Oddments

by Holly West

There are a few things I want to discuss today:

1) Snapchat

Why aren't more writers using Snapchat? Or if they are, why can't I find them? I feel like there's some potential here for brand building (yes, I know that phrase is an anathema to some, but I can't think of a better one right now). At the very least, we can have some fun with Snapchat.

I am so very tired of Facebook and Twitter. These days, my social media app of choice is Instagram, but I've been playing around with Snapchat a little bit lately and now that I understand it a bit better, I like it. Being a writer, the "story" aspect of it intrigues me. Sure, most of the people I follow (myself included) post silly little snippets consisting of puppy dog filters and funny voices, but what if we took it a step further and really made a "story" of it? Quick, off-the-cuff stuff that follows some sort of narrative, even if its just an occasional glimpse into the snapper's life. It doesn't have to be complicated, but does require some creativity and maybe even some scripting.

Well, maybe not scripting. That seems at odds with the spirit of Snapchat. I'm attracted to the spontaneity it encourages and also to its temporary nature. Sure, I know people can screen save and whatnot, but in general, a post is automatically deleted in 24 hours. It allows me the freedom to post things I might not post elsewhere. I'm less image-conscious on Snapchat. I have the sense that I'm snapping into the void (which, considering my minuscule audience, I am) so I just post whatever I feel like.

I'm no Snapchat expert (my hairstylist had to teach me how to use filters yesterday) so I won't try to educate you. But if you're game, follow me: hollywestwriter. Let's have some fun with this.

2) I'm not sure I mentioned it here, but I'm an Anthony Award nominee. I KNOW. I'm thrilled to pieces and still can't quite believe it, even though I found out months ago.

But yes, my short story, "Don't Fear the Ripper," is nominated for a 2016 Anthony in the short story category. As is the anthology in which it appears: PROTECTORS 2 HEROES, edited by Thomas Pluck. You can read "Don't Fear the Ripper" and all of the other nominated short stories here.

3) On Saturday, July 16, I'll be appearing at Oakland's Beast Crawl alongside fellow authors Renee Pickup (also my fellow DSDer!), David Corbett, Sean Craven and Rob Pierce. I'm reading from a short story I wrote years ago for the FEEDING KATE anthology called "Just Part of the Job:"

On her way home from a night of partying in the valley, a troubled young movie star hits a bicyclist on Malibu Canyon. Does she stick around and take the heat or does she run? Oh boy, you don't know the half of it. 

4) Finally, William E. Wallace recently reviewed the UNLOADED anthology, in which my story "Peep Show" appears. Spoiler alert: he likes it!

This post turned out a bit more promotional than I'd intended. Sorry for that. But my own take away here is that I've never really considered myself a short story writer. Mostly, I write them for charity anthologies and while I'm happy to do it, I sometimes wonder if the time it takes away from other projects is worth it. After this year, however, I'm convinced it is. "Don't Fear the Ripper," which was originally written for a charity anthology, was picked up by a much larger, paying publication, and this, combined with the Anthony nomination, it's the highest profile piece I've written, including my two novels. Sales, of course, might be another issue, but sometimes, my writerly self-esteem needs a boost. This was a big one.

Until next week, folks. In the meantime, FOLLOW ME ON SNAPCHAT.

The Narrative and the Talisman

Guest Post by Thomas Pluck

Like America, I have a complicated relationship with guns. One of the first memories I have of my father is him shooting a Colt Junior automatic in the basement when I was six years old. The last memory was the call to tell me he’d committed suicide with a snub nose .38 revolver.

So when Eric Beetner asked me to contribute to a collection of crime stories without guns, I was eager to join. I own firearms but I don’t keep them in my house. They’re in my stepfather’s gun safe. I have been assaulted, but the last thing I would have wanted at the time was a gun. It was three on one. I left with a bloody nose and one of them with a wrenched neck. None of us died that day. But that’s just my experience. I wouldn’t force that opinion on anyone else. Ten years of boxing and grappling in a dojo where the teacher made us practice every move on him, someone who had been stabbed, shot, and fought bareknuckle in Burma, I feel much more comfortable in possibly dangerous situations than I ever did when I carried a gun.

In stories, guns are instant tension. They appeal to our fears and desires for power. Chekhov’s “law” was that if you see a gun in the first act, it must go off in the third. Which has its own problems. Why can’t it be a red herring? What about Hitchcock’s adage about suspense? If a bomb goes off, it’s a surprise. If we know it is ticking under the table, that’s suspense. I’ve written stories where the gun doesn’t go off, and readers have told me how the suspense gnawed at them long after they stopped reading. But with no gun at all, you have to look elsewhere for that fix. For my Denny the Dent story, “The Final Encore of Moody Joe Shaw,” I chose different avenues of suspense. Is someone trying to kill the sweet old lady who’s hired Denny to clean up her mangled fence? She’s based on a woman I used to deliver groceries to in college. The real Mrs. Kolb worked for Houghton-Mifflin and loved books, so it’s fitting that now she’s in one. She didn’t have jazz records, but first editions of Hemingway and many others, and I wondered if someone pilfered her shelves when she died. I was out of state when it happened, and only learned of her death long after, but the mystery formed in my head, as they do.

The other source of suspense is the yearning that Denny’s friend Ike feels for connection, which for me, was the stronger. That sense of loss and what might have been comes from the death of my father, and that we never fully reconciled. He gave me the chance, when he had made his decision, but I was too young and headstrong to see it then. So I had a well to draw from.

I didn’t sell my guns or bury them in the ground when he killed himself. Guns are a tool, it’s our brains that are the problem. We mythologize them. The American hero is a lone killer with a gun. How many stories end with a man setting off to right things with his gun? It’s a narrative we’ve embraced, so that when our problems are too complicated to shoot our way out of, we shrug our shoulders and say “what ya gonna do?” There are few easy answers. We say we admire gumption, then why do we love stories where instead of hard work, the hero just kills everyone giving him static? Some of my favorite stories do this. It’s become The Narrative.

And who can change the Narrative? If stories matter, then we who write them hold some responsibility to change its course. Does the mere presence of a gun in a story inspire violence? I don’t think so. If it’s a magical talisman that solves all our problems and the stories end before the consequences of violence are explored, then perhaps it can. If the villain is simply “evil” and exists for the hero to kill with impunity, then maybe it does. My upcoming novel BAD BOY BOOGIE from Down & Out Books does not shy from the consequences. Jay Desmarteaux enjoys meting out vengeance, and those around him have used that to fire him like a hate-seeking missile at their enemies since he was a child. The scars from vengeance run deep, and an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. And if you think “consequences” is “killing ten bad guys every novel in a ten book series just means the hero is a lonely whiskey aficionado,” I direct you to Lt. Dave Grossman’s excellent book on the subject, ON KILLING: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL COST OF LEARNING TO KILL IN WAR AND SOCIETY. There are people who can kill without being deeply affected; in the end, most are in prison or hold long-term careers in the military where their skills can be directed toward socially acceptable targets.

Does this mean we can’t enjoy a good action story? I hope not. I love reading them and I love writing them. But part of me is glad that the new action tale involves grown men in leotards flying around shooting lasers or webs out of their hands and moving battleships with their minds, where the villains are defeated and imprisoned rather than blown away. Maybe the kids growing up on these will see a different Narrative than those of us who were weaned on Rambo and Schwarzenegger mowing through a small city of stuntmen? Say what you want about the immaturity of superhero stories, but the part where the bad guy is never truly defeated, and sometimes we have to join forces with them, even though we have irreconcilable differences.

That sounds a lot more adult than the story where one bullet solves all our problems.

***

Thomas Pluck is the author of Bad Boy Boogie, a Jay Desmarteaux crime thriller coming from Down & Out Books in 2017. He has slung hash, worked on the docks, and even swept the Guggenheim (not as part of a clever heist). Hailing from Nutley, New Jersey, home of Martha Stewart and Richard Blake, Thomas has so far evaded arrest. He shares his hideout with his sassy Louisiana wife and their two felines. You can find him online at www.thomaspluck.com and on twitter as @thomaspluck.

The Story Behind My UNLOADED Story

Guest Post by S.W. Lauden

Here’s a question I’ve been asked by several people who’ve read my debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION: Was the police shooting of a teenager ripped directly from the headlines of the past couple of years?

It caught me off guard the first few times because I'm not an overtly political person. Sure, I follow the news and I have strong opinions about certain issues, but you won't usually see me posting tirades on Facebook or getting on my soapbox at a dinner party.

So while the answer I want to give might be a definitive “Hell yes!”—because that seems like a pretty badass thing to write about—the truth is probably something a little more complicated.

I first sat down to write “BCC” five years ago. At the time, I knew the protagonist, Greg Salem, was going to be a beach cities punk singer who had grown up to become a police officer. I also knew that he would lose his badge, but I wasn’t exactly sure how.

It was probably a year later, and deep into the first draft, when I finally decided to make his fall from grace an on-duty shooting involving a kid. This wasn’t specifically in response to anything I’d seen in the news, but because it seemed like a good metaphor for his relationship with his own troubled youth.

Sadly, police shootings are not a new phenomenon, but in this case I used it more for dramatic effect. The political implications of choosing that kind of tragic event were not lost on me, but it wasn’t the focal point. That’s just not how I approach my writing.

So I had to think about whether or not to submit a story to Eric Beetner's anthology, UNLOADED: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns. I dug the idea and I loved that the proceeds from sales would benefit a worthy cause (ceasefireusa.org). I just wasn't sure that I was the kind of writer to participate for all the reasons stated above.

My knee-jerk response was that it would be much easier to move on and put my energy into another writing project, but that didn’t sit well with me either. Then it dawned on me: Gun violence isn't really a political issue for me, it's a moral one.

Somehow that made it easier for me to wrap my head around the opportunity. From that point forward I focused on the interesting challenge of writing a compelling crime story without using guns.

The result is “Itchy Feet,” the story of a suburban family that’s hosting a yard sale while their lives fall apart. You can cut the dysfunction with a knife, but everybody is pretty much holding it together until a psychotic clown turns up. That’s when the wheels fall off the circus wagon.

“Itchy Feet” is the latest version of a short story I first started three years ago. The inspiration came to me while I hosted a yard sale of my own. I watched the strangers dig through piles of my old stuff while making up stories for them in my head—because that’s what I do.

  

Whether this anthology will make any difference in the greater debate is beside the point. For now I applaud Eric Beetner and Down & Out Books for putting this anthology together, and thank them for letting me be part of it. I know for sure that there’s a least one person that was challenged by the concept.

***

S.W. Lauden’s debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION, is available now from Rare Bird Books. The second Greg Salem novel, GRIZZLY SEASON, will be published in September 2016. His standalone novella, CROSSWISE, is available now from Down & Out Books.

The Story Behind "Peep Show"

by Holly West

Last week, I asked Eric Beetner, the editor of the forthcoming UNLOADED: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns, to tell us a little bit about why he pursued the project. This week, I want to tell you about the short story I contributed, "Peep Show."

Many of you know I lived in Los Angeles for nearly thirty years. My most recent history there was in Santa Monica and Venice, but in the nineties I lived in the Wilshire District and West Hollywood.

Those were lean times for me, as ones twenties often are. I mostly lived paycheck to paycheck and my first apartment on Mansfield and Wilshire consisted of one room and a bathroom. There was a hot plate and mini-fridge in one corner of the closet. After saving up, I added a small microwave to my meager collection of kitchen appliances. My rent was $400 a month.

I loved that neighborhood and still do. Driving through it, the nostalgia almost suffocates me. Good, bad and sometimes ugly, I can't escape my past, nor do I really want to. I just have to resist idealizing it.

Around 1996 I decided I needed more lavish accommodations and thus moved to another one-room apartment on Seward and Santa Monica Boulevard. My rent increased to $500 a month, but now I had a kitchenette, complete with a stove, full-size fridge and peel-and-stick linoleum flooring. The neighborhood was undeniably seedier, but it was also more exciting. Sunset Boulevard was just a couple of blocks away and Circus Disco, a gay-friendly nightclub, lit up the corner of N. Cherokee and Santa Monica Boulevard.

It was also the part of West Hollywood where transgender prostitutes ply their trade. Not to glamorize what is clearly a difficult and dangerous life, but I thought they were beautiful. Most put far more effort at looking feminine than I did--I suppose they had to. Their looks were hard, but their vulnerability somehow shone through.

I wanted to know their stories.

One of my upstairs neighbors was a young Thai man who was quiet and friendly. By day, he dressed casually in jeans and t-shirts, typically and unquestionably male, if one is to go by appearance alone. But at night, he transformed himself into a lovely woman--legs up to here, gorgeous long hair, perfect make up. Not unrecognizable, but nearly so.

I don't know if he was a prostitute or an escort. I don't know if he was transgender or merely enjoyed dressing in drag. Our most meaningful interaction was ever just a pleasant greeting. He was simply a nice neighbor who lived upstairs and occupied the parking spot next to mine.

At some point during my residence in that building, I acquired my first dog, Kramer. My lease didn't allow dogs and I told the apartment manager, a lovely Armenian lady who lived in the apartment next door to mine, that I planned to find him a new home as soon as I could. It was true when I said it, but within a week I was certain I couldn't give him up. At one point she must've realized that he'd become permanent but neither of us acknowledged it aloud. She'd grown to love Kramer, too.

After a few months of living peacefully with Kramer, he awoke in the morning's wee hours, growling. Something going on just outside my apartment had disturbed him. His growling soon turned to barking and I quickly shushed him. The nice landlord might be okay with knowing there was a smuggled dog living next door, but if he became a nuisance, she might insist I toss him out.

When I quieted him somewhat, I went to the door and peered out the peephole. The building's entry was abuzz with official looking people--fire and police men and such. The only window in my apartment faced the side of the building next door but I could see the hint of flashing lights from emergency vehicles. I couldn't guess what had happened but whatever it was appeared to be serious.

I didn't dare exit my apartment because I had to attend to Kramer. I went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep--I had to work in the morning--but it was impossible. Neither of us could settle down. Somewhere around 6am I got up and checked the peephole again.

I'll never forget what I saw.

Two fire fighters carried a black body bag down the stairs, which were directly in front of my door. I didn't know who was in the bag, but the fact that anybody was inside of it at all was enough to make a lasting impression. I don't remember exactly what I felt--certainly shock--but without knowing the who/what/where of the situation likely limited my response.

By this time, Kramer was in dire need of a morning walk. When the activity outside finally diminished, I opened the door and popped my head out to see if it was safe to take him out. My landlady was in front of her own apartment speaking with the building's owners. When she saw me, she scuttled over and I asked her what happened.

Someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail into my Thai neighbor's apartment on the second floor. It killed him.

If I ever knew further details about this murder, I can't recall them. It's tempting for me to assume that he died because he was transgender. I'll never know. As fate would have it, I'd already arranged to move out of the apartment but wasn't due to leave for another week. I called my friend Harold, with whom I was going to live, and asked if I could move in that day. He agreed and I never spent another night in that apartment on Seward.

But sketchy as my knowledge and memory is, I always wanted to write a story based on this event. When Eric asked me to write a story for UNLOADED, I thought this was the perfect chance. The finished version of "Peep Show" is very different from the truth, but the broad strokes are there. I can't read it without revisiting that time in my life.

I'm not sure I did my neighbor justice in the writing of it and I still wonder if his killer was caught and punished. But I'm proud of "Peep Show," nonetheless. I can only hope that he continues to rest in peace.

UNLOADED (Down & Out Books) officially drops on April 18 and includes stories by Reed Farrel Coleman, Joyce Carol Oates, Hilary Davidson, Joe R. Lansdale, Joe Clifford, S.W. Lauden, Thomas Pluck and many more. Pre-order your copy now.

UPDATE: Rob Hart, another contributor to UNLOADED, shares the inspiration behind his story, "Creampuff."

Unloading

Guest Post by Eric Beetner

Holly's note: I'm proud to be a part UNLOADED (Down & Out Books) and thankful to editor Eric Beetner for asking me to contribute. I'll be writing a post about the origins of my own story, "Peep Show," next week, but this week I wanted to give Eric a chance to tell us about the origins of the anthology itself. UNLOADED is available for pre-order now and officially drops April 18.

I first got the crazy idea for an anthology of crime stories without any guns back in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting. I was outraged, as many Americans were, by both the inexplicable violence and also by the circling of the wagons by the NRA and other pro-gun groups to immediately make it about them and their rights to gun ownership. The idea that maybe this nut case shouldn’t have had such easy access to the weapons he used was a non-starter.

I put aside the idea, thinking that it wouldn’t make any difference to make a book and by consequence, make a statement. Then there were more shootings – at movie theaters, military bases, workplaces, shopping malls. And I realized that the argument against even doing something small played right into their hands. The argument I so vociferously disagreed with was the same argument I was telling myself. If it doesn’t stop all violence, then why bother at all? I wanted to bother.

Violence has always been with us. Gun violence has been around since the invention of the firearm. It won’t stop. I know that. Our little book won’t stop it, won’t move the dial in Washington, most likely. But to do nothing just wasn’t tenable any more.

And I noticed that other writers felt the same way. And we all felt helpless. We’d rant on Twitter, post links on Facebook. I felt we needed to do more. UNLOADED was born.

Two important things:

1) I don’t want to take away all your guns. I believe strongly in limits, in more rigorous background checks, in closing loopholes, in making guns harder to use for anyone not the owner, for more training, and for restrictions on guns clearly manufactured for military use.

2) I know a collection of short stories without any guns in them is a small gesture.

The thing is, myself and the other writers included in Unloaded began to worry that we were a part of the problem. That we glorified guns in our writing. That we added to a culture obsessed with guns. We wanted to speak out and say we know the difference between fantasy and reality, and we want reality to look a little less like the violence-filled fantasies in our stories.

The writers I reached out to came on board the project enthusiastically and without hesitation. We represent gun owners and non-owners, Democrats and Republicans. We represent the overwhelming majority of Americans who feel that some greater level of gun control is needed and that the mass shootings that occur far too regularly are a product, yes, of mental illness, but also of a culture that accepts guns and gun violence as a cost of our freedom. And we feel that our current gun culture is not anywhere near what the founders intended – a direct repudiation of the NRA position that the home stockpiles of weapons and the ease by which we can get guns would make the founders proud somehow.

We want to reduce the amount of suicides by gun, the amount of tragic accidents by guns, the amount of deaths of children by guns.

And we used the greatest weapon at our disposal – our words.

This collection is intended to thrill and excite. My intention was always for the readers not to even notice the absence of guns, and maybe in some small way, to open a dialogue that if we tried to reduce the prevalence of guns in our everyday life the way we have all done in our fiction, even for a brief time, then maybe we could see another way.

And though I know it’s small, the old arguments ring hollow to me now. Because if we can save even one tragic accident, one mass shooting, one disgruntled ex-employee, one suicidal teen…then one is enough. Even saving one is better than staying silent, because staying silent is the same as seeing someone load a gun and saying nothing.

We’ll all continue to write about guns, we’ll all continue to wonder about our own roles in the gun culture in America. But at least now we are on record and we’ve tried to inspire a rational, reasoned and civil conversation.

Unloaded is out April 18th and it contains original stories, and two reprints, from some of today’s top crime and mystery writers. All writers donated their stories and all profits will go to benefit the non-profit States United To Prevent Gun Violence (www.ceasefireusa.org)

The writers include: Joe R. Lansdale, Reed Farrel Coleman, Joyce Carol Oates, Grant Jerkins, Hilary Davidson, Keith Rawson, Rob Hart, Kelli Stanley, Alison Gaylin, Alec Cizak, Joe Clifford, Ryan Sayles, Angel Colon, Kent Gowran, Tom Pitts, Tim O’Mara, Thomas Pluck, Holly West, Trey R. Barker, Jeffery Hess, S.W. Lauden, J.L. Abramo, Patricia Abbott, Paul J. Garth and Eric Beetner.

The ebook is up for preorders on Amazon and eagle-eyed readers may notice the print version is already available early.

***

Eric Beetner is the author of more than a dozen novels including RUMRUNNERS, THE DEVIL DOESN’T WANT ME, DIG TWO GRAVES, WHITE HOT PISTOL and THE YEAR I DIED SEVEN TIMES. He is co-author (with JB Kohl) of ONE TOO MANY BLOWS TO THE HEAD, BORROWED TROUBLE and OVER THEIR HEADS and co-wrote THE BACKLIST with author Frank Zafiro. He lives in Los Angeles where he co-hosts the Noir At The Bar reading series. For more visit ericbeetner.com.

Unconventional Weapons

As writers, particularly crime writers, we get caught in some weird thought experiments. That's how I know I'd rather murder someone with a knife than a gun, and exactly how I'd personally dispose of a body (no, I'm not telling). One thing crime and horror seem to have in common is that creating new and interesting ways to murder people is a big concern. You don't want to go so over the top that it takes away from the story, but how many times can you read "BANG! BANG!" before you're bored? And though I favor the knife idea, knives get plenty of play in crime fiction, too.

The new anthology Unloaded: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns is due out in April, and it's got me thinking - if I were going to go whole hog, and leave behind the conventional weapons I rely on in my fiction, how exactly would I kill motherfuckers?

I present a short (and not wholly serious) list of options:

Boa Constrictor

This has probably been done, but if we can use guns and knives all the time, surely there is room for more stories where a character finds himself stuck in a small space with no one to keep him company but a hungry boa. When it begins to wrap around him, he fights back, of course, but as the air is slowly squeezed from his lungs, arms pinned to his sides, he begs for the sweet release of death. He prays he won't simply fall into unconsciousness and awake with the bottom half of his body bulging out of the snake's guts. If the boa above can eat a kangaroo - it can definitely fuck you up. Plenty of drama, and, why limit it to boas? There are anacondas, pythons, and all manner of big snakes with big appetites.

Smileys

A cheap, brutal, and efficient weapon of convenience, the smiley is a hell of a weapon. The simple padlock on a chain design has been favored by everyone from cyclists (who actually have an excuse to carry them) to dirty punk rockers looking to cause a ruckus. Anyone could have one - even someone who didn't plan to use it as a weapon when they left the house. Your killer could be a real estate agent on her way to lock up a lot of land, a drug dealer with limited means for self defense, an angry cyclist, or even some dumbfuck kid who thought carrying a smiley sounded cool but never actually thought he'd pull it out in a fight. It's a dirty weapon - no clean hands or clear conscience after using one of these. Other pieces of hardware guaranteed to hurt: collapsible spade, Maglite, rototiller.

Piano

Piano wire has made it's way into many a murder scene, but outside of Looney Tunes I haven't seen a lot of pianos used to murder people. This is a really versatile weapon, it can be defenestrated (oh, what a word!), pushed down a flight of stairs, or even, if on wheels, used to smash into someone again and again. It comes with it's own discordant soundtrack, and the added benefit of having your character accomplish something cartoon characters only dream of. Other stuff to drop on people: anvils (obviously), old cars, oversized refrigerators.

Fun fact: A strip club bouncer was actually killed while having sex on a piano rigged to rise and lower for performances. They hit the switch and it rose until it crushed him to death, leaving his partner trapped underneath him. I'm telling you - pianos don't fuck around.

Grenades

I can't understand why we don't see more grenades in crime fiction. They're small, easy to use, and cause a hell of a lot of damage. Everybody likes a good explosion and you can have fun with the fact that most people don't have any idea how far you should be when one goes off, or what kind of damage it can do in a small space. Hitmen tossing grenades into cop cars while they're on stake out - KABOOM! Not to mention the element of surprise in a face to face fight when someone drops a live grenade at your feet. It would get ugly fast, but man would it be a ride. Other explosives: dynamite!

The Illustrated Moby Dick

I guess this one is cheating, as plenty of people get bludgeoned with bricks. I prefer to experience the "crazy old man obsessed with fish" story as written by Hemingway - shorter, mostly - but if a hardcover edition of Moby Dick has to exist, and it has to be even thicker with the addition of illustrations, we may as well use it to smash someone's face in. There's room for all sorts of great one liners about getting "schooled" or "acting like a real dick." Perhaps the darkest facet of this particular murder weapon is that nobody wants this big ass book to be the last thing they lay eyes on in this realm. Other books to kill with include: War & Peace, hardcover family Bible, the unabridged version of The Stand.