Mayra Calvani's Blog - Posts Tagged "crime"

Mar Preston is the author of two mystery novels set in Santa Monica, California, featuring Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department. His girlfriend is a community activist, liberal in bent, which clashes with Mason’s traditional cop views. A third novel, set in a California mountain village features a County Sheriff’s Detective and an injured former Detective working as a patrol officer.

[image error]Thanks for this interview, Mar! When did your passion for crime and detective fiction begin?

Not until my forties until life settled down−and mostly importantly, after I wrote four unpublished literary fiction novels. I thought, well, mysteries can’t be as hard as literary fiction.  Silly me.

When did you decide you wanted to become an author?

When I felt comfortable that I could think up and tell a good story.

Tell us about your latest novel, Rip-Off.

High-tech burglary and murder are bad for business in the upscale, tourist-destination beach city of Santa Monica with its leftist politics, rich homeowners, its entertainment mega-businesses, and huge homeless population. Bad for Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department. 

A deadbeat burglar is found in the beach condo of a playboy studio exec. The dead body must link up with a string of high-tech burglaries, and the Chechens Mason keeps meeting must link up with each other somehow, but how?

The investigation involves Mason in the dark world of embezzlement and an explosion that almost kills him. The stakes rise when the investigation leads him to the Hollywood Russian community and he ignores a warning by the FBI and Homeland Security.

How long does it usually take you to write a novel?

Years.

Are you disciplined?

No, life is too interesting. Maybe that’s why it takes me years.

[image error]Describe a typical writing day for you.

One cup of coffee playing Spider Solitaire to warm up. Long sigh, then get at it. The first draft is agony. I love rewriting and making the story better.

I hear you’re quite inventive when marketing your books. Can you tell us about your latest marketing event?

Sell, pawn, mortgage all your possessions and hire a publicist. Few writers are good self-promoters. I comment on interesting blogs, praise and review other writers, search for opportunities to guest blog, publish short stories, support Sisters-in-Crime, arrange house readings, and spend a limited time on Facebook and Twitter. I wish I had a clone.

What are the three main ingredients of a good mystery?

An absorbing plot that keeps you turning pages, engaging characters, and a twist on the usual rules of crime fiction.

What is the most difficult part of writing crime fiction?

The reason why it’s so hard to get a cop to read a mystery is clichéd plots and characters. Authors really need to work to make a story realistic and founded in fact.  Cops consider CSI a comedy show.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being an author?

Holding a book that you’re proud of in your hand. Then it’s like childbirth. You forget all the agony that went into making that book and you foolishly start another.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Write in whatever genre people are willing to read while you get the craft of writing polished to a high lustre.

What’s on the horizon for Mar Preston?

A New Adventure. I’m moving home to Canada after a 30-year vacation in California.

Connect with Mar Preston:

Author’s website: http://marpreston.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mar-Preston/136299239777273

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/YesMarPreston

RIP-OFF available on Kindle and print: http://www.amazon.com/Rip-Off-ebook/dp/B007WTYGI4

 

 

This interview originally appeared in Blogcritics

Catherine Astolfo retired in 2002 after a very successful 34 years in education. She can recall writing fantasy stories for her classmates in Grade Three, so she started finishing her books the day after her retirement became official. Her short stories and poems have been published in a number of Canadian literary presses. Her story, “What Kelly Did”, won the prestigious Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story in 2012.

In the fall of 2011, she was thrilled to be awarded a four-book contract by Imajin Books for her Emily Taylor Mystery series (previously self-published), and has never been happier with this burgeoning second career!

Catherine’s books are gritty, yet portray gorgeous surroundings; they deal with sensitive social issues, but always include love and hope. They’re not thrillers, but rather literary mysteries with loads of character and setting. And justice always prevails.

Website: www.catherineastolfo.com

FB: http://tinyurl.com/kc4n5xw

Twitter: www.twitter.com/cathyastolfo

Q: What’s inside the mind of a mystery author?

A: Here’s an example. My husband and I were taking a wonderful sunny day drive. He smiled at me and asked, “What are you thinking, honey?” My answer: “I was wondering how long it would take someone to die after they’d been shot in the stomach.” As you can tell, please don’t ask a mystery writer what they are thinking unless you are prepared for a somewhat shocking answer! Our heads are full of crime, puzzles and mischief. Fortunately, it’s mostly fictional. We pick up ideas at the mall, in the newspaper, standing on a mountaintop, or from our fellow flawed human beings.

Q: Tell us why readers should buy SWEET KAROLINE.

A: SWEET KAROLINE is a roller coaster ride of psychological suspense, mixed with history, love and mystery. It has story lines that will appeal to everyone, male and female, from twenty-somethings to ninety-somethings. One of my endorsers probably says it best about why you should buy it. “Sweet Karoline is a multi-layered mystery, where nothing is as it seems. The story grips you on page one and leads you through a maze of history, twisted relationships, and ultimately the darkness of the human mind.”—Liz Bugg, author of Oranges and Lemons

Q: What makes a good psychological suspense?

A: Often, it’s the voice of the narrator that creates the tension, uneasiness, and excitement in a psychological suspense. Is the narrator reliable? Is s/he telling the whole truth? Whom can we trust? The uncertainty creates on-the-edge-of-your-seat thrills that most readers love. My new novel, Sweet Karoline, has also been classed as a literary mystery. These two sub-genres are a great match: the plot is somewhat secondary to the characters in a literary novel, while in a psychological suspense, the characters’ dialogue, actions and personalities are what drive the anticipation. I love reading psychological suspense and writing one was almost as much fun.

Q: What is a regular writing day like for you?

A: I’m not the sort of writer who has a strict schedule. Mostly, the writing day depends on what’s coming up in my life. For instance, with Sweet Karoline’s launch imminent, a lot of my writing involves guest interviews, blogs, tweets and emails. I like to spend my mornings doing that sort of work, then get into the creative swing during the early afternoon. (I’m not as awake in the mornings, I think, so the structure of the Internet helps keep me alert.) If I spend too many days unable to write creatively for one reason or another, I become restless and grumpy. So my family likes to make time for me to retreat to the laptop!

Q: What do you find most rewarding about being an author?

A: For me, there are two aspects to the rewards in writing. One happens during the process. When I have an idea, cook it in my head, let it flow onto the page, rework it and suddenly realize just how well it’s shaping up, I get the most amazing thrill. The only thing I can compare it to is looking at your child’s face and thinking how gorgeous s/he is. I read over what I’ve created and am immensely satisfied and happy. The second reward comes when someone else reads it and comes to the same conclusion. What a joy when a reader says, “I LOVED your book!”

Q: How did you celebrate the completion of your book?

A: I celebrated Sweet Karoline’s completion by calling my daughter and telling my husband. Then I handed it over to both of them for a first read. After that I sat down with a glass of particularly good red wine.

Robert Lane’s literary crime noir novels mix humor, action, and ageless moral themes set against the backdrop of the west coast of Florida. Cooler Than Blood is his second stand-alone Jake Travis novel after The Second Letter. His third book, The Cardinal’s Sin, will be released in October 2015.Q:

Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Cooler Than Blood. What was your inspiration for it?

A: I yearned for a classic crime tale, in this case a kidnapped young woman, that, through twists and turns, circles back to my protagonist, Jake Travis. I desired a story arc, that in ways Jake could have never foreseen, threatens Kathleen, the “world’s most important person,” to Jake.  I wanted the story to force him into moral choices that will define and shape him. Where’s the inspiration? Instead of a faceless victim that the reader would have no feeling for, I was intrigued with the idea of a young woman who lost her father at a young age. She relies on the memory of her father and the lessons he taught her while boating, to persevere a kidnapping ordeal. The time she and he spent on the boat is all the fuel she has to survive her captivity. The only thing real, and inspiration, is the boat, but we all know the formula—1 percent inspiration and 99 percent work.

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist. 

A: Jake Travis has struggled with who he is and is just now learning to accept himself. He cannot resist the thrills found on the edge of life, but they come with heavy consequences. Unfortunately, some of these consequences are moral ambiguities that are likely to re-occur. It’s the central theme in his life, and central themes do not fade or resolve.

Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way? 

A: My books are character driven—I have little clue as to how they will end. I usually see the end coming somewhere around two-thirds of the way through. That’s good—I think. Hemingway said if you know where your story’s going, so does the reader. Total writing time is about nine months, with half of that time in re-writes and crafting the words. Writing is a bumpy road. Sometimes it comes out smooth and clean, but that’s just the space between the bumps.

Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel? 

A: I don’t let myself get bored. Add humor. Conflict. More conflict. Physically move Jake.  In Cooler Than Blood, Jake gets a lead, hops in his truck with Garrett, and the story explodes as he meets other characters who, in turn, lead to the core of the story.

Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it? 

A: Not really. My secret is I flip open the laptop and hit it hard and fast. If I waited, even a minute, I know self-doubt would gain a foothold.  Also, I usually exercise before I write—let the endorphins meet anxiety at the gate and thrash it away.

Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time? 

A: I run or swim early in the morning and then write until my mind shuts down. By late in the afternoon, it’s been recharged enough to go a couple more hours. If I had sixteen free hours, the best I could do is write during five to six of those hours, and not congruently. That leaves plenty of time for other activities and obligations.

Q: How do you define success?

A: Doing my best used to be my mantra, my measuring cup for success. After I read Haruki Murakami’s excellent book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, I altered that stance. Success is exceeding my capabilities. Doing better than I thought I could do. Freeing my mind of self-imposed limitation and handicaps. That’s pretty elusive…but so is success.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author? 

A: Get a new a partner? That could be expensive. How about this: forget them. It’s your dream. Since when do you need the outside world to validate your goals and aspirations?

Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree? 

A: I suppose I do, but that seems a little heavy, dare I say Orwellian? Lighten up. I don’t drill too deep into my compulsions, who’s got time for that? At some point, during the writing of every book, I’ve sworn off writing and rue the day I ever started. Is that so different than other professions and activities in our lives, or do writers just whine more?

Q:  Anything else you’d like to tell my readers? 

A: While reading my books, I hope you laugh, I hope you get choked-up, I hope you turn the page quickly to see what happens next, I hope you come across a mirror and ponder yourself, and I hope that is some small, immeasurable, speck-of-dust manner, all that gobbledygook gives you a better understanding and acceptance of your world.

I enjoy a good murder. Oh, not necessarily an actual murder, but the kind of murders that occur between the pages of a good book. People ask me all the time, “What made you write about such gruesome stuff?”  I rarely have a good enough answer for them and the person asking usually leaves somewhat disappointed. How do you explain to the casual observer, reader, or even fan that you are possessed of a mind filled with all sorts of criminality?

Writers of thrillers, crime fiction, mysteries, etc. dwell in worlds bathed in foggy nights and overcast days. Peaceful ponds and lakes are actually places where bodies rise to the surface, pristine winter snows hide the corpses of hitch-hikers, runaways, or promising college students. We who write about crime must lurk in these dark places, it is who we are. And as a consequence we must also rise squinting into the sun and seek justice for those who have been so wronged. We create doctors, lawyers, detectives, housewives, writers, and even vampires who are willing to use their knowledge, skills, instinct and need to bring the bad guy to justice; to solve the very crime or crimes that we previously have so painstakingly committed on paper. It’s like knitting a wonderfully intricate afghan and then carefully pulling it apart as soon as it’s done.

But, alas, it’s what we do. Oh, and don’t get it wrong. Sure we create great antagonists. Some are evil geniuses, some are sociopaths and some are complete pychopaths! We use words like unsub, perp, the suspect, and so on to describe them, but isn’t the blood actually dripping from our hands?

It takes a very special mindset to just be a writer in the first place: to tackle

head on that blank page and build a world in which you hope to immerse your reader. And it’s even more special when it’s a criminal mind.

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Title: Chickenhawk

Genre: Thriller

Author: Arnaldo Lopez Jr.

Publisher: Koehler Books/Café Con Leche books

Purchase on Amazon

About the Book:

Chickenhawk is an urban crime fiction novel that showcases New York City’s diversity, as well as the dark side of race relations, politics, sexuality, illness, madness, and infidelity. Eddie Ramos and Tommy Cucitti are Manhattan North Homicide detectives after a serial killer that manages to stay below their radar while the body count keeps climbing in a city that’s turning into a powder keg.

About the Author:

Arnaldo Lopez Jr. has been employed by New York City Transit for twenty-eight years and was formerly employed as a dispatcher with the NYPD.  Mr. Lopez is also a speaker and trainer, speaking on subjects as diverse as terrorism and customer service.  He created the civilian counter-terrorism training program currently in use by New York City Transit and many other major public transportation agencies around the country.

As well as writing, Mr. Lopez is an artist and photographer, having sold several of his works over the years.  As a writer he’s sold articles to Railway Age magazine, The Daily News magazine, Homeland Defense Journal, and Reptile & Amphibian magazine; scripts to Little Archie and Personality Comics; and short stories to Neo-Opsis magazine, Lost Souls e-zine, Nth Online magazine, Blood Moon magazine, and various other Sci-Fi and/or horror newsletters and fanzines.  He was also editor of Offworld, a small science fiction magazine that was once chosen as a “Best Bet” by Sci-Fi television.  Chickenhawk is his first novel.

Connect with Arnaldo Lopez Jr. on Facebook and Twitter.

Joseph B. Atkins is a native North Carolinian who worked on tobacco farms and in textile mills in his youth, served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and studied philosophy in Munich, Germany. A veteran journalist, he worked at several newspapers in the South and as a congressional correspondent in Washington, D.C., before becoming a professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi. Atkins is author of Covering for the Bosses, a book about the Southern labor movement and journalists’ failure to tell its story. His fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Hardboiled, and his novella, Crossed Roads, was a finalist in the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Awards in New Orleans.

Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Casey’s Last Chance. To begin with, can you gives us a brief summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to write it?   

A: It’s 1960 in the South, when the region is about to bust wide open with the struggle over civil rights. Casey Eubanks is a small-time hustler in North Carolina on the run after a fight with his girlfriend Orella leaves his cousin dead. A crony sets him up with a big operator in Memphis, Max Duren, a well-heeled, politically connected former Nazi who needs a hit done on labor organizer Ala Gadomska for stirring up workers at a Duren garment factory in Mississippi. Casey’s hired, but things go wrong, and he’s on the run again—from Duren’s goons as well as the cops. Enter Martin Wolfe, an alcoholic journalist who tries to recruit Casey to join him and rogue FBI agent Hardy Beecher in a plan to bring Duren down. Casey steals Wolfe’s car and returns home to Orella, where a bloody shootout with a Duren goon convinces him to join Wolfe and Beecher. It’s Casey’s last chance, a wild plan that might work but could also blow up in their faces.

Several of the major characters in Casey’s Last Chance also appeared in an earlier, unpublished novel of mine, and I wanted to see what the future had in store for them. Also, on a trip to North Carolina a few years ago, a 90-year-old cousin of mine told me a story about the black sheep of the Atkins family, a man who’d been in and out of trouble and prison most of his life. After many dissolute years, the black sheep tried to return home but was turned out by relatives, who bought him a bus ticket to Charlotte and told him not to come back. Soon afterward, he’s walking down a city street, has a heart attack, and dies. The relatives pooled resources to pay for a headstone and grave. This inverse version of the prodigal son’s story helped inspire Casey’s journey.

Q: What do you think makes a good hardboiled crime novel? Could you narrow it down to the three most important elements? Is it even possible to narrow it down?

A: It’s tempting to resist labeling, but it is what it is. I wrote for many years in a kind of Southern gothic mode, still do, but then I discovered Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain, Cornel Woolrich, that rich and very American school of hardboiled crime writing, where the writer, as Chandler once said, gives “murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons.” I thought to myself about these writers, “These are my people!” Much maligned by the literati in their day, they’re viewed as classics today. Lots of imitators are around, but the real deal can be found in the following: (1) A lean, honest, cut-to-the-chase writing style; (2) A storyline that deals with real people in real situations, even though it’s fiction, and written with authenticity; (3) A sense of the bigger picture, that underlying the actions and behavior of the characters are things in American society that help prompt them. I think my writing today is a combination of Southern gothic and hardboiled. I believe the South is every bit as noir as San Francisco or New York.

Q: How did you go about plotting your story? Or did you discover it as you worked on the book?

A: A writer friend of mine gave me great advice along the way. In an earlier version of my book, I ended the story long before the final end that was published. “You’re just half way there,” he told me. “Now take it all the way.” And I did. That same writer gave me good advice again as I neared the final version of my novel. This time, he said, you’re taking too long to get to what this story’s about. I sliced the first three chapters to start where the published version now starts. That was hard! I had then to go back and work key elements from those three chapters back into the book in ways that would fit and be natural, but I did it. Keep the reader in mind as you work your way through the story. You want to keep that reader hanging on to the strap, gasping for air half the time and not daring to let go! End each chapter on a note of suspense so that reader just absolutely has to go to the next page, the next chapter.

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how you developed him or her. Did you do any character interviews or sketches prior to the actual writing?

A: Casey Eubanks is a guy haunted by his late mother’s sexual promiscuity, his family’s rejection of him, the lack of respect he gets from others. His girlfriend Orella is the only one who ever gave him that respect, but he has a hard time taking a chance on a woman, and he’s quick to see betrayal in them. He’s an angry man who blames others for his problems but deep down knows he’s at the bottom of most of them.

I have a book of extensive notes and character bios, clipped photographs (of real people past and present who I think looked like my characters), hand-drawn maps of rooms, buildings, and alleyways, pages of historical facts and other jottings, all of which helped me keep track of the tiniest details. If a character has dark brown eyes on page 30, he better still have dark brown eyes on page 230! Casey is loosely based on the earlier mentioned black sheep of the Atkins family, something that I’m sure has my father turning over in his grave! Still, I never got to know that black sheep like I know Casey.

Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or villain? What steps did you take to make him or her realistic?

A: I’ve always been fascinated by old Nazis who escaped the hangman and are living out their lives in some remote backwater. I’ll never forget the great Jewish actor Nehemiah Persoff’s brilliant performance of one once on Twilight Zone. My German mother actually spent months in a Gestapo prison for a minor offense during World War II. A bit of anger can be a great motivator in writing. Don’t ever let it blind you, but I tell my students anger and especially righteous indignation helped spur a lot of the great writing and reporting in our country. My villain, Max Duren, is not only an old Nazi but he also looks suspiciously like a really bad boss I once had! Of course, that boss didn’t commit murder and mayhem, but I sometimes evoked him in the wee hours as I imagined Max the Big Mahah moving about his suite in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel? Could you offer some practical, specific tips?

A: Yes, as I said earlier, end each chapter on a note of suspense. Write in a fluid way that also makes that happen from sentence to sentence. Don’t get bogged down trying to tell too much at one time. Learn to sprinkle telling details and important information through your novel like so much stardust. Tantalize the reader, give him or her just enough to make them want to know more, and be cruel enough to make them wait a bit. Writing is an amazing exercise in honesty, truth, integrity. Keeping that reader in mind helps keep your ego at bay. You’re not writing to impress your readers with how smart and clever you are. You’re writing because you have a great story to tell. George Orwell said, “Be a windowpane.” He means don’t stand between your reader and the story. Make the reader even forget he’s reading a story. Make him live it!

Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases it becomes like a character itself. What tools of the trade did you use in your writing to bring the setting to life?

A: I made the South my “beat”—both as a journalist and fiction writer—a long time ago. It was my great dream once to leave this damned frustrating region, and I did. A year in Vietnam, four in Germany, and eight in D.C. made me see the South in a whole different way. I returned a student wanting desperately to understand the forces that have made it what it is. Casey goes from one end of the South to the other, and this setting is a character in the book, just as Balzac’s Paris or Algren’s Chicago are to their books. Yet the setting ultimately is a metaphor. What you’re really probing is the human condition, yes, in a particular place and time, but still the human condition that transcends place and time.

Q: Did you know the theme(s) of your novel from the start or is this something you discovered after completing the first draft? Is this theme(s) recurrent in your other work?

A: I see a consistency in my work as a journalist and as a fiction writer. I may be a professor and writer today but I’m also still a working-class guy. My father was a tool & die maker, my mother a seamstress for many years, and I did blue-collar work into my late 20s. Most of the people who populate this novel are working-class folks, doing what they can to survive. Big forces are at play that affect their lives in significant ways and make it hard for them to see their way out. Not letting them off the hook, but it’s true. That was a theme of my book on the Southern labor movement, Covering for the Bosses, and it underlies the predicaments my characters in the novel find themselves in. The people running the South in both books have certain fascist characteristics that cannot be denied. It’s no accident Max Duren got himself a nice little setup down in Dixie.

Q: Where does craft end and art begin? Do you think editing can destroy the initial creative thrust of an author?

A: Over-editing can definitely drain the juice out of a piece of writing. The writer can do this himself, and I may have done this with my first and still-unpublished novel. I kept taking it out of the oven and tampering with it, adding a bit of spice here, a squeeze of lemon there, then putting it back in till I burned the damned thing! Know when to let go. Eudora Welty once said a writer should quit on the third draft. Hemingway used to tease F. Scott Fitzgerald about excessive rewriting, yet Hemingway could be guilty of this too. It’s like everything. Every writer needs an editor, and it’s the rare early draft that doesn’t require a bucket-full of red ink, yet that can be overdone, too. Both the writer and the editor have to know when things are just right. I’m not sure there’s a demarcation line between craft and art, but you’ve reached the summit when you’ve created something that somehow just needed to be created. Writer-artist Chuck Trapkus told me that once, and he was quoting stonecutter Eric Gill.

Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful novelist?

A: You’ve got to strive for honesty in your writing. It takes a certain amount of integrity to avoid the shortcuts--the tired cliché, the borrowed phrase, the hackneyed description--and carve out a language that’s uniquely your own. Of course, we all start out borrowing, like I did in the 8th grade when I fell in love with Edgar Allan Poe and began churning out imitations so poor that Poe turned over in his Baltimore grave. You’ve got to work hard to find your own voice, of course, and not let every gust of wind throw you off course. If it knocks you down, pick yourself back up, and go at it again! Finally, you’ve got to define what success means to you. If it means a mansion on the hill and late-model sports car with a buxom blonde in the front seat, then you’re shooting for a different kind of success than I am. Not that I’m eschewing the fun money brings! Success for me is connecting with readers in a real and important way, where something I’ve written affected them and maybe, just maybe enriched or simply made their lives better in some way. The writer who achieves this has a deep empathy for people and the human condition. The ancient philosopher Philo of Alexandria once said, “Be kind to others for everyone is fighting a great battle.” The writer who’s successful in my book is the one who has a real and motivating sense of the truth of those words.

Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having to do homework for the rest of your life. What do you think about that?

A: You can say the same thing about a reporter, a journalist. You’re always taking notes of observations you make going through life. You never know when you might need them. I’ve kept a journal since I was maybe 14 years old, and I’ve gone back to them many times to refresh my memory about certain experiences or events. The writer of fiction should do this as well. Here I go quoting other people again, but a late good friend of mine, Marty Fishgold, once told me, you spend the first half of your life going to the carnival, and the last half telling people what the carnival was like. Well, I would amend that to say, you’re still going to the carnival the last half of your life, too!

Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft that you’ve found helpful during your writing career?

A: I got inspired early in life reading great writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Later I discovered Dorothy Day, Raymond Chandler, and modern writers like William Kennedy and Andre Dubus. Reading about their lives as well as reading their work inspired and encouraged me. Books and essays on writing like Nelson Algren’s Conformity, Hemingway’s On Writing, and Jon Winokur’s compendium, Advice to Writers are rich in wisdom about this craft. Get to know some writers. I treasure the many hours I’ve spent with my good friends, novelists Ace Atkins (no relation) and Jere Hoar, talking about not only writing but also horses, dogs, guns, crime, film noir, women, and bourbon while we shared a few glasses of the latter!

Q:  Is there anything else you’d like to share with my readers about the craft of writing?

A: Only to say that beginning or struggling writers should go about discovering the passions that drive or motivate them, the ur-sources of what fire may be in their bellies. Maybe it’s an anger or righteous indignation about certain injustices out there. Maybe it’s an intense desire to understand why people are the way they are, what connects them or separates them. Maybe it’s a desire to come to terms with certain unresolved things within one’s own life, a desperate need for answers that may or may not exist. Find those driving forces, set out to get to the truth that underlies them, and do it in a way that’s honest and not afraid of hard work. If you do this, I know I’d like to read your book when you’re finished!

 

 

 

 

jd daniels holds a Doctor of Arts degree from Drake University with a dissertation of her poetry.  Her award-winning fiction, non-fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including: The Broad River Review, The Sylvan Echo, The Elkhorn Review, Doorknobs & Bodypaint: An Anthology, The National PEN Woman’s Online Magazine and riverbabble. “Nancy’s Woodcut” won a prize in a contest sponsored by Emerson College, Cambridge University.

Say Yes, a book of poetry, 2013 topped the local bestseller list in Iowa City. The Old Wolf Lady:  Wawewa Mepemoa, was awarded a publication grant from The Iowa Arts Council and three research grants from the college where she still teaches writing. Minute of Darkness and Eighteen Flash Fiction Stories debuted January, 2015. Through Pelican Eyes, 2014 is the first of the Jessie Murphy Mystery Series.

The Iowa Arts and Poets & Writers Directories invited her inclusion. She is also a co-founder and an editor for Prairie Wolf Press Review, a literary online journal featuring new and emerging writers and visual artists.

jd maintains a blog, is a member of two critique groups, Mystery Writers of America, and South West Florida PEN Women.  She continues to teach writing at the college level. Quick Walk to Murder, the Second Jessie Murphy Mystery, was recently released.  Visit her website to find where you can get her book:  www.live-from-jd.com

Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Quick Walk to Murder. To begin with, can you gives us a brief summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to write it? 

A:  Quick Walk to Murder is a mystery, so of course there’s a sleuth trying to nail a murderer.  In this case, she’s property manager/artist, Jessie Murphy.  The victim is the son of a Matlacha, Florida crab fisherman.

I love my amateur sleuth, Jessie Murphy.  She’s my alter ego and has bits and pieces of my creative mother in her as well.  I get a high when I get into her skin and brain to solve these murders.  As soon as I finished the first book with her as a protagonist, I started writing the second.  Plus, Matlacha, Florida, an island I fell in love with, is the perfect setting for this mystery. It’s funky and colorful.  A pleasure to describe.  So, I guess I would say, both wanting to spend more time with the main character and being surrounded by the sea are big factors in inspiring me to write these mysteries.

Q: What do you think makes a good mystery? Could you narrow it down to the three most important elements? Is it even possible to narrow it down?

A:  Hm, hard to narrow down to only three elements, but let me try:  1. Tight, compelling plot and sub-plot. 2.  Engaging, unique characters set in a colorful environment 3. Red herrings, subtle clues, surprising twists, a dramatic climax and a believable resolution.  Okay, so I cheated.  This is far more than three elements isn’t it?  I could list more, so I guess it’s impossible to narrow down to just three.

Q: How did you go about plotting your story? Or did you discover it as you worked on the book?

A:  In the first draft I let the story unfold on its own.  After this, I do a plot check to see if it follows the classic mystery outline. If it doesn’t I begin to cut and paste.  If a writer goes online they can find a very handy tool called “Plotting the Mystery Novel” as defined by contemporary editors and publishers.  I beginning check my plot against that on the second draft.

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how you developed him or her. Did you do any character interviews or sketches prior to the actual writing?

A:  My character is twenty eight, Irish and a fledgling artist.  Her first name is my mother’s middle name.  Her last name was my mother’s maiden name.  While she is no doubt my alter ego, she was also developed from how I envisioned my creative beloved mother to be at this young age.  Thus, each time I write a book with Jessie Murphy in it, I’m also exploring and visiting my mother’s life who passed away several years ago at the age of eight-six. So character interviews and sketches were done over a lifetime of being her daughter.

Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or villain? What steps did you take to make him or her realistic?

A:  My antagonist is a compilation of different people I’ve known over the years. Unfortunately, I’ve had personal experience with more than one sociopath. Without giving away who the killer is, I’ll just say that I had to do research to make sure him or her was portrayed realistically.

Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel? Could you offer some practical, specific tips?

A:  As you see from my bio, I’ve taught writing for several years.  While doing this, I spend much time moving my students away from a passive voice to an active one.  I find that when writing a mystery such as mine this is apt advice.  Use of first person, active verbs, specific nouns, realistic dialogue, strong metaphors that fit the setting and time, plus the use of similes and minimal background information helps keep the reader engaged and turning the pages.  One thing that helps my students understand this concept is to pretend your reader is standing over your shoulder as you create pictures on the page with words, including the five senses in as many scenes as possible.  Make sense?

Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases it becomes like a character itself. What tools of the trade did you use in your writing to bring the setting to life?

A:  When writing about setting, I use the same “picture-making” tools that are needed to make for an exciting narrative.  By considering the five senses, by thinking of the setting as a character while you are writing the book, helps greatly in making it one.  This means that once you initially describe the setting, each time after that (like your protagonist or other characters) when you use the setting in a chapter, you must show different aspects of it to develop it into a place the reader can actually identify with and see in their mind.  I am happy to tell you that one reader did say I had been successful in doing this in the first book.  I hope I’ve succeeded in Quick Walk to Murder too.

Q: Did you know the theme(s) of your novel from the start or is this something you discovered after completing the first draft? Is this theme(s) recurrent in your other work?

A:  My themes for Quick Walk to Murder became evident as the characters and plot developed.  This is one thing I love about my process—the creative journey—the constant learning and surprises.  At least one of the themes is recurring—action versus apathy—others are unique to the mystery’s situation.

Q: Where does craft end and art begin? Do you think editing can destroy the initial creative thrust of an author?

A:  Hm, another interesting question.  Perhaps this is why I write the first draft before referring to that plot outline—I want my imagination to have freedom before I have to consider my reader. I began as a poet as well as a fiction writer.  In fact, I have a doctorate in poetry from Drake University.  I don’t think you can create your own path until you understand your craft—the elements that make a fine mystery, novel or poem.  I’m a person who free writes in a journal often.  I also encourage this activity for my students.  But freewriting is only a tool to free the imagination, after this the hard work of being a writer begins.

I believe if writers understand that writing is a complex process, that editing is only one important aspect of that process, their initial creative thrust will not be destroyed.  Some fledging writers don’t understand this and they can be adversely effected by editing.  It’s a shame, but happens all too often.

Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful novelist?

A:  1. One who receives respect for their work.  2.  One who honors their passion by making a life as a writer.  3.  One who understands the importance of discipline and persistance.

Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having to do homework for the rest of your life. What do you think about that?

A:  Makes me smile.  As a life-time learner, I couldn’t agree with the famous writer more.  The difference is that you are your best teacher, a fact I stress with my students probably more than they want to hear.

Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft that you’ve found helpful during your writing career? 

A:  There are so many.  I already mentioned the outline for plotting for mystery writers.  With the amazing technology we have today, I’d say just Google what you want and sit back until multi-sites pop up on your screen.  But I also recommend The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maas, Save the Cat by Blake Snyder and Imaginative Writing:  The Elements of Craft by Janet Burroway.  Again, there are so many more to add to your library.

Writers also have to be readers of their genre.  Whatever genre you choose to write, read and study as many books as possible in that area.

Writers Market is always announcing workshops for all sorts of things writers need to know, including insights into the changing publishing world.  She Writes does as well, as does Poet & Writers and Mystery Writers of America.  There is also an amazing number of workshops and writer’s retreats offered world-wide.  Many of these are expensive, but many offer free tuition for those who are accepted as Fellows.

The important thing is to do your research. Take yourself and your decision to become a published author seriously. Read and take workshops that are practical and will help you become the writer you want to be.

It’s an amazing journey.  Enjoy.

Q:  Is there anything else you’d like to share with my readers about the craft of writing?

A:  I guess I’d just like to emphasize that knowing your craft is essential if you want to earn respect in your field.  I recently was chatting with another editor of a respected young adult traditional publishing company.  She said something quite wise: “In the mystery editor’s world, anyone can be a fine wordsmith, but if you don’t know how to plot, you don’t know your craft, it makes no difference.”

 

Mason Alley Publishing – Release date: September 20th 2106

Available in trade paper (ISBN: 978-0692670446, $14.95) and eBook ($4.99) editions

 "a consistently entertaining crime thriller…The plot crackles with energy and suspense. The writing is crisp...clever.” –Kirkus

"Charm and humor permeate the pages of the surprising thriller. There's little chance that anyone will turn the last page before developing a craving for the next installment." –ForeWord Reviews

Award-winning novelist Robert Lane, who has drawn comparisons to John D. MacDonald, has created one of the most compelling characters in mystery today.  PI Jake Travis is tough, smart, wise and wisecracking. He’s hailed as “a winning hero”—and this time, Jake has an elaborate knot to untangle.

While trying to expose a corrupt Miami art dealer, Jake goes undercover for the FBI. The gallery's owner, Phillip Agatha, is more enchanted with murder than he is with art. Aboard Agatha's luxury yacht, the Gail Force, Jake is taken with Agatha's hospitality—and with his alluring assistant, Christina, a woman who harbors her own secrets. Unknowingly, Jake plays into Agatha's hands and initiates actions that could cause an innocent girl to die.

As Jake struggles to save the girl, unearth a rogue FBI agent, and bring Agatha to justice, his greatest challenge is to stay loyal to his girlfriend Kathleen—and to withstand the Gail Force.  As Jake himself observes, “After all, everything’s a game. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you don’t know what game you’re playing.”  This game is on…

The Gail Force is crime fiction writing at its finest.  With a storyline that races from the opening page, characters that stay with readers long after the final page is turned, and the wit, wisdom, lust for life, and cynicism of Jake Travis, The Gail Force will leave readers breathless.

Robert Lane resides on Florida’s west coast. His debut Jake Travis novel, The Second Letter, was received with critical acclaim and was awarded the Gold Medal in the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best New Voice: Fiction.  His other novels in the stand alone series are Cooler Than Blood, and The Cardinal’s Sin. 

www.robertlanebooks.com

Bestselling author Tom Carter is a longtime Nashville who lives with his wife, Janie, a few miles from Nashville’s legendary Music Row.

Connect with the author on the Web:

http://www.authortomcarter.com/

https://www.facebook.com/authortomcarter

https://www.instagram.com/authortomcarter/

 

Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Nashville:

Music & Murder.  To begin with, can you give us a brief

summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to

write it?

 

A: The book is scheduled for release on February 7, 2017.  It's

a murder mystery set in Nashville, Tennessee, the home of recorded

country music.  In part, I wrote the book due to the popularity

of country music, as 107 million Americans now listen to that

genre of music once daily, according to the Country Music

Association.

 

Q: What do you think makes a good mystery book?  Could you       

narrow it down to the three most important elements?  Is it even

possible to narrow it down?

 

A: Try to make each page magnetic.

 

Q: How did you go about plotting your story?  Or did you discover

it as you worked on the book?

 

A: I discovered it as I worked on the book.

 

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how

you developed him or her.  Did you do any character interviews or

sketches prior to the writing.

 

A: My protagonist is an insecure and neurotic celebrity whose

popularity is dwindling.  I've met many such folks in Nashville,

Tennessee, my home.

 

Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or

villain?  What steps did you take to make him or her realistic?

 

A: I won't identify the antagonist.  That would spoil the

mystery.

 

 

Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel?

 

A: I did not reveal the villain’s identity.  But, on many

occasions, I almost did.

 

Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases it becomes

like a character itself.  What tools of the trade did you use in

your writing to bring the setting to life?

 

A: The setting is "Music Row," that part of Nashville, Tennessee

where the production of country music lies inside recording

studios, celebrities' offices, and music publishing houses.  I

used to live on Music Row among its people.  I still visit that

neighborhood and its people regularly.

 

Q:  Did you know the themes(s) of your novel from the start or it

this something you discovered after completing the first draft? 

Is this theme(s) recurrent in your other work?

 

A: I did not know the theme of my novel until I'd written most of

This theme is not recurrent in my previous books. Those

books were mostly non-fiction.

 

Q: Where does craft end and art begin?  Do you think editing can

destroy the initial creative thrust of an author?

 

A: I don't know where the craft ends or art begins.  To me,

masterful crafting IS an art.  Editing didn't destroy my creative

thrust.  I allowed only copy editing, nothing else.

 

Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful

novelist?

 

A:  A vivid imagination, daily writing, and promotion.

 

Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having

to do homework for the rest of your life.  Thoughts?

 

A: I agree with that statement as long as the writer writes.  If

he retires from writing, he'll hopefully return to spare time and

what to do with it.  I've been writing professionally for 47

years.  I still write daily.

 

Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft

that you've found helpful during your writing career?

 

A: I earned a five-year, Bachelor's Degree in Journalism.  I

learned more about writing in one week while working at a daily

newspaper and by reading other newspapers and novels.  I found

that workshops or sites are largely inhabited by failed or

inferior writers who want to sponge from other failed souls.  To

me, those venues are friendly but inefficient.

 

Bestselling author Tom Carter is a longtime Nashville who lives with his wife, Janie, a few miles from Nashville’s legendary Music Row.

Connect with the author on the Web:

http://www.authortomcarter.com/

https://www.facebook.com/authortomcarter

https://www.instagram.com/authortomcarter/

 

Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Nashville:

Music & Murder.  To begin with, can you give us a brief

summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to

write it?

 

A: The book is scheduled for release on February 7, 2017.  It's

a murder mystery set in Nashville, Tennessee, the home of recorded

country music.  In part, I wrote the book due to the popularity

of country music, as 107 million Americans now listen to that

genre of music once daily, according to the Country Music

Association.

 

Q: What do you think makes a good mystery book?  Could you       

narrow it down to the three most important elements?  Is it even

possible to narrow it down?

 

A: Try to make each page magnetic.

 

Q: How did you go about plotting your story?  Or did you discover

it as you worked on the book?

 

A: I discovered it as I worked on the book.

 

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how

you developed him or her.  Did you do any character interviews or

sketches prior to the writing.

 

A: My protagonist is an insecure and neurotic celebrity whose

popularity is dwindling.  I've met many such folks in Nashville,

Tennessee, my home.

 

Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or

villain?  What steps did you take to make him or her realistic?

 

A: I won't identify the antagonist.  That would spoil the

mystery.

 

 

Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel?

 

A: I did not reveal the villain’s identity.  But, on many

occasions, I almost did.

 

Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases it becomes

like a character itself.  What tools of the trade did you use in

your writing to bring the setting to life?

 

A: The setting is "Music Row," that part of Nashville, Tennessee

where the production of country music lies inside recording

studios, celebrities' offices, and music publishing houses.  I

used to live on Music Row among its people.  I still visit that

neighborhood and its people regularly.

 

Q:  Did you know the themes(s) of your novel from the start or it

this something you discovered after completing the first draft? 

Is this theme(s) recurrent in your other work?

 

A: I did not know the theme of my novel until I'd written most of

This theme is not recurrent in my previous books. Those

books were mostly non-fiction.

 

Q: Where does craft end and art begin?  Do you think editing can

destroy the initial creative thrust of an author?

 

A: I don't know where the craft ends or art begins.  To me,

masterful crafting IS an art.  Editing didn't destroy my creative

thrust.  I allowed only copy editing, nothing else.

 

Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful

novelist?

 

A:  A vivid imagination, daily writing, and promotion.

 

Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having

to do homework for the rest of your life.  Thoughts?

 

A: I agree with that statement as long as the writer writes.  If

he retires from writing, he'll hopefully return to spare time and

what to do with it.  I've been writing professionally for 47

years.  I still write daily.

 

Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft

that you've found helpful during your writing career?

 

A: I earned a five-year, Bachelor's Degree in Journalism.  I

learned more about writing in one week while working at a daily

newspaper and by reading other newspapers and novels.  I found

that workshops or sites are largely inhabited by failed or

inferior writers who want to sponge from other failed souls.  To

me, those venues are friendly but inefficient.

 

For more than 30 years, Jim Nesbitt roved the American Outback as a correspondent for newspapers and wire services in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. He chased hurricanes, earthquakes, plane wrecks, presidential candidates, wildfires, rodeo cowboys, ranchers, miners, loggers, farmers, migrant field hands, doctors, neo-Nazis and nuns with an eye for the telling detail and an ear for the voice of the people who give life to a story. He is a lapsed horseman, pilot, hunter and saloon sport with a keen appreciation for old guns, vintage cars and trucks, good cigars, aged whiskey and a well-told story. He now lives in Athens, Alabama.

Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, The Right Wrong Number . To begin with, can you give us a brief summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to write it?

A: The Right Wrong Number is a hard-boiled tale of revenge and redemption set in Texas and northern Mexico. It’s more of a thriller than a whodunit and features Ed Earl Burch, a cashiered Dallas homicide detective eking out a living as a private eye. He’s an ex-jock gone to seed, a guy who’s been smacked around by life and has the bad knees, wounded liver and empty bank account to prove it. In this story, he’s been hired to protect an old flame threatened by the partners ripped off by her husband, a high-flying Houston financial consultant who has disappeared. These partners include some mobsters from New Orleans who send a pair of hitmen to get back their money, drugs and jewels and kill anybody involved in the score. Ed Earl finds himself locked in a deadly contest where nobody can be trusted and he’s tempted to forget his own rules by the money and sex offered up by the old flame, who has a lethal knack for larceny and betrayal. When his best friend is killed in Dallas by hired muscle, Ed Earl blames himself and sets out for revenge that winds up being a bloody form of redemption.

My primary motivation is the desire to write well-told, hard-boiled crime fiction. I’ve always regarded hard-boiled or noir stories and movies as a particularly American art form. And when you read the novels of Hammett, Chandler and more contemporary writers like James Ellroy, James Lee Burke and the late, great James Crumley, the stories are so much more than a whodunit. They’re commentaries on politics, crime, art, sex, culture, music and the time and place of the stories being told. That’s the kind of hard-boiled fiction I wanted to write. Still do.

Q: What do you think makes a good hard-boiled crime thriller? Could you narrow it down to the three most important elements? Is it even possible to narrow it down?

A: Crackling dialogue, rich and detailed narrative that gives the reader a vivid sense of time and place and lots of action. To me, plot takes a back seat to those three elements, although I know a lot of damn good writers will forcefully reject this notion.

Q: How did you go about plotting your story? Or did you discover it as you worked on the book?

A:  I didn’t do a detailed plot, more of a skeletal outline that gave me a general notion of where I wanted to go and where I wanted to wind up. But I also wanted to make sure I had enough freedom to let the characters and action take me where they wanted to go. If you’re strait-jacketed by an intricate plot, you might miss some marvelous surprises along the way. That said, you always have to make sure those surprises serve your story. If they don’t, kill them off and look at that rough outline again.

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how you developed him or her. Did you do any character interviews or sketches prior to the actual writing?

A: I didn’t do any character interviews or sketches, but I did a lot of thinking about who this guy is, what he’s experienced in life, what he’s done as a result of those experiences and how to make him utterly human. I wanted him to be strong, flawed, reckless, cagey and cynical, a guy who has a code he sometimes forgets to live by but returns to under pressure. I didn’t want him to be a Spade or a Marlowe—I wanted him to be more angst-ridden and tortured than those guys.

Ed Earl’s a bit of an Everyman who’s been smacked around by life. He’s fatally attracted to women ready, willing and able to drive a stake through his heart. He’s also a little slow on the uptake, but not dumb. He’s dogged rather than brilliant. And he sure isn’t supercool like Frank Bullitt—he’s the polar opposite of that. He’s Columbo without the caricature—people he goes up against underestimate him and he makes them pay for that mistake. Sometimes with a bullet.

Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or villain? What steps did you take to make him or her realistic?

A: I learned a hard lesson from my first novel, The Last Second Chance, when I made the main villain way too over the top, haunted by visions of Aztec heart sacrifice and nightmares of flying serpent demons. I tried not to make that same mistake with the two villains in this book—the old flame and her fugitive husband. They’re smart, remorseless predators. She’s got a violent temper and a relentless sex drive; he’s an utterly cold and charming sociopath who just knows he’s the smartest guy in any room he walks into. They aren’t haunted by otherworldly demons—the devils that drive them come from good old-fashioned human evil.

Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel? Could you offer some practical, specific tips?

A: There’s a great Raymond Chandler line in response to a question about solving plot dilemmas—something like: “I just have somebody open the door and walk into the room with a gun in their hand.” Not a bad rule of thumb for keeping your narrative exciting. Chandler wasn’t a stickler for plot—his novels are driven by snappy dialogue, rich narrative and sudden and surprising action. I keep that in mind when writing my novels, not that I’m anywhere near the same galaxy as his talent. There’s something else I learned the hard way by reading Chandler and other great writers—everything they write is in service of the story they’re trying to tell. If it isn’t, kill it. You can see this discipline even in the wretched excess or wild tangents of a James Ellroy or Hunter S. Thompson. My books are pretty graphic—they aren’t for the Sunday school crowd. I’m frank in my descriptions about sex and violence because I think using euphemisms insults the reader and doesn’t serve the story I’m trying to tell. The characters in my books aren’t nice people. Even my main character, Ed Earl Burch, is profane, violent and reckless, with a mean streak a mile wide. These folks can be flat nasty whether they’re killing somebody or having sex with them. That’s who they are, so that’s how I tell it. You may not like them, but they won’t put you to sleep.

Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases it becomes like a character itself. What tools of the trade did you use in your writing to bring the setting to life?

A: You’re preaching to the choir on this one. I believe the setting of a novel IS a character unto itself. You should use rich, detailed descriptions to give readers a vivid sense of time and place and give your characters a compelling landscape for what they say and do. How they react to and interact with that landscape gives depth and authenticity to your story. Too many writers don’t bother to do this and their story reads like a cardboard cutout. As for the tools of the trade that get you where you need to go, nothing beats being there. Nothing beats walking the ground, as the Brits would say. My latest novel takes you from Dallas to Houston and New Orleans and winds up in the stark, arid beauty of the Texas Big Bend country and northern Mexico. I lived in Dallas in the mid-to-late 1980s and knocked around Houston, New Orleans and West Texas and northern Mexico as a roving correspondent in the early-to-mid 1990s, which is the timeframe for this book. If you can’t walk the ground, you do the next best thing: research. You read about the places you put in your story and the time you’re trying to portray. Find historians who know that time and place and talk to them, get their recommendations on what you should read. Find friends who have lived there and talk to them. That’s what I did to give me a deeper understanding that added strength and authenticity to my writing.

Q: Did you know the themes of your novel from the start or is this something you discovered after completing the first draft? Are these themes recurrent in your other work?

A: Only in the subconscious sense when I wrote the first one because I was so focused on the specifics of character backstory and motivation and was having a helluva good time seeing where these guys would next take the story. I started out with a couple of simple rules about Ed Earl -- he doesn’t get the girl, he survives but winds up a little more battered physically and spiritually, he reclaims a bit of his life by remembering his code and returning to it. But I really didn’t think about the overarching themes of my books until an old Houston friend who loves Ed Earl penned a review of The Last Second Chance and shot me a note that said: “Your book is about revenge and redemption.” So is The Right Wrong Number in an equally subconscious way. Not surprising since I grew up Baptist but like to think of myself as more of an Old Testament kind of guy.

Q: Where does craft end and art begin? Do you think editing can destroy the initial creative thrust of an author?

A: The raucous laughter and hoots you’re hearing right now come from all the editors I left bloody when I was a word-proud journalist too enamored with his own turns of phrase. I’m a little older and wiser now—and far less pig-headed. That doesn’t mean I meekly allow any editor to take a chainsaw to my work because I still believe bad editing can kill creativity while great editing can make it shine. It’s the difference between that chainsaw and a surgeon’s scalpel. As to where craft ends and art begins, I think about that question quite a bit but I’m not sure I have an easy answer. I do know that too many writers rely on artifice and obedience to the conventions and templates of their chosen genre and too many editors try to force writers into those cubbyholes. I think good writers learn about those conventions and master that template, then turn them on their ear and use what works best to tell the story they want to tell. You have to be brave enough to chuck the rules and let the story fly but smart enough to know if you’re taking a flight to nowhere.

Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful novelist?

A: Storytelling talent, ego and dogged persistence.

Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having to do homework for the rest of your life. What do you think about that?

A: I think writing is a cruel mistress who gives me no choice but to obey her.

Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft that you’ve found helpful during your writing career?

A: I think the best thing a writer can do is keep reading good writers, keep talking with other good writers to learn and get better and keep that butt in the chair to write that next story.

Q:  Is there anything else you’d like to share with my readers about the craft of writing?

A: There’s no silver bullet. You hone your craft by doing it and reading the work of great writers.