by Scott D. Parker
I encountered two living icons this summer. Both times I was disappointed. I’m trying to figure out why.
Earlier this summer, Elmore Leonard published his latest novel, Road Dogs. Jack Foley’s in this one. If you hadn’t read the book, Out of Sight, you probably know this character as the one George Clooney played brilliantly in the movie version of the same name. It also starred Jennifer Lopez in her pre-J-Lo days. Mr. Leonard doesn’t stop there. He also brings back two other characters from two other books: Cundo Rey (from LaBrava) and Dawn Navaro (from Riding the Rap). Here’s the gist: Foley and Rey are doing time in the same prison. They become “road dogs,” guys who’ll watch each other’s backs while in stir. Rey gets a hot-shot lawyer to reduce Foley’s sentence to almost nothing. The end result is that Foley will be getting out a month ahead of Rey. The short Cuban tells Foley to go to California and get with his common-law wife, Dawn, and start working out a few schemes. Foley’s done robbing banks but knows, in his bones, Rey’s going to call in his chip. Meanwhile, Dawn wants to use Foley to abscond with all of Rey’s money. For Foley, there’s only one question: what’s a guy to do?
Leonard is a brilliant writer with over forty-five books to his name so clearly, he knows what he’s doing. A couple of his early westerns—Valdez is Coming and Hombre—are modern masterpieces demonstrating the economy of writing. They go down easy but say so much more. He can write dialogue like nobody else in the field. You hear a snippet of dialogue that’s hip and cool, it’s probably Leonard. You could even make the case that without Leonard, Quentin Tarrentino’s style of movie doesn’t exist. Leonard’s Rules of Writing are legendary and I have a copy posted near my desk (or in my head) whenever I write. The man is a genius.
I almost didn’t finish Road Dogs. It just went nowhere. Leonard has said numerous times that he likes to get some characters together in the same room, have them talk, and figure out the plot later. The problem with Road Dogs was the former: all they did was talk. Yeah, it was some hip and witty banter and the reader of the audio book, Peter Francis James, was quite good at the dialogue. (BTW, listening to Leonard is the best way to gulp down his books. They *sound* great.) But there was no story. When the story ended, I just sat there, in traffic, and felt disappointed. I kept waiting for the “Aha” moment, that special moment after you’ve read a book when you get it. I am still waiting.
Speaking of waiting, I’ve waited a long time to see Bob Dylan. An icon if there ever was one, I am a late-comer to the Dylan party. I’m one of those fans who never “got” Dylan until his 1997 CD “Time Out of Mind,” the start of his late-career renaissance. Sure, I knew the man, made fun of the way he sang, but I preferred his songs sung by someone else. Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” stands head and shoulders above the original as does Springsteen’s “Chimes of Freedom” from 1988. Since 1997, I’ve purchased every new Dylan CD and gone back and picked up many classic back-catalogue titles such as Blonde on Blonde and the raucous live 1966 recording “The Royal Albert Hall.” But I had never seen the guy in concert.
Until last weekend. When I saw that The Bob Dylan Show starring Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp was scheduled for Houston, I was not going to miss it. Sure, it’s August. Sure it’s hot. But, hey: that’s Texas in the summer. Suck it up. Nelson was his subtle best, playing that nylon-stringed Martin guitar as good as anybody. Mellencamp shined like he always does, even bringing out an acoustic set with just him and a guitar, playing a new song he wrote just three weeks ago. Late in the evening, when Dylan’s set started and the lights died and the music boomed from the speakers, I kid you not that a thrill shot through me when I saw the bard from Minnesota standing there, center stage, guitar in hand, blasting out “Leopard-skin Pill-box Hat.” The band was tight, the music loud, and there was Bob Friggin’ Dylan.
Two songs in, however, Dylan got behind a keyboard…and never left. I longed for a song with just him and the guitar. Didn’t happen. He abdicated the stage and appeared as just one of the band. The band were consummate professionals…but lifeless. And Dylan himself? Well, you know what they say about his singing, that he can’t carry a tune. You listen to his studio recordings, however, especially the modern ones, the man can still sing. Not on stage, apparently. He growled more than he sang. And there were no back-up singers either to even out the sound from the stage. It was just Dylan, his growl, and the music. A couple of times, it wasn’t until the chorus when I figured out “Oh, he’s playing that song?”
I almost left early. I didn’t, but I almost did. I’ve read reviews of the concert in the week since and folks glowingly praise the show. A glance at the set list for the following night and Dylan changed over 80% of the songs. That’s the kind of musical act I appreciate. But, for one night, I was disappointed.
So, what does all this mean, what am I really trying to say about two icons of our times? I’m not sure. Part of it comes down to expectations. The past few Leonard books, starting with Cuba Libre and especially The Hot Kid, were great books containing good stories. In the meantime, I’d read some older Leonard classics and marveled at the work of a master. Ditto for Dylan: his CDs from the 2000s are wonderful and his 2006 CD, “Modern Times,” hits the zeitgeist of this decade smack in the middle of the face. When you experience the work of a master, you expect everything to be amazing. It simply can’t happen that way. We’re all human, right?
I guess what I’m getting at is this: Do we, as readers and listeners (and movie goers and television watchers), expect too much from our icons? Have we put them so high that they can’t have an off-night or an off-book? Is that the evil truth of our modern celebrity culture?
Oh, you might be wondering, with all this wafting in disappointment and let down, if I’ll be in line for the next Leonard book or the next Dylan concert. Without a doubt.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
SHORT PEOPLE
Russel D McLean
I made my bones writing short stories.
The first market I remember cutting my creative teeth on – outside of the UoD’s creative writing zine, Eric – was a webzine called Demensions. They were a non paying outfit, but they had a good rep and some class SF shorts in their back catalogues. It was a big deal for me when they accepted my shorts, even if there are some elements in those early stories I would go back and change now.
After that, I worked over to crime markets when my focus changed. The now sadly defunct Third Degree published a short that riffed off my allegedly irrational fear of clowns – yeah, there was a clown blowjob and a horrible moment with a poker that made me glad my mother didn’t see the story – and soon after that other zines started to pick up my work as well. They were heady times; I was no making no money, but having a bloody good time doing it. And I still love the frontier nature of small presses; seriously, some of them were - and are - fantastic fun to work with.
And then the big one: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. A paper - and more importantly to my bank manager, a paying - ‘zine with a rep for more traditional stories took on a hardboiled, two fisted tale of Scottish scumbags and I couldn’t have been happier (in fact AHMM is a great mag and there’s a wider mix of stories there than many people give it credit for).
So yeah, I came up and learned my trade writing shorts and having a grand time doing it. I think it helped shape me as writer. Shorts helped me to find my voice, to learn how to trim the bullshit and to appreciate the power of words. When you only have a certain amount of space, you have to understand the value of clear and Its how a lot of my peers started, too. But some days I wonder whether the only people reading shorts are other writers. It’s a shame if its true, because, as Stephen King says (more or less; this one’s paraphrased from memory, but its somewhere in the intro to one of his short story collections), a good short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger and sometimes kisses can be as much as a love affair.
My other favourite idea about the short story came from a piece I read years ago by the SF author Philip K Dick. Now, I have lost the original collection this came from, so again we're relying on my infamously dodgy memory, but he said something akin to the fact that a short story is all about the moment. A short story is an idea in its raw and most immediate form. Things happen in a short story. Where in a novel you have the space to allow the idea to simmer and can focus on other things. I think the example he used was "style", although I think that is maybe a little unfair to the short which as well as being about raw and immediate ideas cane also be incredibly stylish.
I love a
good short. A sharp idea that comes at you without pausing for breath. One of the best books I read last year was the Megan Abbott edited, A Hell of a Woman, which has to be one of the strongest collections of shorts I’ve read in a long time; right now I’m having a hard time remembering any clunkers in there. And, God, Jen Jordan’s sequel to Expletive Deleted (I can’t have an opinion on that particular collection, cos I’m in there), Uncage Me, looks like another strong contender with an excellent line up of authors contributing their time and talents.
What I love about short stories is not just that I can read them in fifteen or twenty minutes, usually coming to the end just in time to look and see the dentist walk into the waiting room grinning manically and holding that horrifically oversized drill, but that very often they can be masterpieces of economical writing that really hit home. Their very brevity gives them their power. Its hard to do a short properly, believe me, and maybe it’s the assumption that they’re easy – tiny things to be tossed off in an afternoon, which the worst examples often are – that means they don’t always get the respect they deserve.
But if you’re looking for prime examples of short stories on the internet – often edited superbly, I should add, these guys are all pros – you could do worse than these places: The Thrilling Detective, Spinetingler, Plots With Guns, Pulp Pusher. These guys, to me, represent the cream of the crop with some damn fine authors contributing to all of them. But of course, there are so many others I could mention as well. Although if I did this wouldn't be so much a blog post as a never ending list of links.
But naturally, I couldn't not mention my UK publishers, Five Leaves Publications, whose Crime Express Series brings you small, but beautifully formed tales of criminality and wrongdoing.
But the question you have to ask about today’s post is this:
Was it all merely an excuse to put a up video of Randy Newman singing Short People?
Only time will tell.
I made my bones writing short stories.
The first market I remember cutting my creative teeth on – outside of the UoD’s creative writing zine, Eric – was a webzine called Demensions. They were a non paying outfit, but they had a good rep and some class SF shorts in their back catalogues. It was a big deal for me when they accepted my shorts, even if there are some elements in those early stories I would go back and change now.
After that, I worked over to crime markets when my focus changed. The now sadly defunct Third Degree published a short that riffed off my allegedly irrational fear of clowns – yeah, there was a clown blowjob and a horrible moment with a poker that made me glad my mother didn’t see the story – and soon after that other zines started to pick up my work as well. They were heady times; I was no making no money, but having a bloody good time doing it. And I still love the frontier nature of small presses; seriously, some of them were - and are - fantastic fun to work with.
And then the big one: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. A paper - and more importantly to my bank manager, a paying - ‘zine with a rep for more traditional stories took on a hardboiled, two fisted tale of Scottish scumbags and I couldn’t have been happier (in fact AHMM is a great mag and there’s a wider mix of stories there than many people give it credit for).
So yeah, I came up and learned my trade writing shorts and having a grand time doing it. I think it helped shape me as writer. Shorts helped me to find my voice, to learn how to trim the bullshit and to appreciate the power of words. When you only have a certain amount of space, you have to understand the value of clear and Its how a lot of my peers started, too. But some days I wonder whether the only people reading shorts are other writers. It’s a shame if its true, because, as Stephen King says (more or less; this one’s paraphrased from memory, but its somewhere in the intro to one of his short story collections), a good short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger and sometimes kisses can be as much as a love affair.
My other favourite idea about the short story came from a piece I read years ago by the SF author Philip K Dick. Now, I have lost the original collection this came from, so again we're relying on my infamously dodgy memory, but he said something akin to the fact that a short story is all about the moment. A short story is an idea in its raw and most immediate form. Things happen in a short story. Where in a novel you have the space to allow the idea to simmer and can focus on other things. I think the example he used was "style", although I think that is maybe a little unfair to the short which as well as being about raw and immediate ideas cane also be incredibly stylish.
I love a
good short. A sharp idea that comes at you without pausing for breath. One of the best books I read last year was the Megan Abbott edited, A Hell of a Woman, which has to be one of the strongest collections of shorts I’ve read in a long time; right now I’m having a hard time remembering any clunkers in there. And, God, Jen Jordan’s sequel to Expletive Deleted (I can’t have an opinion on that particular collection, cos I’m in there), Uncage Me, looks like another strong contender with an excellent line up of authors contributing their time and talents.What I love about short stories is not just that I can read them in fifteen or twenty minutes, usually coming to the end just in time to look and see the dentist walk into the waiting room grinning manically and holding that horrifically oversized drill, but that very often they can be masterpieces of economical writing that really hit home. Their very brevity gives them their power. Its hard to do a short properly, believe me, and maybe it’s the assumption that they’re easy – tiny things to be tossed off in an afternoon, which the worst examples often are – that means they don’t always get the respect they deserve.
But if you’re looking for prime examples of short stories on the internet – often edited superbly, I should add, these guys are all pros – you could do worse than these places: The Thrilling Detective, Spinetingler, Plots With Guns, Pulp Pusher. These guys, to me, represent the cream of the crop with some damn fine authors contributing to all of them. But of course, there are so many others I could mention as well. Although if I did this wouldn't be so much a blog post as a never ending list of links.
But naturally, I couldn't not mention my UK publishers, Five Leaves Publications, whose Crime Express Series brings you small, but beautifully formed tales of criminality and wrongdoing.
But the question you have to ask about today’s post is this:
Was it all merely an excuse to put a up video of Randy Newman singing Short People?
Only time will tell.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Bloggy, blog, blog, blog
by Dave White
I used to say I hated blogging. And at the time I really did.
But at that time I didn't exactly know what I was blogging for or who I was blogging to. I just spilled my guts about writing and crime fiction. And while I'm sure that's what people out there in the crime fiction community want to read about, it's also what everyone else out there is blogging out.
Take a minute and go to Crimespot and take a look at what everyone else is blogging about. Go ahead, I'll wait.
(That old gag.)
Oh, you're back?
What'd you see? Book reviews, probably. Someone talking about the right way to write. Most likely. How to write a sex scene? (I've read that blog post by about 17 different people. One day I want to see a blog post about "How to write about people eating dinner.") There is nothing wrong with these posts. I've read 'em. I still read 'em. And I usually enjoy them.
But I'm deep in the crime fiction community. I follow all the publishing gossip, the little cat fights... I'm still trying to learn how to write a sex scene... And after I point, I started thinking about my own blog, who was reading it, and if it was helping me out.
Turns out, I don't really think it was. I was probably getting the same 75-100 people checking out my new posts about crime fiction and writing.
So I took a step back and thought... What is going to bring more people to my blog? Maybe even some people who don't give two craps about the in-depths of the crime fiction community and a way to sell an extra 17 books.
And I decided that my posts had to be broader.
And now I do several things to gain a bigger blog audience. I am one half of The Dave and Krewer Show... a comedy podcast, available through my blog or iTunes. I live blog STOOOPID movies (like Twilight). I talk about New Jersey and why it's better than every other state (who knew so many people from Maine would find it? And be pissed!). I talk about my fears. I get personal.
And a funny thing happened. The hits on my blog started to go up. Whenever I did something completely ridiculous (like the aforementioned Twilight post) my sales rank on Amazon jumped a little. Just a bit... probably meant I sold one book. But whatever, it also meant someone knew checked out what I was blogging out.
I think when people talk about promotion, they tend to get focused on how to sell something to the crime fiction community. That is important, but you also have to appeal outside the community.
You have to expand your horizons. You have to think about different things.
I don't know if that works. I've seen some changes, a little bump in site traffic. But, in the form of blogs, each one has to be different. I mean it's my blog and it's about my interests, so you're still going to see crime related things and book related things. But if that's all my blog was going to be about, it wasn't going to be interesting to me anymore.
You'll probably find more of the same nonsense from me here at Do Some Damage.
You have to find your blog voice, just like a writing voice.
And a blog should be fun.
At least, I think it should.
Yet, I still don't know how to write that damned sex scene...
What do you guys think about blogs?
I used to say I hated blogging. And at the time I really did.
But at that time I didn't exactly know what I was blogging for or who I was blogging to. I just spilled my guts about writing and crime fiction. And while I'm sure that's what people out there in the crime fiction community want to read about, it's also what everyone else out there is blogging out.
Take a minute and go to Crimespot and take a look at what everyone else is blogging about. Go ahead, I'll wait.
(That old gag.)
Oh, you're back?
What'd you see? Book reviews, probably. Someone talking about the right way to write. Most likely. How to write a sex scene? (I've read that blog post by about 17 different people. One day I want to see a blog post about "How to write about people eating dinner.") There is nothing wrong with these posts. I've read 'em. I still read 'em. And I usually enjoy them.
But I'm deep in the crime fiction community. I follow all the publishing gossip, the little cat fights... I'm still trying to learn how to write a sex scene... And after I point, I started thinking about my own blog, who was reading it, and if it was helping me out.
Turns out, I don't really think it was. I was probably getting the same 75-100 people checking out my new posts about crime fiction and writing.
So I took a step back and thought... What is going to bring more people to my blog? Maybe even some people who don't give two craps about the in-depths of the crime fiction community and a way to sell an extra 17 books.
And I decided that my posts had to be broader.
And now I do several things to gain a bigger blog audience. I am one half of The Dave and Krewer Show... a comedy podcast, available through my blog or iTunes. I live blog STOOOPID movies (like Twilight). I talk about New Jersey and why it's better than every other state (who knew so many people from Maine would find it? And be pissed!). I talk about my fears. I get personal.
And a funny thing happened. The hits on my blog started to go up. Whenever I did something completely ridiculous (like the aforementioned Twilight post) my sales rank on Amazon jumped a little. Just a bit... probably meant I sold one book. But whatever, it also meant someone knew checked out what I was blogging out.
I think when people talk about promotion, they tend to get focused on how to sell something to the crime fiction community. That is important, but you also have to appeal outside the community.
You have to expand your horizons. You have to think about different things.
I don't know if that works. I've seen some changes, a little bump in site traffic. But, in the form of blogs, each one has to be different. I mean it's my blog and it's about my interests, so you're still going to see crime related things and book related things. But if that's all my blog was going to be about, it wasn't going to be interesting to me anymore.
You'll probably find more of the same nonsense from me here at Do Some Damage.
You have to find your blog voice, just like a writing voice.
And a blog should be fun.
At least, I think it should.
Yet, I still don't know how to write that damned sex scene...
What do you guys think about blogs?
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