Quertermous, Laukkanen and Joy at Houston’s Murder by the Book

by
Scott D. Parker

Slowly but surely, I am meeting each one of my fellow DSDers in person. I’ve met Joelle and Russell and now Bryon. He arrived at Murder by the Book last night with two other authors: David Joy and Owen Laukkanen. The fourth author, Duane Swierczynski, couldn’t make the trip from Philadelphia on account of the weather.

It’s always a funny thing to see a person in the flesh with whom you have corresponded over the internet. But he looks just like his photo over at his website. In Arizona, he wore a Flash T-shirt. I was wondering what hero garb he’d wear in Texas. Turns out to be Deadpool. (Pondering a hidden meaning…)

The Murder by the Book folks, led by owner McKenna Jordon, run these author events like a well-oiled machine. As they prepared for the talk, I chatted with author Bill Crider. It’s been awhile since I’d seen him and it was good to catch up.

McKenna moderated the panel with five questions that each author answered. She started with each man’s writerly routine. Bryon likes to get away and write in a McDonald’s up in Michigan where he lives. It’s the only place in town without WiFi so he can work uninterrupted and work on his words. Speaking of words, Owen strives for 5,000 words per day. And I’m officially very impressed. David’s words come when they come. He wrote his debut book while holding down two jobs. So to all those folks who say they don’t have time to write, I’ll give you David as Exhibit A.

When asked about the genesis of their books, Bryon said that he struggled a lot but that these characters (in Murder Boy) kept talking to him. Then a thought occurred to him and it acted like a revelation: “The Great American Novel can’t be a murder mystery.” David got the group laughing when he mentioned that he literally burned early drafts of his book. Owen, while lobster fishing, had a lot of time to think and he started wondering about telling the story of sex slaves from the POV of the slaves themselves.

In regards to writing approaches and how they might be different for different kinds of books, David confessed that he’s not good at anything else but writing. Owen touted his YA novel where he allowed himself to be as over-the-top as possible and it resonated not only with his agent and editor but one of the folks last night. Bryon tried to tell the story of Murder Boy as a short story, short play, full-length play, and then finally novel. Through it all, he managed to wrangle the text into the novel that’s out soon. (Psst! If you were at the event, they already had the novel available so it pays to go to author events!)

Writing heroes was another topic discussed. Owen studied the Da Vinci Code to help his own dad write a thriller. He also name dropped Thomas King, of Cherokee descent, who helped Owen understand the important of looking at your own work with a critical eye. David named a lot of authors he enjoys including Larry Brown, William Gay, Ron Rash, and Jeneatte Winterson. Bryon centered on two books as the actual sparks he needed to get Murder Boy written: Duane Swierczynski’s The Wheelman and Victor Gischler’s The Pistol Poets. He also extolled a love of late 50s/early 60s pulp fiction and specifically mentioned Hard Case Crime, something with which I can wholeheartedly concur.

Lastly, McKenna asked the superpower question: which one would you like to have. Bryon started off with ‘wealth’ partially because he gravitates to the non-powered heroes in comics but also because he could then buy the gadgets to help people. David didn’t read comics too much, but he has a fascination with fish so he went went the breathing underwater power (to which Bryon commented on the New 52 version of Aquaman, another thing I can vouch for). Owen, dreading the 5am flight he took this morning, craved teleportation. He also wanted the drug from the movie Limitless so he could write more books.

It was a swell time and I look forward to meeting more of my fellow DSDers someday. But the best thing about an event like this with multiple authors is the very thing you can only get from a bookstore like Murder by the Book: you get exposed to books and authors outside your normal range.

So get to a bookstore and browse and discover something new.

Perspective

by
Scott D. Parker

I had it all planned out.

Last week, I wrote about the smooth and seamless acquisition of my DBA for “Quadrant Fiction Studio” and the business checking account. By the end of last weekend, I had successfully published on Barnes and Noble after previously publishing on Amazon and Kobo. I had even set up my new monthly newsletter. I was ready for the Big Announcement on Wednesday. I was going to announce via Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else.

Well, things did not go according to plan.

This past Monday, my boy was admitted to the hospital with abdominal pains. The doctors and nurses quickly zeroed in on a possible cause: appendicitis. After three different folks conducted painful ultrasounds, the general consensus was that of a ruptured appendix. He had a successful appendectomy and is recovering very well.

What was great, especially for my wife and I having to keep the worry at bay, was how efficient everything went. I got the call from my wife at ten, we were in the ER before eleven, and he was in surgery at half past three. There were no other surgeries planned so we had the pre-op room and waiting room to ourselves. A little over an hour later, he was in recovery and soon moved into a cozy private room where he’s been ever since. With good test results, he might be able to go home on Saturday.

Needless to say, the announcement of my first published book was pointless beside my son’s health. He’s already one up on me in life experiences as I’ve never had surgery other than the removal of wisdom teeth.

Sure, I wanted the Big Announcement to be this past Wednesday, but, then again, I wanted to have the book published in January and I missed that mark, too. And the only person, at this stage of my fiction career, who cares about publication dates is me. To the rest of the world, it’s just there.

Perspective. It’s a good thing.

Be that as it may, WADING INTO WAR is now available, live and worldwide, at Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. The new cover link over there on the right takes you to the book webpage at Quadrant Fiction Studio. The author page is also up and running. It'll be the place from which I blog from now on. From there you can sign up for the monthly newsletter.

The best thing about making the announcement today? No longer does it just fall on a random Wednesday in February. It now coincides with my son returning home after a week’s sojourn in the hospital.

Fantastical Noir: Guest Post

By Chris F. Holm

Since Steve was kind enough to hand over the controls to DSD for the day, I thought I'd try my best to quell the urge to start mashing buttons and flipping switches just to find out what they do, and actually talk about what I'm here to talk about. Namely, my debut novel DEAD HARVEST, which dropped just yesterday in the US, and goes worldwide on March 1. DEAD HARVEST is a story of fantastical noir (a term I just made up because "urban fantasy" only kinda sorta fits the bill; it seems to me fantastical noir could just as easily take place in the country), so I figured I'd talk a bit about the hows and whys that led a guy mostly known (by the five-odd folks who've heard of him) for writing straight-up crime fic to pen this particular bit of crossover fare.

Every writer's got their elevator pitch – a punchy line or two encapsulating their latest earth-shattering work of staggering ingenuity they keep at the ready should they happen across an editor, literary agent, or particularly fetching barista in the wild. Mine for DEAD HARVEST is as follows:

DEAD HARVEST is the first in a series of supernatural thrillers that recasts the battle between heaven and hell as Golden Era crime pulp.

See? Short and to the point. But I'll admit, it does raise a question or two, the most obvious being: "Why the eff would anyone recast the battle between heaven and hell as Golden Era crime pulp?

Well, Strangely Standoffish Hypothetical Interrogator, I suppose I could answer that with your basic Reese's Peanut Butter Cup defense; you know, two great tastes that taste great together? I dig stories about angels and demons. Ditto classic pulp in the vein of Chandler and Hammett. Smoosh 'em both together, and how could you go wrong?

The thing is, as answers go, that one's both glib and wildly incomplete. I mean, I love whiskey, and I love bacon, but we can all agree that bacon whiskey would be terrible, right? (Actually, that doesn't sound half bad. Okay, then: how about steak-flavored iced cream?) Point is, for any flavor combination to really click, both components have got to be complimentary. And if you ask me, religion and old-school pulp are mighty complimentary indeed.

No, wait, Second Hypothetical Vociferous Objector, hear me out! The two have more in common than you might think. The broad strokes, for one: both feature countless tales of murder, betrayal and revenge, as well as lean heavily on the notion of free will as humankind's greatest strength and most dangerous weakness. But digging deeper, one realizes the archetypes of sacred texts provide the foundation upon which the devout build their very conception of morality, and from which skeptics draw to craft their arguments. In short, they're hardwired into our cultural lexicon. It only stands to reason our greatest pulp practitioners employed those archetypes in crafting their lurid, modern takes on the classic morality play.

James Cain's tales of forbidden romance leading to violence, misery, and regret may as well have taken place in Eden. Chandler's cops and criminals were often cut from the same cloth, while Revelations and the Book of Enoch talk of angels and their fallen brethren. Genesis tells the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah; in RED HARVEST (from which I not-so-subtly took my title), Hammett writes of Poisonville. And speaking of Poisonville, while nearly every culture on the planet has their own flood myth of rising waters sent to wash away the wickedness from the world, Hammett's violent cleansing of that corrupt burg came courtesy of his nameless, unflagging Continental Op – but it was no less awesome for it.

And what would any pulp tale be without a decent femme fatale? The Babylonian Talmud first introduced the world to a redheaded, acid-tongued temptress by the name of Lilith, who, in one form or another, has since wreaked havoc in darn near every religious or occult text penned. I'm pretty sure she popped up in THE MALTESE FALCON, too, only then she was known as Brigid O'Shaughnessy.

Lilith shows up in DEAD HARVEST, too. She plays handler to my main character, Sam, a man damned to collect condemned souls for all eternity, and deliver them to hell. Sam's sent to collect the soul of a young girl who's been condemned for brutally slaying her own family, but he comes to believe she's been set up. So he does something no Collector's done before: he disobeys his handler's orders, and sets out to clear his target's name. Soon he's got angels, demons, and half the NYPD on his tail, but that's the least of his worries. Seems if he doesn't sort out the mess he's in, and fast, he may wind up jump-starting the Apocalypse.

So yeah. Sunday School, it ain't (though I'm fairly sure sitting through some Sunday School in my youth probably had a hand in pushing me to write it). And it ain't quite old-school pulp either. But if I've done my job right, it's at least one hell of a ride...

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Read an excerpt and purchase.

When Panic Sets In

by: Joelle Charbonneau (posting for the soon-to-be-wed Dave White)

Well, the calendar tells me my release of SKATING AROUND THE LAW is less than two months away. And yes, I am panicking. In less than two months, I’ll be touring the country hoping to God people show up and keep me company at my signings. I’ll also be hoping readers like the book.

It’s funny, but as a stage performer I’m used to people expressing their opinions about the work I do. That’s just part of the job. However, as a performer, if an audience doesn’t react well to your work, well, there’s always tomorrow. A new show, a new audience, a new day.

For writers, tomorrow is a new day, but it takes a long time for a new book to hit the stands. I think that’s the reason I’m panicking more for this opening day than any in my performing career. If someone doesn’t like this book, chances are they won’t read the next one. Scary stuff.

And yet I wouldn’t trade the panic and the sleepless nights for anything. Does that make me a masochist? Probably. This adventure is a lot like a roller coaster ride. The submission process is the long ride up the hill. Every click of the coaster as it lurches up and up makes your muscles clench and your heart skip. And just when you start to get comfortable with that part of the ride, the coaster hits the top and tilts over the edge. That’s when the real fun begins. There are highs and lows, twists and turns and a lot of loop-da-loops. Most likely during this ride I will scream with joy and fear, shed a few tears and have some good laughs. At some point during the ride I will want to get off and never climb back on and yet, I am hoping that by the time the car pulls into the station I’ll be first in line to get back on. If they let me.

So for all of you writers out there, what has your writing journey felt like thus far? Does it feel like a roller coaster, a dive out of a plane or something else?