Caroline Leavitt's Blog, page 82

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Writer, author, speaker Matthew Bayan talks about how writers can avoid shooting themselves in the foot when including guns in a narrative, how he healed his heart condition and why his blistering new novel THE FIRECRACKER KING has a Stephen King compariso

So there I was trying to figure out how to write a crime in my novel and while I found a brilliant forensic expert to help me, I was getting stuck on the gun details. What kind of gun would be used in 1970? What would the crime look like? I googled. I called a cop or two. I emailed people. No one was particularly helpful and I was beginning to panic. I googled some more and came across a link that talked about how "writers could avoid shooting themselves in the foot when they write about guns." I clicked on it and was instantly fascinated. Matthew Bayan is both an author and an expert about what guns can and can't do. (I was fascinated that a silencer on a gun isn't, contrary to every film we've seen, actually silent.) He writes a series of articles (soon to be a book) on firearms in fiction for Mulholland Books/Little Brown and also lectures on the topic and advises writers. Even more amazing, he had a heart attack and managed to reverse his heart disease without surgery, detailing the process in a book that the Dallas Morning News said, "read like a thriller." 
Since Matt helps writers get their fiction accurate, I emailed him for help. There is always a moment when you are on the phone, and you hear yourself say, "But would the blood be gooey or pooling?" that you realize you are happily lost in story world. Matt not only solved my plot issue, he gave me details that were specific, surprising, and oh so real.  I was so fascinated by him (he's also hilariously funny), that I insisted I had to interview him here. I've ordered his new novel, and will report back when I'm finished with it. Thank you so, so much, Matt. 


You not only help writers "not to shoot themselves in the foot" when they write about guns, but you're also a writer yourself, and the author of Eat Fat, be Healthy, which was written after you were brought back from cardiac arrest an astonishing 72 times.  You actually reversed your blockage and you wrote about it in a way that critics said "read like a thriller." How do you write a self-help book that garners praise like that? And what can you tell us about how to have healthy hearts?

I don't see a difference between fiction and non-fiction: they both need to tell a story. I've read a lot of non-fiction and it is frequently boring stuff because the author is usually some kind of expert - doctor, business executive, scientist - and not primarily a writer. When I wrote EAT FAT, BE HEALTHY, I saw my primary job as first engaging readers with the adventure story that my life had become. I wove technical information into that, but story was always the dominant feature.

Your second question is much more difficult to answer. My bottom line is that each person has different genetics and blood chemistry and the cookie-cutter way most cardiologists treat heart disease does not take that into account. The result is a lot of heart attacks that should never have happened. My book was an attempt to lead the reader through the process of how to find the individual diagnosis and care they may need.

Your novel The Firecracker King is funny, whip-smart, and you've been compared to Stephen King. What sparked you to write this novel?  Did anything surprise you in the writing?
A high school reunion triggered the book. The reunion lasted three days which gave lots of time for standing around shooting the breeze. Five or six of my old buddies were exchanging stories; "Do you remember when so-and-so fell off the bridge...?"

Some of the stories were hilarious, some tragic. I had forgotten most of them, so when I got home, I started writing them down. Over the span of a couple years, every time I thought of one of the crazy stories from my childhood, I wrote them and threw them into the same folder.

One day I started reading through them and had the idea that they could be chapters in a book. The same characters kept re-emerging. I developed an overarching story line that pulled the individual stories together and it slowly formed into a novel.

What surprised me? The fact that I survived my childhood. Most of The Firecracker King is based on true events. As I edited and rewrote, a lot of the panic and uncertainty of the 1960s welled up in me and I think the novel is richer for that fact. I was surprised at how important the writing became for me, maybe as a catharsis for fears I had stored deep down and forgotten.


You produce articles for the mystery imprint of Little Brown. You're also the author of  a series of articles (and soon to be a book) all swirling around Firearms in Fiction: Myths, Mistakes, and How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in The Foot--and you are available for hire to help writers get their manuscripts right. How do you know what you know about guns? What things do writers most often get wrong when they are writing about firearms? What drives you the most crazy?
Simple answer: I grew up in New Jersey.

Long answer: My father was a police officer and competed on the police pistol team. I was shooting at the police pistol range by the time I was five. Those many hours spent with my father taught me respect for firearms and made me want to excel at marksmanship. I later got fascinated with the science of what bullets can and cannot do by testing their effects on materials.

Among target shooters there's a natural curiosity about what other shooters are shooting, so we frequently trade weapons at the range, discuss the pros and cons of different pistols and ammunitions. Over a fifty year span, I've fired hundreds of different handguns and learned a lot about their applications in different situations. Being a writer morphed that information into something usable by other writers.

What drives me crazy about other writers? I think most of them have never fired a gun or even touched one. When I do public speaking on the topic, I ask the writers in the audience how many have fired a gun. Fewer than half raise their hands.

Big mistakes? The worst is that writers frequently misuse "silencers." First, it's a suppressor. The device can drastically reduce the sound of the bullet explosion, but it doesn't silence it. However, when I see George Clooney in a movie with a sniper rifle, I want to laugh. A bullet from a high-powered rifle travels at two to three times the speed of sound. It breaks the sound barrier. It creates a sonic boom that sounds like a firecracker. That sonic boom travels behind the bullet until the bullet drops below the speed of sound. There is no way to silence that sound which is almost as loud as the gunpowder explosion.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I'm working on a sci-fi novel that explores the issue of time travel and human existence in a way I have never seen in any other novel. It's finished, but for me the editing and polishing process is truly obsessive. I am sure I go through a novel at least a hundred times using a different filtering perspective each time: just looking at dialogue and if it sounds real and do the characters sound different; just looking at images and replacing description with image; does each main character have an inner ghost that drives them in contrast to their exterior persona; does each chapter end with a reason for the reader to turn the page, etc. on and on.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
You want me to come up with my own question to ask myself? Looking at myself and my motivations is something I never do and answering these questions has put me in a state of mind where I need a therapy session, but I don't believe in therapy, so I'm really in an existential hell at the moment and don't know how to get out. Oh, wait, here comes lunch. Never mind. All is well now.

Kathleen McCleary talks about her new novel LEAVING HAVEN, writing what you love, and so much more

How could you not be fascinated in someone who was considered for the lead role in The Exorcist when she was a child? I'm thrilled to have Kathleen McCleary here. The author of HOUSE AND HOME and A SIMPLE THING, Kathleen's newest and most wonderful novel, LEAVING HAVEN, explores the thorny bonds of love, marriage, loyalty and parenthood--and the book is a stunner. Kathleen's written an essay about her creative process. Thank you, Kathleen!









 I started writing fiction a decade ago, people often ask the same questions: 1.) “What do you do with all your advance money?” (A: “Not what you think, because it’s not that much”) 2.) “How long does it take to write a novel?” (A: “As long as it takes”) and 3.) “Where do you get your ideas?”
The third is the stumper. The ideas come, and sometimes they come more easily than others. But now that I’m on my fourth book, I know more: the ideas come from what I feel most passionately about, the things I have to talk about. 
Nine years ago I moved from Oregon to Virginia and had to sell a house I loved with all my heart. It was the first house I owned, the house I brought my babies home to, the house I wanted to live in forever. Leaving it was so painful that for months afterward sentences kept running through my brain, sentences describing every nook and cranny of my beloved house. Then this: “And it was because of all this history with the house, all the parts of her life unfolding there day after day for so many years, that Ellen decided to burn it down.”
I didn’t burn down my old house. And I didn’t know the fictional Ellen—yet. But I knew she loved her house and couldn’t stand to give it up, and I missed my house and I missed Oregon and I could write about it with genuine emotion. That emotion led to a finished novel, something I had not imagined I could do.
Even as I wrote my first book, I was navigating the crazy seas of adolescence with my daughters, feeling besieged by Victoria’s Secret panties proclaiming “feeling lucky” and “unwrap me” and the faceless cruelty of teenage texts and tweets and the not-a-minute-to-breathe schedules. Some days I wished I could whisk them off to an island, far away from all that. I wrote a novel about a woman who does exactly that.
Writing what you love is much more compelling than writing what you know. Ideas come from passion, and passion puts your butt in the chair again and again and again. Passion sees you through crappy first drafts and dead ends and long periods of frustration because you love your story and you can’t not tell it.
Sometimes it’s not even the topic you love; it’s the emotion behind the topic. A few years ago my agent said, “If I ever wrote a novel, I’d open it with a woman giving birth and then walking out of the hospital and leaving her baby behind.” I had little interest in writing about babies or mothering and I didn’t think at all about what she’d said until, three or four months later, my husband and I were driving to the grocery store and all at once, I knew. I knew why she left her baby.
The novel that came to me does open with a woman leaving her baby. But it’s not really a novel about babies. It’s about longing for a baby and fearing you’ll never have one—something I had experienced. It’s about making terrible choices and big mistakes and yet feeling compassion for yourself and others who make terrible choices and big mistakes. It’s about integrity, about being whole.
It’s about things I love so much I had to talk about them.
Visit me at www.kathleenmccleary.com.

Nancy Jo Sales talks about her astonishing book (which became the Sofia Coppola film) The Bling Ring, celebrity-obsessed young thieves, and so much more

One of the things I love the most about doing this blog is that I get to follow my own passions and seek out the people who interest/thrill/fascinate me. What could me more wonderful? A few weeks ago, my husband and I watched Sofia Coppola's film The Bling Ring. I found it so unsettling and disturbing (in the most wonderful way) because there are no heroes in it. About a ring of celebrity-obsessed kid who break into the homes of people like Orlando Bloom and Paris Hilton and "shop" there, the film isn't just an indictment of the kids--it also has a lot to say about celebrities with rooms full of shoes, dozens of Rolex watches, and such excess that one didn't notice she was robbed until the third time or so. I mentioned how much I loved the film on Facebook and someone told me they knew the woman who had written the initial Vanity Fair story on this ring, and a subsequent book. I tracked down Nancy Jo Sales and she was gracious enough to agree to talk to me. Nancy is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York and Harper's Bazaar. Her Vanity Fair profile of Kate Gosselin won a 2010 Mirror Award for Best Profile, Digital Media. Her Vanity Fair story, "The Quaid Conspiracy" won a 2011 Front Page Award for "Best Magazine Feature," and her book, "The Bling Ring: how a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped off Hollywood and Shocked the World) was based on her 2010 Vanity Fair piece, "The Suspects Wore Louboutins.""Thank you so much, Nancy, for a fascinating story and a brilliant book.









What made you fascinated by the story of The Bling Ring?
It just seemed like a culmination of stories I’d been doing for years. When I told one of my friends about it he said something like, “This is like a weird dream you’d have. It’s almost like a parody of a ‘Nancy Jo Sales story.’” I guess he meant because I’d done so many stories on kids and crime and rich kids and bad behavior; and of course the starlets.  I did the first story on Paris Hilton, for Vanity Fair in 2000, so I’d sort of been watching this coming for a long time.
What was it like researching the story? What made you want to expand it into a book, and what surprised you about what you found out? 
It was actually pretty hard and intense because there were so many news organizations on the story. I was approached by a book editor last summer (2012), after Sofia Coppola’s movie had already been shot. I only had six months to do the book, so I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I thought I would give it a try. I wanted to have the chance to say something about the obsession with celebrity culture, which has gotten so out of control, and the conspicuous consumption and greed and inequity in our society, in which so few people now control most of the wealth.
I was surprised at how successful the kids were, that they got away with it for so long.They stole a lot of stuff—more than $3 million worth—over the course of almost a year. The police really had no clue who was doing these things and they didn’t even connect the crimes for a long time. It was the kids’ own bragging at parties and on Facebook that eventually got them caught.
What's so disturbing about the story is the kids' lack of responsibility. They really feel that they just wanted to look good, and this was fine to do. How can they think just because "they didn't kill anybody" it was fine to rob? And did you have a sense that if they were not caught, they'd keep doing it again and again, without ever realizing it was wrong?
I’m sure they’d still be doing it right now if they hadn’t been caught! The real question is all this is “why,” and that’s what I explore in my book. The answer isn’t really all that simple. I found that there were personal reasons these kids got into trouble, of course, but there were also some disturbing trends which could have added to their behavior and their attitudes. The rise in narcissism; the obsession with celebrity; and the obsession with luxury goods and designer brands. The story of the Bling Ring became a way for me to sort of take the cultural temperature.
What I loved so much about your take, and the film's take, was that the celebrities also came out sort of distasteful. Because of the almost obscene excess of their lives, I found it hard to feel too sorry for them. Plus, why on earth didn't these celebrities have better security, especially since many were burglarized more than once? It seemed impossibly easy for anyone to break in. 
Thanks. I love the film. It’s not only this seering indictment of modern celebrity culture, but it’s also a really powerful story about adolescent friendships. I think Sofia did a brilliant job. I think something she also captures is the excess of the celebrities’ lives—the scenes where the kids are robbing Paris Hilton’s closets are probably my favorites, and I have a feeling they will be iconic movie moments of the time we live in. Why didn’t the celebrities have better security? They did have a lot of security, alarms and stuff, but they didn’t always turn it on. Because they were barely kids themselves, rich and famous young people who were dashing off to nightclubs or whatever, and just forgot to lock up.
Do you feel that the film stayed true to your account? If not, what was different?
Sofia kept very close to the article as I reported it, and she stayed close to the characters in real life, although she did fictionalize certain aspects of the case for the film. She made use of my interview transcripts, which I think was a great choice on her part, because she recognized that the real dialogue of the kids was just so fresh and alive. We kept saying, “You can’t make this stuff up.” For example, when Alexis Neiers tells me, “I might lead a country one day,” or when Rachel Lee asks the cops, “What did Lindsay say?” when she was arrested. Probably the most important line in the book and the film is when Nick Prugo says, “We just wanted to be a part of the lifestyle—the lifestyle that everybody kind of wants.” That says it all.
What's obsessing you now and why?
I’d like to see our pop culture provide girls and young women with more positive messages about females and better role models. It’s become unpopular to talk about “misogyny,” or even to admit that exists; we’re even supposed to think “rape jokes” are funny. But if you look around at the landscape, and the fallout, you see that a lot of young women and girls are having a very tough time; and why should this be, when, on paper, women have never had more freedom or choice? The first step is admitting that there’s a problem. Geena Davis has a great organization that is doing just this, the Institute on Gender in Media. There needs to be more frank discussion in the mainstream media. I have a good feeling about the generation that’s coming up now, my daughter’s generation (she’s 13). They seem like new, budding feminists that will take our culture in a better and more positive direction. One can only hope.