Last week, I turned in a short story to an editor for an anthology to be published this fall. This week, I returned to my slice-of-life novel and made some good progress. What made that progress possible was the call sheet.
The Call Sheet
In movies and TV, the call sheet is the list of actors and crew who need to show up for a given day's shoot. For my story, I have a growing cast, most of which--other than the four main leads--I make up as I go. But these four men all have spouses or girlfriends or ex-wives and children. I couldn't keep all the names and characterizations straight.
So I wrote it all down. I formatted it in such a way so that it all fits on a single sheet of paper. That paper fits neatly between my Chromebook's folded halves, so when I'm here at the day job, I have easy access to the data. When changes happen, I can make them on paper and then transfer back to the electronic version.
I know this isn't rocket science, but for the longest time, I've been writing longer works with characters I already know. Ben Wade, my PI in 1940, looks and acts a certain way. Ditto for Calvin Carter and his partner, Thomas Jackson, both railroad detectives in the 1880s. With those tales being historical, it's the little non-character details I sometimes have to research. The irony is that my new book is set in 2019 and all the setting and world building are easy...it's just the characters are difficult to keep straight. But this is the first quarter of the book. By the time I write "The End," I'll know them very well.
The Chasing Amy Response
Week 3 of my "I Finally Watched Kevin Smith's Films" series was this week. It was Chasing Amy's turn. My normal procedure is to get the blog posted, then cross-post on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I check Facebook frequently, but not necessarily for feedback to my stuff. But when I checked on Instagram late on Wednesday, I had over a hundred likes on my post. I actually thought the app had malfunctioned. I rarely, if ever, get a hundred likes on a post.
But I did with Chasing Amy. I think it's a testament to how good and how different this movie is, especially the Smith ouevre to date. As a friend of mine wrote on Twitter this week:
It was by far my favorite of the first three. I like the unhappy ending and the truth that young men can be stupid and immature while loaded with arrogance which can be a toxic and dangerous combination. Rarely do you see that written so well.
Of the eight films I've seen so far, there are four I want to revisit when I'm done with the run. This is one of them.
Heart in Houston
I wrote a review of the Heart concert here in Houston yesterday. It was a really good show, with a song choice in the encore I initially questioned, then realized was a great choice.
Eryk Pruitt and Katie Munger talking at The Regulator in Durham, NC.
Eryk Pruitt, author of "Townies" (Polis Books, 2018) stops by Do Some Damage to talk about a series he ran on crime fiction this summer. - David Nemeth
If you’re an independent crime writer, then it comes as no surprise to you anymore that it’s difficult AF to get your books into the bookstores. I can remember my early days as a novelist when I thought all I had to do was publish a book and the independent bookstores would clamor to stock my words on their shelves. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah, I remember that.
One time, I called a bookstore and asked them if they would stock my first novel DIRTBAGS. Her answer to my query was “I’m sorry, but we don’t stock self-published books.”
To which I replied, “Oh, it’s not self-published. I have a publisher and I can put you in touch with them.”
“If that were true,” she told me, “then you wouldn’t be the one calling me.”
She hung up.
HAHAHAHAHA.
Yes, many bookstore owners can be complete dicks.
Many, but not all.
One of the incredible exceptions is Durham’s Regulator Bookshop. I have been fortunate enough to enjoy two book launches (WHAT WE RECKON and TOWNIES) at Regulator and they keep all four of my titles on their shelves. So imagine my happy surprise when they called me up and asked me to plan some events with them over the summer.
I spoke with Elliot, Land, and Amy, who told me they wanted some crime-related events to help spice up the summer. Keeping in mind my past experiences and the very talented pool in which I’ve been fortunate enough to swim, I proposed the following:
The Summer Independent Crime Fiction Series.
We had three Thursdays over June, July, and August. In each sitting, I was joined by some very good friends and writers that I’ve made along the way. Each month, the bookstore stocked three titles that were recommended by me, and the audience was invited to either read them beforehand or pick them up from the store and read them after.
In June, we were joined by DSD contributor David Nemeth, as well as Jeremy Stabile, publisher of ABC Documentation Group, and Shawn Cosby ("My Darkest Prayer"). July saw a visit from Nemeth, Steve Weddle ("Country Hardball)", and Dana King ("Ten-Seven"). In August we featured the novels of Benjamin Whitmer ("Pike"), but also celebrated the book launch of Katy Munger’s latest Casey Jones novel, "Fire and Rain".
We’ve heard lots of talk about how a bookstore should foster a community, especially when those stores are facing down the reality of Amazon. It’s especially awesome to see one step up and actually do it, the way Regulator Bookshop did.
Those books that were featured this summer are still on the shelf in their mystery room. You should run down and buy them now.
Oops, used a doodie word... this here's a family website where we talk about wholesome things like murder.
Recently, I expressed the desire to read author Ottessa Moshfegh, who apparently has written a few books that thriller writers wish were called thrillers. I was dissuaded from reading her books by a fellow crime writer, because "she won't read yours."
Now, if I only read books by people who read my books, not only would I be a selfish ass, but I'd have a very narrow set of books to read. I'm sure there are writers out there like this, because writers can be terrible, but that's not what Fellow Crime Writer meant. They meant that Moshfegh (I love saying her name! Mosh Fegg! It sounds like a mosh pit in a dismal bog!) is a literary writer and doesn't read thrillers. In fact, she's quite outspoken about pretty much everything, and said that, “most people who pick up a book labelled ‘thriller’ or ‘mystery’ may not be expecting to confront troubling ideas about women in society … I couldn’t be like, Here’s my freak book … So I’ve disguised the ugly truth in a kind of spiffy noir package.”
Cue the outrage!
Okay, are you done?
Good. Because crime writers say this all the time, in a nicer way. When Dennis Lehane calls crime fiction the home of the social novel, he's saying he's hiding his message in an entertaining story. When someone calls their work a Trojan horse, that's what they are saying. Yes, she neglected to leave sacrifices at the shrines of Chandler and Hammett to appease the fandom, so she must be shamed, but Jo Nesbø has said exactly the same, and mystery bookstores still carry his Hairy Hole books because they sell.
Moshfegh (mosh!!! fegggg!!!) also said, “My writing lets people scrape up against their own depravity, but at the same time it’s very refined … It’s like seeing Kate Moss take a shit.” So all is forgiven. I wish a crime writer had the stones to say that in a big interview instead of how much they love books written eighty years ago, or how they only read their own genre. Charles Willeford might have said that, or Maggie Estep, may she rest in peace.
I am sure that many legends in the crime genre would never, ever read my books. Am I supposed to not read theirs? I love many crime novels, whether they are in the Mystery section or the Literature section. Song of Solomon has a lot of crime elements. Maybe we're so defensive about our genre not because the best of the best don't get no respect a la Rodney Dangerfield, but because like comic book movies, we're a victim of our own success.
Thrillers are the best-selling genre. They are the blockbuster, which means even books that publishers know will never break out must adhere to the conventions, lest the audience be alienated by having to taste green eggs and ham. "I couldn't relate to this." Well, maybe live a little and stop subsisting on comfort food. All fandoms become toxic, and I don't see much difference between fans in a lather because Spider-Man has organic webshooters and "outsiders" writing successful thrillers and rightfully pointing out that non-fans see our genre as formulaic, full of misogynistic tropes, and easy to replicate and parody. Just like non-comics fans see a bunch of Tom of Finland caricatures with no genitalia when they open a superhero comic. Both genres are much more than those simplistic parodies, but when you read terrible examples of Men Writing Women, so many are from our genre! So which is it, is the genre the blockbuster full of terrible writing, or the underdog who needs defending?
That's from Desperate Measures by Stuart Woods, published 2018 from Penguin Random House. Don't feel bad about your writing, Publishers Weekly called the Vagina Purse Mystery “[An] irresistible, luxury-soaked soap opera,”
and BookList said, “Woods creates another action-packed thriller for his readers to devour, with plenty of interesting twists and turns that make for a nonstop, can’t catch-your-breath read.” And it's a bestseller, of course:
So... still want to defend the genre as a whole?
There are as many crap lit books as there are thrillers, if not more. (There's GuyinYourMFA for literary excesses, and lit writers nearly always sweep the Bad Sex Writing awards).
We shouldn't disparage crap. It makes things grow. Like beautiful flowers in the manure, many great books of all genres rise above the earthy-smelling firmament, and couldn't exist without it. So I don't really care what Moshfegh reads. I'm reading Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison right now, it's incredible, like Paris Trout meets A Lesson Before Dying--both books that came after it--and I really don't care if Morrison loved Chandler, or would have sniffed at the synopsis on the back of my books and dropped them like a hot turd.
It's odd, you rape a kid in a hot tub, marry your daughter, beat a few women, put a few innocent kids in prison, and we're supposed to "see the art not the artist," but if you disparage The Genre, then damn, then we strike you from the book of life. And trust me, those people aren't reading your books either.
And really, do you care what other people think?
I like Abba. If Terence Stamp told me to change the channel I'd kneel before Zod and show him monkey-steals-the-peach.
Try that for size, Limey! Right in the Billy Budds!
I think mid-listers are angry that Ottessa Moshfegh took her own twisted style to a genre that sometimes needs an enema, and succeeded. Maybe a publishing model that demands we rush out a book every year doesn't work for everybody. It certainly works for some, and I am envious of them, but no one calls Daniel Woodrell a poseur because he takes five years to write a great book. In an incredibly conservative genre, the old story from a new perspective feels like progress, but is it? Or are we just catching up to thirty years ago? Something to chew on. Once we can't accept criticism of our genre, we become boring cultists and get boring books.
A rolling stone, no, a pooping Kate gathers no Moss....
