What your favorite authors look like NOW?!?!?!

By Steve Weddle

Remember these authors?

Have you ever wondered what some of your favorite authors look like now? You won't believe your eyes.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens wrote a story about Christmas that later became the 1988 hit Scrooged, starring Billy Murray as the delightful curmudgeon Frank Cross and Robert Goulet as Robert Goulet. 

Recently, Dickens has been rumored to be adapting a screenplay from some of his other boring-ass work. He has also let his beard grow, as seen in recent photographs from the Sears Photo Studio in Palmdale.

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Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt had the great fortune to have been born in the South, but then moved to Vermont. She won a Pulitzer a couple years ago for The Goldfinch, her third novel.

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Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon was a very famous author many years ago, known for declining the William Dean Howells Medal. Pynchon's second novel, The Crying of Lot 49, is his most read, as it is the shortest. His third novel, Gravity's Rainbow, is second only to the Bible in the ratio of bought:read books. (GR is 384:1 and the Bible is 1,387:1).

Recently, Pynchon's novel Inherent Vice was made into a movie, featuring Maya Rudolph as a receptionist. Pynchon himself had a cameo in the movie as "Angry Man."

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Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison wrote Beloved, which was made into a movie of the same name, starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover, before he was too old for this shit. The book won the Pulitzer, and her other work has done pretty darn well, too, She won the Nobel in 1993. In 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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Dave White

Dave White (b. 1979) is a New Jersey novelist, known for his love of pork rolls and the NY Mets. White attended Rutgers University, which discontinued its women's fencing program in 2007.  Ozzie Nelson also attended Rutgers.

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It's Dave, man. Open up.

By Dave White

Hi, Do Some Damage readers, I’m back.

And, to be honest, it feels like I never left.  It’s Sunday night, when I’m writing this, and I promised Steve Weddle, I’d have a post to him by the end of the weekend.  And I have no idea what to write about.  This was how it felt every Monday night when, around 10 o’clock at night, I realized I had a post to write.

I’d always freeze up.

The reason wasn’t the obvious one:  writer’s block plus a deadline.  No, it was often the problem of having too much to write about.  But not knowing what fit.  That was my problem, and it was the problem I feel permeates the blog-o-sphere.

When I left Do Some Damage, I wasn’t writing . . . not fiction, anyway.  I was working on graduate school papers, I was working on Rutgers blog posts, and I was working on raising a baby.  So, I wasn’t really thinking about fiction.  I had some ideas, and I had some opinions, but they were insular to the small-ish crime fiction internet world.

Which was the exact people I’d been writing to for nine years in some for or another.  But I wanted to move beyond that.  I wanted to catch the eye of the casual mystery fan.  I wanted to scream to them about Marcus Sakey or Jay Stringer or Russel McLean or Steve Weddle.  Get those books in front of the casual fans’ eyes.

And I didn’t know how.

The only thing I knew is seeing the headline “How to Write a Sex Scene” for the 8 billionth time on a blog wasn’t going to do it.  So, I stepped down.

But now I’m back, just for this week.  My old books are being published by a brand new publisher in the fantastic Polis Books.  Very soon, they’ll even be putting out a brand new Jackson Donne novel:  NOT EVEN PAST.

I’m back in the game.  I’m excited.

But I’m still faced with the same age-old problem.  I have too much to write about, and I don’t want to lecture you about writing.

Guess I’ll stick to Rutgers posts.

However, I did want to check in and say hi.  I miss you guys.  But the people who took over for me are doing fantastic work.  I still read every day.

And if you haven’t checked out my books, it’s a great time to do so.  WHEN ONE MAN DIES is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iBooks.  The second Jackson Donne novel is available in the same places.

I hope you’ll give them a look.

What should I... *trails off, drooling*

My brain is a bit of a scrambled mess right now.

I'm taking a graduate course, which I believe I've mentioned here, and the writing I'm having to do is academic.  Extremely repetitive.  Different.  Not bad, just different.

I have a baby.  He wakes up in the middle of the night.  He cries.  He's ridiculously cute.  I think about him a lot.

Work is busy.  That's why they call it work.

Rutgers is going to the Big Ten.

Basically, there's a lot of static right now.  So I'm not reading.  I'm not writing fiction.  I pick up a comic book every once in a while.  But I haven't felt this out of the loop with the writing world since 2002.

But there is some light ahead.

My class is done in 3 weeks.  I'll have some time to myself.  I'll get to finish Sean Chercover's THE TRINITY GAME, and read Dennis Lehane's LIVE BY NIGHT and our own Jay Stringer's OLD GOLD.

But I'll probably need one more.

So give me a suggestion world.  I'm out of the loop.

What should I read?

The Haters

The college sports world hit the new again tonight when a college hoops prospect decided he was going to choose his college this week.  The schools he'd narrowed his choices down to? UNLV and Oregon.

No big deal, right?

(Especially for readers of this blog.  Get to it, DaveyPants.)

Well, on Twitter it was a big deal.  Fans of the current champion Kentucky Wildcats assaulted the prospect's Twitter account.  "F*ck you!" They @replied him.  "I only hope the worst for you."  It was ugly.  And I only chose the easiest tweets to post.



But (aha, here comes the point), behavior like this is widespread across the internet. Look at any Amazon page and read some of the bad reviews.  While they are rarely curse laden, because Amazon screens, some are filled with hatred toward the author.  Anonymous comments on blogs lash out at people they don't agree with.  Look at any news article or blog post on teachers.  These posts are filled with thoughtlessness.  Cruelty. 

What do these people get out of this?  Hiding behind their internet screen names, they can say what they want and expect to be consequence free.  And most of these people aren't teens being teens.  They are mature adults who hold good jobs.

It's all about two things.  Power and entitlement.

Power:  People get a kick out of being able to say what they want directly to someone.  And when their view of that person or that person's work is negative, it becomes even easier.  It is very difficult to compliment someone.  A lot easier to bash and let every emotion they feel out toward that person.  Feels good, doesn't it?

Entitlement:  Now that the internet exists, people feel they deserve everything.  I spent 99 cents on this book.  I spent 9.99 on this book.  I deserve everything I buy to be GOOD.  I should agree with everything someone says.  My team should have the best players on the planet EVERY YEAR.

People need to think.  You wouldn't say this stuff if the author was sitting right next to you.  If the 18 year old kid making one of the biggest decisions of his life was standing in front of you.

So, don't do it now.

Even if you're on the 'net, hiding behind a fake name, be a human.

The PI

I've been thinking a lot about the PI series lately.

The PI should be hitting another level of popularity among readers. I mean, they're some of the most technologically advanced crime fighters out there. (Crime fighters or, ya know, people who hang out outside seedy hotels and wait for people to do bad things so they can take pictures of them.) They used to lug around a ton of equipment to listen in on conversations and take pictures and pee in jars while they waited.

Now most of that (minus the peeing) can be done on an iPhone and strong MacBook. And, as far as I can tell, tech is really popular these days.

But there's a problem. I'm seeing fewer and fewer PI books available these days. The ones that are are standard series that have been around for awhile. I have two thoughts on this:

1) The public's consciousness of the PI is stuck in the past. They haven't thought about how PIs have moved ahead technologically and advanced the profession, thereby leading to all knew story options. The public still views the guy in the trenchcoat, lighting a cigarette on a rainy street. That's what they want. When they don't get it, they're disappointed. When they do get it, they complain it something they've seen before.

2) Everyone has an iPhone or MacBook. It's nothing new. Spy stories are popular because they take you to a world you don't normally see. But PIs use technology that's available to everyone. Nothing new, nothing to surprise the reader.

I have no idea if these are anywhere near the truth, but it's thoughts like this that go through my head on a warm Monday night.

What do you think?

Are they new PI series out there I should be checking out?

Advice From an Ass

Back in my younger days, way back in the aughts, I used to love doling out writing advice on blogs. It was ego, I think, plus the fact that I wanted feedback on my advice from other writers. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Most times I came off looking like an ass, I'd imagine.

Occasionally, I still write about what works for me, and hope other writers maybe gain something from it. Mostly, if you've followed my DSD posts, I've been whining about not writing.

But, I'm back, baby!

I'm writing something just for me. After nearly 6 months off, I'm about 5000 words into a new piece. I'm writing it because it's been in my head, like a loose end that needs to be tied.

And one piece of advice that I've always followed is jumping out in my mind.

When you have the chance, blow up the novel. I don't mean stick a literal explosion in it (though I love those), and I don't mean stop writing it, scrap it...

No, I mean, when you as the author come to a crossroads, where the book can go one of two ways... go the harder way. Kill the character you thought you'd follow for seven or eight novels.

Put another character through hell.

Don't worry about longevity. Because readers are savvy. They know when a characters not about to be killed. They know when you're taking the easy way out because you HAVE to get the character to another point in the story.

So, don't do that. Torture your characters, put them through hell. Series characters be damned.

If you're surprising yourself, you're surprising most readers.

And you want your readers saying "Holy shit" every time they turn the page. That's what keeps readers going: loving a character and wanting to see that character get fucked up.

(Readers are weird. They love a character, but they don't really want to see that character make dinner, go to bed, wake up, have coffee and then say "Wow, that was a good day.")

I'm at that tipping point now. I have an opportunity to twist this novel into something surprising.

And I'm going to do it.

I think.

Because if I'm saying "Holy shit" then so should the reader.

Taken by Robert Crais

The best Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels focus on their friendship. LA Requiem was a gem, digging deep into the past of the two heroes, finally shedding a light on some of Pike's past.

Now comes TAKEN, the most recent novel by Robert Crais, digs that hole deeper and what comes of it is the best Crais novel since The Watchman--perhaps even Two Minute Rule. The set-up is this: Elvis Cole is asked to find a college aged girl, daughter of an illegal immigrant, who's disappeared. Cole quickly discovers she's been taken by a Syrian who wants to sell illegal immigrants back to their families. And then, during his investigation, Cole is taken as well.

And only one man can find him: Joe Pike.

The book cleverly ratchets up suspense early, by playing with time a bit--centering on Pike's search before we even read about Cole's abduction. Each part of the book is a count up to the time Cole is taken.

But, as with the best Pike novels, we learn more about Pike's devotion to Cole. We see it in Pike's simple one word bits of dialogue. And we see it in his actions, when Pike goes to Cole's apartment.

The book is fast paced and action packed. If you've followed the series, you can't miss this one.

_________________________________

Meanwhile, Kindle owners, my own thriller Witness to Death is free for the next two days. Check it out!

Still Moving...

So you're getting a best of from 2005... the way, way, way back machine. Here's my favorite serial killer story lines:

Just thought I'd share with you some of my favorite ridiculous lines from serial killer movies. I just saw a commerical for The Inside some new profiler show on Fox.

Anyways, here are some of my favorite lines that are said in every serial killer movie:

He wants to be caught.

I don't like this one one bit. Either the guy wants to kill and kill compulsively or he wants to be caught. Why not turn yourself in? The only time this one work is in Se7en.


He will kill again.

Yes. That's what serial killers do.

That doesn't fit the profile.

Anybody else sick of the profile? I know I am. This one went over the top when Sandra Bullock muttered "The profile doesn't fit the profile." in that wonderful movie Murder by Numbers.

He wants them to suffer.

No kidding? Man, I really thought he wanted them to die peacefully in their sleep.
There have to be more. Anyone else got any good ones?

The Whole Free Thing

So I had a pretty good week.

First off, my wife and I finally closed on our house and moved in. To celebrate, I played around with Witness to Death and made it free for a few days.

And the book did better than I ever could have expected. Over the span of a week, the book was downloaded over 25,000 times. Meanwhile, when it returned to costing money, it got into the top 100 in both the US and the UK. It's sold so many copies this week, that I've nearly doubled the copies sold.

So, while I'm sitting here, surrounded by half empty boxes, I wanted to take a moment and thank you all for your help. WITNESS TO DEATH is in the hands of more people than I could have ever imagined.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Act Like You've Been There Before

Stop justifying and be proud.

A lot of authors are taking up blog posts, twitter updates, yadda yadda (yeah, my usual pet peeves) to justify why their book is an e-book only. Whether they are with an upstart e-book publisher (who, by the way, are all AWESOME) or they're self-publishing, they need to go out and write and write and write about why they aren't on pieces of paper.

You know what?

At this point, it's unnecessary. E-books are here to stay. They're books. They have words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and eventually tell a story. If an editor was a wonderful person and picked you up, that means he or she loved the story. If you and your agent sent the book around, got a few close calls, but didn't get an official bite... and you published it yourself... if you're getting good reviews. Then stop worrying.

Too often e-book authors like to jump on the the interwebs and act like the little brother. They NEED to matter. They NEED to be noticed.

To use an overused sports cliche, act like you've been there before.

People respect e-books. They buy them. They read them. You've made it. Be happy, be proud.

But all these blog posts, Facebook statuses (stati?), and Twitter updates explaining WHY YOU HAD TO PUBLISH AN EBOOK... are written for once small, teeny, tiny group of people.

Other e-book writers.

And maybe a few people considering going e-book.

Remember your audience should be everyone. Not just this corner of the blogosphere that the crime fiction or sci-fi or paranormal adverb-filled romance community. More people read than the 200 people who visit your blog.

Be proud.

You're an author.

You're awesome.

The Five Rules of the Internet

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. As you know, the rise of social media, along with message boards and screen names have done a lot to promote anonymous hate and complaining. Sometimes you can log on only to find people whining and whining and whining about the smallest things.

So, I try to go by 5 rules on social media.

1. Pick Your Battles: My battle is education. I'm a teacher along with the whole wanting to be a writer thing. Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, you know that education is at a strange tipping point. The right want to pare down public education and make it mostly private. I disagree. This is my fight. This is what I try to keep my protesting to online. Everything in the world is not horrible, so stop acting like it is.

2. Talk about things you love: Rutgers basketball, movies, Doctor Who, books. I try to keep my topics positive. I want to enjoy my time on the internet, not run to it when it's time to whine. The use of the word awesome brightens my day. (And not in the form of "Well, this is an awesomely bad idea.")

3. Observe the Two Week Rule: Ah, the 2 week rule. Just remember that anytime there's an internet controversy, it'll be forgotten about in 2 weeks. People will find other things to whine about. So, unless it's major (sayyyyy the Governor of NJ comes up with a loophole to turn all schools private in 8 seconds), it's very rarely worth spending a day and a half complaining about.

4. Odds Are, You Aren't Going to Fix It: You can spout off all you want. It ain't going to change because of the internet. You may be able to use the internet to save your favorite TV show. And people have used social media to organize. But complaining on the internet is like complaining to the mirror. Nothing's changing.

5. Be More Funny: Even when things bug me, I try to add a sense of humor to the situation. I'm sarcastic, but I try not to be mean (the couple of times I've been mean, I've gotten in trouble). Tell jokes, mock, be snarky... but don't just flat out complain.


I'm sure I've broken a few of these rules at times. Everyone does. But for the most part, keeping this in my mind helps keep me sane amongst the noise.

Jim Winter Stops By

It's round 3 of guest bloggery as Jim Winter stops by to shill his latest e-release Northcoast Shakedown, er... I mean Northcoast....wait a second...Yeah... Northcoast Shakedown.

So what is Northcoast Shakedown? Isn’t that some book that came out from some penny-ante Baltimore area press that went under about five minutes before the sequel came out?

Yes, it is, and yes, it’s back.

In a nutshell, it’s about Nick Kepler, a Cleveland area insurance investigator who’s scored free office space and secretarial help from his former employers at TTG Insurance. We meet Nick actually in the middle of the action with a dead hooker and a rising star in local politics. Always start with a bang, and Sandy Lapinsky’s morning started off with just that. Back up a few days, and we learn Nick’s life would be a lot easier if 1.) he never picked up his phone on the way out to nab a worker comp cheat and 2.) told a TTG exec what he could do with his job reference for a cheating spouse case. From there, it gets complicated.

There’s sex, drugs, some rock and roll in the background, and little bedroom gunplay that doesn’t end well.

Nick was what I saw as one of the first Gen X PI’s. Others came out around the same time, including our own Dave White’s Jackson Donne. Only Dave liked to torture Jackson more than I wanted to torture Nick. I had a multi-book arc in which I send Nick to Hell, then take my sweet time bringing him back. Dave pretty much destroyed Donne in one book and dragged him kicking and screaming back in the second. (I liked that second book quite nicely, actually.)

But one of the things Dave and I used to talk about was our respective settings. Dave wrote in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I, of course, wrote about Cleveland. While Northcoast was in its polishing stage, I paid Dave a visit during a trip to New York City, and we, along with fellow writer Pat Lambe, did the Jackson Donne Tour of New Brunswick.

There’s something about a city that makes this type of story work in a way it doesn’t with other types of fiction. For instance, much is made of how chick lit used to be almost a creature of Manhattan. Come to Cincy during the warm weather. Look me up. I’ll take you to Mt. Adams or Hyde Park on a Sunday morning, and I swear to God, it’s every episode of Sex and the City you never wanted to see.

You could conceivably transplant a PI character from his environs, but it seldom works. I couldn’t watch Eight Million Ways to Die because, the Dude Jeff Bridges may be, when he starts out as an LA County deputy sheriff, the show’s over. Similarly, I tried to like the Robert Mitchum remake of The Big Sleep, but let’s be honest. Philip Marlowe is not an overweight Yank in London pushing sixty. (Didn’t help the movie was done by the same outfit that did Space:1999.)

No, Nick is definitely Cleveland. His is a generation that saw lifetime employment at GM and US Steel and Goodyear slip away before high school. He and his North Coast compadres spent the late eighties and early nineties listening to Led Zeppelin and lusting after Detroit muscle cars from the post-Woodstock era. But of course, those days are gone for him and everyone else. It’s not the city he grew up in, but it has that same gritty, roll-up-your-sleeves vibe you still see in Chicago.

So Nick is a creature of his environment. I toyed with sending him to Chicago or New Orleans, but it wouldn’t work. I love Chicago, and New Orleans holds a lot of promise for good storytelling, but they’re not for Nick.

Unlike his creator, who very nearly moved to Chicago before meeting his lovely bride a few years ago, Nick can never leave Cleveland. Or if he does, the story will be in him going back.

We Are All Whiners

This blog post does not represent the opinion of anyone else on Do Some Damage but Dave White.

Shut up.

We--the writers and fans of books--all need to shut up. Big time.

Lately, there's been discussion about self-promotion on Twitter, Amazon boards, Facebook. Basically it comes down to this. Book writers are promoting their books on Twitter. Posting "I have a book out. Buy it! Here's a link." Apparently, it's constant*. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

Then came the next wave. All the fans of writers have now revolted and started complaining about self-promotion. Immediate unfollowing of self-promoters. Creating arbitrary rules about promotion. "You can only do it once a week." "Five, ten, fifteen percent of time should be self-promotion." Wahh, wahhh, wahhh**.

Shut up.

First off, fans of writing... you have to understand something. Writers need to be noticed. There's a lot of noise out there and they want you to know the name of their book. Wouldn't you be upset if a writer you loved came out with a book and you never heard about it? All writers have fans. Some have a lot of fans. Some have 2 fans***. The only way their fans are going to notice them is if they mention their book. And you know what? Not everyone is always on Twitter at the same time. So sometimes these writers have to post about it more than once! So, if you're a fan of writer and of writers, give people a break okay. Especially if their book has only been out a month or two.

Okay, now writers. Yeah, you guys. Over here. Listen up. You need to chill out a little bit. Talk to people. Come up with conversation. And also, be creative. Let's not shout it all out all the time and then whine when people complain. You're a writer. Creativity is your life. You have to come up with a way to get noticed that's different from the ways everyone else gets noticed. And I'm not talking contests. Everyone does contests. No one who enters a contest ever buys the product their in the contest for. They want free stuff. If they don't get the free stuff, they'll go try to get other free stuff. I don't know what the real answer is. But you need to lay-off the shouting a little bit. I'm not going to come up with some random arbitrary rule for you****, you need to find your comfort zone. But maybe ease off the gas a little bit.

(Or, how about this. Everyone on Twitter picks a different author to promote. If we all promote each other, it's not self-promotion. Then what? Oh, snap!)

See the problem isn't self-promotion... or complaining about self-promotion. Not really. It's about society. The society we live in. The society of protests.

You see, in real life, protesters are doing something good. They're protesting BIG ISSUES. And they're trying to make real change. Look at the Wisconsin Unions, or Egypt, or the Tea Party, or Occupy Wall Street. They've all created real change over big issues.

Us?

We're complaining about .... commercials. Sorry, but commercials are a way of life. You're always going to have them. And some of them are pretty damn annoying. But we've always been able to ignore them. And then the people who make the commercials have to try a different tact. When all we do is complain... complain about the little things...it takes away the power of complaining about the big things. About fighting against something.

But we see all these protests, and we need something to whine about so we take up this issue. OOOHHHHH, there's too much on my Twitter feed. OOOHHHHHH, no one's buying my book.

Gimme a break. All of us. We all need to take a breather. We allllllll--even me--should shut up.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath and just chill out. Yes, I know Freedom of Speech is a right. But by both clogging up Twitter with self-promotional commercials**** and complaining about those commercials, you are trying to prohibit free speech. Complainers want to shut people up, self-promos want Twitter to be nothing more than a commercial.

So, let's ease off. Everyone. Be positive. Have fun. Because you know what? Discussion on Twitter never lead us to real change in publishing. Their circular conversations, ones that end up in the same place****** and never solve anything.

So, let's all take a deep breath and stop the freaking whining*******.

*My Twitter feed did have some advertising in it, but I wouldn't say it was constant. And I follow a lot writers.

**I actually saw a lot more of this than I did the actual self-promotion because it got retweeted a lot. And people didn't just post it, they went on ten tweet rants about it.

***Hi mom! Hi dad!

****Unlike those people on the Amazon message boards. Whoa are they crazy. Anyone tries to do something nice for a writer and they flip the f out. And then high five when the writer slinks away, trying to be nice.

*****Funny. When the promotion comes from a publisher, I NEVER see anyone complain about it. There are never "Boyyyy, Little Brown tweets about their books too much."

******Yes, I understand the irony of me posting about this. But I wanted to say it in more than 140 characters. Then I'll shut up. Plus, I like reading comments.

*******Look at all these footnotes. I hate footnotes. I should stop the footnotes. BLEEECCCHHH. I wrote a whole blog post complaining about footnotes once. Ask Russel. But now...it's a truce. I won't complain about them.

Best TV of 2011

Last week I talked about HOMELAND, which was one of my favorite TV shows of the new season. That goes along with 3 other shows that either tugged at my heart, tickled my brain or kept me on the edge of my seat:

Doctor Who: I first caught up with this show last April and, yes, got obsessed. Steven Moffat is telling a modern day fairy tale, complete with monsters, humor, emotion and plenty of mind bending twists. Though his endings don't always live up to his set-ups, they always fit together nicely. And the season finale of series 5 is amazing TV, and the opening minute of series 6 are mind-blowing. If you like funny, twisty sci-fi, check out this series.

Terriers: A modern day PI novel set-up for TV. This show gets into the lives two down-on-their-luck PIs who take a case and get... you guessed it... caught up in something much, much bigger. And while the case isn't exactly breaking new ground, the banter between the two PIs and the events they go through in their personal lives make the show compelling as hell. The show only lasted a season, but you got about as good a conclusion as you're going to get. Check it out on Netflix now.

Breaking Bad: What else can be said about this TV show? Simply the best drama on TV today. This is a show that needs patience from its viewers, but pays off in spades if you keep up with it. The latest season was no different. I'm staying away from spoilers, so I can't tell you much more... but know this... the show will ring your bell.

Next week... books.

Homeland

Homeland is a TV Drama on Showtime--probably fall/winter's best new show. It follows two main characters.... Claire Danes plays a troubled CIA agent who believes and American soldier has been turned by Al Qaeda and will soon attack the States.

Damian Lewis plays that soldier. The early episodes really play the is he or isn't he a terrorist angle, but then bears down into a dark character study about what it's like to return to the United States after being a POW for 8 years. Lewis' character really brings the twists and turns to the show and seeing what he's going to do week in and week out keep dragging me back in.

The action scenes are brief and tense, and this week's climax had me sitting up, trying to get a closer shot of what was going to happen. The show is rarely predictable, and even when it looked like it was about to take a disappointing turn toward the every day TV drama, the show managed to right itself in the next episode.

The scene-stealer for me, however, is Mandy Patankin, who plays a Dane's curmudgeon mentor. His dry deliver and serious manner are a pleasure to watch.

If you have Showtime, but aren't watching this show, you need to track it down.

Anyone else seen it? Thoughts?

Young Writers and Price Points

I annoyed Steve Weddle over the weekend saying that the idea that a reader is more likely to buy and not read a .99 cent book is false. I have bought plenty of books that were higher priced and never read them. It's the luck of the draw, I said.

And I stand by that.

People buy books for a bunch of reasons: the cover looks cool, the plot sounds great, someone recommended an author to them. After they buy that book, it's up to them whether or not they read it and when they decide to read it. I don't think price point plays into that as much as other reasons.

But I will say this... a cheaper price point helps a new writer. If a book is priced inexpensively, more people are going to buy it. If more people buy it, the odds are better that more people are going to read that book. If a book is priced at 17.99 on the Kindle for a first time author, fewer people are going to be willing to try out that book and that new author. Therefore, more readers.

As far as the 99 cent price point, writers like to complain that's lowering the price of art... or something to that effect. Readers don't care. Honestly, put yourself in a reader's point of view. A casual reader. Not someone who combs the blogs and Twitter follow their favorite writers. Just someone who picks up a few books a month on a whim.

Do you think they consider that the price of "art" is being degenegrated (or whatever the argument is)?

No.

They care they get a good yarn. A good read.

I know this because people who don't worry about following writers and just bought a Kindle come to me asking for suggestions for 99 cent authors. They love trying someone new, because it's affordable.

Cheaper sells more. And if more people buy your book, the odds are more people will read your book.

Indie booksellers are starting to adopt to this too. They are selling ebooks at inexpensive prices... the e-pub generation--it's going to help a lot of writers get a bigger audience..

Tone Deaf

Tone and voice go hand in hand in my mind.

The way a book sounds, its rhythm and vibe as the reader turns the pages and reads each sentence. A great voice is smooth like jazz, pushing the reader ahead more than even the action.

Robert Parker is smooth jazz. He can say in 3 words what it might take someone else ten pages to say. He can zing you with a one liner, only to pull it back with a tight emotion in the span of two paragraphs.

Elmore Leonard is jazz as well. More rat-a-tat. Descriptions through dialogue, quick bursts of action, and a subtle characterization built with few powerful words.

I love voice. I love trying to make my work seem effortless and easy. Cutting, adding--a lot of that is plot stuff. But voice... voice has to be natural. You have to know the way you sound and keep it consistent. Whether it's funny, or hardboiled, or sappy... all of that is yours.

Be who you are.

Let your voice shine. The rest will follow.

Throw It All In

Plotting is so haphazard to me. It takes drafts and drafts and drafts for me to get the plot right.

But if we're talking first draft plotting, it all boils down to this: I take what I see and throw it in the mix. A cool article I saw in the newspaper? Jam it in there.

Someone telling an anecdote about their night in the city? That'll fit somehow.

A location I've only been to a few times and is perfectly creepy? I can use that.

Basically, anything cool that's running around in my head gets thrown into the mix. Then it's a smoothing out (or altogether cutting out) process. I go over and over and over what I've done and smooth out the edges, create other more jagged edges, and then I have a plot.

Okay, that's not entirely true. There are other things too. Mostly I start with a central idea. A lot of people start with a character. Not me. I start with an idea.

A detective's mother has Alzheimer's and remembers a murder from her past.

A man is convinced his ex's new boyfriend is actually a spy.

Then I just start to build. And revise.

And revise.

And revise.

It's hard to write this all out because it changes each time. Duane Swierczynski likes to say that each time he writes a novel he has to learn how to write that novel. I agree with that. Plotting is basically a different process each time. For WITNESS TO DEATH, I really had to get to know the characters.

For THE EVIL THAT MEN DO I had to be somewhere and overhear something at the right time.

So, each time I plot, I plot differently.

Yeah, I'm no help at all, am I?

Sorry, I'm just trying to get the plot that's in my head out on to paper.... for the fourth time.

The Routine

I can't get into the routine.

Each time Monday night rolls around, I settle in and get ready to sleep. This is after the first work day of the week, some writing, hopefully a trip to the gym, some dinner, some TV and man, I'm tired. Time for bed.

Then I jolt awake in a panic as I realize I haven't come up with an idea for a post on this hear website.

It used to be I'll let the week sneak up on me. It'd be Wednesday night and time for me to post. By then I'd played with a few topics in my head and come up with one to post on. I'd still do it late on Wednesday, and sometimes I'd jolt awake in a panic, yes. But most often, the routine helped me get that post up.

This new Monday night--for Tuesday reading--routine is harder on me. I can't get into the swing.

And you see, like just about everything else, that's what writing is, a routine. Robert B. Parker used to say something along the lines of "If you write one page a day, by the end of the year you have a novel."

The key to that is "one page a day." Do it every day.

I'm writing this as an affirmation to myself. I need to get going on draft four. And just like every single time I write, getting started is the hardest part. If I can just do a little bit every day, I'll get to the end. But at the beginning that's hard. The hill looks impossible.

But it's not.

It's one step.

And then another.

And another.

Sorry if I'm not giving you blog comedy. Sorry if I'm not giving you brand new writing advice.

Sorry if I'm not making fun of Jay Stringer.

I just need to get this blog down for myself.

I need to find the routine. Find the rhythm.

Writing for myself... hmmm. That might be a blog post for another time. (Mark it down, Davey. You have an idea for next week.)

Listen To What the Man Said

Yaarrrr, here there be spoilers about Dr. Who, the Sopranos, and Lost

Some of my favorite TV shows have involved speculation.

LOST: What's in the hatch?

THE SOPRANOS: What happened to the Russian? What did that last scene mean after the mob warned off Gloria Trillo?

DOCTOR WHO: Who is River Song? Why did the Doctor have to die?

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: WHO IS THE FREAKIN' MOTHER ALREADY? JUST TELL ME! I'M SICK OF THIS GARBAGE!!!

These shows do multiple things. First, they entertain. They're fun, they load up on the cliffhangers and unanswered questions and they keep me tuning in (Well, at least until there are more questions than answers, and you can see the writers giving up and start fumbling the ball--Yes, I'm looking at you, THEY'RE DEAD FOR A WHOLE SEASON, LOST.)

Second, they get the fans talking. If a show is exciting enough, I'll start looking more about it. I'll read some SPOILER FREE speculation blog posts. I'll email some friends. I'll pretend there's a water cooler at work and stand in a corner pretending to talk to people about what I watched. I'll make up what I think are cool theories about the show. I'll listen to other people's whacked out--can't possibly be right--theories as well.

And I started to realize something.

The deeper and more compelling the stories gets, the less people listen to what's going on and speculate about what they WANT to happen. And then, when it doesn't, it gives them a reason to get angry.

Let me give you an example: The Russian in THE SOPRANOS. People kept expecting the Russian to come back after disappearing in the Pine Barrens (and likely dying from a gun shot wound and cold weather.). But people didn't want to believe that. Despite anything the dialogue said, people expected the Russian to be back in the final episode, shooting Tony in the head... even though Tony HAD NOTHING TO DO with the Russian event.

Or look more recently at Doctor Who. There is a whole blog post speculating about River/Mels/Melody's regenerations. Multiple. Even though in the show's reality, she's only done it once. As Mels is regenerating into River, she says, "The last time I did this..." and goes on to describe the regeneration at the end of Day of the Moon.

What's the deal with this?

Do people care about what they're watching or reading? Or do they just want to make up their own fan fiction and hope that happens in the show...?

I've even been known to do it a time or two.

But mostly, all you have to do is listen. Give it a try sometime.