Tonight’s Guest: Paul Guyot. The special is veal linguini

Ink Slinger.

DOB – April 6th, 2006.

RIP – January 8th, 2007.

We called it The Bog. Any weblog you’ve seen since then that uses that term – ripped it off from us. I say “us” because, though it was my blog, it really only worked because of the interaction with my readers. An unread blog is like Johnless hooker. At the end, I was getting 1300 unique hits a day.

Ink Slinger started out as an experiment. Wait, that’s a lie. That’s the same lie all bloggers tell. I started the blog because – JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER SINGLE BLOGGER – I thought what I had to say was important, or funny, or smart.

It was none of the above.

We all have opinions, we all have points of view, and we all want people to respect and admire them, because then they’re respecting and admiring us. Or so we think. Some blogs are like BQ’s – a guy working out his shit in public. A form of therapy. Nothing wrong with that. Some blogs are full of self-indulgent bullshit – a guy (or girl) working out their shit, but completely unaware that’s what they’re doing. They are looking for validation, craving it.

Then there’s the blogs used as self-promotion. Writers (mostly) who blog because they think it helps with sales. They are lying to themselves. They blog because they think what they have to say is important, or funny, or smart. Some of these, too, are full of self-indulgent validation-needing bullshit. There’s one blog where the person claims to be just having a back and forth dialogue between his/herself and the readers. But I made the mistake of disagreeing with one of his/her opinions once, and guess what? That person no longer speaks to me. Not that we were close friends, but we did have a very nice e-relationship until I dared offer an opposing opinion publicly.

Lastly, the group blogs. “Grogs” – oh, what a clever term. I’ve been part of one of these. After Ink Slinger died, I joined one with some very nice people for a while. But in the end, it was the same thing for me personally – posting had become akin to that guy in the hotel bar, who never leaves, never stops talking. When the person he is talking to gets bored and leaves, he just sidles over to the next person and starts talking until they leave. Then he moves on to the next.

I left the hotel bar.

Now, there’s a particularly unfunny and obnoxious gentleman who is convinced I’m a self-righteous asshat condemning all bloggers the way an ex-smoker condemns those who still puff away. An asshat I may be, but self-righteous, no. If blogging is your thing, good on ya. My only point is simply: 1) don’t kid yourself about why you do it; and 2) I simply got bored with it. So, please don’t be offended, unless, of course, you’re the obnoxious guy or the no-longer-speaking-to-me person. Then be very offended, you insecure jagoff.

And that brings me to today, and this guest appearance. I’ve been asked several times over the past months to blog here or there, and have always said no. For no other reason than I have nothing to say. Nothing intelligent, as you can see if you’re still reading this.

But I love Bryon. I believe he is a genuinely decent human being, has a good soul, fights the good fight, and he is a supremely talented writer. CADAVER DOG is possibly the best crime short story I’ve read in several years.

So, you’re stuck with me for another few paragraphs, and to Bryon – I hope I haven’t done irreparable damage to your site traffic.

BQ wanted me to update folks on what’s been going in my life since the death of Ink Slinger. Well, in no particular order… I welcomed a third child into our home, sold a couple of pilots, got a few haircuts, joined a country club, went on strike, finished the novel, played some really good golf, quit the country club, went to LCC, went to LIM, went off strike, got hired to adapt a book, went back to work, realized I’m not a novelist, laughed a lot, cried some, took my son to his first NFL game, got misquoted in two newspaper stories, read some great books, read some crappy books, threw up in my mouth a little bit whenever someone mentioned race when trying to defend or rationalize Bonds or Vick or Pacman, threw up in my mouth a lot when Britney Spears was called “An American Tragedy,” caught some fish, swelled with pride every time my 4-year-old son went around singing GIRLS IN THEIR SUMMER CLOTHES, decided that if THE WIRE isn’t the best drama series in the history of television, it certainly is in the top two or three, bought a car, learned the MWA anthology THE BLUE RELIGION will have an audio release, prayed the Chiefs would fire Herm Edwards and hire Bill Cower (okay, just wished), sold a watch, found out what PLBW means, realized I’d love to teach, got some Judging Amy residuals, saw a dead body, thought (again) about getting a Newfoundland, got sick, got well, hung around the inkwell, lost a lot of weight, gained a bunch of weight, was acknowledged in two bestsellers, shook my head in sadness at the pathetic Roger Clemens and the pitiable state professional sports has fallen into, discovered Megan Abbott’s work, was thankful the “Dirty Thirty” didn’t do anything to undermine the strike, fell in love with cooking again, started training at Matt Hughes’ place, outlined a screenplay, got hired to pen the remake of 70’s cult classic motion picture, got the call saying the studio was shelving the idea to remake the 70’s cult classic motion picture, decided I’m the only person on the planet who thought the girl in JUNO was simply a young Janeane Garofalo, won two tournaments at Full Tilt Poker, planned a trip to Ireland, cancelled plans for a trip to Ireland, and watched way too much professional bull riding.

Let’s take things one by one. Okay, kidding. Let’s just pick some random highlights, or lowlights as the case may be.

The haircuts. Let’s move on.

Joined a country club: This was great for my writing. A very quiet, very nice place I could sit for hours and hours, while people brought me iced tea, and just write and write. And when I needed a break, I could walk out and play nine or eighteen. Loved it.

Quit the country club: The strike arrived, and I needed to lighten the lifeboat.

Finished the novel: This one may have shocked a couple of you. Though, I typed THE END, I feel guilty saying I finished because there was so much work still needed in sections just to get it to a “rough draft” state.

Realized I’m not a novelist: I won’t spend a lot of time here, other than to say I tried it, it was really, really hard for me, and in the end, I came to the conclusion that it just isn’t in my DNA. I’ve used that phrase with a couple of friends of mine, who disagree, but one thing I have always been able to do very well is be self-critical and quite honest as to my flaws and talents. I’m a screenwriter. I’m a short story writer. I am not a novelist. This isn’t a sad thing. It is simply a reality. Like some novelists are not screenwriters – whether they’ve tried it or not, they know it’s not in their DNA.

Realized I’d love to teach: I spoke at a couple of schools in the past year and it was such a rewarding experience. Dave White knows what I’m talking about. A couple of schools around here have asked me to teach, I’ve said yes, then they ask me about my masters. Uh… I watch it every April? I may never get the op, but I’d love to, and seeing what some folks are “teaching” these days about screenwriting, well, wouldn’t it be cool if those who can, also teach?

Sold a couple of pilots: I’m writing one A&E. It’s a cop show (shocker) set in St. Louis (bigger shock). It centers on an estranged father and son, but it’s really an examination of idealism vs. pragmatism in our current society, the whole red state/blue state war, and how we got to where we are. All within a cop franchise. Yeah, I know… good luck, Guyot. The other is adaptation of Chercover’s novel that you’ve all heard way too much about already.

THE WIRE: What can you say? Though, Simon has used the show at times to make personal speeches (but hey, so did Sorkin and Kelley), there is truly nothing on the air that comes close to it. Or ever has.

Bull riding: Are you freaking kidding me? You think football players are tough? Hockey defensemen? MMA fighters? Detroit housing cops? Soccer fans? Sorry. The only guys who come close to being as tough as these cowboys are race drivers – who risk their lives every time they practice or play. You want to see real men? Watch the PBR on Versus some weekend. I wish I knew how to quit them.

Okay, that’s it. You’re up to date. Let’s all wish Becky and Bryon health, happiness, and a long life of love, family, patience and respect.

Tonight’s Guest: Mike Maclean

Damn, Why Didn’t I Write That?

By Mike MacLean

Bryon is off on his honeymoon in Orlando with his lovely new bride. There will be sun. There will be fun. There will be little fruity drinks with high alcohol contents and paper umbrellas.

Meanwhile…

I’m here, watching words tick into existence across a blank white screen – my eyes drooping like punch drunk prizefighters. After the nine-to-five, I took my screaming baby grocery shopping, pounded down a “six-dollar” burger, worked on a screenplay, watched the kid again so mom could rest, and finally got back to the keyboard to punch this post up.

That’s my life now. Write. Day job. Watch the baby. Write. Sleep (six hours if I’m VERY lucky). Do it all over again.

Sound bitter? I’m not. Just sleepy.

Fact is, this last year has been great. Independent film legend Roger Corman (some say infamous; I say legend) hired me to write not one, but two scripts!

And then there’s my daughter Chloe, a beautiful, charming, ten month old poop machine. Words can’t express what her smiles do to me. They make up for every dirty diaper, every screaming fit, every sleepless night.

My only regret is it’s been so crazy this last year I haven’t gotten a chance to read much. I did, however, stumble on one book that left me spellbound, thinking, “Damn, I wish I would’ve written that.”

That book is Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge.

I first heard of this book from Duane Swierczynski’s blog. Dark Harvest is a hardboiled, horror tale that blazes away with both barrels. It has a creepy Midwest town with a shadowy secret. It has a relentless, pumpkin-headed scarecrow brought to life. It has bloodthirsty teens stalking the Halloween night. It has candy.

But most of all, it has Partridge’s razor sharp voice.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Dark Harvest’s plot. It travels somewhat familiar roads, but with new twists. Every Halloween night, the October Boy rises from the cornfields and stalks towards town, butcher knife gripped in his gnarled hand. And every Halloween, the town’s teens confront him in a bloody annul rite of passage. Cool stuff indeed. But it’s Partridge’s voice that seals the deal.

Partridge crafts suspense with the best of them. His sleek, present tense prose beckons the reader forward… then goes for the throat. And once it has you, the pages fly. Partridge brings a tough, crime writer’s sensibility to horror that holds you in its grip until the very last words.

Simply put, Dark Harvest is brilliant fun.

And for the record, I don’t know Partridge. Never even met the guy. But I sure would like to buy him a beer for writing this book.

So, all you Quertermous fans (all three of you), what did you read last year that you wished you would’ve written?

A Wedding Update

This just in:

Stuff not going right with the wedding.

I’m back at the hotel with some time on my hands because I was supposed to be setting up some table favors and testing my slide show as the banquet hall said we could be in at noon for setup. Well, we show up and they have a party in there until 3pm. The wedding is at 4. I don’t think so.

And then I get a call from the limo company. Becky called them last week and wanted to add an extra hour. They told her the amount a couple of times and said she needed to have cash to pay the driver. Okay. Well, an HOUR before the driver is supposed to show up, the owner calls and says when she did the calculations she forgot to add in the extra hour. So A FRIGGIN HOUR before the driver is supposed to show up the owner tells us we need an extra $200 in cash. Does that seem shady to anyone else? So we said no, screw you we’re not paying.

Some people. There will be lots of nasty phone calls made when we return.

Here comes the bride…

I’m writing this from a Holiday Inn where I stayed last night with my parents after the rehearsal dinner. Today is my wedding day. Woo hoo. After that I’ll be gone for a week and in my place here will be the blogging styles of Mike Maclean and Paul Guyot. Enjoy.

Cracking the stale

I’m going to be doing a few things I haven’t done around here to keep things going while I’m off galavanting in the land of crazy criminal fiction. First, I’ve never intentionally taken a break from this blog. Sure, there was a long period when I only posted once a month or so, but that was not planned and my stats plummeted. So while I’m gone, I don’t want people to forget this blog exists.

Next week will feature a few guest bloggers, something else I’ve never done here before. Two of them used to have blogs but shut them down, so I thought it would be nice to get updates from them. Stay tuned here Friday for the grand announcement.  I’ll also have an exciting announcement when I get back…maybe (no, not THAT announcement, I wish).

Oh yeah, that’s coming up isn’t it?

I’m getting married this weekend and it looks like it’s supposed to snow. Who cares. The next day Becky and I will be leaving for Orlando for a week and a couple of days. We’re driving and it should be fun. I love road trips. The highway sites, the all-night diners, the truck stops, and the feeling of the open road. While I’m excited about the wedding and the following party, this trip couldn’t come at a better time.

After some evaluation and deep breaths, I was able to come down from the ledge with LUCKY TOWN. I pulled out some plot threads that were jacking the story about, and moved a few things around, and I’m only down to 63k from a high of 66k. I’m in the process of outlining what I have and what changes I’ve made and then I’m going to have to do some serious thinking. I’ll be taking my notebook and some pens with me to sketch out my thoughts and whatnot, but mostly I’ll just be trying to get some distance and perspective on this blasted book.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrgh

I’m so disgusted with this book I’m writing and this type of book in general. I love reading them but I don’t think I can write them. I was up to 66,000 words a couple months ago and then I get 20k because I didn’t like where it was going. A few days ago I got back up to 66k and realized I again had veered off in a direction that wasn’t going to work so I was going to have to cut some more. Once I cut those scnes I was happy because it only cut about 3k words, not the 6-8k I was thinking it might. But as I was evaluating the whole manuscript I’m still not happy with it.

It seems stupid, and meaningless, and down right garbage. Much of this might just be me being too close to the manuscript. But some of it i suspect it a real crisis in my faith with this manuscript. What I once thought was a good, solid, concept now seems to be hallow and flawed. The first 100 pages or so are solid. I’ve had those vetted by experienced and fresh eyes. The next 100 pages though are a bit sketchier. The couple of times I’ve read them so far they haven’t jumped out at me as being trash, so that’s where I get the idea I might just be sick of the manuscript. But as I try to find a way to end the damn thing, that’s when I start seeing my emperoror has no clothes.

To bring everything to a full, satisfying conclusion, there needs to have been something important everyone was working toward. Currently, that seems to be missing from my manuscript. I guess it’s really all about the stakes. For this type of book the stakes need to be higher than I’m apparently willing, or capable, of going. That’s what makes me think I’m writing the wrong kind of book.

I’ve read plenty of books of the type I like where interesting people just go around doing interesting stuff for a while. I’m really thinking early Elmore Leonard here and other comic crime novelists. Does that make me lazy because I’d rather play more to my strengths? Maybe, on a certain level. But for my first book shouldn’t I play to my strengths so I have the best shot of sucess? Once I get established I can take more risks and stretch myself. Maybe I’m trying to do too much with this book.

The last few months I’ve been toying around with the idea of abandoning this book and starting another that I think more suits my strengths. I’ve hesitated though because who wants to throw away a book when it’s so close to being done? And also, I didn’t want to think I was taking the easy way out. But I’ve been submitting novels now for more than five years and even though I’ve gotten some great feedback and made some great connections, I know I’m running out of chances. And agent will only read something from me so many times before he realizes I don’t really have what it takes. I want to make sure the mext book that goes out with my name on it is the best of what I have to offer.

On his blog, screenwriter John August was talking about this exact thing:

But there’s nothing so dispiriting as finishing a script you know is fundamentally flawed. As a professional writer, you’re sometimes stuck in that situation, forced to implement notes that couldn’t conceivably work (c.f. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle). But for your own scripts, you should never be printing out 120 pages of ambivalence.

Ever since my first novel, I’ve printed out each manuscript with a certain amount of ambivilance. I’ve never sent out a manuscript I thought was perfect. I was always hoping I’d just find the right editor or agent who would see the potential in the manuscript and sign me up and work with me to get it to that stage. I think the days of editors and agents doing that though are now gone.

Tonight I’ve got the night to myself and I’m going to start my new book. I’ll write it until I either finish it, or get a fresh take on LUCKY TOWN that doesn’t suck. Or maybe I’ll give it all up and find a new way to spend my blood.

**Update**

It’s now Midnight and I took a deep breath and went to Borders for a while and went to see “Cloverfield” to clear my head. I’m looking back into this book and all might not be lost. I’m jotting down some notes in a Word file to see if I can boil this beast down to it’s elements and figure out how to make it work. It’s not going to work as a murder mystery. At it’s core it’s a story of a couple people trying to atone for past sins, and a couple of people trying to kill them before they can do that. This I think I can work with. Even if I have to cut it back to the original 100 pages, that’s still better than having to start from scratch, right? I need to go to sleep.

Love and other fantasies

Patti Abbott had the wonderful idea of doing something like the blog short story project but doing all the hard work herself and theming the bits around love stories and such. I said I’d participate. This is what I wrote. Check here and here for the other suckers.

STAND UP ON BLOW POPS
By Bryon Quertermous

I know you’ve heard the story. Boy meets girl, girl wants something, guy does some bad shit to get it, girl screws him over. It’s the Great American Noir Love Story. And when I met Dolly that’s exactly how it could have ended up. But what if it didn’t? What if we met, some things happened, and that was the end. Nobody ended up dead or bitter or anything.

Now I’m married, so that makes this a little more complicated, but not much. There was no sex, no physical contact. The emotional stuff, that’s kind of chewy. So here’s how it went down.

I was working as a security guard in the pediatric wing of a nasty Detroit hospital. Not a lot of white women period, especially not of the bouncy brunette ponytail variety like Dolly. That’s why I noticed her. Anywhere else she might have got a passing glance and an internal commentary and that’s it. But where I was, and what I was doing, that’s what made it linger. And the scrubs, oh man the clingy scrubs.

She’d been there for a while and I’d been there for a while, but it didn’t really get rolling until the Wednesday of the blizzard and there was nobody around. We still had to be there though so we had the TV tuned to Regis and Kelly and an awkward conversation brewing. Her scrubs were pink, which honestly didn’t do much for me, but I was still looking. And thinking of my wife. I don’t forget about my wife.

“We had this code,” Dolly said. “So our parents didn’t know what we were up to.”

I nodded and was really doing my best not to look at her chest.

“The best one was one of my sisters. She’d tell everyone we were going to stand up on Blow Pops if we were going to stay up all night.”

“Like the suckers?”

She nodded. I flicked the ring on my left hand. I was having fun. This is what work should always be like. Before I was married I had a ton of jobs and a ton of crushes. None of them ever amounted to anything, but one always fed the other. Some of the most miserable jobs I ever had were made less so by a cute girl I would look forward to seeing. Sure, at the time, I always thought I might have a chance with them and that’s really what got me into work. But these days the pretty girls were a nice distraction.

“I mean how stupid is that?” She asked. “I know now that my parents knew exactly what we were doing. But hey, to be young, right?”

“I stole cookies,” I said. “And a bottle of mouthwash once from the gas station. Never had a code for it.”

We didn’t share much after that for a while. I would smile when I passed her at her station on my way in. But then I started thinking of other ways to go in so she didn’t see me always looking at her. And then I thought she might think I had a reason for her to think something was up so I went back to the normal way.

Once I had a dirty dream about Dolly, an innocent one as far as dirty dreams go, but I didn’t tell my wife. On the way to work the next day I let the dream fill my thoughts and didn’t like where it took me. My old nature was coming back and I started thinking about what I wasn’t able to do any longer because I was married. And that made me think about what I could do with Dolly if I wasn’t married.

In the Noir Love Song I’d start doing more overt things to be with Dolly. I’d probably lose my job and have to resort to some sort of crime to keep afloat. And then Dolly would want to spend more time with me so she could set me up and then my wife would find out because I’m a crappy liar and I’d lose her too. That’s when I’d start the drinking.

I told my wife about all of this later that night while we were eating pizza and she laughed at me.

“There’s this guy at work, he has a beard now which looks kind of gay, but otherwise he’s like your Dolly,” she said. “Work itself isn’t enough to drag me there so some days I need a little something special. Some days that’s a real cola, or a chocolate bar, or Mexican food for lunch.”

“And some days it’s Drew?” I asked.

She nodded and smiled. We had sex, I dreamt about her, and smiled at Dolly the next morning. I bought a Blow Pop on my lunch hour and thought about what would happen if I ran away with Dolly and my wife.

She likes me for my concepts

First, the new issue of DEMOLITION is now live featuring stories from a bunch of cool folks including Keith Snyder, one of my favorite writers who I wish would return to novel form soon.

And when I sent out all the emails and such pimping the new issue Christin Kuretich, local blog marketing guru liked my concept. Here’s what I wrote.

As the tempratures drop faster than a hooker with a deadline, you might be tempted to throw some of those print magazine on the floor and torch ‘em. Go ahead and try that with us. You can burn print, but you can’t burn the Internet baby. Especially not with stories from Keith Snyder, Jordan Harper, Lyn Lejeune, David Harrison, and John McFetridge.

Yes, I do indeed rule and now I have proof.

100 Proof

I got a very cool email the other day from the guys at Pegasus Books. It was the galley proofs for A PRISONER OF MEMORY AND 24 OF THE YEARS FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES. This is the first time I’ve ever received anything like that and it was pretty cool. I also noticed that four of the contributors are from Michigan. In addition to my blog buddy Patti Abbott, crime stalwarts Loren D. Estleman and Doug Allyn are in the anthology as well. I’m going to go to my local bookstore this week, Aunt Agatha’s, and see if I can set up some kind of launch party for the book.

Along these same lines, I was reading posts on Lee Goldberg’s blog about how much writers were making from their crime writing and I felt a special reading it because 2007 was the first year I ever recieved any money for my fiction. Here’s how it broke down:

$5 from SHRED OF EVIDENCE for the reprint of LOAD

$25 from THE BACK ALLEY WEBZINE for my original story RUINS OF DETROIT

$75 from Thuglit for reprinting my story MURDER BOY in the anthology HARDCORE HARDBOILED.

That’s $105 just for fiction last year. It may not sound like much to some people but it’s great for me. And this year I’m on track to make even more. Yay, money.