This is going to be my last post here. I just don’t have the energy anymore. All of the little details of my new life that I wave around here should be getting pushed back into my novel for depth and characterization. I want to be a professional writer and I want to write the best damn book I can and that’s going to require all of my limited energy.

I got what I needed out of this thing. I made some friends, made some contacts, and pissed some people off. All of that will come in handy when I get this book done. But for right now, that’s all I’m working on in the book. It’s a first person PI novel that going to be a honest reflection of my view on the world at this time in my life. That’s what I need to be writing.

So thank you to all of the people who have made this last three and a half years amazing.

The comments are open to say your goodbyes.

I’m back, sort of. Our internet and TV service were installed today while I was at work so I guess it’s time to get back to the blog. But things are going to be different now. This was the first time I ever really thought about shutting down the blog. It was so nice to be away from it for a while and concentrate and sorting out my writing demons. I’m nimbly working my way through the beginning of a new project and I’ll start posting again in full force once I get up to the 5,000 word mark. And that will be the last you hear about this project.

I’ll still be posting here because I love it. It gives me an outlet on life and it’s not one I’m ready to give up. But I won’t be talking about writing. I’ll still post links to stories once I publish them and I’ll post exciting news (like that THUGLIT PRESENTS: HARDCORE HARDBOILED and THE YEAR’S FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES have started popping up in local bookstores) but no more of the day-to-day writing stuff. I need to be doing that in a vacuum for the time being.

Since that means there will be substantially less whining here, I don’t suspect most people will be upset. There’s plenty else going on in my life other than writing and like Guyot keeps telling me I need to get my priorities straight. When I finish the book I’ll let you know. Until then, it’s all mine.

Probably be back Wednesday. It’s been nice to be away.

This will be my last post here for a week or so. Becky and I moved into our new house today and we won;t have internet access until next Tuesday. I think will be a nice break for me. I’ve picked a book idea and now will have the distraction-free time to work on it. I’ll catch up with you when I’m back up, but for now I think it’s probably a good time to take a break and just write…not think about or talk about writing.

I lied yesterday and I’m not even sure I realized I was deceiving myself. While the top two ideas I mentioned are ones I’m very passionate about, they’re aren’t the one I really want to write. I really want to write a first person PI novel version of RUINS OF DETROIT. BUt I got caught up with the nonsense about that stuff not selling.

Well here’s thething. I got a couple very good, very detailed responses to my last novel from agents and not one of them mentioned that the book couldn’t sell because it was a first person PI novel. In fact one of them made favorable comparisons to another first person PI author in saying it reminded them of early Robert Crais. No, they all mentioned that the plot was too complicated or the relationships weren’t developed enough. So that’s what I need to work on with this new book, not what type of book it is.

UPDATE: I just went back and looked at that email from one of the agents and it’s even better than I thought.

Dallas Ellington is a very nice lead for a mystery, with an
interesting backstory as a child actor.

He says that my PI is a nice lead. Sheesh.

I really wish I would listen to myself once in a while…

Here’s my dilemma. I’ve got three (possible four) solid novel ideas that I’ve been toying with over the last few weeks. As I’ve said, I don’t have writer’s block, writing is not the problem. It’s a matter of finding the right project. I’ve got roughly three and a half months left before the baby comes. That gives me time for most of a first draft and that’s about it. I don’t have time for experimentation and dallying around. But I don’t know which of these ideas should win out. It’s not a matter of solely writing for the market, but I need to figure out which of these ideas has the most potential for a solid opening for my novel career. So here we go:

1. RUINS OF DETROIT – A multi-viewpoint crime novel featuring a PI, a failed newspaper reporter/mystery writer, and an Internal Affairs detective learning the ropes all in the arena of Detroit politics and the sport of urban exploration. I imagined this as a moodier book but when I started writing, it turned out a bit lighter and breezier than I hoped. That’s not a bad thing though and a hallmark of my own style I think. This one has the most potential of all of them I think, but I’m not sure my meager plotting skills can handle something this complex.

2. MURDER BOY – An Elmore Leonard-type crime caper about two college kids who end up on a wild ride through the underside of Detroit when they try to kidnap a professor who has wronged them. Based on my THUGLIT story which will be reprinted in HARDCORE HARDBOILED later this month. This one also has a ton of potential and I think plays to my own personal strengths and could work well like a Scott Phillips, Victor Gischler, Sean Doolittle thing. But I don’t know what the market is for this sort of thing anymore. I know VINNIE’S HEAD from Marc Lecard did well last year.

The other two I think are the sketchy of the group and probably won’t make the cut. DICK AND PINKY is a romantic comedy about a blocked writer who crosses paths with a sexy and tough bounty hunter and tags along while she searches for a gangster and BROTHER FANTASTIC is about a flamboyant (and slightly shady) revival preacher who sidelines as a soldier of fortune to help fund his ministry.

As I’m writing this, I’m starting to think Number 2 is going to be it because it’s something I’ve never tried. I’m tried the whodunit type plots and it hasn’t worked out so well for me so maybe it’s time for something a little more loose and free.

Thoughts?

I was going to write a long, rambling post about how I was all frustrated because I couldn’t figure out what to write next and how I had this great idea but it seemed too big and complex for me to tackle right now.

But I decideded to shut up and stop whining and just write the damn thing.

In other news, my first major print appearence is released this week. A PRSIONER OF MEMORY AND 25 OF THE YEARS FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES is released on May 15. I’ve been going into book stores every day for the last week to see if it’s on the shelves yet, but nothing so far. I should also be getting some complimentary copies and a check for the story in the mail soon. It’s all very exciting. Yay me.

I took a bus all the way from Ann Arbor to Detroit to meet up with the Hummer-sine but get there just in time to see it speed away , leaving me in the dust. Part of me wants to stand in the road and scream bitter curses at them. Another part wants to lob grenades at them.

Part of me needs to pee.

But I’m not letting them get away that easy so I run like hell and almost catch up to them. All I have to do is jump just a little…

They get Bryon’s cuts cleaned up and his skint knees bandaged, and he’s got a Schlitz in each hand, legs bouncy. “So where to, huh? Where’s the party?” The party is here, sir. It’s a mobile party. And we’ve got plenty of other stops. Next up is author William Boyle, currently residing at The Narrow Margin, and quite possibly (as the title of his recent PWG story attests) “Far From God“.

Driving time: As long as we get there before happy hour.

Tune for the leg: “Waddlin’ Around” by The King Khan & BBQ Show

I want to drive across the country. It’s one of my big dream trips and I know it’s something my dad wants to do too. Becky I’m sure would be up for it as well once she’s not carrying my demon spawn inside her. For a while I thought the way I wanted to do it was to go from MI down to Arizona where my aunt and uncle live and then up to Las Vegas and then on to Los Angeles. The MapQuest directions take a very boring, direct route across the country through a whole lot of boring states.

But lately I’ve been itching to do the Route 66 path from Chicago to LA. The Nevada and California parts of it are the most appealing to me from what I’ve been able to learn so far. All of this was fueled once again this morning when there was a story on NPR about three guys who are driving to every one of the 48 continental US states in five days. That doesn’t sound like any fun to me.

I’m getting older and more and more responsibility is coming into my life, but I still hold out faith this is something I can do one day. Maybe I’ll end up doing it with my wife and kids at some point, but that doesn’t sound too appealing from I sit now.

I’m also writing on a new book, something fun and new and different and featuring a writer. Yay.

I did a few house things over the weekend that made me feel all masculine. I finished sanding down the drywall in the master bedroom and only took a few minor chunks out of the wall. Then I painted over what I sanded and put a first coat of paint on all of the closet doors (and only forgot to paint the inside of one set). After that, we went to Home Depot to pick out carpet. We selected a nice cushy carpet on the beige side for the bedrooms and a nice, tough, animal resistant Berber for the family room. Everything else will be wood floors. Yay for wood. Everything is coming together suspiciously well and we should be able to move in within the next three weeks. That’s perfect timing to cut my commute by ¾ as gas prices rise faster than an overcooked pizza.

I also completed a new short story that I’m very happy with. I wrote one draft and sent it around to a few people and then based on suggestions added a few new scenes and took a final pass then submitted it. Now we wait. And now I’m back to where I was a little while ago, eager to work on a novel, with no idea what to write. I was at Borders Saturday looking to see if the Ed Gorman anthology I’m in has hit the shelves yet (it’s not scheduled to release until May 15 but I’m very impatient) and I was looking at all of the new releases trying to get a feel for where my effort should go. And it hit me: I was writing the kind of book I like to read, but not necessarily the one that only I could write.

Up until now, all of the novels I’ve written have featured PIs or some variation thereof. Not a total surprise considering I love PI novels. But as I look to my short stories, the three PI stories I’ve written are among my weakest. Coincidence? And what was really striking to me in all of my Meta goodness is that none of my books have ever featured a writer as the main character. I LOVE books about writers and writing. I’ve read really weak books and seen horrid movies just because they feature writers. I’ve picked up some literary novels I may have never read otherwise just because they had a writer as a main character. And yet I’ve never written one myself.

So maybe it’s time. I’ve got an idea, based on one of my more popular short stories, and I guess we’ll see what happens with it.