B.R. Stateham's Blog, page 10

Turner Hahn and Frank Morales at OneTrueMedia.com

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Let's Celebrate

To celebrate this collection of Turner Hahn and Frank Morales coming out soon, I thought I'd tickle your fancy with one of the stories found in the collection.  There's twenty-one short stories in it.  Twenty-one stories written over a three year period.  Some good.  Some average.  Several, I think, very, very good.

Here's one which, in my not so humble opinion, is one of the best of the lot.  It's call Prove It.  About a cop going over the deep end.  I think you're gonna like it.

I've talked about Turner and Frank before.  About how close they are to me.  About wanting to write hardboiled stories that featured 'buddies' working, backing each other up, in the dark alleys of Mankind's darker side of humanity.

It is quite possible these guys will never be a popular as I think they should be.  Too bad.  They're really two unique characters.

So here's Prove It.  Hope you like it.

By the way, the collection should be out by the middle of this month (September.)


Prove It
 
 
            We were the first on the scene. 
            A hot night, just after a major thunderstorm, the streets wet with steam rising off the parking lot like malevolent wraiths. 
            The car was parked in a glazed and glistening empty ten acres of wet asphalt. The only car parked in this flat pool table of loneliness.  A metallic island in a sea of black.  Pulling up behind the Caddy de Ville we got out, unbuttoned our sport coats and walked to the car slowly, each of us gripping our weapon just in case.  At three in the morning you expect anything.  Especially if you’re a cop and you get a phone call that said something about screeching tires, shouting voices, and gunfire.
            She was sprawled on the front seat of the caddy with half her head missing.  Most of it was a dark smear across the right side passenger door and window.  A big caliber gun held just in front of her left ear had done the trick.
            Efficient.  But messy.
            She was in her early forties.  A blond with a skimpy summer dress of black with white poke dots.  A dress that was way too tight but one that nicely expressed the trim compactness of her frame.  Lying on the floorboard in front of the slumped over body was a big purse of black plastic.  Between the purse and her, lying on the bloody leather seat, was a blood stained business card.  Looking up at my partner I grunted and pointed to the card.
            “Can you read it from your side?”
            Frank grunted and bent down to look through the passenger side window.  Think ‘thug’ when you think of Frank.  Or misanthrope.  Maybe Neanderthal would be better.  Big, ugly, with stringy red hair and a nose about the size of a Goodyear blimp.  But don’t voice your thoughts.   There are some things best kept to your self.
            “Can’t,” he said, standing up and shaking his head. “Too much shit on the window and not enough light.  Let me get a flashlight and maybe you can read it on your side.”
            “Right,” I nodded, looking up and at the back of the big man as he walked back to our car. “Run the license plate while you’re at it.  I think I know this car.  I’ve seen it before.”
            I pulled out my cell phone, flipped it open, and called for an ambulance and forensics team.  In the middle of my talk I heard footsteps behind me.   Turning, Frank stood staring at me.  The look on his face told me I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear.
            “Turn, the car belongs to Grace McKenzie.  She’s Dave McKenzie’s wife.”
            Sonofabitch.
            Dave McKenzie was Officer David McKenzie.  One of our own.  A patrol officer stationed in the South Side Division.  He was downstairs in the patrol divisions.  We were upstairs in the detective division. We knew the guy.  Knew him for years.  Knew how much in love he was with his unfaithful wife.  Knew how much of a hot head he could be if anyone started making smart-ass remarks about her.  And when he became angry it was a mean, brutal anger.
            Mean enough to murder.
            “Can you see the card now?”
            Frank lifted the flashlight and shot a white-hot beam through the driver’s side window.  Bending down he squinted and grunted before standing and clicking the light off.
            “Ruby’s Irish pub,” he said. “And someone’s written a phone number and what looks like a motel room number across the front of it.”
            Ruby’s was a decent little place to catch a beer or a stiff drink across town.  It was frequented by the young college types who were professionals in some kind of high dollar tech or corporate job.  Lots of women could be found there.  Women who were looking for a good time with someone who had money to burn.
            “Turner, we’d better find Dave and get him isolated.  If he finds out someone zipped his wife he’ll go ape shit.”
            “Unless he already has,” I nodded, staring down at the corpse.
            Dave worked the same shift we did.  So by rights he should be somewhere on our side of town sitting in his black and white with his partner.  He wasn’t.  A couple of phone calls later confirmed it.  Dave came to work all right.    But around nine p.m. he got a phone call and had to go home.  Family emergency, he told his patrol sergeant when called in.
            That didn’t sound like Dave.   Dave was like clockwork when it came to his job.  He never got sick.  He never was late.  Always willing to pull a few more hours when he could.  That wasn’t Dave to suddenly check out and go home.
            We drove over to Dave’s house.  A big, rambling old two story Victorian set in the middle of a block lined with old elm trees.  A house—a neighborhood—to raise a family on.  To see kids playing in the front yard or riding bicycles down the sidewalks.  But Dave and Grace never had kids.  Only ten years of arguing and unfaithfulness; with Dave being the workaholic, dedicated cop and Grace being . . . Grace.
            The house was big, black . . . and lifeless.  Even the detached garage, with its doors wide open and inviting, felt dead.
            Ruby’s Irish Pub locked its doors at two in the morning.  Glancing at my watch I noticed it was a little past four.  A couple of more hours and the sun would be coming up.
            In silence we drove over to The Adirondacks Motel off the 456 exit on the north side of town.  The scribbled phone number was from the motel.  Driving into the still pre-dawn parking lot of the hotel we got out of the car and stared up at the room listed on the card.  Around us the still air was as silent as a morgue’s during after hours.  Even the traffic up on the bypass just a block away was eerily absent.     
            Glancing at Frank I could see it in the set of his jaw muscles.
            He was getting bad vibes just like me.
            Something didn’t feel right.
            It didn’t take long to find it.  The motel door was splintered and partially open.  Frank used a gloved hand to push the door open gently as we both reached for iron.  We waited for a few second and then slid into the blackness of the room half expecting gunfire to greet us.  No gunfire.  But lying in the middle of a rumpled bed was man dressed in slacks and a white shirt with stringy brown hair and large blue eyes staring up at the ceiling.  He looked to be about forty.  Arms had been pulled behind him and layers of gray bound them tight.  Over his head was a plastic bag sealed at the neck with more duct tape.  There were bruises on the arm from someone powerful who had yanked the dead man’s arms back to bind them.  There were a lot of bruises on his battered face from being slapped around a lot before the bag was pulled over his head and sealed shut.
            Whoever wanted this guy dead wanted to extract a little pain from him first.  The kind of pain that . . . say . . . a jealous husband might want to extract.
            As we stood on either side of the body Frank was on his cell phone calling for forensics my phone chimed up.  Pulling it out, I flipped it open and grunted.
            “Turner, this is Blake.  I know where you can find Dave.”
            Blake Gauge was a big black cop, the biggest I’d ever seen, and who had been Dave’s patrol sergeant for years.  He and Dave were old friends.  If anyone might have a line on Dave’s whereabouts it would be Blake.
            “When he gets down in the dumps over something Grace's done he usually goes and hangs out in a dive called Calypso’s down on Second.  Know the place?”
            I knew the place.  An all night hole in the wall filled with the blue haze of chain smoking hucksters and down on their luck drifters drowning their sorrows in tall glasses of ice cold beer. The place always had that dry smell of old urine and stale beer hanging faintly in the air and the lights were always turned low.  A good place for a stranger to lose himself in a crowd if he wanted to.
            We found him sitting, alone, at the end of the bar.  In front of him was a half consumed bottle of cheap whiskey, an astray overflowing with dead butts, a pack of cigarettes on the bar in front of him, and a bowl of shelled peanuts.  In sat in the middle of a thick haze of cigarette smoke which seemed to just hang in the air.
As Frank and I walked into the place David shook a fresh cigarette out and lit it.  Blowing smoke over his head he reached for the book of whiskey and poured himself a drink just as Gus, the bartender on duty this morning, strolled over to us.
            “Boys, get him outta here.  Take him somewhere and sober him up.  He’s in a sour mood and is scaring the hell out the customers.  I don’t want any trouble.  And I sure as hell don’t want this place busted up!”
            “How long has he been here?” Frank asked, his face turning hard and grim.
            “Since around one this morning.  Came in here, Bill told me, a little past one and went through the first bottle of whiskey like it was bottled water.  That’s the third he’s working on now.  He should have passed out a long time ago.  If he doesn’t die of alcoholic poisoning his liver will kill him soon enough.”
            We nodded and moved past the wiry little bald bar tender and strolled down the bar toward our friend.  Both of us were tense.  Expecting anything.  David was acting strange—not the loud, grinning cop we normally saw.  Not drunk either.  He seemed distant.  Aloof.  Amazingly calm.  But he looked like hell.  Red bleary eyes, disheveled, sweaty brown hair—wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt which looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week.
            We’ve seen this kind of change in personality before.
            It never turned out well.
            We slid up to the bar, bracketing our friend like two hulking bookends.  Dave acted as if he hadn’t noticed.  Exhaling a long pillar of cigarette smoke he watched it for a moment or two dissolve into the cloud of smoke hanging over him and then reached for his drink.
            “Dave,” I said softly but firmly. “You know why we’re here.  We need to go downtown and talk.  And then we need to get you some help.”
            The fleeting glimpse of a grin flashed across his gray lips just before taking a drink.  Lowering his glass he didn’t turn to look at either of us. 
            “Ever love someone, Turner?  I mean, really love someone.  Love someone so much they became a part of you.  Like breathing.  Like blood pulsing through your veins.  Ever love someone like that?”
            I shook my head no and said nothing.  Frank said nothing but I saw him spread his feet out and clinch hands into fist.  Coming off the bar I unbuttoned the sport coat but made no other move.  Behind me I heard chairs sliding back hurriedly and feet pounding across the wooden floor heading for the door.  Even Gus seemed to have disappeared.
            “I loved her, Turn.  Grace.  I loved her like no one could love her.  Sure, she had a temper.  We had our shouting matches.  We had our fights.  But never . . . never did she doubt that I loved her.  Never.  Not even when she’d come home at odd times of the night and day looking like she’d been sleeping in some back alley with a dead wino.”
            A rattling, half-sob of a sigh came out of the man’s chest and eyes filled with tears.  But with a steady hand he poured himself another drink and sat the bottle down in a slow, deliberate fashion before speaking.
            “But it never lasts, friend.  You know.  Love—it never lasts.  One day something happens.  One day you wake up and find her gone again.  She’s not in your bed.  She’s not downstairs cooking breakfast.  She’s nowhere around.  So it just happens.  Like catching the flu.  One day something just . . . . snaps and you realize you can’t take it any longer.  You realize she never loved you.  Realize you were nothing but a patsy—a lunch ticket—to her and nothing else.”
            “So what happened, Dave?  Who was the guy in the motel?”  I asked.
            “Some shit head for a traveling salesmen who would call her up every time he got into town.  From Pittsburg.  An asshole with a nice wife and three kids.  Didn’t give a damn about his wife or kids.  For the last five years . . . five fucking years . . . the two of’em would go out on the town.   Party . . . get shit faced drunk. . . screw around.  Five fucking years.”
            I nodded.  I heard the pain and anger in his voice.  I was very familiar with this tale.  Scribble in different names—different events.  But the story was disturbingly similar.  And similarly, potentially very dangerous.
With a smooth, calm effort Dave slid off the bar stool and half turned toward Frank.
            “Before we go anywhere, Turn, I need to take a piss.”
            “Hold it,” I grunted in a hard voice.
            Dave half turned and faced me with an odd grin on face.  But he didn’t stop.  With a bang the flimsy wooden door slammed shut and we heard the click of the lock from the inside.
            “Sonofabitch!” hissed Frank as he turned and started moving toward the head.
            “He’s gonna blow his fucking brains out, Turn!  He’s not gonna let us take him in alive.”
            We both jumped for the bathroom door—but stopped suddenly in our tracks when we hard the toilet flush.  The door banged open and out stepped Dave drying hands off with a thick wad of paper towels and that same strange—odd—grin on his lips.
            “What?  You think I was gonna try to escape?  Run?  No?  Oh, I know. You thought I’d eat my on piece.  Check out by painting brain matter all over the bathroom walls.  Ha, that’ll be the day.”
            Jesus.
            That’s when I got scared.  I’ve seen all kinds of strange things being a homicide detective.  I’ve seen just about every way a person can die.  Naturally and unnaturally. Frank and I have arrested bad people.  Mean people.  Innocent people who, in the heat of anger or fear, made terrible decisions.  But I’d never encountered this.  The guy who walked into the head was David McKenzie.  The guy who walked out wasn’t.  Sure, he looked like the guy we used to know.  He sounded like the guy we used to know.  But he wasn’t Dave McKenzie.  Somehow David McKenzie’s soul died in that dirty, filthy bathroom and the person who came out was someone entirely different.  Different inside.
            “So,” the stranger grunted, his odd—evil—smile widening in pleasure. “Someone must have iced Grace and shit head.  Wonderful.”
            “You did,” I said, pulling out handcuffs and stepping toward the stranger.
            A menacing laugh rolled out of the stranger’s chest.  Dead eyes stared directly into mine.  Dead eyes of a soulless creature. I still remember the tone, the snarl of pure hate, in his voice as he replied.
            “Prove it.”
            And—as you might guessed—we didn’t.  We never found the murder weapon.  There were no fingerprints either on the Caddy or in the hotel room.  There were no witnesses. 
            We had nothing.
            He walked.  Walked out of jail. Laughing.  Laughing as moved down the stone steps of downtown lockup and disappeared into the night,
           
           

The Making of a Good Movie

As yourself this;  What makes for a good movie?  What separates a truly good movie from the also-runs?  Is it plot?  Car chases? Action galore?  Photography?  Great actors?  A great director?

What?

I'm going (raising my hand meekly in front of a ruler-armed matriarchal dominatrix) for a great plot.  The story telling. . . in both the said and unsaid, makes the best of stories.

Yes, Veronica dear;  the silences one can encounter in a movie can be as loud, and as needed, as the verbiage or the beautiful imagery.

Take for instance the Alan Ladd movie, The Blue Dahlia.  Filmed in 1946 and starring Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix and Howard da Silvia, it is one brilliant cinematic masterpiece of hardboiled noir.  And guess who wrote the script . . . the noir master himself; Raymond Chandler. (I won't bother you with a detailed description of the movie.  But trust me . . . you'll like it.)

What makes the movie so delicious is both the pacing, the photography and the quality of the writing displayed.  There's nothing flashy about the movie.  There's no explosions.  No recklessly insane (and unbelievable) car chases.  No incredible escapes from imminent danger.  But there is a story.  There is palpable emotion.  There is a genuine mystery.

There is imagination.

Maybe that's it.  It's not so much story telling as it is imagination.  Figure out a way to run some high voltage through one's imagination and you have a hit.  You have that proverbial 'captive audience.'

Let me me give you a couple of examples.

Here is the sci-fi movie, Elysium.  Came out this year (2013).  About an Earth that is bereft of any resources now solely occupied by the poor and downtrodden while the super rich reside in paradise on an orbiting space colony large enough for everyone planet side to see with the naked eyes day or night.

A simple story, really.  Told so many times it should be boring.  But the pacing, the visuals, the story itself, gripes you and doesn't let go.

Above everything else . . . it's the imagination that captures you  and doesn't let go.  Here perhaps it is the visuals that tell more of the story and the words do.  (I'm thinking of the shots of the modern day slums of Mexico City used to portray Earth in the 22nd Century). 

People.  People everywhere living in squalor.  Absolutely stunning to behold.

Another current movie (2013) it's directed by the South African, Neill Blompkamp (the same guy who wrote and directed District 9), the movie has Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in it.  It's a wonderful movie that should be seen by everyone.

My third example of imaginative story telling is this one.  2Guns.

Not a big movie.  Not a blockbuster.  It won't see the super crowds a lot of other movies will see this year.  But the story telling is superb.  Superb in a different way if compared to the one just mentioned.

This one relies not so much on imagery as it does in a complex plot.  You have to pay attention, especially with the opening sequence, to understand what's going on.  There are twists and turns and double-crosses and treachery galore.    Who can you trust?  Who is the bad guy?  Or is everyone the bad guy?  Just the stuff to jack up a noir fan from the get-go.

Back to that ole' frying pan again:  Imagination.

Capture the imagination and you capture the audience.  And to capture the audience means to tell a great story.  In whatever mode you choose to use.

But there is an addendum to this expose I should throw in.  And it's this.  Could the three pictures above be as good as they are IF the original actors were replaced with someone else?  Would the chemistry, the chutzpah, the believability be as real?

Good question, Maynard.  Maybe that's for another blog, eh?

A Good Story, Good Art . . . and Luck

Let's talk a little about three of the many components you need to write something that sells.  That is in itself something of a contradiction in terms since, if I wanted to be honest, I would have to admit very little of my writings have sold much.

So let me rephrase my opening statement;  Let's talk a little about my theories on three of the many components needed in order to write something that sells.  Take the theories as you like.  Accepting them as genuine, viable concepts.  Or take'em as nothing more than BS and throw'em in the toilet bowl and flush.

(Hmmm . . . I believe I can hear the disturbing sounds of flushing now across the entire globe.)

One;  Ultimately you need to write an excellent story.  What a reader is basically looking for is a story that they can sink their teeth into.  That gets their imagination fired up.  One that presses all kinds of emotional buttons internally.  Without a story that plucks the strings of at least one or two of these emotional buttons, the writer has failed and the reader is going to find something/someone else.

Notice I said ' . . . at least one or two of these emotional buttons.'  The perfect writer who has composed the perfect story SMACKS ALL of the emotional buttons.  But who the hell is the perfect writer?  When was the last time you've read the 'Perfect' story?  If you're like me, you have to admit that piece of pleasantry has been rather rare in one's life.  And getting more rare as we age.

Which, in my opinion, explains why a lot of mediocre writers become multi-national best sellers.  Somehow . . . someway . . . readers found one or two of their buttons were pressed in reading a certain writer who, for many reasons,  others of various habits think is a writer not worthy to read at all. 

You can name writers whom you love . . . and writers whom you despise.  Your list and my list may or may not have any resemblances to'em.   Two writers come instantly to mind and both sell GAZILLIONS of books each year.

And so it goes.

The second necessity for a writer is good artwork for your efforts.  In order to get the reader to cough up the price for your creation something has to catch their eye.  Lots of readers go for the artwork (be it as the cover or a traditional print cover or the cover as an ebook).  From there they may journey on to read the descriptive blurb about what's inside.  But the journey begins with the visual stimulation.

In many respects the artwork acts like a surreal mirror reflecting what the story inside the cover is going to be.  Like the story itself, the cover must activate the imagination of the reader; offering the reader the possibilities that not only the story will stimulate the imagination, but it holds the promise of perhaps stimulating the other five senses as well.

Traditionally publishers took care of the artwork.  A mistake, if you ask me.  A mistake in the sense that many publishers have no clue what good art for a cover should look like.  Some publishers are even down right pernicious when it comes to artist, willing to slap any ole' photo onto a cover and then trying to make up for the mistake by inserting large bold print across it in an effort to make it look 'Modern.'

I have always thought it was incumbent on a writer to have a very large say in both the composition of the artwork and in its approval for being the composition accepted by the publisher.  Unfortunately I suspect at least in the traditional publisher world the writer has very little say in the matter.

Finally comes the third, and most mysterious, component of all.  Luck. 

Pure, unadulterated, serendipitous LUCK.

Think of all the mega-produced books/series that have been whipped up by major publishers which have fallen flat on their faces and died horrible deaths from readers who had little, if any, interest in them.  Now think of books/series which have come out nowhere . . . literately nowhere . . . and stormed the citadels of the reading public like the hordes of Mongolian horsemen of Genghis Khan.

(Can anyone say the name,  Harry Potter?)

Sheer luck.  Inexplicable.  Unexpected.  Stunning to behold.

As far as I am concerned all the pundits who have said, "Work hard and you make your on luck" must have been on a drug overdose when they uttered such balderdash.  I haven't met a writer yet who doesn't work hard writing their material.  Yes, some writers are better salesmen when it comes to pushing their material out to the general public.  But I suspect that's more attributable to the amount of money a writer is willing to spend out of his own pocket to buy the promotional material he needs than anything else.

Writing a bad novel, as the pundits say, takes every bit as much time as writing a Pultizer prize winner.

But Luck just comes along.  It drifts in like a low lying fog late at night.  One moment its not there.  The next it suddenly has engulfed everything in sight with a white, surreal, envelope of translucence.

What are the factors which induces Luck to appear?  No one knows.

Above are the three covers I am going to use on my Agnastas Hoolia serial novel I'm writing.  I think the story line is excellent.  I think the artwork is more than just adequate.  I think it is award-winning (always open for debate, of course).  So I think I can safely say I have two of the three attributes needed to become successful.

But Luck?  What about Lady Luck?

Gosh.  I wish the hell I could bank on that persnickety woman to show up.  But I can't.  All I can do is cross my fingers and hope.

(Oh, by the way . . . look at my last blog and you can read the first chapter of the Agnastas Hoolia novel.  You tell me if the story is good or not)

The Steampunk Spy; Agnastas Hoolia

A steampunk--fantasy--spy--adventure novel.  A novel broken down into a four-part serial and introducing Agnastas Hoolia to the unsuspecting reading public.

Agnastas Hoolia. 

Part spy  . . . part adventurer . . . a talented wizard.  Works for twelve clans of magicians (White Magic) who have formed an organization called The Inter Dimensional Magic Bureau.
A very large organization which spans through Time and Space who combat the dark machinations of the twenty six or so clans who use Black Magic to further their devious plans. (Their plans being, of course, to dominate and rule entire worlds found in the nineteen or so known universes)

The idea is to bring out a four-part novel with each novel between 22,000 to 28,000 words.   Each part has its own cover.  I thought I'd reveal the cover and maybe share the first chapter of the novel.  Just to whet your appetite, of course.

I'm waiting for some black and white pen drawings to be completed (six in total) I plan to insert into the entire novel.  The first two will be found in the first offering.  I'm looking for dark and moody pen and ink renderings.  If they come out well it should be one hell of a reading adventure!

There's some editing to be done---and the artwork yet to come.  But I thought maybe you'd be interesting in seeing what's being stewing around in my head lately.  So without fanfare, here you are . . .


August. 1873.  New York City.
            The hottest time of the year to be in the city.  Especially this part of the city.  The inhabitants called it The Bowery.  The southern portion of the city filled with the poor and the final destination for the ever increasing masses of freshly arriving immigrants swarming daily through Ellis Island and flooding into the city.
            The Bowery was filled with Irish, Italian, and German immigrants.  A Tower of Babel environment of the poor and penniless. Because they were the poor and disenfranchised it meant few in Tammany Hall, the city's political center, thought of them.  Which meant this part of the city had little sanitation.  No running water.  And no effort to collect and wheel away the growing piles of refuse which littered the streets everywhere.           
            Underneath the hot August sun the aroma rising into the cloudless sky was an almost visible miasma of stench.  So no one paid attention to the black leather and brass trimmed two wheeled hansom, pulled by a dapple gray mare, trotting smartly down the brick street and rolling to a halt in front of tenement building.  To the ten boys standing on the sidewalk or sitting on the steps leading up to the tenement's entrance, the hansom, nor the heavy sat, jowly cabbie sitting above and behind the enclosed portion of the hansom meant anything to them.  Dressed in shabby, thread bare castoffs, with faces sooty black from all the coal dust floating in the air, the boys tossed a baseball around or smoked cigarettes and talked but didn't glance at the hansom again.
            Until the passenger stepped out and onto the curb.
            He was a compact little man with a thick mop of curly blond hair.  Dressed nattily in a three piece suit of startling white cotton.   He had on black spats partially covering the upper portion of his highly polished leather shoes.  Very expensive leather shoes.  In hand was a pair of kid gloves he held casually.  In the other a black ebony cane with an odd looking bezel cut glass orb ornamenting its top.  One eye held a large monocle in front of it with a black lanyard dropping down and looping over to one his coat's lapels.  Instead of a tie he had a mauve colored kerchief tide around his neck and stuffed inside his shirt.  The shirt was off white, made of silk, with gold cuff links.
            He was the grandest looking thing the boys had ever had the privileged be this close to in their young lives.  All of them stood looking at the dandy with mouths open and eyes wide.  When the man stepped onto the sidewalk in front of them and extended the hand holding the cane out to brace himself in a gesture of arrogant nonchalance a few of them actually thought about applauding.
            "Hey, boyo!" a voice came flying out of the air from one of the boys standing on the stairs.  "Ya got a dollar or two you can spare?  Me and the boys haven't had a drink in days."
            The man, lowering his eyes for the first time to gaze at the objects in front of him, eyed the waifs for a moment before making a decision.  Turning slightly he tossed the expensive leather gloves into the hansom and then reached inside a vest pocket and pulled out a ten dollar gold piece.  With a skillful flick of a thumb the coin went arching over the heads of the nearest and straight to the Irish lad who had just spoken.
            "My good men," the dandy said, smiling wider after seeing the big Irish kid snatch the coin out of the air with and stare at it incredulously.  "Perhaps that will procure me some needed intelligence."
            "Huh?" another voice, a younger one, piped up quizzically.  "We ain't smart, fella.  We're Irish."
            "Awh, pipe down, Ian!" the bigger kid in the back barked, shaking his head disgustedly.  "The fella's looking for some information.  Who you looking for, fella?"
            The dandy cradled the odd looking black cane in the crook of one arm but didn't answer immediately.  Glancing to his right his eyes swept across the wide expanse of the Hudson river, noted the three fat looking tugboats chugging their way up stream, laying down heavy curtains of sooty smoke in the process.  A quarter of a mile downstream he saw the massive stone monuments of what would be, a few years from now, the freshly completed Brooklyn Bridge rising up out of the river waters.  But today the construction was still in its early stages.  The river site for the two massive edifices surrounded by steamers and wide barges riding low in the river due to their heavy loads.
            Most impressive, he thought to himself.  Most impressive indeed!  The last time he had been in New York the Dutch were still negotiating with the local Indian tribes for additional land.  But now, now humans were building a megalopolis!  They were constructing in stone and steel!  Using steam power instead of muscle power to do their heavy work.
            Progress, by god!  That's what it was.  Progress!
            Maybe the Elders of the Eight Clans were right.  Maybe humans in this dimension did have a future ahead of them.  Breaking into a rakish dimpled grin he turned his attention back to the big Irish kid who seemed to be the group's natural leader.
            "I am looking for a large framed gentlemen by the name of Mordecai Bloom.  Does he live in this building?"
            "Who?" another dirty faced waif blurted out, lifting a hand and scratching his head.  "Ain't never heard of'em."
            "He means The Mad Hatter," the Irish spokesman said, shaking his head irritably as he lifted a thumb up and pointed to the building behind him.  "You know, the fat guy with the funny hair and the bug eyes.  Yeah, fella.  He lives up on the sixth floor.  Apartment 61."
            He started to thank the Irish lad but a flash of bright bluish-white light above caught his attention just before an ear splitting explosion ripped through the late afternoon heat.  Glass, wood, pieces of furniture, and shreds of ripped clothing were ejected violently out of what once had been a sixth floor window.  The thundering explosion reverberated across the river, sending up a curtain of pigeons which had been nesting on the building's roof, as the flotsam and dendrites of what once had been the furnishings for an apartment rained down upon them.
            The moment the explosion announced itself the boys in front of the dandy ducked, covered their heads, and fled all in one motion.  Seconds later the tenants within the building came screaming in terror out of the building and began running as well.
            Through the pandemonium of fleeing tenants the dandy fought his way up the stairs and into the building.  Eyeing a steep set of wooden stairs leading up to the next floor he began taking two steps at a time as he dodged around descending, screaming residents.
            Billowing gray black smoke began filling the third and forth floor stairwell.  The unmistakable crackle of flames about to turn into an out of control inferno emanated from above.  Nevertheless the well dressed stranger continued this assent as fast as his legs could move.  By time he reached the fourth floor the occupants of the building had fled.  On the fifth floor he stopped suddenly in his tracks, turned, and stared down the long narrow hallway toward the far end apartment.
            He felt her aura.  Felt her pain.  Lifting the cane in his hand up the blue tinted glass orb adorning it began to glow white and expand outward in a translucent white bubble.  In the direct center of the orb an image snapped into reality.   The image of an old woman, well into her sixties, hobbling toward the apartment door on crutches.  One of her legs was missing.  She was racked with pain.  With panic.  Desperate to get out of the burning building.  Watching her arthritic old hands trying to clasp the doorknob to her apartment door he knew she would never make it.  Above the top floor was a hungry conflagration teetering on the edge of sweeping through the entire building and consuming everything in its path.  If the fire could not be extinguished immediately the woman would have no chance for survival.
            Resisting his first urge to rush to her and use a little magic to whisk her away from danger instead he leapt forward and began charging up into the roaring flames above.   Throwing an arm across his face to ward off the incredible heat he moved into the middle of the sixth floor hallway and assessed the situation.   Flames were everywhere.  Howling jets of fire were bellowing out of apartment doors.  A rolling carpet of bubbling flames danced across the hallway's ceiling.  Glass from window panes were violently shattering out into the street below like shotgun blasts in six or seven different apartments.  The scorching heat was hot enough to make his own clothing begin to emit curling trails of smoke from his jacket's arms and cuffs.   Seconds, that's all he had.  Just seconds before the fire was out of control. 
            A mask of determination settled across his youthful, handsome face.  No one was going to die today.  No one.  Gripping the cane in hand he lifted it up and then brought the gold tip of the staff down hard on the wooden floor of the hall.
            "Extinguishio Finalis!" he exclaimed with a harsh voice of authority.
            Something amazing transpired immediately.
            A shock wave, powerful and devastating, of frigid cold air filled with a fine mist of water, expanded out exponentially from the glass orb of his cane and swept forward and backwards from his position.  Apartment doors were blown open and ripped from the hinges.  Individual pieces of hardwood flooring in the hallway peeled off the floor as if they were nothing but cheap cardboard slats.  So cold the blast not only extinguished the flames at the snap of one's fingers but a fine layer of frost covered the walls, ceiling, and the flooring of the hallway.
            Fire no longer ravaged the building.  Replacing the hungry consumption of a ravaging beast an unearthly, even eerie, silence settled into the building's interior.
Slowly he around in the hallway and gazed toward one blackened gaping hole that once had been a furnished apartment.  Mordecai Bloom's apartment.
            He found himself staring at the devastated apartment but reluctant to move toward it.  The cane in his right hand was irritably tapping the floor with a nervous staccato twitch.  He knew he had to investigate.  It was his job.  He was a Inter-Dimensional Magician's Bureau field agent, for the Love of Diddly!  But he didn't want to.  Didn't want to face the possibility of finding the charred, blackened body of one of his oldest friends lying in the consumed ruins.  Nevertheless, rubbing a hand across his lips in anticipation of finding the worse, he took a deep breath, forced his mind to clear the dreadful images filling it and ordered his feet to move.
            And that's when he saw it.  Saw the faint mist of green dust hanging in the doorway of the Mordecai Bloom's doorway and an even fainter trail of tracker-dust  floating in the cold but motionless air in an unbroken trail all the way down the length of the hallway itself!
            Mordecai Bloom was alive!  Alive!

A steampunk--fantasy--spy--adventure novel. A novel...

A steampunk--fantasy--spy--adventure novel.  A novel broken down into a four-part serial and introducing Agnastas Hoolia to the unsuspecting reading public.

Agnastas Hoolia. 

Part spy  . . . part adventurer . . . a talented wizard.  Works for twelve clans of magicians (White Magic) who have formed an organization called The Inter Dimensional Magic Bureau.
A very large organization which spans through Time and Space who combat the dark machinations of the twenty six or so clans who use Black Magic to further their devious plans. (Their plans being, of course, to dominate and rule entire worlds found in the nineteen or so known universes)

The idea is to bring out a four-part novel with each novel between 22,000 to 28,000 words.   Each part has its own cover.  I thought I'd reveal the cover and maybe share the first chapter of the novel.  Just to whet your appetite, of course.

I'm waiting for some black and white pen drawings to be completed (six in total) I plan to insert into the entire novel.  The first two will be found in the first offering.  I'm looking for dark and moody pen and ink renderings.  If they come out well it should be one hell of a reading adventure!

There's some editing to be done---and the artwork yet to come.  But I thought maybe you'd be interesting in seeing what's being stewing around in my head lately.  So without fanfare, here you are . . .


August. 1873.  New York City.
            The hottest time of the year to be in the city.  Especially this part of the city.  The inhabitants called it The Bowery.  The southern portion of the city filled with the poor and the final destination for the ever increasing masses of freshly arriving immigrants swarming daily through Ellis Island and flooding into the city.
            The Bowery was filled with Irish, Italian, and German immigrants.  A Tower of Babel environment of the poor and penniless. Because they were the poor and disenfranchised it meant few in Tammany Hall, the city's political center, thought of them.  Which meant this part of the city had little sanitation.  No running water.  And no effort to collect and wheel away the growing piles of refuse which littered the streets everywhere.           
            Underneath the hot August sun the aroma rising into the cloudless sky was an almost visible miasma of stench.  So no one paid attention to the black leather and brass trimmed two wheeled hansom, pulled by a dapple gray mare, trotting smartly down the brick street and rolling to a halt in front of tenement building.  To the ten boys standing on the sidewalk or sitting on the steps leading up to the tenement's entrance, the hansom, nor the heavy sat, jowly cabbie sitting above and behind the enclosed portion of the hansom meant anything to them.  Dressed in shabby, thread bare castoffs, with faces sooty black from all the coal dust floating in the air, the boys tossed a baseball around or smoked cigarettes and talked but didn't glance at the hansom again.
            Until the passenger stepped out and onto the curb.
            He was a compact little man with a thick mop of curly blond hair.  Dressed nattily in a three piece suit of startling white cotton.   He had on black spats partially covering the upper portion of his highly polished leather shoes.  Very expensive leather shoes.  In hand was a pair of kid gloves he held casually.  In the other a black ebony cane with an odd looking bezel cut glass orb ornamenting its top.  One eye held a large monocle in front of it with a black lanyard dropping down and looping over to one his coat's lapels.  Instead of a tie he had a mauve colored kerchief tide around his neck and stuffed inside his shirt.  The shirt was off white, made of silk, with gold cuff links.
            He was the grandest looking thing the boys had ever had the privileged be this close to in their young lives.  All of them stood looking at the dandy with mouths open and eyes wide.  When the man stepped onto the sidewalk in front of them and extended the hand holding the cane out to brace himself in a gesture of arrogant nonchalance a few of them actually thought about applauding.
            "Hey, boyo!" a voice came flying out of the air from one of the boys standing on the stairs.  "Ya got a dollar or two you can spare?  Me and the boys haven't had a drink in days."
            The man, lowering his eyes for the first time to gaze at the objects in front of him, eyed the waifs for a moment before making a decision.  Turning slightly he tossed the expensive leather gloves into the hansom and then reached inside a vest pocket and pulled out a ten dollar gold piece.  With a skillful flick of a thumb the coin went arching over the heads of the nearest and straight to the Irish lad who had just spoken.
            "My good men," the dandy said, smiling wider after seeing the big Irish kid snatch the coin out of the air with and stare at it incredulously.  "Perhaps that will procure me some needed intelligence."
            "Huh?" another voice, a younger one, piped up quizzically.  "We ain't smart, fella.  We're Irish."
            "Awh, pipe down, Ian!" the bigger kid in the back barked, shaking his head disgustedly.  "The fella's looking for some information.  Who you looking for, fella?"
            The dandy cradled the odd looking black cane in the crook of one arm but didn't answer immediately.  Glancing to his right his eyes swept across the wide expanse of the Hudson river, noted the three fat looking tugboats chugging their way up stream, laying down heavy curtains of sooty smoke in the process.  A quarter of a mile downstream he saw the massive stone monuments of what would be, a few years from now, the freshly completed Brooklyn Bridge rising up out of the river waters.  But today the construction was still in its early stages.  The river site for the two massive edifices surrounded by steamers and wide barges riding low in the river due to their heavy loads.
            Most impressive, he thought to himself.  Most impressive indeed!  The last time he had been in New York the Dutch were still negotiating with the local Indian tribes for additional land.  But now, now humans were building a megalopolis!  They were constructing in stone and steel!  Using steam power instead of muscle power to do their heavy work.
            Progress, by god!  That's what it was.  Progress!
            Maybe the Elders of the Eight Clans were right.  Maybe humans in this dimension did have a future ahead of them.  Breaking into a rakish dimpled grin he turned his attention back to the big Irish kid who seemed to be the group's natural leader.
            "I am looking for a large framed gentlemen by the name of Mordecai Bloom.  Does he live in this building?"
            "Who?" another dirty faced waif blurted out, lifting a hand and scratching his head.  "Ain't never heard of'em."
            "He means The Mad Hatter," the Irish spokesman said, shaking his head irritably as he lifted a thumb up and pointed to the building behind him.  "You know, the fat guy with the funny hair and the bug eyes.  Yeah, fella.  He lives up on the sixth floor.  Apartment 61."
            He started to thank the Irish lad but a flash of bright bluish-white light above caught his attention just before an ear splitting explosion ripped through the late afternoon heat.  Glass, wood, pieces of furniture, and shreds of ripped clothing were ejected violently out of what once had been a sixth floor window.  The thundering explosion reverberated across the river, sending up a curtain of pigeons which had been nesting on the building's roof, as the flotsam and dendrites of what once had been the furnishings for an apartment rained down upon them.
            The moment the explosion announced itself the boys in front of the dandy ducked, covered their heads, and fled all in one motion.  Seconds later the tenants within the building came screaming in terror out of the building and began running as well.
            Through the pandemonium of fleeing tenants the dandy fought his way up the stairs and into the building.  Eyeing a steep set of wooden stairs leading up to the next floor he began taking two steps at a time as he dodged around descending, screaming residents.
            Billowing gray black smoke began filling the third and forth floor stairwell.  The unmistakable crackle of flames about to turn into an out of control inferno emanated from above.  Nevertheless the well dressed stranger continued this assent as fast as his legs could move.  By time he reached the fourth floor the occupants of the building had fled.  On the fifth floor he stopped suddenly in his tracks, turned, and stared down the long narrow hallway toward the far end apartment.
            He felt her aura.  Felt her pain.  Lifting the cane in his hand up the blue tinted glass orb adorning it began to glow white and expand outward in a translucent white bubble.  In the direct center of the orb an image snapped into reality.   The image of an old woman, well into her sixties, hobbling toward the apartment door on crutches.  One of her legs was missing.  She was racked with pain.  With panic.  Desperate to get out of the burning building.  Watching her arthritic old hands trying to clasp the doorknob to her apartment door he knew she would never make it.  Above the top floor was a hungry conflagration teetering on the edge of sweeping through the entire building and consuming everything in its path.  If the fire could not be extinguished immediately the woman would have no chance for survival.
            Resisting his first urge to rush to her and use a little magic to whisk her away from danger instead he leapt forward and began charging up into the roaring flames above.   Throwing an arm across his face to ward off the incredible heat he moved into the middle of the sixth floor hallway and assessed the situation.   Flames were everywhere.  Howling jets of fire were bellowing out of apartment doors.  A rolling carpet of bubbling flames danced across the hallway's ceiling.  Glass from window panes were violently shattering out into the street below like shotgun blasts in six or seven different apartments.  The scorching heat was hot enough to make his own clothing begin to emit curling trails of smoke from his jacket's arms and cuffs.   Seconds, that's all he had.  Just seconds before the fire was out of control. 
            A mask of determination settled across his youthful, handsome face.  No one was going to die today.  No one.  Gripping the cane in hand he lifted it up and then brought the gold tip of the staff down hard on the wooden floor of the hall.
            "Extinguishio Finalis!" he exclaimed with a harsh voice of authority.
            Something amazing transpired immediately.
            A shock wave, powerful and devastating, of frigid cold air filled with a fine mist of water, expanded out exponentially from the glass orb of his cane and swept forward and backwards from his position.  Apartment doors were blown open and ripped from the hinges.  Individual pieces of hardwood flooring in the hallway peeled off the floor as if they were nothing but cheap cardboard slats.  So cold the blast not only extinguished the flames at the snap of one's fingers but a fine layer of frost covered the walls, ceiling, and the flooring of the hallway.
            Fire no longer ravaged the building.  Replacing the hungry consumption of a ravaging beast an unearthly, even eerie, silence settled into the building's interior.
Slowly he around in the hallway and gazed toward one blackened gaping hole that once had been a furnished apartment.  Mordecai Bloom's apartment.
            He found himself staring at the devastated apartment but reluctant to move toward it.  The cane in his right hand was irritably tapping the floor with a nervous staccato twitch.  He knew he had to investigate.  It was his job.  He was a Inter-Dimensional Magician's Bureau field agent, for the Love of Diddly!  But he didn't want to.  Didn't want to face the possibility of finding the charred, blackened body of one of his oldest friends lying in the consumed ruins.  Nevertheless, rubbing a hand across his lips in anticipation of finding the worse, he took a deep breath, forced his mind to clear the dreadful images filling it and ordered his feet to move.
            And that's when he saw it.  Saw the faint mist of green dust hanging in the doorway of the Mordecai Bloom's doorway and an even fainter trail of tracker-dust  floating in the cold but motionless air in an unbroken trail all the way down the length of the hallway itself!
            Mordecai Bloom was alive!  Alive!

Something Old, something New, coming out soon

Coming soon.  A collection of 21 Turner Hahn/Frank Morales short stories I hacked together over the last two years.

I have to admit (again!) Turner and Frank are my two most favorite characters.  I dunno . . . there's something about their personalities and their chemistry which makes me smile every time I start writing a story with them as the main ingredients. They're like two old friends.  You just like being around them as much as you can.

As you know they're homicide detectives.  Two cops dropped down into a city filled with bad guys who look upon the act of murder as a day-to-day occupational hazard.

No big deal.

So there's twenty-one stories.  Murder . . . puzzles . . . damsels in distress . . . damsels who will slit your throat twice before you can bat your eyes.  There are killers who are bat-shit crazy.  Killers who are as cold as ice.  And there are killers who get away with their crimes. 

And humor.  Dry . . . almost droll . . . humor.

I have a theory about writing in the mystery/detective genre.  The best stories are the ones which have three major ingredients.  A Plot.  Interesting Characters. And Humor.  Not necessarily in equal measures, mind you.  But each one absolutely essential.   We can quibble about which of the first two ingredients are more important:  plot or interesting characters.  I, for one, think they are absolutely equal.  Don't mix enough of an attention-grabbing plot . . . or make the characters cookie cutter wannabes . . . and the story is going to suffer.  Suffer to the point of not working at all.

But humor is absolutely vital.  Yet it is the ONE ingredient so many writers fail to plug into their chemistry set.  I call it the Ying-Yang theory.  You can't have blood and mayhem without off setting it with a measured amount of laughter.  Or at least a sardonic little smile.  Humor does two things in a story.  First, it makes the trauma of murder more poignant.  Secondly, it settles the mind back into a neutral position for the next big slap in the face.

Ying and Yang.  Life and Death.  Light and Darkness.

Turner and Frank are interesting characters.  Each as their own little quirks.  Each has their own brand of humor.  Just happens the two separate characters work very, very well as a team.  They are synergistic in nature.

And the stories . . . the plots . . . are not bad at all.  Remember now; we're writing short stories.  That means you've got to pack the whole works into a rather tight frame and hope to hell they work.  I happen to think they do.

In the next few days I hope to get them out in ebook format.  Yes, I'm the one bringing them out.  No publisher seems interested.

As they say about the Jamaica bobsledding team winning the Winter Olympic event;  maybe someday . . . .

Meeting with Arlington Nuetzel

Here's Arlington Nuetzel.  A friend of mine.  And a writer whom I agree with very often IF the subject is about Writing. Or Cars.  Or Music.  Or how to make the Perfect Cheesecake.

But let's not talk Politics.  Nope. Some subjects we just agree to disagree on.  Still . . . .

You'll find in this interview that writers are writers.  The Art (or really;  isn't it a sort of Curse?  A Love/Hat relationship you can't live with and certainly would dry up and wither away if you tried to live without it?) of Writing cuts across all forms of human boundaries, both real and artificial, and links us all together.  We're cousins.  Or brothers.  Or sisters. We're all related.  We all know the hardships, the joys, the madness that has to be within all of us in order for us to write.

And apparently we all have the same fears.  Check out what Arlington says concerning what he fears the most about being a writer. I couldn't agree with him more. (Also check out what he says concerning what fictional characters he'd like to hang out with.  I'm kinda curious to hear Travis McGee's answer as well)

And oh . . . about literary agents.  Well . . . you decide for yourself.

This is Arlington's interview.  All his.  You may not have heard of him.  But he's a writer.  And like most writers known or unknown, he knows the joys and fears the rest of our bothers and sisters endure with every day.


Why don’t you begin by telling us a little about yourself 

I was born in St. Louis. I’m named for an 1880’s baseball player, Arlington Latham. I’m an educator. It leaks out into my writing. My career path was industrial sales and marketing but it required me to teach people how to handle new technology. I really enjoyed teaching kids to ski downhill a lot more. I’m also a good learner with poor grades but it hasn’t killed me yet.
 When did you decide you wanted to become an author?
 I wrote short stories which were meant to make people laugh or cry. Then a formulaic novel with sequel potential crept into my head and landed on the page. It was really junk and has since been rewritten and a sequel produced. The third iteration terrifies me but it is now in the works.
 Do you have another job besides writing?
No, I write full time. My other jobs are music and housekeeping and keeping the fire built on our patio. Oh, and I’m a real presence in the kitchen. I’ve had some continental training and do ethnic, My wife does the authentic Southern cooking.

Were you an avid reader as a child? What type of books did you enjoy reading?
 Well, comic books ruled my early life. I used to go to my girl friend’s house and read her brother’s comics under his bed. Aside from those, I read poetry, Ogden Nash and Robert Service. I also enjoyed James Thurber. Thanks, Dad.
 
Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write such a story.
Remembering Arlie was a labor of love. It concerns my paternal grandfather in his own voice. As I wrote it, it seemed to have universal appeal as a true American rags to riches story, it took on a life of its own. That often happens in writing, the characters decide the dialog and the plot progression. The author just types.

How would you describe your creative process while writing this book? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did you first write an outline?
 I don’t outline although some writers should. On this book I had detailed notes and a wealth of research material. I employ two editors too, I like to produce them clean. My books just seem to come out of the ether. Erato is a wonderful woman. 

Did your book require a lot of research?

Some do. My historical novel, 2027, New Madrid, Missouri took me to water ditches, lakes, cotton fields, museums and college libraries. My adventure novels and Telephoto were researched on the Web unearthing some very weird but useful sites.
 Why do you write?
 I write to leave a legacy for my daughters, to inspire them. There certainly isn’t any money in this. 

Who are your literary heroes and why?
 Dirk Pitt, Billy Pilgrim and certainly Travis McGee. Very few others have staying power. I like a character with grit and humility. That’s hard to find but I think that my franchise, Steven Burr, has both.

If you could have any vice without repercussions, what would it be? 

Well, in no particular order, all the vices in moderation. Driving fast in a cool car would come second.  

What kind of promotions do you do for your books?
 I maintain a Website, I do all the written and mailed stuff, to newspapers, radio and TV plus the Internet writer’s and reader’s sites. I do a lot of book signings, scratch up blurbs and reviews and I blog but I no longer “tweet” on the major social network sites. That was just silly. 

What is the funniest/most embarrassing/scariest story from one of your books signings or events? 

No one knew I was coming. They had the wrong date and I drove four hours to get there. I then sold a book to a woman who only had a ten dollar bill. I let her have it and darn if she didn’t show up an hour later with the rest. A kid asked me why he had never heard of me. “Now you have!” I show my book trailers on a PC on the table. I was asked if I was selling PC’s.

Who do you think you are?

Wow! I identify strongly with Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin but I am not any of them. I devoutly wish that I at least shared some of their qualities and talents. 

If you could have been the servant to any famous person in history, who would that be and why?

I would have liked to follow William F. Buckley, Jr. around. He was not only a deep thinker and a wry wit but also an imaginer and creator. I would have taken something new home when each day ended. 

If you are a world builder, what is your favorite part of creating these worlds? 

Authors are like little Gods. They get to create, bear, kill, teach, manipulate, well, without being graphic, get to make people do things within or outside of their character without any consequence. I can write friends into books with permission. Sometimes they beg. It’s wonderful. 

How do you research? 

I start on the Web, then I go to places that I need to go to. Research is really 45% of writing. Marketing is 45% and the other 10% is writing. 

When did you start writing? Relate an anecdote from your earliest writing years. 

I began with a Spiral Steno Book in a mall parking lot in Chesterfield, Missouri between sales calls. I started writing my short stories journal style, just thoughts. These gave way to finished works, then the novels started pouring out. 

Who was your mentor? 

I wish that I had one. My Grandfather taught me a love for the written word and for creativity in general. So I guess that you could say that he was. 

What would you tell aspiring young writers about the publishing business? 

Plan to be broke, do your own butt work but enjoy writing. Don’t believe the crap you read about Indie publishing. Grammy winning bands are recording in garages, films made with Sony cameras are winning at Sundance and Cannes. Just make sure that your work is tightly edited. 

What has been your experience with literary guilds or groups? 

I am a co-founder of the Independent Authors Guild. Groups like ours pass valuable marketing and production information between each other and aspiring writers. I’ve sold a few books as a result of this effort but I’ve gotten more reviews and blurbs as a result. 

Do you belong to a critique group? How has this helped or hindered your writing. 

No, I tried and there are too many trolls out there. Honest people tend to stay away from critique. It isn’t worth the unnecessary humiliation from unqualified wannabies. Check writerscafe if you want a dose of lugubrious umber. Actually, I got great feedback and remarkable ratings on Francis Ford Coppola’s zoetrope.com. That was a positive experience.
 What so you see for the future of publishing and ebooks? 

Traditional publishers are having to reinvent themselves. Who can read the same safe stuff they publish every six months. The problem is the inventory model, both in the warehouse and on the shelves. The traditional publishers are now using print on demand to minimize this problem but the gates are now open to Indies who write well and edit with excellence.  

If you could talk to any fictional character, who would that be and what would you say? 

I thought about Jay Gatz, Rhett Butler and a few others but I would like to hang with Travis McGee and ask him how he stays alive and meets so many hot women. 

Which of your characters do you love/hate/fear/pity the most and why? 

I most pity Amanda Uganda from Murder in March Commons. She was a Belle from the Mid South with everything going for her but she just went down the wrong road. Molly Barksdale from Telephoto is a close second. She never knew what she wanted out of life so she trashed everyone around her. 

Tell us five random things about yourself. 

1) I’m a computer geek. 2) I love dogs and horses. 3) I play everything but horns. 4) I can recite the Greek alphabet. 5) Green is my favorite color and also the color of my eyes. 

What other types of artistic talents do you have? 

I was trained to be a concert pianist but ended up an almost rock star. I’m a pretty good photographer and work at line drawing. Mostly, I’m an educator in engineering to writing to alpine skiing. I a licensed pilot and I’m rated high-performance retractable gear. Mach .38, baby! 

What type of writer are you—the one who experiences before writing, like Hemingway, or the one who mostly daydreams and fantasizes?  

My work springs from my imagination, but who doesn’t have a life experience spun into their work? I think that you can’t avoid the places that you’ve been and the people you’ve met and the things that you’ve done both good and unfortunate. 

When do you get your best ideas and why do you think this is? 

I usually get my best ideas in restaurants overhearing people at other tables. Also in cemeteries People are the best subjects to spin into fiction. 

Do you get along with your muse? What do you do to placate her when she refuses to inspire you?
I live with her, I love with her and we spar over words. It is a mutual love of reading and writing that I wouldn’t trade for a pot of gold. We have that together. I wrote for two years in a motor home at a fish hatchery at Montauk in the Missouri Ozarks. I taught her writing on the Internet. We traded works and she asked if she could edit for me. I went down to Arkansas for a weekend and forgot to go home. We married in 2011.

From the moment you conceived the idea for the story, to the published book, how long did it take? 

Each book takes about a year from beginning to end no matter how I rush. I wrote 2027 in forty days to impress a woman, now my editor and wife (that part worked) but it took a long time to edit and publish. 

Describe your working environment.
I’m in a kitchen with oaken cabinets. The bar is angled out, I’m on the great room side on a comfortable bar stool. I’m on a Frankenstein cobbled IBM laptop on our wireless network with stereo speakers attached. I can access our hard drive in the other room or save to my speed stick through either USB. Wireless is magic. Behind me is a ten speaker 500 Watt Bose system and I can crank up Serius XM Blusville if I have the need. I either write to it or play along on my Godin guitar or my stack of keyboards. 

Do you write non-stop until you have a first draft, or do you edit as you move along? 

Nope, I write and then go back three chapters and re-edit. No one can successfully edit their own material, they see their mistakes as correct but it helps and it lets me put the missing words between the other words. 

They say authors have immensely fragile egos… How would you handle negative criticism or a negative review? 

After two divorces, I couldn’t find my ego. Where the hell did that go? Yes, authors do have fragile egos but good writers find friends and reviews easily. After many years of being fired from good jobs, I have a pretty tough skin. 

As a writer, what scares you the most? 

I am most afraid of a lack of ideas. In fact, I’m frightened by any gap in creativity. 

When writing, what themes do you feel passionate about?

Truth, justice and the American Way.
Are you a disciplined writer?
 No, I’m just impelled. I write to speak. I write to educate. I write to entertain. I’d like to read books like mine on a sandy beach in Florida or on a plane to Frankfurt.  

For writer moms:  How do you divide your time between taking care of a home and children, and writing? Do you plan your writing sessions in advance?
Hey, this applies to Dads too. Moms don’t have a patent on stress. All writers budget their time, men, women, mothers and fathers. If we have a passion, we pursue it. With a singular purpose.

When it comes to writing, are you an early bird, or a night owl?

Mid morning suits me then I edit in the afternoon. In the evening I read the two papers, Blytheville and Little Rock.
Do you have an agent?  How was your experience in searching for one? 

It was dismal to abominable. They are blood sucking leaches or else they are too high gloss to answer their mail. The rest want to charge a “reading fee” before they vanish completely, make gross denigrations to inspired prose and turns of phrase. This species is extinct unless they start to police each other.



You can agree or disagree with Arlington.  Your choice.  But the sheer act of opening your soul up and bleed freely all over a clean slate in an effort to say something congently makes him a friend of mine.

Regardless (grinning widely) whatever his Politics may be.

Robert W. Walker is back for another stroll through the dark alleys

Robert W. Walker has been featured in here before.  But it's time for him to make another appearance.  If you don't know it, Robert is a prolific writer.  And not just prolific as in sheer quantity.  He's got the knack to chuck'em out AND write quality stuff at the same time.  Considering that he also teaches at the college level  (which, as well all know, teaching is such a pud job any Tom, Dick, or Hermione can do) it's a wonder he can think properly . . . much less write truly the truly gripping novels he does.

This time around he's writing a Civil War series.  Well .  . . maybe not just a Civil War series.  Several other genres are probably mixed into the recipe just to add some spice.  As the pundits say, '"Spice is the starter fluid that makes Little Johnny jump!" 

Or something like that.

It's always interesting to talk to the guy.  Figuring on that I thought I'd interview him again and hear what he was working on now . . . and maybe pick his brains a bit and see if he could come up with some sagacious advice for would-be writers like myself.  Here's what the guy had to say.

Enjoy.

1. Robert, you write novels which definitely bend the rules for strict genre writing.  Somehow other genres pop up and weave their way through your books.  Why this genre twisting?  How difficult is it for multiple genres to blend together in a cohesive unit?

 
I grew up on such TV programs as One Step Beyond and Twilight Zone, read widely however in the classics as well as horror and science fiction. I love to have a supernatural or odd element to my crime novels as well as my historical novels. I enjoy weaving multiple genres to create a whole cloth of a novel as I like layers and complexities as with my Titanic 2012 - Curse of RMS Titanic - a creature placed on board the Titanic, yet make the historical elements authentic as I could...then move to the future and add science fiction elements in the dive INTO the sunken ship. Crosses many genres. My historicals are romance but just as much action adventure and suspense. It is fun for me to mix the categories. How difficult is it? It is not so much more difficult than pulling a number of threads through any novel but it is a juggling act.

 
2.  You're writing a Civil War series now.  Tell us about it.  What motivated you in selecting this era to write over?  What is it about the Civil War which attracts so many writers and readers to it?

 
 The Civil War is a hugely defining event in the forging of the American character, and the four years of that war created a huge number of stories, most as true stories. I find all American history fascinating as with my Colonial America witchcraft novel Children of Salem and my Ransom Series set in Chicago 1893. History itself has always fascinated me, but history that takes us to a spiritual end, wow. Even as a kid, I always wanted to know MORE about the footnotes at the bottom of the page in the history books; certainly was the case with the Salem witchcraft episode--a ready made mix of genres--history and horror, story of greed, avarice, and courage as well as faith. City of Ransom I wanted to use the Chicago World's Fair and what did it mean to my detective who had no access to modern sciences. In Annie's War - my pre-Civil War Trilogy, I wanted to get at what kind of people would follow a religious fanatic straight to their deaths and if they truly believed in a cause to that extent.

 
3.  Writing is a passionate love/hate relationship.  Add the extra hat of being an English professor to it and the party becomes a bit crowded.  How do you cope with wearing so many hats at once?

 
I have had many bouts with myself over the psychological and social toll on myself by choosing this life, but in the end it chooses us. I have an article on Kindle entitled Psychology 101 for Writers and Their Characters...and so you can imagine how many times and how much time I have spent questioning my own choice of lifestyle and career. Writing has been described in so many ways and metaphors but the best I have ever heard is that it is like riding a unicycle while juggling ten plates at once on four foot sticks. Oh my! No one ever said it was going to be easy and I often feel as if I am channeling or reincarnated as some broke and starving artist of the past locked in the loop of doing it all over again. Does it make sense to subject ourselves to what we subject ourselves to? What is the alternative if your head and heart are full of voices/characters screaming to get out?

 

4.  While on the subject of love/hate relationships, tell us when the writing bug bit you and turned you into a verbal vampire (A compliment, Robert!  A compliment . . . really!)


 
I was in 4th grade at Skinner Elementary when my eye caught sight of the footnote on the Salem episode. The first bug was the research bug. I knew there had to be more to the story and that it was important, despite my teacher's saying, "It is a footnote for a reason; it is not that important." That just set me off. I went to the school library and started digging. In high school, I did a 70 pg. research paper on the topic (got an A+), and it became my dissertation at Northwestern University for my Masters done as a novel. Before leaving high school, I wrote Daniel & The Wrongway Railway (researched the Underground Railroad) my first YA historical coming of age meant to be a sequel to Huckleberry Finn (arrogant me!). So yeah, I started young.

 

5.  Of all the genres out there you delve into which one is your favorite.  And don't forget to tell us why.

Oh boy...I enjoy them all for different reasons like the crime novels for the chase and the adversarial relationship between protagonist and antagonist as well as the forensic science elements, but working with serial killers is rough on the spirit; frankly it is far more FUN working with actual monsters in horror over the serial killers. However, my first love from the outset has been historical novels, and I found I truly needed to get back to doing historicals, alternate historicals, history-mystery, adult and YA. I love the time machine aspect of getting into a historical setting.

 

6.  I believe it's like thirty some odd books you've written.  So which character is your favorite.  How did you develop him (or her) and do they show up in a series or two.


Titanic 2012 Oh man, another hard choice. I really enjoy all my characters now in all NINE of my multiple-book series, all of whom save one I placed in my short story collection Thriller Party of 8 - The 1 that Got Away wherein I introduce eight of my series characters in the short form. I love 'em all but to pick out one...that is asking a mother or father to select only ONE CHILD to live. Inspector Alastair Ransom is right up there, he appears in my HarperCollins Trilogy begun with City for Ransom, and I revived him for my Titanic 2012. He's great, but my Dr. Jessica Coran, ME, FBI is my favorite lady and my biggest bread-winner with my 12 book Instinct Series begun with Killer Instinct. Then there's Annie of ANNIE's War...wow, hard decision. 

 
7.  Speaking of writing, tell us how to achieve success in the ebook market.  Millions are writing ebooks these days.  There's more selection, more authors, out there than ever before.  How do you sell your books and get your name known in that sea of confusion?


I treat Twitter and Facebook as moving rivers in the floating opera of social media...taking the position that since it is floating by and never the same folks on the lazy river at the same time, I have no compunction of putting up information on my Kindle books so that as the river goes by my place onshore, the billboard is up and I am fanning the fires. No time for modesty. I go to my Amazon page and from there use the link buttons taking the book to Twitter and Facebook and now Pinterest more than once a day. I will introduce it with some smart, clever remarks or joke or self-deprecation actually as in "Some people say it is a crime that I write crime novels." I also urge folks to see my blog work at www.speakwithoutinterruption.com   and on my Tips page on Facebook found at Robert W. Walker (Rob)  and KDP Community forums under Voice of the Author - find my humongous forum entitled and misspelled as "What Moves Kindle Books off the Shelf". Lots of great advice there. Of course Title, Cover Art, book descript have to be perfect to begin with and the quality of the work. The execution...it is all in the execution.

 
8.  So what's on the drawing board next for you.  You're next book is going to be something totally new?   Or another book out of a continuing series?  Any potential for a book being converted into a movie?  A TV series?


I am going back to the Crime Novel...starting with a few notions, doing some research on "threat assessment" and have an idea for a title, unsure of main character but s/he will be a threat assessment detective...one whose job it is is literally to predict behavior and crime before it happens. He does not always get it right but she tries... Title or sub-title will involve the killer - The Fear Collector. Been kicking it over for a while in back of my head but had to finish Annie's War first. I tend to make more money with the crime novels, so it is back to contemporary crime.

The serial novel experiment

My current project (added, of course, to the two or three other projects I'm also working on);  writing a cross-genre serial novel.

One night not so dark and dreary (actually it was about 101 degrees F. at 9 pm on a Wednesday night) in popped an idea/character I couldn't push back into a 'Maybe I'll Look At It Later' memory file.  The first thing to pop into my head was a name.  A character who called himself Agnastas Hoolia.

Agnastas Hoolia.  A four hundred year old field agent for the Inter Dimensional Magic Bureau.  A generic cross between a Jason Bourne spy and a quasi-Harry Potter like wizard.

Overlapping genres of YA Adventure and a Spy Thriller.  A character who would appeal both to young readers and to adults.  Throw in some genuine adventure, some magic, some nifty Steampunk era gadgets (thus making it a kind of Sci/Fi hybird) and some truly outrageous characters . . . and maybe, just maybe . . . voila!  A novel/potential series that might stir the interest of a large reading audience.

Agnastas is a wizard.  A Class II wizard working for a inter-dimensional bureau composed of a number of wizard clans dedicated in protecting the multi-universe from Dark Magic.  Yes, Maynard;  I said multi-universes.  Like in multiple Earths . . . multiple Mars, etc.  Of course each Earth, for instance,  looks remarkably like the Earth we all are familiar with.  But each is not exactly a copy of Earth.  So (hint, hint . . .) there is the aspect of Time Travel involved.

The idea idea is to write the novel as a four-part serial.  Each one that can be both independently read and yet be related to the previous one.  Each comes out as in ebook format, but in in the end, maybe offering the completed novel both as an ebook and as a paperback.

Ah . . . but more!  What I have in mind is to have each segment of the overall novel including
artwork within the text.  Black and white ink drawings illustrating a scene or two from out of the current segment.  We (the artist and me) are working on the ink drawings as we speak.  I've got six images in mind.  As with most of my other projects, the Spanish brothers Javier and Jesus Carmona are the talented artists working with me on this project.  Good men both.  And brilliant artists as well.

Jesus is working on the pen and ink drawings.  Javier did the color work (well, to be truthful, being as close as these two brothers are, I'm sure ideas for each piece of  work have flowed back and forth like a fast moving river).

We're very close getting the first segment ready to go.  My idea is to bring a serial part out every three weeks.  Doing it this way might generate some interest for the segments to come.   Each segment will be roughly 22,000 to 25,000 words in length.

Gee, it would be nice to find a publishing house interested in this project. (sigh, writers always bitch about this.  Always.)  And maybe one will drop by as the series progresses.  Or not.
So tell me what you think.  Think maybe this project has legs?  Maybe it's a dead duck on the drawing board and needs a quiet but honorable death? 

Hmmm . . .