A Review of Me

I think 2007 may have been the most signifigant year of my life so far professionally and personally. In addition to cracking a couple of hard markets, writing some stories that other people thought were good, and finally getting picked up for anthologies, this was the first year I got paid for my fiction. That’s amazing to me. So thanks to Megan Powell over at SHRED OF EVIDENCE who gave me a check for a reprint of my story LOAD which was the first payment check I ever receieved for fiction. And thanks to Richard Helms who picked up my story RUINS OF DETROIT and gave me my first check for original fiction. And definite props to Big Daddy Thug Todd Robinson who gave me my first anthology check for MURDER BOY.

Oh yeah, I also got engaged too. So I guess I should thank Becky for that. And thank whatever doctors put her on the meds that made her say yes. And in turn, she got me the dog I’ve always wanted. So thanks for Stewie too.

And now looking forward there are only a few things I want next year. An Agent. A Bookdeal. An Original Anthology Invitation. Is that too much? I’d also like to see a play of mine produced somewhere. To that end, I will write more books next year trying to get as good as I can. I want to write outside my genre and stretch myself even if I never get published. I’m starting to hit my stride on short stories so I want to keep that up and again, stretch myself so that when the inevitable anthology invitation comes I’m ready to go. I also want to write another full-length play and a screenplay. A screenplay is the only piece of fiction I haven’t written so far.

Over at Laura Lippman’s blog she’s asking everyone to sum up their resolutions in one word. My word is PROFESSIONAL. Everything I do next year will be to make myself a professional writer.

Looking for sizzle

I was in Borders last night loaded with a $25 gift card and all I walked out of there with was a copy of “The Chipmunk Adventure” on DVD for Becky. There were a couple of books I almost bought, but I just wasn’t very excited about anything. It’s been a while since I raced into the bookstore desperate for a new book. I think the last one was Karen Olson’s DEAD OF THE DAY and before that JT Ellison’s ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS. It seems like the summer and the fall were chock full of great new releases that had me rushing to the store every week.

The other thing hampering my enjoyment at the store was stupid marketing considerations that kept popping into my head. Since I wanted my current book to have more of a thriller feel I only sought out thrillers for a while. But that didn’t last long because for the most part I don’t like thrillers. That didn’t stop me from wondering if I should be buying something that wasn’t going to help me write my current book.

Unlike most writers I know, I have to be reading in the genre I’m writing while I work on a book. It keeps me refreshed and energized and inspired. One book that I really came close to buying was Sue Grafton’s new one T FOR TRESPASS. I haven’t read her in a while and she used to be one of my favorites but I got out of the habit of buying her. This new one looks great though and I’m pretty sure I’ll be back in to get it. The book I most want to read write now is Stuart O’ Nan’s LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER, but I didn’t get it because I felt like it would just make me want to write little stories of character like that which is snot what I feel like I need to be writing right now (yeah judge me, whatever). After that though I came across it in several people’s best of the year lists so I’m taking that as a sign and I’m going back to get that one as well.

But I still don’t have much on the immediate horizon I’m looking for. The Killer Year antho in January is going to be awesome and I think Laura’s book comes out in March. But I guess that’s fine because after the first of the year most of my focus is going to be on fixing the new house and maybe tinkering with the MURDER BOY play. So I’ll probably be reading mostly plays and whatever fun mystery finds I stumble across.

Anyone else having this lack of marquee books?

The downward slope to bleh

Ah, the day after Christmas, the biggest let down day EVER. Five weeks culminates in one big blow out of a day and then you kind of look toward the new year, and then it’s three more months of crap cold weather in Michigan. Oh, and my wedding.

But Christmas was good. Split time with Becky at my parents and her parents, many gift were exchanged and no punches so that was a bit disappointing. I got to play the new video game Rock Band and sucked at every aspect of it except singing. I even managed to get some writing done so my goal of finishing this book by the end of the year is still doable.

Over the weekend Becky and I went to see CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR. I loved it, her not so much. But we’re coming to realize we have very different tastes in movies and it’s best to keep them seperate (thought the next two on my list JUNO and DEWY COX we’ll probably see together). The movie started off good enough, but it didn;t really get great until Philip Seymour Hoffman took over the screen. I love this guy and will watch him in anything he ever does. I can’t wait for his new movie from Charlie “Adaptation” Kaufman about a crazy theater director who build a massive replica of New York city in a warehouse.

And that’s about it for a holiday wrap-up. You don’t care what I got and I don’t care to tell you.

A Prisoner of Home

First, some fun news. The cover for A PRISONER OF MEMORY AND 25 OF THE YEARS FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES is now online at Amazon.com and it looks cool. You’ll recall my story CADAVER DOG, originally published in HARDLUCK STORIES, will be appearing in this anthology. I’m going to be in an anthology with Michael Connelly, laura Lippman, and Lawrence Block, three of my major writing heroes.

All I gotta say is I want Christmas over and New Year’s and the rest of winter so that we can get to May when this anthology AND the THUGLIT anthology will hit the shelves. May is going to friggin’ rule. It’s so awesome to be finally getting paid for my short stories. That will be important later because…

 Becky and I also just bought a house.

Not the fun kind of new house with walls and floors and stuff. No, we bought a ‘fixer-upper’ The plus is that we bought it at half of it’s possible market value, the bad news is it DOESN’T HAVE ANY FLOORS OR WALLS. Of course I’m exageratting a bit, it’s really only missing drywall from about halfway down the walls and it has floors, but no carpet or padding or anything. All of this may seem absurd to those who know me, but my dear Becky’s family lives for this stuff. Her parents have made a healthy living from buying these old wrecks off of the foreclosure lists and fixing them up. So they know what they’re doing. And they expect me to contribute.

That should be fun. this blog I think has been getting a bit stale over the last few months so it will be fun to have something new to report on. And of course there will be pictures. Lot’s and lots of pictures.

End Game Part Two

I’m terrified of ending this new book. I crossed the 60 and 61,000 word marks this weekend and while it’s a great feeling because the book is now officially “novel length” it’s also frightening because now I have to start bringing things together for a satisfactory conclusion. I’ve got multiple POVs out there, numerous plot threads, and a whole lot of questions I don’t have all of the answers for. That’s not what I’m scared of though.

Endings are my biggest weakness, and though I’ve worked on them and fought them, and tried to get better, I’m scared that this might be a fatal flaw. I’m worried I’ll be doomed to a life of letters telling me what a great writer I am and that they would love to buy my book, but the ending just isn’t right. I know there are plenty of books bought and sold with rotten endings, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

I’m not giving up on conquering this just yet though. I’ve printed off the last 100 pages I’ve written so I can reaquaint myself with the plot so far. And then I’m outlining the entire book up to where I am so I have a handy chart of the entire plot. And most importantly I’m going to outline the remaining chapters so I make sure everything that needs to be addressed in the ending is addressed. This goes against my nature, but so far all my nature has given me is books with two good acts and then a drop-off. So maybe my nature needs to change.

But still, there’s no guarantee that even with all of this preparation the ending is going to work. We’re in a different marketplace now and most of the writers noted for their less than skillful endings made their names under less pressure in a different time. I don’t have that option. This might be my last shot. If I don’t get this right, I don’t know what else there might be for me to fix to get it right.

What if I’m writing at the peak of my skills right now and it’s just not good enough?

The Grinch Song is a Hate Crime

Over at the blog of authors Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt they’re asking readers what they’re favorite Christmas song is. I responded in the comments about the song I like the least. Year after year I’ve heard this song and it never really triggered anything but that was because I never heard the whole thing through. Then last week I finally heard the entire version of “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch.” What an awful song.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
You really are a heel.
You’re as cuddly as a cactus,
You’re as charming as an eel.
Mr. Grinch.You’re a bad banana
With a greasy black peel.

You’re a monster, Mr. Grinch.
Your heart’s an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders,
You’ve got garlic in your soul.
Mr. Grinch.

I wouldn’t touch you, with a
thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

You’re a vile one, Mr. Grinch.
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile.
Mr. Grinch.

Given the choice between the two of you
I’d take the seasick crockodile.

You’re a foul one, Mr. Grinch.
You’re a nasty, wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks
Your soul is full of gunk.
Mr. Grinch.

The three words that best describe you,
are, and I quote: “Stink. Stank. Stunk.”

You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch.
You’re the king of sinful sots.
Your heart’s a dead tomato splot
With moldy purple spots,
Mr. Grinch.

Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable
rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots.

You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch.
With a nauseaus super-naus.
You’re a crooked jerky jockey
And you drive a crooked horse.
Mr. Grinch.

You’re a three decker saurkraut and toadstool
sandwich
With arsenic sauce.

It’s just verse after verse after verse after verse beating up on the guy. Sure he was bad, but he repented in the end. How about some friggin’ slack?

Have it her way

I’m amazed daily by the drive and self-control my beloved Becky possesses. Even taking into account her distinct lack of control when it comes to life partners, she’s amazing. Right now she’s being very strict in her diet and her reward will be having a Whopper on New Year’s Day. Holy crap. I’m ticked if I go a week or so without a Whopper. To ring in this reward she has setup a counter on her MySpace page. Really. Above the wedding calender.

Check it out.

And this just in, I’m a fat lazy slob. Though I’m trying to change. A bit.

Ping

I love it when I get a lot of work done with little effort. Last night it was getting on to be 10pm and I hadn’t done squat writing-wise. I was tempted to just let it go, but I’ve been digging this policy of trying to get at least a few words done each day because I always end up getting more done than I plan.

 So I set out to get 250 words done. That came and went easily enough in about five minutes so I decided to push through and go for 500. That took me about fifteen minutes and I was happy until I realized the next chapter I was going to start was the perfect place to drop a 1,000 word chunk from the last book that nicely illustrated some themes of the book and had some good dialogue. So after about half an hour I had over 1500 words and only had to put forth 500 words worth of effort.

In trying to describe why he kept subjecting himself to the horrors of golf, a friend of mine told me all it took was one good hit off the driver to get him hooked. He would spend the rest of his life trying to replicate the feeling of that perfect hit. I had one of those perfect hits last night.

Stewie Clause vs. The Coen Brothers

I was in a BAD mood yesterday. I stayed up way too late watching “No Country for Old Men.” What a steaming pile of boredom that movie was. It started off decent enough, and there a few high points, but the last hour on didn’t need to exist at all. Everything this movie did, and tried to do, was done a hundred million times better in “A Simple Plan.” I think I’m going to rent that movie this weekend to get that taset out of my mind.

A highlight of the weekend (have I mentioned how much I love having Saturdays and Sundays off??) was taking our dog Stewie to the mall in Ann Arbor to see Santa Clause. No, I’m not turning into one of “those people” but I thought it would be fun and Stewie loved the attention. Everywhere we went people thought he was just the cutest thing in the world. Even at Sears where he peed on the floor.

The little fat boy who could

A funny thing happened last night. It was getting to be almost 10pm, I was tired, Becky and I had just been out to dinner for her brother’s birthday and I wasn’t feeling the writing. But I didn’t want to lose the tiny streak of momentum I’d been building so I sat down at the computer about quarter till 10 and figured I could get at least a couple hundred words done before 10 and that would at least keep my streak of writing every day (no matter how sad the output) alive for one more day. Low and behold, 15 minutes later I’d written 546 words and my total was over 56,000 words. Yay me.

In other news, I can’t turn to the left AT ALL. My neck is pinched and refusing to cooperate. Also, it looks like University of Michigan may be hiring away Rutger’s prodigy football coach. Poor Dave, Rutgers is going to suck again. Maybe we should hire this guy for the Lions. He’s got experience turning around a perrenial loser, but nah, Old Man Ford and Matt “Fire” Millen wouldn’t give him anything to work with and he’d probably end up missing New Jersey which says alot.