What The Hell Is Punk Noir Magazine?

Paul D. Brazill quite possibly cements his place as one of the hardest working writers in crime fiction with his latest creation, Punk Noir Magazine. Paul stops by and tells us all about it. - David Nemeth

By Paul D. Brazill

And so it came to pass . . .

I started blogging around 10 years ago, mainly inspired by Cormac Brown’s late lamented blog. My blog called You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You? And it was fun. Around the same time I started reading flash fiction sites like Six Sentences and Powder Burn Flash. And I even started submitting yarns to those sites. Which was nice.

After a while, I had a few books published and moved over to Wordpress from Blogger. The focus then seemed to me more on pimping my own stuff than blogging. Which wasn’t as nice.

And so it came to pass . . .

I sort of lost interest in the blog, checking its stats every now and then, posting less and less frequently. When I did check, I saw that by far the most popular post were guest blogs, such as Alan Savage’s interview with The Sweet’s singer Brian Connolly and Sabrina Bramble’s piece on Gloria Graham. I got to thinking about collecting the guest blogs together, somewhere or other. And then Pulp Metal Magazine - which combined fiction with non-fiction went on a -possibly permanent- hiatus . . .

And so it came to pass . . .

So I came up with the idea of Punk Noir Magazine – a sort of alternative arts and entertainment ezine. The first thing I did was upload a load of the guest blogs from my own blog. And then I asked some friends- ok cronies- to contribute. And they did.

And what have we got at Punk Noir Magazine, you might well ask?

Well, I’ll tell you. There’s fiction from Graham Wynd, Tess Makovesky, Bill Baber and more. There are fiction extracts from Vincent Zandri, Les Edgerton and more. There’s non-fiction from K A Laity, Michael A Gonzales, and more. There’s music, and poetry, and news and, well, all sort of carryings on!

I’ve so much stuff lined up that I won’t be opening up for submissions officially for a while but if anyone has something they’d like to send then fire away!

---

Bio: Punk Noir Magazine editor Paul D. Brazill’s books include Last Year’s Man, A Case Of Noir, Guns Of Brixton, and Kill Me Quick. He was born in England and lives in Poland. His writing has been translated into Italian, Finnish, Polish, German and Slovene. He has had writing published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Books of Best British Crime.

The Case Against Linda Fairstein, w/ Nick Kolakowski

David Nemeth hit me up this morning with something brilliant from New York writer Nick Kolakowski, who clarifies mystery writing's intersection with one of the most tragic failures of the American system of justice. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, North American Review, and Carrier Pigeon.

Please add his erudite take to Attica Locke's call for honesty about the world we inhabit and the damage prestige and celebrity brings when it isn't balanced with the needs and concerns of our organization's constituency. My own clarion call appears after his fine work.

***

Members of the Central Park Five, left to right - Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, and Raymond Santana (2012) Photograph by Maysles Documentary Center (CC BY-NC-SA)

Earlier this week, the Mystery Writers of America named Linda Fairstein as one of its Grand Masters for the 2019 awards ceremony. Attica Locke, author of the excellent “Bluebird, Bluebird,” unspooled a Tweet thread that questioned the organization’s decision. “I am begging you to reconsider having Linda Fairstein serve as a Grand Master,” she wrote. “She is almost singlehandedly responsible for the wrongful incarceration of the Central Park Five.”

In addition, Locke added, “[Fairstein] has never apologized or recanted her insistence on their guilt for the most heinous of crimes, ‘guilt’ based solely on evidence procured through violence and ill treatment of children in lockup.”

Here’s the whole thread for your reading pleasure:

Attica Locke on Linda Fairstein

When those young men were released, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s office questioned the confessions that sent them to jail in the first place. “In many other respects the defendants' statements were not corroborated by, consistent with, or explanatory of objective, independent evidence,” read a statement issued by the office. “And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact.” [Emphasis Danny Gardner]

Fairstein oversaw the sex-crimes unit of the DA’s office during the case, and she’s insisted over the years that she did everything by the book. “I don't think there is a question in the minds of anyone present during the interrogation process that these five men were participants,” she told The New Yorker in 2002, an assertion vigorously contested by the Central Park Five’s attorneys. (The Village Voice has a lengthy rundown of the whole case, including the original rush to convict.) Although the crime took place nearly thirty years ago, “Central Park Five” has evolved into the shorthand of sorts for overzealous prosecutors railroading suspects.

And that’s not all, as the late-night infomercials say. Years later, Fairstein reportedly helped out Harvey Weinstein’s legal and PR team when the heat began to build over his alleged sex crimes. In an interview with NPR, New York Times reporter Megan Twohey (who co-authored a piece describing Weinstein’s decades of sexual misconduct) stated:

“And it's interesting to see in that situation there was a whole team that swooped in to help Harvey fight that in a counterattack effort. There were private investigators who were dispatched to basically dig up dirt on her. There were stories planted in the tabloids to basically disparage her background. There were high-profile attorneys who stepped up to Harvey's side, including Linda Fairstein, the former sex crimes prosecutor here in Manhattan, who was willing to facilitate introductions to the current sex crimes prosecutor who was handling the case. And within weeks that case was dead.” [Emphasis mine]

Fairstein has pushed back against insinuations of deep involvement in the case, telling the New York Post that “she was never hired by Weinstein and that her only action was making one phone call for long-time pal Abramowitz [a Weinstein attorney], introducing him to Bashford [head of the DA’s Sex Crimes Unit].” (Which aligns with what Twohey said if you parse her NPR statement carefully.)

Safe to say that the Mystery Writers of America fell face-first into a minefield with this one; if you’re not bothered by the “wrongful incarceration” part (and you should be), we have the furor around Weinstein and #MeToo just to make things extra explode-y. I imagine it’d be hard for her to remain Grand Master, and speak about crime and punishment to a room full of crime-fiction writers when a portion of the audience believes that she participated in a miscarriage of justice. And just in case you thought Fairstein was going stay silent, she fired back at Locke on Twitter, basically by accusing the Central Park Five of other crimes:

.@atticalocke Talk to me about the other 6 men viciously attacked in the Park that night, which these and others admit doing. You don’t care about them? Good night.

— Linda Fairstein (@LindaFairstein) November 27, 2018

I bet whatever committee that decides the Edgar Awards is swigging whiskey straight from the bottle at this point. As John McClane said: Welcome to the party, pal!
---

Thank you, Nick.

Danny's Take:

With her berating of the concerned on Twitter, Fairstein has proven resolute in her views, which marginalize African Americans and are aberrant in the current zeitgeist. It is clear whatever forces saw fit to name her Grand Master are not in accord with the change that was signaled by Attica Locke's win, which she should be enjoying, rather than investing as capital in the fight for crime-mystery-thriller to look more like America.

This is a show-stopping mistake.

The Mystery Writers of America is dangerously in need of new leadership. We authors require leadership that can build upon Attica's glory, which was supplanted by a straw-man argument from a woman proven to be hostile to the African American community. It is my opinion Ms. Fairstein has disqualified herself by failing to stand up for her work and, instead, tried muck-raking with a current Edgar winner. This decision must not stand, and those responsible for it must move on from leadership for the good of mystery writing's future.

Danny Gardner
Author, A NEGRO AND AN OFAY

Back to Pynchon and All the Clues (Again)

For whatever reason, while idly looking over my bookshelves the other day, I found myself in the mood to pick up and re-read Thomas Pynchon's second and shortest novel, The Crying of Lot 49.  I first read it during my senior year in high school, when, on my own, I discovered Pynchon, and chose Lot 49 and V. to talk about for an oral presentation we had to do on an author we liked. A good part of the fun I had in choosing these two books was that I got to speak the Pynchon character names as part of my presentation - names, for example, like Stanley Koteks - though I remember my AP English teacher more rolling her eyes than getting especially upset when I mentioned these names to the class. 

I first re-read Lot 49 about seven years ago, when I had just finished reading Pynchon's Inherent Vice.  I happen to really like Inherent Vice, Pynchon's private eye novel, and after reading it, the inclination struck me to revisit the first of Pynchon's 60's era California-set novels.  As I recall about that second read, it felt a little odd as I flipped through the opening pages to read a book I'd read decades ago, when I was a teenager.  Pynchon's an author who has influenced my entire view of the world (Ah paranoia! Ah entropy!), but of course when that much time goes by, you don't remember many of the exact details of the book you're reading again.  So it was as if I came to a second reading of the novel with Pynchon in my bones, but then I had to rediscover the specifics of the surface.

The verdict then (and now, on this third read)?  Great (and great).  And each time I read it, I see the book even more than the previous time as a definite mystery novel.  There's amateur sleuth Oedipa Maas moving through a hallucinatory Sixties landscape as she tries to uncover anything she can about a shadowy sinister organization called The Trystero.  The entire novel follows the course of her improvised investigation.  But whereas a typical detective novel at some point answers the different questions it raises, tying threads together, The Crying of Lot 49 opens outward with more and more questions as it unfolds.  By the end, Oedipa Maas doesn't solve the mystery of the Trystero.  She and the reader actually have more questions at the novel's close than when it started.  A great anti-detective novel, then, no question, Lot 49 is.  Along with Paul Auster's City of Glass trilogy, it has to stand as one of the models of that particular form.  And I still don't think I've ever read a book that better exemplifies a dictum that comes from Jorge Luis Borges. Borges writes about his fondness for stories that end "with the imminence of a revelation".  Such endings can be effective and beautiful, Borges suggests.  And this is exactly how The Crying of Lot 49 ends. In the final scene, Oedipa Maas has come to the place where she stands ready to receive a probable revelation.

That this revelation is not actually produced for her or the reader? Well, that's the beauty of it.  

Make Small Business Saturday Everyday!

HALLOWEEN decorations next to BACK to SCHOOL supplies!

CHRISTMAS sales before THANKSGIVING!

Stores open on THANKSGIVING!

Black Friday!

Small Business Saturday!

Perhaps the growing consumerism surrounding the holidays is not your cup of tea. I see the sentiment, but the fact remains; money is an important cog in the machine. It can change the quality of care PopPop receives in his golden years or affect the quality of the people who run our government. Money can be an equalizer.

The Evolving American Dream

Business Ownership

Small Business Saturday began in 2010 as a way to help small businesses bounce back from the recent recession. In 2012 American Express, creator of Small Business Saturday, increased their support for the movement with advertising and backing. That year an estimated 5.5 billion was spent at small businesses in the U.S. By 2015 16.2 billion dollars was spent on Small Business Saturday. The number of participants continues to increase.

The chance to make money evens the playing field for many people. It’s their door to greater opportunity. Because of this, the number of females and minorities starting their own businesses is increasing.

For example …

According to The Michigan Chronicle, ninety percent of small business currently operating in downtown Detroit are owned by minorities and more than 75 percent of those are specifically owned by women. As well, The Department of Labor states that almost all (99.9%) of women-owned businesses are considered small businesses.

Gainesville, Florida has seen a tremendous growth in minority-owned small businesses, progressing from only 20 stores in 2013 to 300 in 2017, said the city’s Small Business Administrator.

The future is looking brighter for minorities and women hoping to start their own business, but the change is coming slowly. TIME magazine reported, "twenty-nine percent of all small businesses were owned by minorities in 2012, but just over 10% of total sales revenue went to minority-owned businesses. Lower revenues of companies owned by women and minorities means that there’s fewer dollars left to pay employees, which can keep those businesses from advancing and growing."

People of color face unemployment at a much greater rate than whites. Gender and race gaps still plague wage equality. However, despite fierce challenges such as the inability to access start-up capital and a lack of network support, creating a small, community-based business might shrink economic divide and bring money and jobs to where both are most needed.

Small Business Saturday gives us hungry consumers a chance to further the fundamental growth of diverse businesses in our communities. While shopping. Why not go beyond Small Business Saturday and shop local whenever possible.

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy the last day of Thanksgiving weekend. I'll see you next week.

NaNoWriMo - Week 3 - The Final Push

by
Scott D. Parker

Today marks Day 24 of NaNoWriMo 2018, and you now face the final push to reach 50,000 words in this month. When you come back here next Saturday, it’ll be 1 December. NaNoWriMo will be over. Consider this your last pep talk before we do a recap next week.

So, where are you in your journey to 50,000? Back in 2015, when I successfully completed my first NaNoWriMo, I hit the 50,000 mark on 23 November. True, I hadn’t completed the book--that would only occur on 5 December 2015--but I had crossed the threshold of 50,000. And this respective week was not without challenges.

Back in 2015, when I was writing a first draft, I rarely looked back. I forged ahead, crafting new words. If something occurred to to me, say in chapter 13 that affects something in chapter 7, I made a note in chapter 7 and then I go forward from chapter 13 *as if I had already written the extra stuff in chapter 7*. This way, I always have forward momentum. Later, I’d go back to chapter 7 and insert the new material in chapter 7.

Now, in 2018, I have modified my approach. Based on the process of cycling through the manuscript while remaining in creative voice, advocated by Dean Wesley Smith, in that above scenario, I would go back into chapter 7 as soon as the new idea occurred to me. Then, having planted a seed or a foreshadowing, I then charge ahead with chapter 13 and keep going. I have discovered, through practice, that this works better for me. It also works well for Smith and, well, he’s been working on his craft for forty years, so he knows a thing or two.

Last week, I wrote about a mid-book reset. Now, if you are behind on your word count, the best thing to do is ask yourself a simple question: What is more important: finish the book or finish the 50,000 words in November?

Here’s why. If you can conceivably complete the book by next Friday, then go ahead and get there. If you don’t think you can make that deadline...but do think you can complete the book a few days after 30 November, then make the adjustment. Because, when you get right down to it, the reason you started NaNoWriMo in the first place was to complete a book. The 50,000-word mark was only a trick, a hack, to get many writers started. Your book may only be 45,000. If so, then congrats! You’ve written a book. Your book may actually not be done until you get to 95,000 or more. Your book is your book. Do your adjustments as you see fit.

But this last week of NaNoWriMo 2018 is the final push. You can do it. I did it. Millions of others did, too. Come back next week and we can discuss what to do when you successfully reach your own end goal.

Black Friday Isn’t Noir At All

It’s Black Friday, which sounds like the noirest day but is really just the day where you hope you don’t run out of toilet paper if you normally get your TP at Wal Mart or Target. It’s been a weird year. Everyone I talk to has this feeling that some months took years and some seemed to peek their head through the door before heading off to wherever months go when they’re off the clock.

I didn’t put much thought into Thanksgiving beyond packing to head to my mom’s and driving. The whole state was just on fire, but it rained before I headed to her place where the smoke was making a constant dusk. I guess I’m thankful for rain. And the community of writers that I’m lucky enough to be a part of.

So Black Friday being a day where I’d really rather stay in, I’m going to get down with a book that’s been on my TBR too long, read some short stories, and remember that it’s the people you have surrounding you and not the stuff. If you brave the hordes, I’m not gonna judge you (actually, last night I was desperate to get out of the house and went to Target to pick up some Christmas gifts, and left just as I felt my blood pressure start to rise). I’m just suggesting we carry that grateful vibe into the weekend. Especially if you still have leftover pie. If you’ve got pie, you really don’t have an excuse to be grumpy.

7 Minutes With: Episode 12

Episode 12 of the "7 Minutes With" podcast, brought to you by DoSomeDamage.com, with your host Steve Weddle.

As always, Jedidiah Ayres talks about film, while Chris F. Holm suggests some music, and Holly West discusses TV.

This week, we're talking about the top ten songs of the week, the movie WIDOWS, and the BBC show Bodyguar

West: hollywest.com/
Holm: chrisfholm.com/
Ayres: spaceythompson.blogspot.com/

Chris Holm:

In which a forty-something music geek a thousand miles outside his comfort zone evaluates the week’s most popular songs.

10: Lil Baby & Gunna “Drip Too Hard”
If you’d told me the tenth most popular song in America was Lil Baby and Gunna’s “Drip Too Hard,” I would have assumed you made every part of that up. There’s not much song in this song—ostentatious autotune’s still a thing we’re doing, huh?—but what little’s there is catchy enough, I guess.

9: Sheck Wes “Mo Bamba”
I don’t know what the fuck I just listened to. This song is like ear herpes. If this is “Mo Bamba,” please put me down for less.

8: Kodak Black ft. Travis Scott & Offset “Zeze”
This one’s straight pop rap. Not my cuppa, but fine. Bonus points for the steel drum sample. Minus points for autotune, and the fact that it took three artists to make.



7: Post Malone “Better Now”
Sadly, I’m at least peripherally aware of Post Malone, although I’ve never to my knowledge heard his music. He once took Jimmy Fallon to Olive Garden for a bit. It was marginally more entertaining than this air-quotes song, which features—you guessed it—yet more autotune. It’s the cowbell of the twenty-teens.

6: Halsey “Without Me”
This is the first song on the list I’m actually familiar with, because it was co-written by a young songwriter from my neck of the woods. (I read about her in the newspaper.) I’m gonna stop pointing out autotune, because so far we’re five for five. You can tell Halsey is edgy because she says fuck.

5: Juice WRLD “Lucid Dreams”
It’s super weird to me that this song is based around a sample of Sting’s “Shape of My Heart” off of Ten Summoner’s Tales. It’s also super weird to me that I recognized it immediately.

4. Marshmello ft. Bastille “Happier”
In my head, this song is the sequel to Pharrell’s “Happy” that no one asked for. There’s a dog in the video. I’m not sure if he’s Marshmallo or Bastille, but whichever he is, he’s my favorite.

3. Travis Scott “Sicko Mode”
The version of this that popped up on YouTube featured Drake. Also a horse. Sadly, Drake was not on the horse. Nor was he credited on the Billboard charts. Poor Drake. I enjoyed his “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” video, which he for some reason called “Hotline Bling.” Also, Travis Scott’s been on this list twice now, and I still have no idea who the fuck he is.

2. Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B “Girls Like You”
I know who all these people are, which probably doesn’t bode well for them, hipness-wise. When Google’s deep learning AI takes over songwriting, all songs will sound like this. It’s still on as I’m typing and I’ve already forgotten it.

1. Ariana Grande “Thank U, Next”
All in all, we could do worse than this in the top spot. Ariana Grande can seriously sing. Also, she’s been through some shit. This song’s a shockingly mature rumination on what she’s learned from her previous relationships, released after her breakup with Pete Davidson and the death of her prior ex, Mac Miller. (See? I know stuff about stuff.)

Jedidiah Ayres:

Widows en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_(2018_film)+ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynda_La_Plante + en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Davis

Holly West:

Bodyguard: www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/bodyguard/s01/

Music in the episode: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Thankful.

One of the most celebrated short story writers of the previous century, Andre Dubus, used to write his word counts in a special notebook with "thank you" after the number.
I think that's a good approach to this writing affliction we have. Be thankful.

I'm thankful for all my readers. Chuck. Johnny. Juliet. Mark. That's a few off the top of my head. Thank you for sticking with me.

I'm thankful for my fellow writers. LB. Jen. Roxane. Josh. Lou. Joyce. Mat. Chelsea. Min. Alexander.

Writers who struggle. Ones who make it look easy. The wildly successful. The hard working. The leisurely dabblers. All of them. Those who write epics. The fan fiction writers. The poets. The comic book scribes. The screenwriters. Playwrights. Songwriters.
Every one.
We have a world of stories.
Stories are good.
Make more.

If you spend time with friends and family this week be thankful for your time with them. They'll tell your story once you are gone. And you'll tell theirs.

Where's the Enjoyment?

I'm going to ask what I'm sure will be considered a stupid question.  Does anyone get pleasure from the writing they do?  Or, put differently: does anyone enjoy writing?  I'm being facetious of course, because I have to assume that some people who regularly write like to write, but you might not think that based on the time you spend with writers, either face to face or on social media. By what often seems a wide margin, writers in varying ways discuss how hard writing is, how draining it is, how they dread doing it, how they have to give up doing fun things in life in order to carve out the time they need to do the writing they need to do. Now I'm not denigrating or mocking anyone in how they regard writing and what they say about doing it.  And there is no doubt that writing is difficult.  But it just surprises me how rarely, when you think about it, people just outright say they really enjoy the act the writing.

I should add that I'm talking in particular here about writers who don't solely write for a living.  If you're writing for a living, that's your profession, obviously and like any profession, pleasure may or may not come into it, though I certainly hope, for the writer's sake, it does. But the fact is, most writers I know have full time jobs and do their writing "on the side".  The "on the side" part of their life may be more important to them than the side that pays their bills and helps keep them and any family they have fed and with a place to live, but nevertheless, in reality, it's still essentially on the side. At least it is for most writers.  I've always found the concept of a "day job" amusing since again, for most writers, that silly "day job" is the place you spend way more of your waking existence than you do at a laptop writing.

So on an average day, after a day at work, or before work (for those who write early), isn't writing the most enjoyable part?  That time to yourself, to go into your head, your imagination, and chip away at whatever you're working on and the rest of the world, all outside concerns, be damned.  With fiction specifically, it's dreaming while awake, and not much beats that.  Writing can be maddening and frustrating and leave you feeling in the depths of hopelessness and despair, but is there anything unique to writing about this?  Nearly any activity you take seriously and give your all to can lead you to feel this way, just like any activity you want to excel at is going to be hard because of the demands you make on yourself.  Damn, when I played a lot of tennis, as I used to, I could feel close to suicidal (I exaggerate just slightly) if I played a bad match or lost a very close one. So what!  Playing tennis was still the best part of most days, and the same is true for writing.  

The author Will Self puts it well, so I'll wrap this up by quoting him here (though we have to overlook his references to outmoded forms of writing equipment):

"I gain nothing but pleasure from writing fiction...Frankly, if I didn't enjoy writing novels I wouldn't do it - the world hardly needs any more and I can think of numerous more useful things someone with my skills could be engaged in. As it is, the immersion in parallel but believable worlds satisfies all my demands for vicarious experience, voyeurism, and philosophic calisthenics.  I even enjoy the mechanics of writing, the dull timpani of the typewriter keys, the making of notes - many notes - and most seductive of all: the buying of stationery.  That the transmogrification of my beautiful thoughts into a grossly imperfect prose is always the end result doesn't faze me: all novels are only a version - there is no Platonic ideal.  But I'd go further still: fiction is my way of thinking about and relating to the world; if I don't write I'm not engaged in any praxis and lose all purchase."

You Know What They Say About Opinions ...

I'll be the first to admit I'm not much of a comic book reader. Even as a kid, I preferred immersing myself in words and I think the comics I did see when I was young weren't the best. Of course, I grew up in a town without a bookstore, before the days of Amazon, so options were pretty limited. 

And I certainly don't remember our library having a comics section.

Which means that I could have been a comics fan, with the right exposure. I think all I ever saw was geared to five-year-old readers. 

That said, we've always been very happy to encourage comic book reading. We're happy to encourage any reading, and a gift certificate to the nearby comic book store has been a regular holiday present for one of the kids for years. 

This past week, Stan Lee passed away, and Bill Maher barely held a breath before he took out a big stick and started bashing Lee and comic book readers.

"The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning. Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess."

Now, when I first saw headlines and links about this on social media, I wondered if it was a joke. I mean, he goes on to infer comic book reading is to blame for Trump.

"I’m not saying we’ve necessarily gotten stupider. The average Joe is smarter in a lot of ways than he was in, say, the 1940s, when a big night out was a Three Stooges short and a Carmen Miranda musical. The problem is, we’re using our smarts on stupid stuff. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important."

Now, I could easily slip back to my communication theory studies from college and talk Neil Postman and why Bill Maher is so very wrong and what he doesn't understand about communication theory, but that would detract from my intended point here.

Simply, there will always be people out there who will take a piss all over you the first chance they get. I think Maher is wrong, and it makes me wonder how sad he is that he has to criticize a person who just passed away and blame all the problems of the world on that person.

I'd say he (sadly) doesn't understand the concept of superhero stories at all, or why they resonate with so many people. What a shame that he doesn't grasp how beautiful and important stories are. That's truly tragic. Imagine living a life unable to appreciate great stories. Why go on?

He does prove a point, though. There will be people who are petty. There will be people who don't like you just because they knew someone named 'Sandra' or 'Bob' or 'Tim' or 'Susie' decades ago who they didn't get along with.

And some of those people may just be waiting for an opportunity to cut you down a peg or two.

When I started writing what became my first published novel, my goal was just to finish a manuscript. I'd started many and abandoned them over the years.

Once I actually finished the story, the goal changed. It needed to be a good manuscript.

Eventually, it needed to be read. Which meant it needed to be published.

In some ways, that felt like an unending series of changing goal posts that left me always falling short of some mark. You get published and that isn't enough, either. You want to get good reviews. You want to be read. You want your work to be popular and liked.

After all, we're all just trying to entertain people in our own way, right? That's what we, as novelists, do. We tell stories.

But man, there always has to be someone to rip you apart* for that effort.


You've attempted a manuscript? Actually put your butt in the chair and typed at it for days/weeks/months/years? Then you've done something that most people haven't, and that's an accomplishment. You've tried.

You finished a manuscript? Maybe it's a hot mess and needs extensive editing, but you've actually told your story and gotten a draft done? That's a huge achievement.

Wait ... You got published? Not by your mommy or a buddy? Some stranger took your baby and said it was beautiful and they wanted to help share it with the world?

That's tremendous. It's an extraordinary feat.

Don't let anyone ever take that from you.

Look ... On a certain level, anyone who starts submitting a manuscript has to have enough ego to think that they have done a decent job and that their story is worth publishing, but that doesn't mean every published author needs to be taken down a peg or two. I went to school. I got good grades in writing. I had a straight 4.0 in my journalism courses in college. That's how I know I can write. It's an objective assessment based on my education.

But I'm not going to run around going, "Me me me me me," because I don't happen to think I'm the hottest thing ever. I'm a storyteller. I set my own goals for each work and measure my success by whether or not I achieve my personal goals.

I'd love to be read. I'd love for people to connect with my characters. That simply means something that was important to me resonates with other people, and that's cool.

But in this business, there are a long list of people ready to tell you all the ways you don't measure up, and it's disheartening.

The flip side is, there are a lot of people who also don't consider anything but success level or friendship. I never thought writing books would be so much about popularity, but it is. "Big" authors who will only blurb other "big" authors because it raises their own profile, instead of endorsing newer unknown writers. Friends review friends, some focus on the "big" books because more people will read their opinions, etc. etc.

I'm not saying you aren't allowed to like what friends produce. I'm also not saying you aren't allowed to like what's popular.

It's just too bad that so much of what's out there seems to either be about tearing people down or buttering up people you think can help you.

Do you. Do it because it's sincere. Frankly, I don't trust anyone who isn't capable of being a total fan about someone living and breathing who is producing art in the field they aspire to. Have that author you unapologetically acknowledge is your go-to comfort book/entertainment source provider year in and year out.

If you don't hear that X author has a new book coming out and run to mark it on your calendar or pre-order immediately, if you don't read a book description and think, Hell yeah, I HAVE to read that and why is that author so freaking smart that they came up with that concept and I didn't? then I don't even know why you'd want to be published.

Be real.

And for those of you who feel like you're at the bottom, trying to claw your way in, take heart. Every single step in the process of publishing marks success. It takes passion to attempt to write a manuscript. It takes determination and commitment to complete one. It takes willingness to grow and learn and master skills to effectively edit and revise one.

And it takes nerves of steel to be published.

So, if you're anywhere in that process, a virtual hug from me. Or from a virtual avatar I create if you prefer something younger with perfect teeth.


Remember:

1. Another person's success doesn't mean there's less success for you to have. It isn't pie. When people read a great book they want to read another great book. When people read a bad book they want to rake leaves in the forest.

2. You don't have to be mean. Sure you can jump on the 'is Franzen sexist?' bandwagon or join his hate club, but what does that get you? Hate. Negativity. It's kinda like the Democrats eating their young. Sure, Bill Clinton didn't actually write his novel, but I've been hired to ghostwrite and I know many others who have been as well. What Bill Clinton did do? Got some people who don't usually read much to read a book.

3. Have some integrity. I have mad respect for Heidi Heitkamp. She may not be a senator anymore, but she made a choice knowing that was the likely result. And she still made that choice:

"If this were a political decision for me I certainly would be deciding the other way," Heitkamp said in the interview. "History will judge you, but most importantly you will judge yourself."

Maybe nobody will acknowledge your accomplishments today. Some days, it would be nice to get an email saying, "You rock" or that you're a good writer or that you have a powerful voice and we need more from you. Most days you won't get that.

So hold on to those moments when you do and keep going. The only way we fail is if we quit. (Or, perhaps, if we join a clique and lose our integrity in the process of selling our soul for 10 seconds of fame.)

*****************************************************************

Side Notes

Now, since the question of legitimacy of 'best of' compilations has been raised, I'm going to share that my plan is to do an advent calendar of likes December 1-24 over at my site. There will be a new issue up this week and then we move on to the advent calendar.

And I'll disclose any connection I know I have to any source of entertainment I endorse.

Kinda sad it even needs to be said. However, I agree with Jim. I ignore almost all 'best of' lists from almost every single source. Brian writes a 'shit I liked' summary specifically to avoid the issue. 

(Of course, this sort of undermines awards as well, doesn't it, because not all books in any category published in any year are read and considered. That's another topic, though.)

The fact that this even needs to be said is evidence of another problem. Buttering up for personal gains.

If you're only going to review/endorse your buddies? That's part of the reason blurbs, endorsements and reviews mean so little to so many people. It cheapens the process.



*I'm not talking about legitimate reviews/critics. They have their place. I've been trained to write reviews in college, and when there's a system in place for standards they can be very helpful, for both readers and writers.

That said, even amongst "industry" standards, there are some reviewers who hide behind the veil of anonymity to poke at people they don't like. I've read reviews from amateurs and pros alike that are clearly personal. And I'm not talking about saying, "This didn't work for me because ... " I'm talking about reviews that are about the person rather than the product.

There's a real dilemma now with the ease of posting fake reviews for all sorts of products, books included. So much so that some book reviewing outlets have some clear guidelines about not making a book review personal and people have actually needed to talk about this issue and how to avoid personal attacks in reviews.

Some have been public about the fact they've felt reviews have been personal. I haven't read all the reviews, so I really don't know, but Morrissey does have one point here. Some reviewers want to make it be about them and their opinion. That's why I'm happy to post a review saying, "This didn't work for me, but check out this review over here and get another perspective - it still may be a book you're going to love, even if I didn't."

Oh, and here is a link to a review of Morrissey's book. I'm not sure I've even had a one-star review that's ever been this brutal.

PS: Oh, and when I review? I am always looking for a reason to like a book. I never start reading a book wanting it to be bad. I always want to be blown away.

Yes, I have to be honest if there are issues ... but I'm also savvy enough to know that sometimes, it's simply a question of taste, and sometimes it's simply a question of not being in the right place for a certain story. (First time we started the Leftovers we abandoned it and then when I tried again, months later, I loved it.)

Even when I have the reviewer cap on (and I have been a paid reviewer for several years now) I'm mindful of that.

And I am specifically reviewing a lot outside the genre these days to avoid presumed conflicts. And because there's a lot of great stuff being published outside the genre ... and sometimes, there's too much circle-jerk/I'll-only-link-to-my-buddy's stuff nonsense in the genre.

Fire Devastation and How We Know About It

Kristi Belcamino, a Do Some Damage alum, author and newspaper reporter, grew up in Paradise, Calif. This is her childhood home.

By Claire Booth

I’m sure you’ve heard that California is on fire. The devastation is worst just north of Sacramento in the Sierra foothill town of Paradise, which has been essentially destroyed. There are a lot of facts and figures I could throw at you—at least 71 people confirmed dead, more than 1,000 listed as missing, 9,700 homes destroyed—but what I want to talk about today is how the public knows all this.

Reporters.

Newspaper and TV reporters are out there in the middle of all this in order to bring vital information to the public. Where to send donations, where to go to volunteer, which shelters are open and which are at capacity, which schools are closed due to smokey air. The list goes on. What does it look like, smell like, who’s responsible for the clean up, what caused it in the first place.

Journalists are the link between the heroic first responders and the rest of us. They’re rushing in as everyone else rushes out. It’s dangerous, and it affects them. Sacramento Bee reporter Ryan Sabalow wrote about the haunting memories this Tuesday after spending six days in Paradise. 

Ryan Sabalow. Credit: Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee

“Buildings were on fire all around us. The air was orange. We could taste the wood, the melting plastic and the scorched metal under our face masks, even inside our SUV.” For video of what he and photojournalist Hector Amezcua experienced, click here.

The scope of this disaster is so huge, it’s going to take Northern California a long time to recover. I know journalists will be there to document it all.

To donate to victims of the Camp Fire, follow the link here.