. (ok, this one is a bit of a cheat since it came out in installments over the course of last year)<br />
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It's in both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times/dp/1943035016/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425628687&sr=1-2&keywords=the+year+i+died">paperback</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times-ebook/dp/B00UAX3Z2W/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1425632772&sr=1-1&keywords=the+year+i+died+seven+times">ebook</a>.<br />
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It's great to have this one all in one volume with a fancy new cover I quite like. Who is that <a href="http://crimecovers.blogspot.com/">talented artist </a>they use?<br />
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Special thanks to David Cranmer for steering the boat on this one for a long year leading up to this moment. </div>
Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-44152033215629265172015-01-19T23:37:00.002-08:002015-01-19T23:37:10.603-08:00InterrogationAuthor S.W. Lauden has interviewed...sorry, interrogated me over at his blog. Go <a href="http://badcitizencorporation.com/2015/01/19/interrogation-eric-beetner/">check it out</a>.Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-33066026252252783752015-01-14T22:54:00.000-08:002015-01-14T22:54:29.297-08:00Grant Jerkins Interview<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Grant Jerkins quickly became a favorite author of mine when I </span>ripped through his three novels, <i>The Ninth Step, A Very Simple Crime </i>and<i> The End Of The Road</i>. Since then I've been on the lookout for a new Grant Jerkins novel and now we have one. One with a very interesting backstory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'm always fascinated to hear when other writers have done collaborations in the same way that JB Kohl and now Frank Zafiro and I have done in that we have never met in person. When I read that Grant and his co-author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Done-One-Novel-Grant-Jerkins/dp/1250054869/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421304740&sr=1-1&keywords=done+in+one">Done In One</a></i>, Jan Thomas, worked this way I had to know more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The new novel, about a police sniper, originally started as a screenplay by Thomas which Jerkins had been assigned to do a rewrite on, unbeknownst to Thomas as is so often the case in Hollywood. The film died in development but the story stuck with Grant and his polished rewrite stuck with Jan. When Grant pitched the idea of turing it in to a novel, Jan went for it and now <i>Done In One</i> is upon us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don't need to see anything except Grant Jerkins' name on the cover to know I want to read it, but add to that Jan Thomas' personal experience being married to a police sniper and you know this one has the voice and authenticity to make a very compelling read.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Thanks to Grant for submitting to questioning.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: You and I have both written with co-authors whom we've never actually met in person. Tell me about how it worked for you and Jan. Lots of lengthy phone calls? All email exchanges? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: 95% of it was email exchanges with a few phone calls here and there. I was doing much of the constructing, so I really needed those emails to have a written record of what we were planning. Jan was composing these lengthy, lengthy stories of her and her husband's life together, and I'd sometimes cut-and-paste whole passages into the narrative. There were things I knew I wanted to use, but not sure how or when I could work them into the book. There was so much great information and insight Jan was giving me. It got to be like spinning plates. But we got all the important stuff in there. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: I'm fascinated by the history of this project going back to when it was a screenplay and you did a rewrite without Jan ever even knowing about it. Was it hard to adapt your work into a novel form? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: That's a good question. The answer is yes and no. The script was maybe 20K words and the novel around 80K. It was like working from an outline, I guess. There was the safety net of the preconceived story. but there was also sixty thousand extra words of narrative to imagine. The biggest challenge was letting the imagination have free (novelistic) reign, but then stopping and realizing, well, my imagination carried me way the hell over here, but the original story is over there, and how are we going to get them to meet up again? But it worked out, and I think it feels very organic, like an original novel.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: Obviously the story already had a structure and a solid story from the script days, but how much did the story evolve as the novel went along?</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Grant: We didn't really add new characters or events or plot devices. We simply gave our characters fuller, deeper, authentic, lived-in lives. I think with a screenplay you're relying on actors to breathe life into the characters and for the director to fill in the mood, pace, tension, setting, subtext, etc. An author does all of those things on the page. That's what we used the extra words for.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: Did you two trade chapters? How did the day-to-day workings of the writing go? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: Passing it back and forth didn’t work for either of us. I was in constant communication with Jan. She was writing out these long passages of memories and observations and insights and plot ideas and character studies. Thousands and thousands of words. I used our script as the starting point, but also wove in (often word-for-word) these amazing things Jan was coming up with. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: Once you were working did you talk constantly or get out of each other's way and let the writing flow? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: Were in constant communication. -- Small things changed, were brought into sharper focus. Things were improved. But mostly, it was a deepening of what was already there. I wanted the reader to know what it might feel like to actually kill people for a living. What does your life look like if that's your job? What does it feel like to be married to that person? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: Did you two do any revising or changing of the plot line as you went, or did you wait until revisions to make any course adjustments? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: It pretty much stayed the same. I would say we fine tuned things, but nothing drastic. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: Living in different states, how did you celebrate the release of the book? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: Heh. Now that's a funny question. Insightful. Jan is the demonstrative one. I'm Mr. Cool Been There Done That, and Jan is wide-eyed and genuinely excited about the whole process. And really, a lot of her excitement has rubbed off on me, so that I feel an optimism I hadn't felt in a while. The pleasure of publishing and sharing a story with readers. We celebrated with a phone call. But what Jan really wants is for me to come to California so that she and The Sniper can take me out to the range and teach me to shoot. I know nothing about guns.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eric: Any plans to meet up on a book tour or anything? Does a face-to-face jinx the process in any way? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grant: No plans to meet up. Just a sincere hope that it happens one day soon. We are literally on opposite sides of the country. I'm always worried about jinxing something. Very superstitious about the work. But I think meeting Jan face-to-face would be an anti-jinx. Good juju.</span></span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-36614051438726678772014-12-29T18:43:00.000-08:002014-12-29T18:43:22.846-08:00Year End<span style="font-size: large;">You should know that my standard for newsworthy/blogworthy events in my writing life is pretty high, so therefore not many posts of late. But look out 2015. Lots of stuff coming down the pike.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For now I'd like to send out some year-end thank yous. Be prepared - I'm about to forget some people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2014 was kind of a kick in the balls for me, writing-wise. There were several setbacks (another reason for the lack of posts is I hate to complain in public when things aren't going my way. It's self serving and whiny. I know my life is pretty damn good, despite what Amazon sales ranks might say about it)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But throughout this kinda crappy year were several highlights and many, many good people who inspired me and kept me positive in the face of bad news. First off, to those who published me. I am eternally grateful. David Cranmer from Beat To A Pulp press has been so good to me this year. We entered this crazy experiment with The Year I Died 7 Times and he kept up the work literally all year long. It was a lot of work and it would have been easy for him to bail on it midway through, but I'm glad he didn't. And all the while he was prepping other great books like Jake Hinkson's The Big Ugly and the Drifter Detective series. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To Eric Campbell for agreeing to publish not one but two books in 2015. It's gonna be a good year for us. To Kjetil Hestvedt for saving my novel Rumrunners from obscurity. Looking forward to May. Both these gentlemen have been a pleasure to work with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To the anthologies: thank you for either inviting me in or accepting my submission into some truly great company this year. I'm incredibly proud to have stories in Dark Corners Vol. 2 (thanks Craig McNeely) All Due Respect #2 (Thanks Chris Rhatigan and Mike Monson) Pulse Fiction (Thanks Tommy Hancock and Paul Bishop) Hoods, Hot Rods and Hellcats (Thanks, Chad!) Reloaded (Thanks, Ron Earl) and finally to Joe Clifford for having me in Trouble In The Heartland. For a year when I feel like I didn't write or publish very much, this is a list I can be proud of and reminds me I was actually working.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To those who have shown support and friendship, I thank you. Scott Montgomery at Mystery People - wow. To have a bookseller champion my work is amazing. To Matt Coyle and Lisa Brackmann for inviting me to read at their new Noir at the Bar. To Stephen Blackmoore for sticking with me through our own Noir at the Bar for 4+ years now! To Michelle Isler for the unflagging support and even feeding me on her way through town. To Lauren O'Brien for being my favorite Bouchercon hangout pal. To Meg Gardiner, Brett Battles and Elyse Dinh for making great nights out a Bcon tradition now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To Jennifer Busskohl and Frank Zafiro for co-writing with me. This cannot be underestimated how much I owe them. To Holly West for navigating this crazy writing world with me (and then leaving me in a ditch when she moved away). To everyone who paid me to do a book cover for them, and even the ones who didn't pay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's where I start forgetting people. Anyone who left a review, bought a book, retweeted one of my self-serving self promotions, had an encouraging word or a handshake. To all the authors who came out and read for Noir at the Bar. And to all those authors who graciously gave a story to the anthology I'm trying to get going and all the writers who wrote great books I had the pleasure of reading this year, I thank you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2015 is going to be a busy one for me. 3 new novels, the full omnibus of Year I Died 7 Times, a few surprises. There will more to post about next year. But stayed tuned to my full website, ericbeetner.com for news and updates. </span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-56096972784700475172014-10-29T23:14:00.002-07:002014-10-29T23:14:27.575-07:00Cover revealI've posted over at my full <a href="http://ericbeetner.com/">website</a> and I'll post it here too - the new cover for my novel Rumrunners, coming in 2015 from 280 Steps Publishing. I love the look of all their covers and I'm super happy with what they did for this book.<br />
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Also, just in times for Halloween, I'm giving away my horror hybrid novella, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stripper-Pole-World-Schlock-Drive-ebook/dp/B00DYOVE3G/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414649581&sr=1-1&keywords=stripper+pole+at+the+end+of+the+world">Stripper Pole At The End Of the World</a> for free between now and friday. So get on it!</div>
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<br />Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-84100207980930957442014-10-08T00:04:00.001-07:002014-10-08T00:04:32.303-07:00New homeOkay, instead of apologizing again for my lack of updates, I'll show you a good part of the reason why this has been so slow. I have a new website. Like, a real website. <a href="http://ericbeetner.com/">ericbeetner.com</a>, because that's how clever I am.<br />
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It remains to be seen how much I'll do double duty both there and here. Really I'm just waiting on news on many fronts to be able to say something worth reading about. Thanks for your patience if you do follow along here. News about my busy October for appearances is on the new site.<br />
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2015 looks to be a busy year so I'll have much to report both here and there.Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-68137481674662850042014-07-18T22:05:00.002-07:002014-07-18T22:05:41.147-07:00Giants among usI was recently hunting down more vintage paperbacks (not an unusual thing for me) and musing on how great it would have been to rub shoulders with the men and women of the classic pulp age (also not unusual). I'd leave Chandler in the bar and go talk ink ribbons and broken underwood keys with the likes of William Ard, Harry Whittington, Day Keene, Margaret Millar, William P. McGivern, Lionel White, W.R. Burnett, Dorothy B. Hughes. The list goes on.<br />
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Then a thought struck me - modern day giants walk among us. Writers who have been publishing for decades and came up in an age when those paperback heroes were beginning their rides off into the sunset. They crossed paths, met and mingled, learned tricks of the trade from the originals. There are links to this black and white world who still write, still pump out words by the thousands. I don't want to make them feel too long in the tooth, but I felt like I was spending too much of my adulation and appreciation on writers who were dead and gone. Yes, the words live on, but how many of these pulp hacks ever got the recognition they deserved in their day? Maybe some, probably not enough.<br />
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It would be a shame to let the next generation suffer the same fate. So I say reach out and praise these prolific links to the past, these masters of their craft, and do it today before it's too late. (And before their books go for triple digits on ebay)<br />
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Right now - today, people! - you can find authors like Bill Crider still slinging out the pages. Crider already has a back catalog as long as both my arms and a leg, but he still churns them out with every word in exactly the right place. He may have started on an IBM selectric rather than an Underwood (but who knows? maybe?) but let's take time now to appreciate the output.<br />
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And what of Bill Pronzini? His nameless detective series is, I believe, now the longest running series in crime fiction history. And he's still going! He's not a museum piece. I picked up a signed copy of Femme just last year.<br />
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Ed Gorman continues to educate us in the classics through his excellent anthologies and blogging, but let's acknowledge his place alongside the greats. Again, still crankin' them out. Not a fossil, a vibrant and entertaining writer we could all learn a thing or two from, I'd bet.<br />
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I've been catching up on my Max Allan Collins lately. What better example of a writer who bridges the gap between the old school and today. The man was best buddies with Mickey Freakin' Spillane for cripes sake. And hot damn he's one of my favorite authors, and his stuff from the 1970s is just as good as his stuff from today. In my fantasy world we'd get to be friends like him and Spillane and he'd let me take over Quarry after he's gone. Hey, I said it was a fantasy. I'd take Nolan too if Quarry is too personal. We're both Iowa boys so maybe? Ok, you're right. I'll stop.<br />
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Lawrence Block. Holy crap, Lawrence Block. The man uses social media as prolifically as a high schooler but you can still pick up copies of his early output that is 100% pure pulp goodness. Find me a darker shade of noir than <i>Mona</i> (AKA Grifter's Game) and that was first published in 1961! And there he is, still kicking, still typing, still going strong and teaching the young punks how to do it.<br />
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Robert Randisi, Wayne Dundee, James Reasoner. These are links to our past and guys who probably don't really love being portrayed as old as I'm making them sound. My point is, these are writers who were slinging ink before there was any debate over ebook vs. print. These are guys who haven't been triple platinum sellers for the most part. But they kept on writing. Tradesmen. No, craftsmen. Constantly working, constantly honing their art, never giving up in the face of a changing publishing world.<br />
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These are today's pulp wordsmiths. They write because it's who they are to the core. They won't last forever and someday another up and comer will lament never being able to know these artisans of wordcraft. But we don't have to let it be that way. They're out there, and thanks to social media, they are often only a click away. It might not be the same as sharing a stool at the bar with Gil Brewer or Chester Himes, but it's better than missing out.<br />
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Make them feel appreciated. I know I wouldn't be here without them, and many others I forgot or don't know yet. There are giants still out there. And we are standing in their shadow.Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-89647988574920292962014-07-03T00:16:00.003-07:002014-07-03T00:16:58.019-07:00Killing Dan Malmon<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So to get the full story, you need to go <a href="http://danielboshea.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/the-kill-malmon-flash-fiction-challenge/">here</a> and read Dan O'Shea's blog. Then come on back and enjoy this story where a perfectly nice man I've never met, yet truly like, gets way worse treatment than he deserves. Or maybe it's exactly what he deserves. Until I meet him in person, the jury's out.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">HOW YOU DO IT</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">(for Dan & Dan)</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Before the phrase, “He’s a cop,” left Rudy’s mouth, a bullet left his gun. Dan heard the start of the sentence, then the bang drowned everything else and the pain blotted out the rest of his senses.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Gut shot. Shit. Detective Dan Malmon had never seen one of these end well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another of the uptown crew, a large man in a tight black t-shirt, ran into the room, gun drawn. He looked at Rudy, smoking 9mm in his hand, then down at the floor and Dan clutching at his stomach, hissing short breaths between clenched teeth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Rudy?” the man asked, looking for an explanation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“He’s a cop,” Rudy said again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“How do you know?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Saw his badge.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The burly man stepped forward to where Dan was trying to sit up. Some part of his diaphragm muscle was torn and he couldn’t bend in the middle any more. Probably the least of his worries. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Check his pockets, G.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The big man, G, moved his gun to his left hand and frisked Dan’s pockets with his right. He came out with a wallet, flipped it open and saw the badge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Told you so,” Rudy said. “So what now?” </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">G said, “We kill him.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rudy seemed offended at the statement. “I already did.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“He ain’t dead. He’s moving.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan tried again for a sit-up, but collapsed to the cement floor with a stifled cry of pain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“He’ll be dead soon,” Rudy said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Says you.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Says the fuckin’ bullet in his liver.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“That ain’t no way to kill a guy.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan feared a demonstration on proper technique was imminent. He rolled to his right. From his vantage point on the floor he could see the pistol taped to the underside of the small table. Only ten feet away. Ten agonizing feet to crawl.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Don’t tell me how to kill a guy,” Rudy said, his chest puffing out with bravado.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Apparently I need to,” G said. He lifted his gun arm and fired a shot into Dan’s back. The detective smacked the floor face first, blood seeping from his mouth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">G turned to Rudy with a satisfied look on his face. “That’s how you do it, mother fu–”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan groaned from the pain of his missing teeth, not the bullet in his back. There was a knife-edge sharpness in his ribs and he was finding it hard to breathe, but the impact of his front teeth on the concrete created a more immediate pain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rudy laughed out loud. “Some expert you are.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“He’s wearing a vest.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“He’s not wearing no vest, G.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rudy stepped over to Dan, hooked a finger through the bullet hole in the back of his shirt and pulled, tearing a wide rip and exposing bare flesh, not Kevlar. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan inched closer to the table, his broken teeth crunching under his palm as he reached for a firm enough grip to drag his body forward.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rudy, standing over the wounded man, said, “You gotta put one in his head, dude.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He lowered his gun, fired a shot that entered Dan’s skull just behind his right ear. G wiggled a finger in his own ear, the sound of the repeated gunshots making everything temporarily muted.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rudy did a wild west finger spin of his gun and slid it, barrel first, into his back pocket, closest he had to a holster. “Now that’s a dead cop.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan’s hand slapped the floor as he reached for more inches in his drive toward the underside of the table and the gun waiting there. Both Rudy and G turned and looked at the bloody man on the floor with a mixture of awe and fear.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Blood poured from Dan’s skull. The bullet had run a clean path behind his ear and come out near his cheek bone. He was totally deaf in that ear and his face hurt like hell where the bullet had blasted its way out, but he was still alive and only five feet from his prize.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Breathing became harder, his progress slower, but the two men intent on killing him were stunned into curious onlooking for a long moment. They watched as Detective Malmon pulled himself along the blood-slick floor, unaware of the pistol at the end of his journey.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“I shot him in the fucking head, man.” Rudy said just above a whisper.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“You put it too low.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“The fuck I did.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">G pointed to the crawling man before them. “You gonna fuckin’ argue with me?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan reached the table leg. He grasped at it, unable to get a grip. His hands were painted in blood. He pushed up with his left arm, a half hearted one-hand pushup. Years of academy training and daily workouts paying off in what could be his last moments.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“We gotta finish this punk,” G said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“I got it,” Rudy said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“No. You already fucked it up twice. I got this one.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dan put a hand on the pistol handle, tried to grasp it, but his fingers weren’t strong enough to pull it free.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“I said I got it.” Rudy marched toward Dan, grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him over on his back to see the face of the unkillable man. In turning Dan, the torque ripped the tape from the bottom of the table, putting the pistol in firing position in the cop’s hand. Rudy’s eyes widened as Dan fired.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">One shot. No question about it. Blood and brain told the tale.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Too weak to sit up, Dan tilted his head forward. G stared into the gaping hole below his eye.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“That,” Dan said, spilling blood from his mouth, “is how you do it.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He fired again, dropping G with a single shot to the heart. Dan slumped to the floor, spent. He coughed twice, blood spraying, then relaxed, wondering if he’d pass out before he drowned on the blood in his own lungs.</span></span></div>
Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-81078943758990813922014-06-20T15:05:00.000-07:002014-06-20T15:05:02.471-07:00Don't Feel Bad For Me<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was the email you always want from your agent. "I think I sold your book."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This was back in May, the weekend of the Edgar awards. The book in question is one I truly believe in, and one that had been rejected before. But this time – with a new imprint and a new editor charged with bringing in exciting new content – it seemed like a go. All we were waiting on, it appeared, was a conference call with the head office. A few weeks of silence followed. Not unusual. Nothing was a given and my standard operating procedure is to assume it will all fall apart.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Today it did. Exhibit A books has closed down.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But don't feel bad for me. There are other writers whose books had sold. Contacts had been signed. Edits had begun. Immensely talented writers like Matthew Funk, Patti Abbott, Rob Hart, Nik Korpon and a host of other writers I'm not lucky enough to call friends like these folks. Books that had been finished and circulating for years in some cases. These are the people you should feel bad for. I was still in a state of hope, a place all writers seem to float in until the ink is dry on the contract. These people were down off the cloud, looking forward, thinking of things like cover art and book tours. All gone now.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And what of this intrepid new editor? Well, Bryon Quertermous is out of a job. That sucks big time. His enthusiasm for Exhibit A was infectious among the crime writing community. You got the sense this was an imprint on the verge. The verge of what, we were misinformed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And Dan O'Shea, who was two books into a trilogy. What happens now?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The book business is brutal. This is not news. I'm sure Angry Robot, Exhibit A's parent company, didn't come to the decision lightly. They absolutely wanted to keep it alive. But if the numbers aren't there, they aren't there. Not much to be done. No blame here. I feel bad for them too.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So I go on. Back to square one, a place firmly imprinted with my footsteps. A place I spend so much time I ought to pay rent. After my deal with Guilt Edged Mysteries I felt like I'd climbed the first rung of the ladder. That turned out not to be true. Good folks, great books, but that imprint has fallen victim to a rethinking of what exactly they are all about. My trilogy of books ended at one. (#2 is written and sitting comfortably on my hard drive for 2 years now.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But all the authors above will keep on writing. Bryon will get another job and he has his own book deal to look forward to. The now homeless books? Right now agents are scrambling to find them new homes. It's not the end of the world, but when hopes are dashed it makes us all into middle schoolers experiencing our first heartbreak. Our date to the dance has stood us up. Mine was still busy making up her mind when I heard through the grapevine that she dropped out of school.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We're alone, but surrounded by the characters we create and the other writers who all have their own version of this story. I've been here many times before throughout my screenwriting career. It is soul crushing and depressing and hurtful and discouraging. But if I haven't quit after all the bullshit up to this point, I'm sure as hell not going to quit now. So don't feel bad for me. </span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-27100500491505280672014-06-10T23:05:00.003-07:002014-06-10T23:05:38.378-07:00We're going Down and Out<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Every time I go on here to give a good news update I realize there are several things I should be mentioning, but I tend not to post about every little thing. That leaves me with a backlog of releases and things to announce, which I guess is a good thing.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In this case, it's a very good thing. Let's start with the big news. I wrote another book with my sometimes co-author, JB Kohl. We collaborated on those two books over there on the side, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/One-Many-Blows-Head-Fokoli/dp/1499236514/ref=sr_1_1_title_2_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402466204&sr=1-1&keywords=one+too+many+blows+to+the+head">One Too Many Blows To The Head</a> and the sequel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Borrowed-Trouble-Ray-Fokoli-2/dp/1499236689/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402466287&sr=1-1&keywords=borrowed+trouble">Borrowed Trouble</a>. (back in print and available for cheap!) One Too Many was the first book I ever had published and Jennifer and I have been writing together off and on ever since. We wrote a whole book that nobody wanted and half of a sequel to that one before pulling the plug. Then we started on this new one, Over Their Heads. After we started Jen moved half way across the country, changed jobs and I continued writing several other projects I was working on. So it dragged on for a while. A year to be exact. Odd for us, but we kept it going through the down times. (one lag left us with a whole month off after I sent her the updated draft and she thought she was waiting on me to get back to her. Confusion where we both thought the other was a total slacker only to end up going, "Oops. Sorry.")</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We love the book. It's a crazy caper with a SUV full of drugs, a family on vacation, some stolen money, a drug mule named Skeeter, several errant gun shots, a woman giving birth, stolen identities, and so much more.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But us finishing isn't the good news, though it felt damn good. We're going to be publishing the book through the good folks at <a href="http://downandoutbooks.com/">Down & Out books</a>!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They are a great indie publisher of gritty and original crime novels and we're proud to be a part of it. We're on the schedule for early 2015 and we're going to get a cover by the ultra talented JT Lindross.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Speaking of amazing covers, a release I haven't mention yet is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bishop-Hancocks-Pulse-Fiction-Volume/dp/1499697430/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1402465921&sr=1-1">Pulse Fiction</a>. This throwback pulp anthology is another from the mind of Paul Bishop and Tommy Hancock of Pro Se productions. This is classic pulp fiction in a variety of stories and it includes my caper, Diamonds Are A Girl's Worst Friend </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">featuring cat burglar Holly Lake and her adventures in early 60s Paris.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Seriously, look at that baby! All the stories are exciting and offer two-fisted action and all the great pulp characters and storylines you know you love. Check it out.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And we're up to Book #4 of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B00KR0VXW2/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1402466482&sr=1-3&keywords=the+year+i+died+seven+times">The Year I Died Seven Times</a>! We're over the halfway mark. The craziness keeps on rolling. Book #5 drops in July. Each installment only a buck!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The print versions are going through a small update. They're getting cheaper! <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-beetner/the-year-i-died-seven-times-book-4/paperback/product-21664521.html">Book 4</a> reflects the new price with the others to follow. A lot of making-the-sausage stuff you don't want to know about it, but just trust me that Beat To A Pulp publisher David Cranmer is a man of infinite patience. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We're getting dangerously close to the release of Trouble In The Heartland, the anthology based on Bruce Springsteen song titles and one that promises to be a big deal. I really like my story in that one, even if I did take a risk by doing something fairly off beat that I'm sure some people might not like. But, oh well. You have to challenge yourself as a writer now and then.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">More news soon. Sooner than later. And there is some big stuff coming.</span></div>
<br />Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-85610154529882001782014-04-26T20:38:00.000-07:002014-04-26T20:38:01.122-07:00Done with the lie<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I used to say I wasn't a series guy. I didn't really read series, didn't care for them, wouldn't get on board. Well, I can't honestly say that anymore now that I look at my bookshelf.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I still prefer stand-alones, in most cases. I like the added jeopardy. It's always been one of my biggest beefs with a series character – you know they're going to be fine. There's no stakes. My other trepidation is always the ongoing series that started way before I became aware of them. I'm just not going to devote so much of my reading time catching up on, say, Sue Grafton's series starting from A. Not gonna happen. She's a lovely woman and I'm sure she writes like a dream, but I'll never know.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But more and more series have been creeping into my life, mostly series I was able to get in on the ground floor of. Even a few older series have been taking up a lot of my reading time because they're so damn good.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Let's start with a few classics. I've read about half of Chandler, and the novels never did much for me. I love his short stories because you get all the hardboiled patter usually without the mystery/P.I. plot. I discovered a long time ago I'm not much for traditional whodunit mysteries. I like a story that propels forward and the traditional mystery is all about piecing together bits of the past, looking backward, adding up clues which leads to scenes of misdirection, dead ends and all too often the scenes/chapters of hashing out and reminding the reader what is known and not known. Dull, I think.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">However, take the Parker novels of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake). These I can get behind. I've read more than a half dozen Parker novels now and I really liked each of them. As a character I like him, the plots are exciting and Westlake is a no nonsense writer. My type of guy. I plan to keep working my way through the Parker canon.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I think Chester Himes is one of the most underrated crime novelists. His Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed series are respected by those in the know, but relatively obscure by the general populace. These books are exciting and always surprising. Himes knew how to throw you off the scent while still entertaining the hell out of you. The journey to solving the central case is exciting as hell, even with Coffin Ed and Gravedigger off stage for much of the action, unusual for a mystery novel.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I've done 7 of the Lew Archer series and I think I'm about done with those. Too much dialogue, too much action happens off stage. People are always stumbling in on an already dead body. I like the action, not the mystery. This is why I don't care for Agatha Christie either. I like Ross MacDonald's voice as a writer, I just wish Archer weren't so passive a character.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Most of the series I anticipate new releases in these days are writers I've met and admire. Kelli Stanley has a new book in her Miranda Corbie series coming soon and I'm genuinely excited for it. Imagine that. Me, a series book excites me. I feel the same way about a new Owen Laukkanen entry in his Stevens and Windermere series, though those play less as a series and more like linked standalones. He seemed to fully embrace that he was writing a series with Kill Fee, putting his two main characters much more front and center than in the first two books.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I've praised Steve Hockensmith's Holmes On The Range series before, usually with the backhanded compliment that I shouldn't like these books so much. But, dammit, I do. There are five of those, and that seems about right, though if he writes a sixth, I'll read it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Trilogies feel good to me. Duane Sweirczynski's Charlie Hardie series was a great rip-snorting trilogy. Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky's Ania trilogy is a great trio of modern crime novels. Charlie Huston's Hank Thompson books are a great three and out.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Let's not forget Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt books, too. Rebecca Cantrell's Hannah Vogel books are a great peek into a world I knew little about in pre- and post-war Berlin.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And then there's Hap and Leonard. Joe Lansdale is one of my favorite writers, and my slow doling out of the Hap and Leonard series (not done yet, but close) is a great treat every time one comes up in my TBR pile. Like two old friends, I'm glad to see them again. Perhaps more than any other, these two made me appreciate the value of a good series.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Max Allan Collins' Quarry series is another winner for me. Much like Parker, this flawed and morally questionable character is just plain fun to read about. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And I've read all the Sailor and Lula books by Barry Gifford, though those are more like branches on a tree than a real continuing series. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So you can see, I can't say I'm not a series guy any more. I'm sure I'm forgetting some and there are some still on deck I haven't invested enough time in to comment on properly. Then there are series still in their infancy. Johnny Shaw's sequel to Dove Season is out very soon and Plaster City is one of the books I'm most looking forward to this year. Christa Faust dangled in front of me that she is starting research for a new Angel Dare book and that was exciting news. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But I'm not afraid of them anymore. I still won't be starting anything that is already 15 or 20 books in. That ship has sailed. But my reading has broadened because I'm no longer afraid to say I read series.</span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-89825033536697767312014-04-24T22:26:00.002-07:002014-04-24T22:26:39.119-07:00No longer OOP<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'll admit for a long time I had no idea what OOP meant in reference to books. When I realized it meant Out Of Print I felt like an idiot. Well, now none of my books a have that awkward sounding label. See, nobody noticed but the two novels I wrote with JB Kohl, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/One-Many-Blows-Head-Fokoli-ebook/dp/B00JVHHV0U/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398402110&sr=1-7">One Too Many Blows To The Head</a> and the sequel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Borrowed-Trouble-Ray-Fokoli-Kohl-ebook/dp/B00JWF2IM2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1398403489&sr=1-1&keywords=borrowed+trouble">Borrowed Trouble</a>, had gone out of print. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We regained the rights from the publisher, who were kind and generous people to work with and we are forever in their debt for giving us a chance to publish those books. But the books had played themselves out after nearly 5 years (!) and 4 years, respectively. So we took them back and now have self-released them for super cheap. The ebook anyway is only .99 now and forever, save an occasional free promo. The print versions are working their way through the system and should be available shortly at $12.99, which was basically the minimum we could set the price. Deal with it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Also, I included them in the Amazon matchbook program so if you purchased a print copy in the past, you can get the ebook for free.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We really hope these books continue to have a life. We think they're really good and so have most people who've read them, which might not be many but they're dedicated. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So welcome back to the world of being a book, my two oldest children. And Jen and I are kicking around ideas for a third book. Three seems right, doesn't it? And since we're in charge of Ray and Dean now, why the hell not?</span><br />
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<br />Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-82546334386104481682014-04-22T22:34:00.001-07:002014-04-22T22:34:59.184-07:00White Hot Pistol still loadedMy novella, White Hot Pistol, is out and about in the world, but with little fanfare. Naturally I think that's a shame because I'm the author. The good news is the people who are reading it are liking it. I submit as evidence, <a href="http://iuchiatesoro.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/white-hot-pistol-by-eric-beetner/">this review</a> which calls it "A fine example of hardboiled modern pulp."<br />
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So, if you like a story that, "starts at quite a pace and it doesn't let up for an instant," you should check out this nasty little slice of noir. Book 2 in the Noirville tales will be out before you know it and you don't want to miss out, right?<br />
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Want a taste? The <a href="http://ericbeetner.blogspot.com/2013/12/white-hot-pistol-chapter-1.html">first chapter is right here</a>.<br />
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<br />Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-79028330233552623552014-04-03T23:27:00.000-07:002014-04-03T23:27:04.420-07:00Interview with David Oppegaard<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">David Oppegaard has a new book out, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/And-Hills-Opened-David-Oppegaard/dp/0988672715/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1396592459&sr=1-1">And The Hills Opened Up</a>. It's a wild and weird trip to the old west where outlaws, miners and isfits do battle with the fabled Charred Man. Part horror novel and part western gunslinger this, like all of Oppegaard's work, is a unique book to say the least. </span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Curious about where these crazy ideas come from, I asked David a few questions. </span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You write cross-genre hybrids. What are your influences for that stuff? You seem to be operating in your own little world.</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I read a ton when I was very young and I guess all the genres sort of mashed together in my brain. We had a reading program in my elementary school that gave out prizes for reading Newbery books and reporting on them. I’d show up in the school library almost every morning and give a fresh report to the librarian. I don’t even think I really understood the concept of “genre” until high school.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Do you start with a conventional story and then twist it as you go or do these ideas come fully formed out of some twisted furnace in your brain?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Every book’s a little different, but I suppose I start with an idea for a story that interests me and purposefully twist as I go along. <i>The Suicide Collectors</i>, for example, started as thought experiment-could I come up with a unique apocalypse? My goal is to never write the same book twice.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And The Hills Opened Up is a little like a campfire tale. Is there any true to life origin for the story?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I love a good campfire tale! I did base Red Earth on a few copper mining towns in the northern Sierra Madres in southern Wyoming around roughly the same time period. These were remote company towns that revolved on working twelve hours underground a day, drinking, and sleeping. I did a lot of copper mine research for the novel as well.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWH40QJi_cI788nee5BQVMq0UkH3NspnUJDdvoWelmKPBaNBXWcphCcrj7Z0EvhhOKLz4bWUEeQVo61Usl1brZND8Yfcwjys-7xlf5ZpzA5XRi4U8dLtloBcplnebRsTc7915q6DapWWQ/s1600/Oppegaard.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWH40QJi_cI788nee5BQVMq0UkH3NspnUJDdvoWelmKPBaNBXWcphCcrj7Z0EvhhOKLz4bWUEeQVo61Usl1brZND8Yfcwjys-7xlf5ZpzA5XRi4U8dLtloBcplnebRsTc7915q6DapWWQ/s1600/Oppegaard.JPG" height="400" width="261" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Why was it important for the story to be set in 1890 instead of today</b>?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I think the past is underserved in horror literature-think how much darker and horrific the world must have appeared to be back in the day. Plus, I love westerns and 1890 fell right on the far edge of the typical “western” time period.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You’ve written about meteors falling to earth, the end of the world or at least The Despair, and now the Charred Man. Why do you want to destroy humanity?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don’t want destroy it, personally, but I do think it’s doing a pretty good job at destroying itself. It was reported recently that a NASA-funded study stated industrial civilization was headed for an “irreversible collapse”. I thought the most telling thing to come out of that study was how nobody really gave a damn about it, even the folks who acknowledged it was probably true. The human race seems to lack the ability to truly understand that failure is an option, that we’re <i>not</i> too big to fail. Which, of course, is the downfall of every smug villain in history.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Do you ever feel silly having to state “this is a work of fiction” at the start of your books?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You mean on the copyright page? Yeah, I guess that exists to cover everybody’s ass. I’ve also noticed every novel needs to have “A Novel” marked on the front cover beneath the title. Back in the day people knew a goddamn novel when they saw one.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Behind the curtain question: how have you liked working with a smaller press (Burnt Bridge) on this book? Is And The Hills Opened Up the kind of book a big publisher is just not going to get behind these days?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">HILLS certainly made the rounds at major publishing houses and earned much praise but never sold. My agent believes it was the western part of western-horror, that people aren’t buying much western fiction right now. My editor at Burnt Bridge was Mark Rapacz, an old buddy of mine from the Hamline University MFA program. Working with Mark was great and I had a lot of input in the cover, the overall layout, etc. An ideal process, really.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Obviously you eschew the "write what you know" school of advice, or else you have a really interesting life. What's the thing you know now that you wish you'd known when you first started writing?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That’s an interesting question. Maybe it’s better not to know too much when you’re starting out, because if you’re too self-aware (or truly aware of how hard the writing life is to pursue) you might never set out at all. I’ve written fourteen novels total and it’s been a constant learning process. I might tell younger Dave to make sure he’s truly enjoying whatever he’s writing about and to make sure that sense of enjoyment remains a constant guide.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I see a lot of Joe Lansdale in And The Hills Opened Up, and that's high praise from me. Who do you read on a regular basis and who should we be reading more of?</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I think folks should just be reading more, period. I visit my library at least once a week a leave with a handful of books. I sort of plow through everything, let it sift through my brain, and hopefully it all makes me a better writer and person. Still, I admit I watch way too much TV.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In the western vein of literature I recently read and highly recommend <i>Lonesome Dove</i> by Larry McMurtry and <i>The Sisters Brothers </i>by Patrick deWitt. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I can second my love of <a href="http://60secondbookreviews.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-sisters-brothers-by-patrick-dewitt.html">The Sisters Brothers</a>. Thanks, David, for stopping by. </span></div>
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Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-32720835748351527132014-03-31T23:25:00.000-07:002014-03-31T23:25:17.019-07:00I had to<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A few weeks ago <a href="http://www.stevehockensmith.com/">Steve Hockensmith</a> and I were trading quips on Twitter, as you do. It's common knowledge that Hockensmith is quippier than I and somewhere in the exchange where I threatened to turn to writing for children he suggested some fake titles. Well, they were too good to pass up. When I first read <i>Charlotte's Web Of Deceit</i>, the ideas flowed. And I'm not one to leave a good idea on the side of the road. So I had to.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So blame Mr. Hockensmith (then read all his books, which are all top of the heap excellent) and to Steve, my apologies for dragging your name into this. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I decided to put the story up here because really, who's going to publish this? Of course, if you want to, just drop me a line. Otherwise, feel free to link to it, copy and paste it, print it out and distribute it to a first grade class. Just give me credit where credit is due, and don't leave out Steve Hockensmith. He ought to suffer the same wrath I do from the legions of fans this book deservedly has.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">CHARLOTTE’S WEB OF DECEIT</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">by Eric Beetner</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(For Steve Hockensmith)</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">From high in the rafters above the pig pen, Charlotte watched as the afternoon crowd of curious onlookers pushed and squeezed against each other for a look at her web.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Well, folks, that about wraps it up for today," Mr. Zuckerman said. "Wilbur needs his beauty rest."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"He sure is some pig," someone in the crowd said, echoing the words woven into Charlotte’s web.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As the crowd began to disperse the folks waved at Wilbur, some blew kisses, but same as the other days since the first message appeared, nobody thanked Charlotte. They didn't glance upwards to the rafters where she hid, nobody mentioned the skill of the web making, only the words written in silk as if some divine hand had put them there and not the midnight artistry of a skilled weaver. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The animals in the barnyard all said a goodnight to Wilbur. The sheep and the lambs spoke in a chorus. The goose with her fast talking skronk, “Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight Wilbur.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Even Templeton the rat paused as he left the trough with an armload of uneaten apple cores and corn cobs. “‘Night Wilbur. Save me some breakfast, will ya?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Will do, Templeton,” Wilbur said cheerfully.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But did anyone say goodnight to Charlotte? No.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Below, Wilbur strutted with a newfound pride while overhead Charlotte simmered with her own new feeling – jealousy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That pig, who wallowed in filth all day long, was seen as some sort of miracle, some great achievement. And for what? Because someone said something nice about him in a web? What did he do to earn their respect and adulation? Nothing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She was the one. The artist. The inspiration. The savior. She kept the axe from his neck and nobody even knew she existed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As the sun set the spider rubbed her forelegs together and gave in to the arachnid thoughts playing across her mind. She decided that night to weave a different message.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">•••</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Pa, come quick. There's a new message in Wilbur's pen!"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The excitement across the barnyard never seemed to dull with each new message Charlotte spun. As the farmer and his wife gathered at the gate with Lurvy the farmhand and young Fern beside them, they all stared up into the web, still glistening with early morning dew and cast golden by the breaking sun reaching the barn posts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The usual excited chatter was, this morning, replaced by a slack-jawed silence. Mr. Zuckerman broke the quiet first.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Am I reading that right?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Wilbur, who couldn't read, let the piggish smile drop from his face as he turned to the rafters where Charlotte hid in the shadows. She was exhausted from the night’s work, but she had to see the reaction first hand. The looks on their faces were as delicious as a horsefly caught in the center of her web.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The animals all joined the Zuckermans, little Fern and Lurvy as they stared up at the new word: TASTY.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">•••</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They kept it to themselves this time. No crowds came to gawk. Nobody patted Wilbur's rump with its stiff bristly hairs and smell of manure and rotten leftovers from the farmer’s kitchen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Maybe it's like a double meaning," Lurvy said. "Tasty means good, right? Maybe it's just a different way of saying good."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This seemed to brighten everyone's mood, or at least clear away the confusion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"By golly I think you're right," Mr. Zuckerman said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Charlotte steamed in her hiding spot as the call was put out to let the rubberneckers come. They were told a new message was written in the web and it meant good. In no time at all the word passed through the crowd and gained new meaning. That new car Del got was mighty <i>tasty</i>. The rains brought crops this year that were awful <i>tasty</i> compared with last year. Fern’s new dress looked positively <i>tasty</i> on her.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When evening settled and the humans had gone, Wilbur thanked Charlotte in his usual childlike squeaky voice, a voice Charlotte had begun to despise.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Gee, thanks Charlotte," Wilbur said. "I sure wish I had your gift of vocabulary. Sometimes you use words I never knew what they truly meant."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Yes, of course, Wilbur. My pleasure. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm dead tired because of all my hard work on your behalf." Charlotte retreated to her hiding place in the rafters. "Why, it's been two days since I’ve caught so much as a mosquito. These new webs aren't exactly designed for catching dinner you know."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Gosh, Charlotte, you’re ever so nice to me."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That's all she got. Not an offer to tear down the web so she could eat. He'd rather her starve than stop the flood of well wishers and sycophants coming by to pretend his dung didn't stink. Well, it did. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That night she knitted a word in silk that no one could misinterpret.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">•••</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mr. Zuckerman's slack jaw had an extra quality to it the next morning. A bit of drool forming in the corners of his mouth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Absently he licked his lips as he stared up at the newly spun word in the morning light. His eyes went from the web down to Wilbur, then back to the web and the word frozen there: BACON.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"What's it say, Charlotte?" Wilbur asked.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"It says bacon."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"And what's that?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Templeton slithered out from under the slop trough. "You don't know what bacon is?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Charlotte cut him off before he could continue. "More important than what it means, Wilbur, is the fact that everyone loves bacon."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Everyone?" Wilbur asked in a hopeful voice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Everyone."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Chilled by the spider's calm demeanor, Templeton slid back into hiding, away from Charlottes compound eyes, which seemed to glow a little bit red today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Talk around the farmyard was hushed that day. The farmer and Lurvy stood to the side and whispered, pointing at Wilbur and then shaking their heads as if they didn't know what to do.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But Charlotte did.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The next morning Charlotte unveiled her masterpiece. Rendered in silk, in 3/4 scale, was a complete outline of a hog with dotted lines (a tricky feat in web silk) marking the different cuts of meat. She'd outlined ham hocks, pork chops, the loins, the belly, the rump. It was a rendering worthy of the finest butcher shop in town.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A meeting was called in the Zuckerman’s house.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The sheep avoided the area of the pig pen all day. The goose kept a squinty eye on Charlotte, half starved yet looking fully satiated.</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Gee, Charlotte," Wilbur said. "Sure is quiet today."</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"That's life on a farm, Wilbur. Trust me, things will get very exciting soon. Don't you know what they say about the calm before the storm?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Golly you're smart."</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>And you're dumb</i>, thought Charlotte. <i>Ignorant. Dimwitted. Imbecilic. Moronic.</i> All the juicy words she could weave into her web were delicious on her tongue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">No crowds came that day. No parades, no songs in Wilbur's honor. The silence, to Charlotte, was blissful.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">•••</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On Easter Sunday the eggs were gathered from the chicken coops and hidden around the yard. Fern and her cousins all shrieked as they ran to find the hidden treasures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The mood in the barn was quiet different. Sullen, the animals shuffled feet and tried not to lift their noses to the smells coming from the kitchen in the farmhouse. The sweet glaze over the ham, the salty tang in the air of slow roasted meat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The pig pen stood empty. Above, Charlotte was busy spinning a web. No words, nothing fancy, just a time honored method of gathering food. The circle of life and all that.</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She felt the hard glare of eyes below and Charlotte stopped her work to look at the sheep watching her. Templeton stared from the fence post and the goose narrowed her eyes from beyond the pen. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Yes?" Charlotte said.</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"How could you?" said the sheep.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"How could I what?"</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"You sent Wilbur to his death. Now he's supper on the table."</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Wasn't that always to be his fate? Isn't that the fate for all of you?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A murmur ran through the assembled crowd of animals. The goose stretched her long neck and spoke to Charlotte in an accusing tone. "What kind, what kind of monster are you?"</span></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Charlotte smiled and went back to her web spinning. "Why, a black widow of course."</span></span></div>
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Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-37264862363681562332014-03-19T01:26:00.003-07:002014-03-19T01:26:58.327-07:00I'm cheap<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Just for fun let's go over how many books of mine, or that I'm included in, you can get for only .99. Ready? Let's go:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Books<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B00HWEWUUA/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_26?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217216&sr=1-26"> #1</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B00IPPA7UU/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217276&sr=1-20">#2</a> of The Year I Died Seven Times</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My short story collection, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bouquet-Bullets-Eric-Beetner-ebook/dp/B008PGB294/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217308&sr=1-6">A Bouquet Of Bullets</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My cannibals and strippers novella <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stripper-Pole-World-Schlock-Drive-ebook/dp/B00DYOVE3G/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217308&sr=1-9">Stripper Pole At The End Of The World</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The 2nd of my Fightcard novellas, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mouth-Full-Blood-Fight-Card-ebook/dp/B008GWEXYS/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395216997&sr=1-14">A Mouth Full Of Blood</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The anthology <a href="http://www.amazon.com/BEAT-PULP-Hardboiled-Robert-Randisi-ebook/dp/B00BKPR8XG/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217308&sr=1-8">Beat To A Pulp: Hardboiled 2</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The original <a href="http://www.amazon.com/PULP-INK-Eric-Beetner-ebook/dp/B005HB3TDW/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217081&sr=1-23">Pulp Ink</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The crime and horror (my story is both) anthology <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pulp-Ink-2-Julia-Madeleine-ebook/dp/B008I9DGYC/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217308&sr=1-10">Pulp Ink 2</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Off-Record-Charity-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B009GYPVIW/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217081&sr=1-18">Both</a> of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Off-Record-Charity-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B006EU1E7S/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217040&sr=1-17">Off The Record</a> anthologies</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The humor anthology <a href="http://www.amazon.com/JUNK-Danger-Slater-ebook/dp/B00H2UEIKE/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217081&sr=1-21">Junk</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The crazy crime anthology <a href="http://www.amazon.com/CKED-Dark-Fiction-Inspired-Cheney-ebook/dp/B005IQZQ8W/ref=la_B002UCBDCU_1_25?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395217216&sr=1-25">D*CKED</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You're welcome.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In other news, I got more copies of Criminal Economics in. We're nearing 100 when this run of limited edition paperback copies will end. So contact me if you want one. $10, plus $3 shipping. Hand numbered and signed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Or buy all that stuff above for the same price. Up to you. </span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-83369596162407431582014-03-06T00:51:00.000-08:002014-03-06T00:51:29.607-08:00Book #2 - moving along<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If it's March then <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B00IPPA7UU/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1394095391&sr=1-2&keywords=the+year+i+died+seven+times">Book #2 of The Year I Died Seven Times</a> must be out. And looky there, it is! People seem to be getting hooked on Ridley and his desperate search for the girl of his dreams. <a href="http://crimespreemag.com/the-year-i-died-seven-times-book-1/">Crimespree Magazine</a> sure did love it, and for a crime writer that's kinda like the New York Times giving you a rave.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And now each installment is only .99, for you who thought the extra fifty cents was just too much. Get on board now, the next installment is coming next month. It will all wrap up by November so you have all summer to look forward to more action, more intrigue, more deaths. After that the whole book will be available in one volume, but the <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-beetner/the-year-i-died-seven-times/paperback/product-21406910.html">print version</a> of each step of the way is still there for the collectors among you.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As long as I'm here talking about good things, <a href="http://noirjournal.tumblr.com/post/78733435357/i-read-dig-two-graves-in-one-sitting">another review</a> came across my desk for the little book that lives on – Dig Two Graves. I share it because it feels good for my ego and I've been informed I need to get over the inclination to shy away from praise. This would be a good time to do that, however, since the reviewer makes the absurd assertion that my little book is in the same league as Chandler, Hammett, Cain, Thompson and Hinkson. That hyperbole aside, I love reading when someone really enjoys a book. So, y'know, if you were thinking of doing it and wondering, do authors like that? Yes. Yes, we do.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-67170886090908784612014-02-10T23:50:00.001-08:002014-02-10T23:50:18.043-08:00The myth of the "pantsers"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is an eternal question among writers: are you an outliner or a pantser?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I outline, and everyone I know who came from screenwriting does the same. I'm not saying it's the "right" way to do it, but it's my way. I have my own quirks, as everyone does. Yes, we're all special little snowflakes. Now that we got that out of the way, I get a little annoyed at the occasional (read as: not everyone does it so calm the fuck down before you get offended at my opinion) but the occasional attitude of the non-outliner, or write-by-the-seat-of-the-pants people. I get the feeling, now and then, that they think this is a more "real" way of writing. Like I use an outline as a crutch. Like I'm stifling my creativity by forcing myself to adhere to a predetermined structure.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Um, no.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So, without endorsing this as the way you should do it, because you should write however the hell you want to, and because I think 99.9% of all writing advice is bullshit and absolutely 100% of all unsolicited writing advice is dangerous, toxic bullshit you should avoid like a glowing meteor that fell in your yard - here's why I think outlining is better.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>First</b>: The truth is, at some point, it's all made up out of the ether. We're all "pantsing" it. It's what making up a story is. Whether I do it and then write down those snippets of ideas and form it into a structure and work out plot holes, narrative inconsistencies and character before I start writing chapter headings doesn't mean at some point I was just riffing and making shit up.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have strange ways of working on my ideas and forming outlines. I like to think about a story for a long time before I formally write it all down, but it's all part of the writing process. I hit on an idea and I roll it around for a while. If it sticks with me I know I'm on to something, and really my only criteria is if it is a book I'd like to read. Well, the only way I'm going to get to read that book is if I write it so . . . off I go. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But I still think on it. I think before I take notes. Then I write some stuff down, longhand. When it seems like a real story and not something I'm going to get to 20K words and find I've used up my story, then I set down to do a real outline.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Second</b>: Outlines are flexible.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My outlines are fairly sparse. 'He goes to the apartment' may end up as a 3K word chapter. And they are flexible. This myth the pantsers have that outliners sit with a ruler and stick to what they've outlined as if we were German SS troops who must <i>stick to zee outline at all costs!</i> Not how it works. If the story takes a different direction, then great. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I knew a guy who was working on his first novel and he told me he had about 70 pages of notes and outlines. To me, that's excessive. But again, it's your process, man. Do your thing.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Third</b>: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don't like to rewrite. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don't really know anyone who does. A lot of writers will say this is where the "real" writing takes place, but I disagree.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And since I outline, since I don't meander toward a story, I do very little rewriting. I rewrite for polish, for grammar, to fix mistakes in my own inadequate language skills and punctuation bugaboos. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So if you don't outline, you don't get to complain about how painful your rewrites are and lament on how you had to toss out all of chapter 4 and start again.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Four</b>: since when is planning ahead a bad thing?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I think of it like remodeling a house. If you build the house, paint it, put the carpets in, decorate it and then step back to look and only then say, "Y'know what, that door should be over there." Well, shit, that's a hell of a lot harder to do than making the change from a guest bedroom to a padded sex dungeon when it's all studs and plywood.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I believe in pre-production. You iron out the kinks, you strive for consistency. Then you set down to the building. And it's not like the old Hitchcock thing where he allegedly said the actual shooting of a movie was boring because he had it all thought out beforehand. You might know where the story is going, but isn't the pleasure in writing the words, the sentence structure and finding the perfect way to describe that sound when a fat man falls down the stairs while wearing tap shoes?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Outlines don't stifle creativity. If anything, I think it frees me up to focus on the words because the plot is already sorted out. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So if you don't outline, keep on keeping on. But don't sneer at the outliners and treat us like we write with training wheels on.</span></div>
<br />Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-1674533976785845622014-01-30T19:13:00.002-08:002014-01-30T19:13:39.804-08:00Video chat<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5l-hPJYegAA?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>The good folks at Bookxy, publishers of my novella White Hot Pistol, sat me and a ton of other authors down for little chats. Here's mine. I give you a little about the book, a few of my desert island reads, and my favorite line in all of noir fiction. Give it a gander, then check out then whole crew (well, half. There is another one just like this) for a roundtable discussion on the future of publishing. (below)<br />
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Check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWLr8u09Kqc2iH9qcFYp24A?feature=watch">Bookxy's YouTube channel</a> for interviews with each Bookxy author. Good stuff all.<br />
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Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-26532289505615210472014-01-16T22:22:00.000-08:002014-01-16T22:22:14.205-08:00A new way to do it<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So I had this book, see . . . and nobody wanted to publish it. Well, really I didn't try very hard. But it was there and just hanging out, waiting patiently in line behind a bunch of others. I wanted to put it out in a manner suiting the very different nature of the book. See, it comes in seven installments. It just sort of worked out that way. Maybe because the book is called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Died-Seven-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B00HWEWUUA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389938865&sr=1-1&keywords=the+year+i+died+seven+times">The Year I Died Seven Times</a> and the protagonist (not a spoiler alert at all) dies at the end of each section. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Oh, he's not dead-dead. It's not a zombie novel. He just dies a little bit. Technically. Clinically dead I think they call it. Anyway, I had this book . . .</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Well, I pitched the idea to my pal David over at Beat To A Pulp. My idea was to put out each section on the BTAP site and then when they were all there collect them up and put them out as a book. He did me one better. Put each out as it's own little book and let the story build like an old time serial. Or, as it turns out, <i>The Green Mile</i> from Stephen King. I had no idea Green Mile originally came out as short novellas one at a time and added up to a full book. Well, it sounded good to me. Most of all it sounded <i>different</i>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We went for it. And now here it is.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The plan is this: Over the course of 2014 we will release all seven volumes in the month the story takes place. So, first installment is January. Next one is March. And so on. By the end of the year – November actually, you don't even have to wait a whole year – the book will be released in its entirety and then we'll collect up all the pieces and put them in one volume. But who can wait for that?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Each book will be available as an ebook for the low, low price of 1.49 and then we are also doing a print version as a collectors edition. I'm designing each book cover to work as a set so only when you have all 7 on your shelf do the spines line up and make sense. Those cost more, but like I said, it's a collector's item. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'm excited for this book to get out there. It's fun and kinda funny, I think, and along the way you watch as a guy gets his life ruined and ended in outlandish, surprising and painful ways. And he does it all for love. Yep, love kills. Seven times.</span>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-12778438068898201112013-12-24T01:54:00.000-08:002017-07-18T08:03:10.277-07:00Favorites of 2013<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px; text-indent: 36.0px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I didn’t keep track of what I read this year and I’m realizing that was a mistake. I’m figuring I made it darn close to 100 books if you include audiobooks and the did not finish pile, which for me can grow quite large. I’m impatient, what can I say?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I also made a concerted effort to read outside the crime genre this year. It yielded some good books like the nonfiction <i>Lost In Shangri-La</i>, which was a fascinating story very well told. It confirmed some things I thought I knew but wanted to test again, like the fact that I just don’t care for much Sci-Fi. But y’know, I tried brussel sprouts again this year after buying the hype that they were the poster veggie for all that is tasteless and lame about greens only to discover I love brussel sprouts. Go figure. The same did not hold true for <i>The Martian Chronicles</i>, which I found silly. And I tried one of the John Carter of Mars books but just couldn’t get into it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I tried a few more “literary” titles. Charles Frazier’s <i>Nightwoods</i> on audio was a beautiful experience. The words were like honey in my ears and the reader was perfect. Not much happened in the book and I’d bet if I were reading it I would have put it down. Glad I did the audio instead. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Keith Rawson will hunt me down and kill me for saying so, but I couldn't get into <i>Once Upon A River</i>. Well written, but it meandered like a lazy . . . well, like something I can't think of right now.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But on to the crime fiction books I loved. As always I am playing catch up with most titles and so not everything here came out in 2013, but I tried to keep it fairly contemporary. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Angel Baby</i> by Richard Lange is fighting hard for the top spot of the year for me. I knew nothing about it going in, which I love, and was totally enthralled from the opening. It is a dark tale and follows a structure I’ve come to find is my favorite type of book – a story of a crime or some bad folks told from several points of view as things spiral more and more out of control. It’s what I love in some of last years favorites like <i>Last Call For The Living</i> and <i>The Terror Of Living</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Lange spins a brutal tale that never wallows. The characters are all real and there is a real rooting interest here. At least once I think I audibly gasped when one plot point hit, and it was from sheer emotion. “No! You can’t do that to her!” I knew I was invested.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Happy to say Lange will be joining us at our Feb 9th noir at the bar. I’m hoping to have his other novel, <i>This Wicked World</i> finished by then. I immediately went out and bought it after <i>Angel Baby</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Criminal Enterprise</i> by Owen Laukkanen</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>The Professionals</i> blew me away and it’s just not fair how well Laukkanen keeps up the tension and action in the second volume of his Stephens and Windemere series. Once again the focus is on the criminal more than the law officers who are the series regulars, and it works brilliantly because of it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’m not a police procedural guy and these books are the perfect antidote to the rote law enforcement books. By focusing on the desperate characters at the center of the mayhem, Laukkanen makes us feel for the real people behind the crimes to the point where we almost want Carter Tomlin to get away with it. Almost.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Laukkanen isn’t afraid to let his criminals dive deep into the muck. These books are the ultimate income inequality cautionary tales. This is 100% contemporary fiction that I guarantee will be just as good and relevant fifty years from now. They deserve to be around that long, too. Can’t wait for <i>Kill Fee</i> next year.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Out Of The Black</i> by John Rector</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Talk about criminals we care about. This book takes a man to his breaking point. It is not for the timid. As a father of daughters, it skirted the limits of what was comfortable and made me squirm. And that’s a good thing. I cared. I was right there with him every step of the way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rector is the modern noir master of “What would I do?” fiction. I felt that in every sentence of <i>The Cold Kiss</i>, <i>Already Gone</i> and now <i>Out Of The Black</i>. He also had the excellent novella Lost Things this year. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rumors that he may be slowing down his output make me antsy. I could read a new John Rector book every three months. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Go With Me</i> by Castle Freeman - <i>Hard Cold Whisper</i> by Michael Hemmingson - <i>Driving Alone</i> by Kevin Lynn Helmick</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I group these three short novels together because they all came recommended from the same source - Brain Lindenmuth over at Snubnose Press. He put out a list of modern noir and I started buying them up, not to be disappointed yet. These three stood out.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Go With Me</i> reminded me a bit of Barry Gifford, but with more focus. The prose is spare and the story slight. It doesn’t sink into the hyperbole many thrillers can devolve into. It’s a quiet book, but I was totally absorbed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Hard Cold Whisper</i> is nothing new. It’s a classic femme fatale noir tale, but for something that reads like an old Popular Library paperback, it’s truly modern. Brief and tough, this was a great just-gimmie-what-I-want story.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Driving Alone</i> was like a fever dream. As sweat-soaked as a Louisiana summer this one grabbed me with it’s gumbo-thick prose and swept me along with a story I had to get to the end of and then realized I had no idea what to expect when I got there. Good, gothic noir fun.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>A Single Shot</i> by Matthew F. Jones</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I didn’t see the film adapted from this novel this year and it flopped, but when I saw the trailer I thought casting Sam Rockwell was a stroke of genius.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">At first I thought this book was going to try to be all deep and literary on me, but as it evolved it became the rare perfect blend of a pulpy story with a masterful writer at the helm. One of those books than made me feel like all my own writing is shit. And really, isn’t that the best compliment a writer can give?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Pine Box For A Pin-Up</i> by Frank DeBlase</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The good folks at Down and Out books put out some really interesting stuff. I read this one in a single shot on an airplane and loved the hell out of it. It’s a loving homage to old school pulp fiction, but with a protagonist who rose above the pastiche and clearly marked signposts of this little amateur detective tale.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">DeBlase has the pulp patter down to a T. It’s was a rich reading experience for someone like me who loves a great twist of phrase and never met a hard boiled simile he didn’t like.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I look forward to more adventures from cheesecake photographer Frankie Valentine. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>The Hard Bounce</i> by Todd Robinson</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Let’s be honest, this book ran the risk of being overhyped. Robinson has a hell of a lot of good will in the crime fiction community, this despite being a straight talking, bullshit free guy who will speak his mind to you only so long before his fists start to do the talking for him. But he’s done so much for the crime community with Thuglit (proud alumni here!) and with the NYC edition of Noir At The Bar. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A lot of people were waiting with baited breath to see what Robinson could do in a novel. At first I thought this was going to be a fairly typical find-the-girl mystery, but what stuck with me - and readers all over - are the characters Boo and Junior. With charm, heart and foul mouthed humor they crash and burn the most inept but sincere investigation ever played out in the Back Bay.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’m never a fan of the ‘world’s best’ this or ‘world’s deadliest’ that. These two clowns are not that. They are deeply human, screw up constantly and manage to walk away with the reader’s heart. Turns out Robinson has a gooey center underneath all those whiskers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Several of these writers were new to me this year. I also read several great books by writers I already love. Duane Swierczynski wrapped up the Charlie Hardie series with style in <i>Point and Shoot</i>. Jake Hinkson stunned again with his novella <i>The Posthumous Man</i>. I read more by Chester Himes, Lionel White and Day Keene that I really enjoyed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A few other new writers I really came to love through their older books I feel need mentioning.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I was late to the party on two guys in particular and I’m so glad I remedied that this year. Grant Jerkins is a writer after my heart. His <i>The Ninth Step</i> and <i>A Very Simple</i> crime hit my sweet spot. He is a simple writer. There’s no pyrotechnics, just a compelling story told with a page turning immediacy that I really loved. He wears his influences on his sleeve, even dropping several Cornell Woolrich references into <i>The Ninth Step</i> and he has not one but two characters watching Double Indemnity in <i>A Very Simple Crime</i>. I immediately snagged his third novel <i>At The End Of The Road</i> and I’m looking forward to diving in very soon.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another writer I had on my radar for a while is Roger Smith, the South African writer. I started at the beginning with <i>Mixed Blood</i>, his first novel. Holy crap. I loved it so much he couldn’t possibly do it again. Then came <i>Wake Up Dead</i>. Holy double crap.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">These are brutal books. I read someone say once that the S. African tourism board must hate Smith (sorry I don’t recall who said it, but it’s dead on) and Smith’s Capetown is not one I want to visit. But damn he can spin a tale. I love how he tells several stories at once and at times it’s impossible to see how they will all link up, but they do brilliantly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He does not shy away from any of the squalid life he sees on the streets and slums of Capetown and the prisons, squats and back alleys his characters live in. These are violent stories of characters trying to break free, trying to make do, struggling not to give up and to make their way in what are sometimes the only ways provided to them in a very limited list of options.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Smith has several more books out there and I’m looking forward to reading all of them. Why the hell did I wait so long?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So there you go. A whole lot to consider and a whole lot of books you’d be silly not to read. Here’s to a 2014 filled with just as many great reads.</span></span></div>
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Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-33280599379541256782013-12-13T22:57:00.002-08:002013-12-13T22:57:23.725-08:00White Hot Pistol - Chapter 1<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The first taste is free. Below is the first chapter of my new novella, <i><a href="http://bookxy.com/products/white-hot-pistol">White Hot Pistol</a></i>, available exclusively for the next few months on the new <a href="http://bookxy.com/">Bookxy</a> site for a silly low price of 2.99.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I dare you – dare you, I say – to read this first installment and not want to read the rest.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">WHITE HOT PISTOL</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">CHAPTER 1</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash remembered the first time he escaped this town. Six years ago he drove the same stretch of highway, only then he didn’t have his little sister asleep in the passenger seat. Back then Jacy was only eleven.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She needed to escape for many of the same reasons. This town, a speck on a map, a town full of nothing but dead ends, it bled you dry. And then there was Brian.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Stepdad. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Technically Jacy was Nash’s stepsister, and neither was Brian’s blood child. He was Mom’s third attempt at happily ever after, and the third time was decidedly <i>not</i> the charm.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash never had to deal with what Jacy did from Brian, though. Nobody should have to deal with what she did.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The dashboard clock was in single digits of the morning. He’d waited for hours outside the house, waiting for her to make her escape. He fought to stay awake, and now he was jealous of her snoring in the seat next to him. She’d gone to sleep so fast, so easy. Probably the unwinding of the noose around her neck as they cleared town limits. They could feel the rope loosen, even though Noirville is so gnat-shit small there’s no sign telling you you’ve left. It’s such an unremarkable feat, why waste the paint?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He couldn’t be too mad at her deep slumber. He knew the feeling of freeing himself from the bonds of this town, these people. Still, his head nodded, searching for sleep, and the steady rhythm of the highway made it worse. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash reached into Jacy’s purse for a smoke. He’d quit years ago, but after breaking his stepsister free from the gates of hell, he felt he’d earned it. Plus, the buzz would keep him awake.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He kept his eyes on the road as his hand swam inside the bag. Everything felt the same, like rooting through a garbage can, until he settled on the gun.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash lifted it out of the purse to confirm he was right. A small, snub-nosed .38. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yeah, he thought, not a bad idea. He couldn’t be angry at Jacy, not after what she told him. A gun seemed like a damn good idea.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But no cigarettes. He saw a sign for a rest area ahead. They hadn’t cleared very many miles, but a short stop for a Coke out of the machine wouldn’t be a risk. Unless something unusual happened, Brian wouldn’t know Jacy was gone until morning and by then they’d be in another state, tracing Nash’s old escape route to safety.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash folded the top flap of her purse over to close it enough so the gun wouldn’t slide out. He felt grateful he hadn’t come up with a glass pipe out of her purse. Crystal meth seemed to be the number one high school sport in town lately. A far cry from the occasional pot and stolen beers of his own youth. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He knew she’d tried it, but didn’t know how truthful she’d been about how many times. Not that a little bump of crank wouldn’t get him across state lines in record time. He’d settle for a caffeine jolt instead. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The rest area showed up as a glow on the horizon a half mile away. With no other lights around and a flat midwestern landscape, the tall light posts had nowhere to hide. There were no secrets on the great plains. Not outdoors anyway.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash still couldn’t believe he’d come back. He turned around and never looked back the day he left. He thought of Jacy now and then, but it wasn’t like they were all that close growing up. He was already ten when she was born. When she turned seven her father was out and Brian was in. By eighteen Nash was gone and her nightmare was about to begin.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When she told him the timeline of when it all began with Brian, Nash couldn’t help feeling a little responsible. With him out of the house, the green light was lit for Brian to begin his late night visits to her bedroom. To her bed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She begged Nash to come home, to help her get out the way he had done. He couldn’t say no. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Escape was the best option. Calling the cops, reporting the abuse were options too, but not good ones. Hard to call the cops on your stepdad when your stepdad is the sheriff. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash eased his Honda, all one hundred and fifty-three thousand miles of it, onto the exit ramp, moving like a mesmerized insect to the three mercury vapor lamps high on their stanchions over the single octagonal building. A men’s and women’s restroom, a map on the wall, a few brochures for what passed as tourist attractions around these parts, and a row of vending machines beside a broken drinking fountain. It all seemed like an oasis to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves on this lonely stretch of highway, especially at night. To Nash it was only the last gasp of his stupid home town. Small, inadequate, useful only for pissing and shitting and then moving on down the road.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Only one other vehicle, a cube truck with a big storage area in back sat parked under the lights. Smaller than a semi, it reminded Nash of the U-Haul he rented when he moved apartments last fall. Finally he owned things. Not like when he left town with nothing more than a half-filled suitcase and a broken guitar.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash brought the car to a rolling stop, making sure not to jerk to a halt so as not to wake up Jacy. She stayed asleep as he turned the key and let the motor rest. He watched her for a few seconds, the deep calm settling over her as she took relaxing breaths for the first time in years, finally free from the fear her bedroom door might open and Brian might slip inside.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash pushed gently on the door until it clicked shut. He headed for the small building thinking he would get one can of Coke and down it quick, here, then get another for the road. He opened his wallet and dug out a few singles to feed the machine. He hoped like hell some ex-con state worker had remembered to restock the soda cans, or that the damn thing wasn’t waiting inside to mock him with an Out Of Order sign.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As he stepped onto the curb he could see the front end of the cube truck. Both doors were open and he saw a dark shape half in and half out of the passenger side. He stopped and listened. The truck’s engine was off, he heard no other traffic from the highway, no voices in the night. He figured the driver must be in the toilet. With no one around and virtually no traffic, it must have seemed safe to leave the doors open while he took a piss.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then Nash looked closer at the shape. The body was upside-down, which is why he didn’t recognize it as a person at first. Feet clad in worn Timberland boots pointed up into the truck’s cab while the slumped figure of a man rested on his head against the asphalt of the parking lot. The open door cast a shadow over the body so Nash couldn’t tell if it was a young man or an old man, black or white, alive or dead. He could at least make an educated guess on the last one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He folded the dollar bills in his hand and pushed them into his front pocket as he began walking toward the truck.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Hello?” he said. No one answered.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As he got closer he saw the man’s head was turned away, staring at the underside of the truck like he had engine trouble and he stumbled out of the cab going to check it. But the body didn’t move. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash stepped closer, smelled something he didn’t recognize, and bent low. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Hello?” he said again. He felt foolish doing it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He knew for sure he was looking at a dead body, but he wanted to check before he called someone. An ambulance or the police, the choice would be decided by a quick check for a pulse.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash slid two fingers around the back of the man’s neck and walked his middle and pointer fingers forward to hunt for the artery on his neck facing the underside of the truck. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash felt something wet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He jerked his hand away and it came back stained red. As he tore his arm back from the body, he bumped the corpse and it slid the rest of the way down from the cab until it lay on the flat pavement of the parking lot, half the body sprawled over into a handicapped spot.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash could see the wide opening on his neck. Without thinking he wiped his hand on his jeans, smearing the fresh blood across his thigh. And it was fresh, he thought. Still warm, in fact. This man hadn’t been dead for long.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Falling with the man from the cab of the truck had been a metallic sound and a glint of silver. Nash looked more closely and saw a knife a few inches away from the man’s shoulder, as if he had it tucked under his chin when he fell. The blade was long and blood stained, the ebony handle Nash expected to be inlaid with the words Murder Weapon.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He knew he should call the cops, but when the local jurisdiction involved a late-night wake up call to the man he least wanted to see in the world, the one whose stepdaughter was currently being kidnapped in Nash’s front seat, he decided a phone call could wait. The man from the truck wasn’t going to get any deader. Nash could drive on a ways and call the state troopers from a gas station or diner. Some place where he could use a pay phone and his cell wouldn’t get traced. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was the first time he thought of what he was doing for Jacy could be reasoned a kidnapping. Nash always considered it more of a prison break. As far as Brian would be concerned, though, damn right it’s a kidnapping. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A minor, stolen away from her home under cover of night without prior knowledge of her two legal guardians. Yep, that about fit the textbook definition.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash asked Jacy if Mom know of her plans, back when he first got the phone call for help. She said no. He agreed it would be too risky. She might tell Brian. After all, she married him. Neither Nash nor Jacy knew where their mother’s loyalties rested anymore.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash squinted at the dead man’s pockets. No wallet that he could see. He didn’t want to touch a corpse, so the dead man’s identity would have to wait to be revealed until the professionals got there. Nash went to the driver’s side of the truck. No second body there. Whoever had been driving was long gone by then, hopefully with less blood on him than Nash.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The whole thing was too surreal for him. It didn’t feel like a crime scene. The quiet calm both emboldened him and lit his curiosity. He wanted to know what the hell happened. He knew truck drivers sometimes kept their license in the cab with them so he checked the glove box, but found nothing. He turned down the visor over the driver’s seat and found a copy of the registration rubber banded in place. He moved it to read the name and address and a small, hard object fell out from behind the paper. A high pitched ting sounded in the cab as a small piece of metal bounced off the turn signal stick and landed in the cup holder beside the gear shift.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash looked down. A key, small and silver. Nash looked between the seats to something he’d overlooked before. A strong box. He passed over the metal box pushed down between the big bucket seats thinking it held tools or some other truck driver’s friend like jumper cables.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Staring up at him from the top of the box was a small keyhole. The box would have held a decent amount of wrenches or sockets, enough to repair a faulty engine, he supposed. Or maybe a change of clothes for a long haul night. But no, this wasn’t a semi. A truck this size is for moving things short distances. Small items, small trips.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And besides, it’s not like the guy on the pavement outside would get offended if Nash took a peek inside his secret box.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash picked up the key and had a premonition of how stupid he would feel once the key didn’t work in the box. He’d laugh to himself and then move on down the road, the can of Coke unnecessary now that adrenalin raced through his veins, faster and stronger than caffeine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The key fit. He felt the silence of the night outside. Still no traffic from the road. The lamps high overhead gave off a steady electric hum, but otherwise there were no nature sounds. No birds, no insects in the trees, no barking dogs far away. Nash was as isolated as he’d ever been, and the cab of the truck felt more and more like a coffin.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">His curiosity won out over his fear. He lifted the lid on the metal box.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Inside was a worn canvas bag in army green, stuffed in until it coiled fabric over itself in rippling waves like intestines packed tight in a gut. He didn’t lift the bag out, but unzipped it. Inside were stacks of money. Tightly bound stacks in rows also bound together by plastic wrap. Every bill staring at him was a hundred. The row of tiny Ben Franklins seemed to all gasp for air at the same time, free from their dungeon.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash knew he’d made a mistake. A dead body, a large sum of cash. And there he was getting his fingerprints all over the inside of a crime scene. He started to think of how many places he was going to have to wipe down. He wondered if they could lift a print from the neck wound of the John Doe outside. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He cursed himself for not thinking of this before. Goddamn highway hypnosis or something. He hadn’t fully come awake until now. But he knew it was stupid, morbid curiosity. Too many hours of watching death and crime scenes on TV made the whole situation unreal. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But stacks of real money? That you don’t see everyday.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“What’s going on?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nash jumped so high he hit his head on the roof of the truck’s cab. He turned to see Jacy standing outside the passenger side door, staring down at the body.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Jesus, Jacy. You scared the shit out of me.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“How do you think I felt? I woke up and I was alone in the car with no idea where I was.” She turned her attention back to the body. “Is he dead?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Yes.” Nash started to climb out of the cab, backing out the driver’s side. Once the shock settled, he found he was glad to have someone there to share in the bizarre situation, and to help with cleanup. “Don’t touch anything.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Holy shit,” she said, examining the body through squinted eyes. “He’s really dead.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“That’s not all,” Nash said. He’d brought the canvas beg out of the cab with him. He knew it was another stupid thing to do, but he had to show her. It was the most insane thing he’d ever seen in his life. How could he ignore it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“What’s that?” Jacy asked.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He parted his hands, letting the open zipper gape. Neat rows of wide-eyed Benjamins greeted Jacy in the warm night air, their sly grins inviting her into the game.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Her eyes went wide at the small grocery bag-sized stash of loot. “Is that . . .?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Yeah,” Nash said, taking his own long look at the money. “I think it is.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Holy double shit.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He noticed a lot more country twang in her voice since he’d left. This damn town was going more hick with each passing year. He didn’t think it was possible. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“What the hell are we gonna do?” Jacy asked.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Call the cops,” he said. “State cops though. And not from a cell phone. We’ll find a pay phone on down the line.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The other voice startled them both. “Afraid I can’t let you do that.”<a href="http://bookxy.com/">http://bookxy.com/</a></span></span></div>
Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-85767019914333165492013-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:002013-12-10T00:00:03.785-08:00Writers With Day Jobs: Mike McCrary<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mike McCrary is a kindred spirit. His books have been described using some of the very same adjectives used to describe mine. Sick humor, violent action, great dialogue. A compliment to us both, and a reason for me to check out his work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Well, now there's more to check out. HIs second book, Remo Went Rogue is just out and already it's getting much of the same praise including hat tips from two of my favorites, John Rector and Peter Farris. Whoever says blurbs don't work - when those two cats say I should read a book, I will read that book.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So Mike has joined me for the reboot of Writers With Day Jobs. Read this, then go read Remo Went Rogue and his debut novella, Getting Ugly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>First off, tell us about your new book, Remo Went Rogue.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: Remo is a fun little yarn about a high-level attorney who's personal life is a complete disaster. After a crisis of conscience he decides to do the right thing for once in his sorry life. Unfortunately for Remo, the right thing to him means double-crossing his whacked out clients, throwing a case and stealing their money. This does not go well.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj90XmfF8eoFm5qtvElQsK7YORvTRvcQsbudlTyIoLean1DHbwlKuxx5skRX12lEuMZjfsWH_2XVCgo49sKowLUN47lp3YeEqwmATld6lsoxEKmF-sjrJV4puFxXgmPA7K5vIAlseRdjuM/s1600/Remo425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj90XmfF8eoFm5qtvElQsK7YORvTRvcQsbudlTyIoLean1DHbwlKuxx5skRX12lEuMZjfsWH_2XVCgo49sKowLUN47lp3YeEqwmATld6lsoxEKmF-sjrJV4puFxXgmPA7K5vIAlseRdjuM/s400/Remo425.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>What is your day job?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: I work in investments/finance and all that crap.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Some would say that is the antitheses of a creative job. Is it more creative than we think, or is that why you need writing in the off hours to stimulate a different par of your brain?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">MM: The work </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> have done is not all that creative. Well, </span>maybe it was years ago, but now it's pretty much a routine<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. Don't get me wrong, </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">'m grateful to able to earn a living and write when </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> can. </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">'ve been on the wrong side of layoffs and bad times. Not fun, not fun at all. So yeah, writing does allow me an outlet to let loose another part of my broken brain. </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> enjoy the process of writing, creating characters and worlds. Sometimes beating your head against a wall trying to yank words out of your head after working a job is painful, but the end result is worth it</span>. At least that's what I tell myself after crying in the bathtub… Don't judge me. <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>When do you find time to write?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: Mostly nights and weekends. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Do your coworkers know you write?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>You seem to be a lot like me in that you write pretty dark, sickly humorous crime novels. What do people who know you say when they read it? Do they think you're sick and hiding something very dark? (not that it ever happens to me . . .)</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: I usually have to be working somewhere long enough for people to "get" my personality before I tell them. Once they know me and my sense of humor, they aren't all that shocked by what I write. Not sure what that says about me, but… fuck it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Be honest, if you wrote full time do you think you'd be disciplined about it?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: I think so. I only say that because I have, at times, written full time. I think once you've written on a part time basis you understand a lot more about time management and you know yourself better as a writer. You know what it's like to sit down and say "okay I've got approximately 15 mins to work with here" and then know how to use that time best. If you don't use it wisely, it's gone and you're not getting it back. Writing with a gun to your head can be a useful skill to learn. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>What's been your best (non-writing) job? Your worst?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: My best non-writing job was actually one that didn't pay me. I was an unpaid intern for a production company in Hollywood. I learned so much about writers, writing, the business of writing along with how to pick up dry cleaning and coffee. There was no money, but the experience was invaluable. The worst? If I had to pick one, it would be customer service phone rep… fuckin' awful man. I'm getting a little sick thinking about it actually. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Would your profession make a good subject for a crime novel?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: Maybe, perhaps, not really, no. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Have you read Cold Caller by Jason Starr? He makes great noir out of telemarketing, a little similar to phone customer service rep. And come on, finance? These days? Surely there are crime stories to be told among those scumbags. Present company excluded, of course. *ahem*</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">MM: Well, if you're gonna throw Starr in my face</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">. I'll have to check that one out, Starr is pretty damn good and always an interesting read. Strike my answer from the record. I think I am just terrified of worlds colliding and mixing up my writing life with my whore-like existence on the other side. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>What would it take for you to scrap it all and become a full time writer?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: Aside from the obvious answer… an ass-load of money. Well I guess there isn't another answer, is there? Yeah, a large some of money where I didn't have to worry about food shelter and could focus with a clear mind about writing. It's hard to write decent shit when you're worried about keeping the lights on and your family is down the street hunting squirrels for dinner.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>What are some of your favorite recent reads?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: I've been reading Ray Banks and Richard Stark lately (I know, I'm late on these guys.) I really dug Skinner by Charlie Huston, Out of the Black by John Rector and Donny-Brook by Frank Bill as well. All good really good shit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>I recently went on a tear through the Parker books on tape during a job with a long commute. I, too, was late to the party but I really enjoyed those. I listened to the first five in the series. Great stuff that I really enjoyed more than, say, the Lew Archer books I’d also been going through. Guess I like vengeful tough guys more than P.I.’s. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Are you a fan of traditional P.I. mysteries? Do you like to unravel a whodunit?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">MM: </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> liked the P.I. s</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">tuff at one time in my life, but </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> think the endless wave of Law and Order and CSI shows killed those things. For me at least. Now </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> like a well put together whodunit now and then, but those can be anything </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> guess. Not </span>necessarily<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> a P.I. type thing. Gone Girl was a whodunit of sorts</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> and </span>I<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> loved that book.. </span>A<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">long with the rest of </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> universe. </span>I'm with you, vengeful tough guys are always a good time. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Are you satisfied writing part time, or is the goal to be a full time novelist swimming in cash?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: Swimming in cash as a writer I think is the goal for most of us, right? Even full time writers I know aren't exactly swimming in it. I think I could be satisfied writing part time if I could write what I want and worked a full time gig that paid the bills and I somewhat, vaguely enjoyed. Dare to dream people. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Do you think people resect writing as a "real job" or do they think of it as a hobby?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: I think people see it as a "real job" if you make a good living doing it. I guess that goes with everything, doesn't it? Speed hot dog eating is a hobby unless you make a living doing it. I don't think anybody says Stephen King doesn't have a real job. Maybe they do. A lot of idiots out there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>What's next for you? Do you keep multiple projects going or are you spent after a new book?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: I've got a couple of things. I'm working on a screenplay, thinking about starting up a new book and also toying with the idea of a short story compilation. In addition to those things I pretty much keep my eyes and ears open for other things that might look interesting, fun or just really fucking cool. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>If you were to describe your books with, "If you like X, you'll like my books" who would X be?"</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">MM: Wow you can really go off the rails pretentious with this one. "If you like the perfect mix of Hemingway, JR Tolkien and the Bible, you'll like my books." At the risk of sounding like a grain-fed fuck-head, I'll go with "If you like fun reads with loose morals and a few yucks, you'll like my books." All I've ever tried to do is write something that entertains me and that I think others will enjoy. Fair enough?</span></span></div>
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Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-38489488208434273932013-12-04T22:56:00.002-08:002013-12-04T22:56:53.721-08:00White Hot Pistol<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don't know why I haven't really talked about this one yet. I think I'm curious to see how the PR machine for this new venture works on its own. Probably not smart to side step my own book promotion, but I gotta keep myself entertained somehow.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Well, after spending the morning with several other Bookxy/Stark Raving Group authors I'm feeling all proud of my little book, <a href="http://starkravinggroup.com/whitehotpistol.html">White Hot Pistol</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This novella was super fun to write and is the first in a planned trilogy of hardboiled noir tales set in the fictional town of Noirville. Cheesy name, I know, but I couldn't help it. These are my pulp hack books, my ten cent paperbacks and my attempt to write in the muck with Wade Miller, Day Keene, Harry Whittington, Lionel White and Gil Brewer. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The whole Bookxy thing doesn't officially go live until January, but my book is part of the "soft launch" of the site and is available for sale RIGHT DAMN NOW! Subscrptions to the Bookxy app and such are forthcoming, but if y'all just want to get a new book of mine, then have at it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The company founder today told me I sold a book yesterday bought by someone on an airplane. It's a brave new world, isn't it? Someone oughta sell tickets. Hell, I'd buy one.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Look at the cover. Sweet, ain't it? I got my buddy Marc Sasso to illustrate it and even arranged to get his paid this time. Trust me, I owed him.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You can read about the book (and order it for all of 2.99) <a href="http://starkravinggroup.com/whitehotpistol.html">HERE</a>. Sounds fun, don't it?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The other two Noirville tales will be set in the same fictional town and very, very loosely based on some of the same characters. Mostly, the town is a backdrop for some nasty noir stories of sad luck losers having a worse day than you.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As for the other stuff keeping me from updating this site – well, I finished a new novel and I'm liking it so far during my revisions. Will anyone want to buy it? Doubtful, but that's just me being all negative. Not like I have six unsold manuscripts on my hard drive. What's that? I do? OH, right.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But do I stop? Hell no. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So instead, I run headlong into more short stories including my attempt at being funny in the new humor anthology <a href="http://www.amazon.com/JUNK-Danger-Slater-ebook/dp/B00H2UEIKE/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1386226292&sr=1-2&keywords=junk">JUNK</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'm also working on a few co-writing projects I'm not at liberty to discuss quite yet. Exciting stuff though. Another novel with my partner in crime J.B. Kohl that is going slowly in the typing but blazes on the page. A collaboration with one of my favorite writers ever that I still can't believe. A few other things I'm excited about.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">More shorts on the way. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Oh, yeah, David from Beat To A Pulp and I are cooking up a weird release for you in 2014. By the end of 2014 you'll have another of my novels, but it will take all year to get it in bits and pieces. I've already said too much. But more soon...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So, see? Just because I'm not writing on this blog doesn't mean I'm not up typing almost every damn night. Sheesh.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'll be posting the first chapter of White Hot Pistol very soon. It'll hook you, I promise.</span></div>
<br />Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645942946275670442.post-70099078377868206792013-10-15T22:57:00.000-07:002013-10-15T22:58:42.114-07:00AnniversarySo, it's a week until the one year anniversary of <i>The Devil Doesn't Want Me</i>'s release. Don't know why I'm trying to make a thing of it, but I am. I have 8 books in the world, but this one was my first full-length novel I wrote all on my own to be published, so it has a special place in my heart. I really want it to have a life, and maybe someday I'll get to release the sequel that I wrote.<br />
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Next Tuesday is the date and I'm hoping people will post about it, share the trailer, leave a review. buy a gift copy. Whatever. But let's celebrate this little baby turning one.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5LV2JoJ-5AU?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>Eric Beetnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12504563937840205835noreply@blogger.com2