New blurb

It's never too late for a blurb on a book, even if it's been out for 9 months. Author Stephen Jay Schwartz was impressed enough to write up this little ditty:


"A powerful tale of vengeance, rife with pounding action and colorful, complex characters. One Too Many Blows to the Head is a first-round knock-out!”
Stephen Jay Schwartz, LA Times best-selling author of Boulevard



Not too bad considering Boulevard is a heck of a read. The sequel, Beat, is out at the end of September and it sounds like the action surrounding Detective Hayden Glass is being ratcheted up even more so look out for that. Stephen will be signing at the Myster Bookstore on Sept. 30th and holding a launch party the Thursday night that Bouchercon starts up in San Francisco.

New story up

I entered the Title Fights last round. It's an interesting concept. They throw out a theme of titles, this time around it was Jimi Hendrix song titles, you enter, they assign you one and that's all the inspiration you get. The title I drew was Dolly Dagger. Needless to say I was psyched. I had never heard the song (not a big 60s music fan) so I ran with it totally uninfluenced by anything but the title.
I was pleased with the outcome but reading it back on the site I noticed a typo and it makes me crazy that I can't proof my own crap better than that. It's amateur hour and I should be better. I get too caught up with too many projects and I don't focus enough and it makes me angry at myself. Not a big deal in the long run but if I want to be taken seriously I need to present myself seriously. Any excuse to beat myself up, I guess. I got plenty of 'em.

Speaking of being too busy, I just finished a short-ish work. Novella length. No idea why. I have one outlet to submit it to but it may have been only an exercise and the only way to get the idea out of my head.

I'm also joining a group of writers from my publishing company who will be doing a mystery novel in blog form over the next year featuring seven different writers all contributing to the story. It's at the very start but it should prove to be an interesting experiment indeed.

A winner! (and other junk)

I can't even seem to post when it's good news but I am very excited and honored to have my story, My Asshole Brother chosen as the top seed in Jason Duke's Red Hot writing contest. Duke is a hell of writer and can be heard doing an amped up SFX-laden reading of his own Phoenix Nightlife over at Crimewav.com He pulls no punches.
It was quite a crop of stories so I am really proud to have made the cut. The good news is that it got my writing out in front of some influential people which is always a good thing. It is TBD what comes of it but at least getting the name out there is a plus.
The story, while already available online, will be published in issue #5 of Crimefactory. Another honor, indeed.

We have sent off Borrowed Trouble, the sequel to One Too Many Blows To The Head, off to the editor so we'll see just what an alarming number of errors can slip through even four editing passes by Jennifer and I.  News of publication is still a question mark. You'll know when we know.

I'm almost done with a project of mine I've wanted to do for a while. I'm sure nothing will come of it but it's been fun to write. At the very least if no one wants it I'll post it here or it may make my first foray into Kindle-only publishing which, according to some, I am an idiot if I don't do it and I'll be raking in the cash hand over fist. Doubtful.

There's a new collaborative book project I just signed on for that sounds like a real hoot. More on that as it comes along but it is going to be an ongoing novel written online with a new chapter each week until it concludes at which point it will be published as a book. Jen and I are writing together again so we'll have one chapter ever 6 or 7 weeks. It's still in the infancy stages but it's going to be a blast.

Finally, on another note, something I wanted to post about but wasn't sure how. The other day I made a life goal happen for someone. It was something that has been discussed for a long time, joked about, but I finally made it happen. That individual was very happy as was I. Is it bad that the main reason I did it was that I don't know how much longer this individual will be with us? It made me wish I'd done it years earlier but then it wouldn't have been such an event. It was a really small gesture, it's a silly thing in the end but it made me think and reflect. It seems like the kind of thing a better writer would be able to turn into a story. Maybe I'm too close to it. Maybe it would just be one of those stories where the plot is in between the lines. Maybe it's just a private moment that wouldn't mean anything to anyone but me. Either way, I'm glad I did. I know she was happy. I hope we have much more time with her and I can do it again. If not, it is just one of hundreds of memories I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Round up

I know I seem to start every post with, "It's been a while..." but my excuse is I've been writing, so there.
Here's the round up. Just finished The Cold Kiss by John Rector and it blew me away. This book was so up my alley! A simple story simply told. It unfolds in almost real time with completely relatable characters in a completely messed up situation. I tore through it on my lunch hours and, faced with the prospect of waiting until Monday to finish, I brought it home and polished it off after I put the girls to bed. Highly recommended! And just in time. I came off three duds in a row then this breath of cold air hit me.

Next, I seem to have made my way to the finals in Jason Duke's Red Hot writing contest with my story My Asshole Brother (see link in the list to the right) I am very honored to make the cut to the final two seeing as the judging panel was a prestigious list of writers and agents whom I respect. Fingers crossed for the win. The other story selected, by Michael J. Solender is a cracker too. Tough choice Duke has on his hands.  Oh and Duke's Crimewav.com version of Phoenix Nightlife is up to pt 3. Good stuff.

I finished my final draft of the sequel to One Too Many Blows To The Head, titled Borrowed Trouble. Now it is in Jennifer's hands and she'll let me know what she thinks of my half. Her half is brilliant so I hope I can keep up. She dropped a few brilliant lines in her stuff. The book rocks (I think) and next step is figuring out what to do with it. Stay tuned.

I have to mention (honesty I keep thinking, "oh that would make a good blog post" then I get caught up at work or two kids and never get to it) but I have to say thanks to the many authors who donated books for my little sister's charity auction. All I did was put it out on Facebook and in no time I had over a dozen signed editions for the auction from Brett Battles, Kelli Stanley, Gary Phillips, Sophie Littlefield, Rebecca Cantrell, Gar Anthony Haywood, Stephen Jay Schwartz and Marcus Sakey (and me and Jennifer of course). At every stage I have been blown away by how kind and generous and giving the crime writing community has been.
Just this week I've been asking a lot of advice of some of my writer friends with much more experience than I and everyone has been so kind about giving up free advice. It does not go unnoticed, even if all I can do is buy your books but then the real winner is me again.

I am vowing to make a stronger push to get myself (and the books) out there in preparation for the sequel to come out. I've got Bouchercon coming up in October as well as the day-long Men of Mystery on Oct 30th but I am going to try harder to get in to book stores I haven't made any headway with. I need to stop being so shy because no one is going to do it for me.

I do have other things that are almost like real blog posts which I will save and try not to wait another month and a half between posts.

Apparently...

I write like Ian Fleming. According to this website anyway. Kind of a cool little time waster.
Having never read a word of his stuff, but having seen all the movies, I'll just take it on faith that millions of book sales are in my future.

I write like
Ian Fleming

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Fixin'

We're fixing some stuff in the sequel. It is an interesting thing to go through with someone else. For One Too many Blows To The Head we really didn't alter any plot points, locations or anything you'd call significant. For this one we've made some course corrections that ripple down the line and require minor fixes in several chapters. Some of it could be described as major but the integrity of the plot and the character's motivations remain the same so I don't consider it very major. Nor would I call anything a 'problem'.
Revising on my own is relatively drama-free but doing it with a partner presents a whole different set of challenges. Challenges, I am happy to report, Jennifer and I have once again met and handled easily and with no quarrel. The hardest part is keeping the consistency between us. Little things have come up like how badly someone's injury was from one chapter to another (and we've got lots of injuries in this one) to simple stuff like what color car someone is driving to minor character names.
This is the real work in writing. It still beats a real job.

Revising

I've been learning that even though it makes for fewer blog posts, it is sometimes best to keep things a little closer to the vest. Hence, in the past few weeks I've been keeping fingers crossed about submissions, revising the manuscript for the sequel and making changes that are an ever-evolving organism and also stressing about home/work/real life things.
The details of all these things are better left unsaid for fear of spoiling or jinxing anything.
The feeling I hate is that any loss of inertia feels like I'm slacking or failing. I know in my rational mind that it is part of the ebb and flow of everything I do but it is hard to compete with the paranoid self-doubting part of the brain that always seems to have longer claws. Who's with me?
Book sales have stagnated but the book has been out for a while now so that is to be expected. It is a sinking feeling to know you've peaked and, now that award season is pretty much over with, to know that the outlets for getting the book out there are down to almost zero. Part of being an author I suppose. No one I've met, large publisher or small, feels like their book has gotten quite enough publicity. Guess you can never be too rich or too skinny either.
With the entire world talking about Dragon tattoos it is a wonder there is room on anyone's shelf for anything else. (another in my arguments against hardcovers. For the casual reader the $75 they are going to spend on that trilogy I'd bet wipes out their book buying budget for the year. Cheaper books means more books, I think anyway.)
I am glad to see several books getting the attention they deserve like A Night of Long Knives and A Bad Day for Pretty.
One on the radar I am looking forward to is The Cold Kiss by John Rector. It sounds very much up my alley and I am watching with interest all the buzz he is generating right now in the week since the book has come out. Glad to see a debut author really making a breakthrough. I'm excited to go to his signing at the end of the month.
So while I wait to hear on several different things I try not to feel like my feet are in cement and what little momentum I had is dissipating. Just keep on plugging away just like all the others out there. I'm not special and I take comfort in that. It's the Iowa boy in me. I do my best to make my own little contribution to the conversation but I'll never have the loudest voice in the room. It's been 40 years like that and it's unlikely to change.
More revisions loom and then it will be time to turn to the next project. But oh, what to choose from the long list of ideas....

I've been anthologized

I am late with this stuff but two of my stories appear in collections I am quite pleased with. First is Crimefactory issue #3.5 and this is, quite possibly, the finest collection I have been a part of. That Needle magazine is awfully damn good though...let's call it a tie.
Seriously, there are some great stories by some great writers in this all-fiction issue. NEW FICTION BY:

SOPHIE LITTLEFIELD JONATHAN WOODS, JAKE HINKSON, CULLEN GALLAGHER, JOHN KENYON, JASON DUKE, GARNETT ELLIOT, JAY STRINGER, ROBERT CRISMAN, JULIA MADELINE, ERIC BEETNER, NAOMI JOHNSON

I mean, that's a great lineup! Sophie is the hottest novelist going right now and Jake, Jason, Cullen and Naomi are proven talents that do not disappoint. (Duke's story is called  Guns, Drugs and Shitload of Blood which is truth in advertising) I feel like Jake Hinkson and I have similar styles or at the very least whenever I read his stuff I wish I wrote it. Robert Crisman is great, Jay Stringer is one of the Do Some Damage guys so you know he's got the goods and Jonathan Woods has a stellar short story collection out now from New Pulp Press. The others were new to me but there is not a bum story in the bunch. 

I applaud the always stellar layout and design of Crimefactory particularly because my story was a bitch to format since it is half prose and half screenplay. Yep, a little weird but just go with me. 

Aw hell, just go read it. It's free.

I also got my copies today of Murder In The Wind from Second Wind publishing. My story Without a Body There is no Crime bats cleanup in this anthology from nearly all of the Second Wind authors as well as contest winner Sheila Deeth who joins the party and is a welcome addition. It is an eclectic anthology that even includes some mystery contributions from some of SW's Romance authors. There is something in there for everyone. Easy ordering is available on the right with the direct link to Amazon. 

This one has been a long time coming so it's great to see it in print. And don't forget about the companion Mystery In The Wind. They got so many submissions for the contest to be included in they decided to go with a two volume set. 

That's the update for now. Word will come soon on the plans for a hard copy of Harbinger *33 which promises to be another wild and weird anthology with some great stories of all stripes in it.

Sense a pattern here?

I had just finished the penultimate chapter in the new book and I happened to glance to my right in my little office/hideaway here and was surprised by what I noticed. Well, maybe not surprised or at least I shouldn't have been. On one shelf nearly all the books were about Film Noir, crime films and gangster films. I guess I wear my passions out in the open here in the office anyway. Of course the walls are plastered with Film Noir posters so it's pretty obvious even without looking at the spines of the books on the shelves. Of course I have more than just reference books on crime films but I was just struck by the one shelf devoted to it. Just had to share. And with a detail of the office this small you can't see how dirty the rest of it is.
(click on the image for more detail if you can't read some of the titles)

Bonus points to anyone who noticed the shelf below with the complete short stories of Raymond Chandler, a collection of Cornell Woolrich, the Big Book of Pulps and a four novel compilation of Chandler novels. (and my copy of Conversations With Wilder that is signed by both Cameron Crowe and Billy Wilder)

Finding a story

Yesterday was Father's Day and while walking to dinner with my precious girls my older daughter found something on the sidewalk. It was an unopened greeting card envelope with the word 'Dad' scrawled on it in kid's writing. Obviously it had been dropped on the way to a Father's Day dinner and now some Dad would never get his card and some kid probably drew a picture inside or signed their name and would miss out on Dad's reaction to it.
It was simultaneously one of the saddest things and more intriguing things I'd seen in a long time.
It got me thinking how those tiny incidents in ordinary life can be filed away for use in a story. Sometimes something we see or hear is the basis for an entire tale or sometimes it is just a little detail that can crop up inside a larger piece.
At the risk of sounding like the weird neighbor kid in American Beauty, I love the little details of life that happen in the margins. Stories are all around us waiting to be discovered. It's why I love Found magazine (and I even had the chance to be a contributor once) it's why I have a bunch of old flea market photos from the 20's and 30's of people I don't know.
Will I use a lost Father's Day card in a story? Maybe. Either way it is a great reminder of the inspiration that surrounds us and the billions of stories to tell.
As cynical and I can be in my belief that the human race is generally fairly despicable I maintain a very bright outlook on life by an endless fascination with the world and by seeing beauty in all things even, as Thelonious Monk said, ugly beauty.
I'll go to another music reference and quote a lyric from one of my favorite songs from a great band, Chavez. About as far on the sonic scale as you can get from Monk but still. In their song 'Unreal is here' the chorus repeats, "There is nothing to not be amazed at."
I agree.