I’m one of the guest speakers at the WriteNow! Conference in Phoenix, Arizona at the end of the week. Speakers include Sara Paretsky, Hilary Davidson, Jenny Milchman, Michael Koryta, Deb Ledford, Terri Bischoff, and actress, Christina Cox.
I’ll be interviewing Sara and talking about how to get noticed.
If you’d like to attend, you can sign up here. If you want to say hi, let me know.
Categories: shelf life
I had some music playing while I was writing the other week and a song came on and I thought that song perfectly sums up my books. Then I got to thinking, people talk about the soundtrack to their lives, then there must be a soundtrack to my books. So I wasted entirely too much time going through my iTunes and came up with a top 10 that embodies my books. Of course, my initial list exceeded ten songs, so I do have some honorable mentions: Awolnation: “Burn it Down”, Reeve Carney, Bono & the Edge: “Rise Above 1”, Otis Taylor: “Nasty Letter”, Shinedown: “Second Chance”, Duran Duran: “Come Undone”, Mud Honey: “My Little Toy Gun”, Fitz & The Tantrams: “Moneygrabber”, The O Jays: “Back Stabbers.” But here’s the songs that made it to the top 10:
#10 Beck: “Farewell Ride”
#9 Tricky: “Hell Is Around The Corner”
#8 Portishead: “Sour Times”
#7 Social Distortion: “Machine Gun Blues”
#6 Everything But The Girl: “Walking Wounded”
#5 Neil Finn: “Sinner”
#4 Soft Cell: “Tainted Love”
#3: Sneaker Pimp: “Post Modern Sleeze”
#2: The Eagles: “Life In The Fast Lane”
#1: Cage The Elephant: “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked”Ain’t No Rest… is the song that sent me on this wild goose chase. Watch the video and you’ll understand why! Enjoy. 🙂
Categories: shelf life Uncategorized
I’m a huge fan of the long running, comedy radio show I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T A CLUE. For those who’ve never heard of it, think WHOSE LINE IS ANYWAY, except I’M SORRY started twenty years before WHOSE LINE…but I digress. My favorite round in the show is the UXBRIDGE ENGLISH DICTIONARY where contestants offer new definitions to preexisting words. The ‘definitions’ are usually puns, plays on words or the literal phonetic misinterpretation of words. I always find them gigglicious as it’s the perfect mix of silly and clever. The English language is always open to interpretation or misinterpretation…
Categories: shelf life
I am happy to announce that I’ve signed a new three-book contract with Thomas and Mercer. The titles purchased are INFIDELITY LIMITED, SAVING GRACE (a follow-up to PAYING THE PIPER) and THE NEVERWAS MAN. Brilliance Audio will be producing the audio edition. I hope you’re as pleased as I am.
Categories: shelf life
I have a real soft spot anthology TV shows. Shows like The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Tales of the Unexpected to name a few. There’s something exciting about an anthology show. The stories aren’t confined to a set of characters, locale or theme. They can go anywhere, exploring any possibility. I think anthology shows are responsible for my love of short stories. They’re the perfect medium for experimentation with ideas and style.
Anthology shows aren’t popular these days which is a shame but I want to shine a light on a few shows that helped formed the humble writer before you and which you’re unlikely to recognize.
THRILLER (1973-76): A wonderful series put together by the great TV writer Brian Clemens. The show’s broad title gave the breadth to features any story that could be classified as a thriller, so they ranged from cooks and swindlers to supernatural horror.
ARMCHAIR THRILLER (1978-81): This show featured half hour suspense stories. It’s very memorable to me as it had very creepy opening credits and it came on after the news (past my bedtime) and I had to beg to stay up to see it.
MURDER IN MIND (2001-03): Anthony Horowitz’s wonderful show centering on the dark side of the ordinary person. A real gem of a show.
NIGHT GALLERY (1969-73): Rod Serling’s follow-up effort to THE TWILIGHT ZONE and while NIGHT GALLERY could be considered THE TWILIGHT ZONE-Lite, there were some stand out episodes amongst the painting inspired stories.
Naturally with all anthology shows, not every episode is gold and the shows have aged and production values could be better but the stories themselves in most cases have something, so I recommend you do a little YouTubing and see for yourself.
For myself, all I can say is catching up with these shows reinforces my love of short stories and you should expect more story anthologies from me in the future.
Categories: shelf life
I discovered quite a treat at the weekend—a 40th anniversary edition of James Herbert’s THE RATS. It was his breakout novel about oversized rats eating their way across London and the Home Counties.
THE RATS was also the first book of his I read although some years after it came out. I bought it on a Boy Scouts trip. Something about a lurid cover featuring a blood splattered rat with yellow teeth jumping out at me appealed to my preteen self for some reason. I tore through this book which made me an instant fan. A few weeks later, I started high school and my English teacher let us read anything we liked as long as we could comment on its merits. This was my opportunity to go through his entire back catalogue. God knew what my teacher thought of me at the time, but she always gave me good grades.
I think the reason the book was successful was that James Herbert struck upon something that hit the public consciousness. Giant rats in England were a problem in the mid-70’s when the book came out. Not as quite as big as those mentioned in the book, I remember as a six-year-old (when the book same year out) there being all these rats as big as small cats invading our neighborhood from the wood that backed onto our home. They ate through large sections of our back fence and I wasn’t allowed to play in the garden when they appeared. My mum and I (with mouth agape) one Saturday watched from the back window of the house as these big grey blobs squeezed through the holes they made in the fence and roamed our garden in search of food. No wonder I discovered my love of horror movies shortly after and that Herbert’s book was a bestseller in Britain throughout the 70’s and 80’s.
Needless to say James Herbert is one of my favorite writers. Sadly he died long before his time and I regret never having the chance to tell him how much his books met to me. He was and remains a huge influence on me as writer, even if I haven’t written a horror novel…yet. His clear concise storytelling and plotting became part my storytelling credo. I’ve even adopted some of his other traits such the importance of cover art and layout. I can’t blame him for this trait as I think it has more to my engineering design background that I want to be involved with cover designs, but I am more than happy to follow in his footsteps there. It’s just that I am my literary father’s son (and probably a little bit of a pain in the arse to my publishers because of it 🙂 ).
So discovering the anniversary edition on the shelves last week brought a smile and lot of memories, but giant killer rats will do that to a lad. 
Categories: shelf life
I don’t think of myself as a writer of serial killer fiction, but both THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY and NO SHOW both featured serial killers of a sort. The reason I don’t think of myself as a serial killer writer is because I don’t set out with that intention. I construct a killer with a certain agenda and go from there. It’s only at the end of things I suppose I created a serial killer.
However someone must think I know what I’m writing about because Kellie Larsen Murphy asked me and four other writers to contribute to a discussion about serial killers. Read all about it here.
Categories: shelf life
I’m not bulletproof. I hope to be one day but I’m not. I wound easily.
No, I’m not talking about being bulletproof in a percussion weapon way (so please don’t try shooting me) but in a literary way.
The topic of author “bulletproofness” came in up conversation with a couple of writing chums—one in person and one online. The discussion was around how some authors can have relatively poor reader reviews and still ship a boatload of books while writers with excellent reader feedback don’t get half the sales.
My answer was that successful writers are bulletproof. They possess a large and loyal enough readership to survive subpar reviews and still sell books. There are a few reasons why bestselling authors can sometimes have lower ratings but still have a bestselling book. The book is going to be read by a whole range of readers and no doubt people reading out of genre are going to rate it lower because it was never going to be their thing anyway. Name recognition comes into play too. People are more likely to pick up a book by a name they know than from one they don’t. There’s the numbers factor too. A book by a bestselling author is going to get more shelf space and by virtue of that is more likely to get picked up than one that doesn’t. It’s simple math, but the simplest math applies to the issue of a loyal and supportive readership. It is worth its weight in gold. A fan will forgive a book they don’t like and still buy the next one. That might seem weird but it’s not. We do it all the time. Nobody stops listening to their favorite band because you don’t like their current single. Nobody stops supporting their favorite sports team just because they lose one game. The same with loyal readers, they will forgive a book they don’t like and keep reading. That’s not to say you can get away with that long term. No writer can continue to turn out duds long term and still keep their loyalest of readers. Even bulletproof glass can only take so many shots.
One of the writers suggested I was ‘set’ in that I had attained bulletproof status. I had to disagree with that. I have been both fortunate and lucky over the last few years. I have sold significantly more books than ever before. I have a ‘following’ but it’s far from significant enough to help me weather a review drubbing. I know this from harsh experience. One of my books went on a bad run of reviews and it hurt my sales to the extent that it took over a year to recover. Oddly, that book has recovered its review rating and now remains one of my better selling books. How I wish I had been bulletproof during that period.
But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether I’m bulletproof or not. I owe it to the book buying public to write the best book I can and I hope it will be embraced because of it. Now that’s the true definition of bulletproof.
Categories: shelf life
“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” —Luke 23:34
I’ve cribbed this quote from Luke to talk about the backhanded compliments that I’ve encountered.
As a professional scribbler, you have to be able to take things on the chin. It’s not that a writer has to develop a thick skin but just remind themselves that stories are subjective in nature—what one person lionizes and another will despise. There’s no right or wrong—just opinion. It’s the nature of the sport.
When it comes to harsh criticism (and I mean harsh) and incorrect assessments of my books, it’s easy to deal with the issue. I simply I resist the urge to argue back and thank them and lament that they didn’t like the book. It’s the professional and smart thing to do. Getting into a war of words isn’t going to solve anything or change minds.
It’s a little tougher when it comes to the backhanded compliment. You know someone means well but they don’t realize the compliment isn’t all that complimentary. So with a wry smile, I share a few of backhanded compliments I’ve picked up along the way.
“Mystery is such a shallow and superficial genre, don’t you think?”
This was said to me during a book signing Q&A. Actually, this was an interesting question but I wasn’t sure what the questioner was expecting me to answer. I wasn’t about to diss my own genre. Now, this may have been a derogatory remark but you know what I ended up taking this comment and turning it into a panel discussion for a convention.
“Just sign it because I’m going to return it after I’m finished reading it. I haven’t paid for a book in years.”
This was another bookstore signing remark. I’m always stunned when people share insider information about how they bilk the bookstore either by returning books. Don’t people realize how I make a living? I don’t get paid if books get returned.
“I should be able to get this cheap from eBay, right?”
I don’t mind the bargain hunter reader, but please remember who you’re talking to. I think people forget I’m the struggling writer and not a sales rep for the publisher.
“My son wrote very well in high school and he would have been on the New York Times bestsellers list if he pursued it so I just want to let you know you’re nothing special.”
This is my favorite backhanded compliment. It was said to me at a library by a lady just moments before I kicked off an author panel. I think I would have laughed if I wasn’t so stunned by the remark. To this day, I don’t know if it was mean spirited or just thoughtless but either way I told her thanks.
Finally!
“Why can’t you write a book like that nice Michael Connelly?”
My mum said this. Yes, my mum. She said this after reading my first book. I suppose this is what they mean by unconditional love…
I don’t usually tell tales but I thought you might enjoy insight into the life and times of the average writer. So if you do bump into a writer, just give them a hug. They probably have endured a few backhanded compliments.
See you next week… 🙂
Categories: shelf life
I recently finished Jon Ronson’s excellent new book SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED which explores public shaming of all varieties through the medium of social media. For me, Ronson is a cracking nonfiction writer. As a writer and journalist he tackles the topics a little left of center, such as public shaming. Maybe I enjoy his writing so much because he’s drawn to the weirder world as I am. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’m fascinated by the improbable and unlikely circumstances that exist in our world. I’m all about the cruel and unusual.
The reason I mention Ronson’s book is because I felt a little relief and thrill reading it in connection my own book THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. After every book, I always suffer with the collywobbles. I start to fret about the plotline and whether it’s a little too wild or unbelievable. The worst I’ve ever felt was with TERMINATED which is about workplace violence and I was a little concerned that the flashpoint for the book—a bad performance review—was a little too extreme. But after an afternoon of Googling the topic, I found that a bad review was totally in bounds for sending someone ‘postal.’ Reading SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED gave me that same sense of reassurance. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY doesn’t deal with public shaming per se but the villain’s reason to kill to punish people for the small/unpunishable crimes that society ignores. A number of sources in this villain’s particular manifesto influenced me and public shaming played a small part. I’ve long lamented how depressing it is read the comments feed for any news story, YouTube post, or any online content. It doesn’t take long before it turns racist, contemptuous, negative and flat out hateful. What gave me reassurance (in a peculiar way) reading Ronson’s book was how the public shaming examples he investigated turned foul and vicious. They usually ended in a call for violence, especially where women were concerned. Like I say, it was a peculiar form of reassurance. I’m not saying I’m all for killing women when they step on society’s toes but the book illustrated how murderous intent could come from one person’s perceived view of bad behavior in another person. The book even talked about pillories and public stocks. For people who’ve read THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY will understand my reassurance at that mention.
Like I say, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY isn’t about public shaming because the villain takes it to the next level and executes those who fail to live up to his particular moral viewpoint. However, SO YOU’VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED did give me a warm fuzzy feeling about THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. I’m glad my stretch of the imagination only went a couple of degrees further than what is happening in the world…and hopefully will remain that way.
I thoroughly recommend to everyone to pick up one of his books at some point…and any of mine while you’re at it. 🙂
Categories: shelf life
