Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 52

Thanksgiving

(Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth, Massachusetts)

We are on the eve of Thanksgiving. We must be. Christmas ornaments decorate the stores and advertising for Black Friday is at a high pitch. Stuck between these forces must be that grand old holiday we call Thanksgiving.

As holidays go, Thanksgiving has done an admirable job of pushing back on the forces of commerce. The simplicity of that first colonial harvest remains pretty much intact: turkey, gravy, stuffing, pies…and afternoon football. Unless you count turkey farmers and cranberry growers, few have managed to cash-in on the fourth Thursday in November.

Yet, if Thanksgiving remains insulated from commerce, what the heck happened to Christmas and who the hell was at the controls when we let Black Friday become elevated to high holiday recognition?

Well, I believe I have the answer and it’s a matter that should be of interest to every royalty receiving writer.

Think about it. Who benefits most from the ridiculous expansion of the Christmas season? Malls get an earlier start, but does the longer season mean more sales? No. Earlier sales, maybe; more sales? Doubtful. Do Hallmark or Russell Stover, or Sony and Samsung sell more because the season begins prematurely? Again, no.

The way I see it, there is one group of beneficiaries who must be working quietly behind the scenes in an effort to high-jack Christmas Day. The culprits? Holiday music copyright owners. Yes, I am talking about the likes of Jose Feliciano, Burl Ives, and Marvin and the Chipmunks (or their heirs). These are the people raking it in as a result of this hyper-extended consumerism.

Walmart may be rushing the start of the season, but my bet is that there is a radio station in every town across this nation that is beating them to the punch with the onset of Holiday Tunes that will last right up to the first of the new year.

When you put it in these terms, whose going to raise a stink about a little extra Rudolph, White Christmas, and Jingle Bell Rock?

In the end, we find ourselves right back where we started, acquiescing on the ridiculous encroachment of the holiday season as we pass the gravy, help ourselves to some stuffing, and celebrate a secular day of thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

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Miami Book Fair – the good, the bad . . .

The Miami Book Fair is behind me and I think it will be my last. Sharon Potts, the MWA Fla chapter president, did a wonderful job of getting the mystery writers into the main building and our mystery panels were excellent. She deserves our thanks. They weren’t panels like in SleuthFest where those on the panel discuss questions put to them by a moderator. Instead, each writer gets a certain amount of time to talk on whatever he/she wants. Diane Stuckart did a great job at keep panelists to their allotted time on my panel. No easy task when dealing with three writers who like to talk!

I was on a 2 p.m. panel with Neil Plakcy and Tim Dorsey. Tim went first and gave antidotes of his book signing tours. Had the room laughing. Neil talked about his new dog mystery series and read from one of the chapters. Audience ate it up like a pair of slippers! I talked about the difficulties of writing a crime/mystery series in Key West, where crime is minor (usually). I got a few laughs where I had hoped, so I guess some in the room liked what I had to say.

The reason this was my last trip to the fair had to do with two things. I had heard from the fair PR people and sent books to NPR at the PR’s request and was told I’d be interviewed. Never happened. When I went out with Neil and Tim to sign, I signed three books and then had six people come to ask if I had books because they didn’t have any at the bookstore table. All they ordered were three? Maybe they had a box of 100 somewhere, but it didn’t do me any good!

I did get to meet Jeffrey Siger, who was looking for me because our mutual friend Leighton Gage had told him to say hi. Sharon Potts and James Grippando formed that panel. All the MWA sponsored panels were well received.

I don’t mean to be a sour apple, but the ride to Miami from Key West takes a good three hours+, plus the cost of gas, food, the hotel and the books I had to send to the fair, all added up to much more than what good three book sales got me! I did get to see old friends and new friends and hear some interesting panels, but, if I go again, I will go as part of the audience and make it a day trip and maybe drop some bookmarks on the chairs in the panelist room. I think that might do me more good than this past trip did.

www.michaelhaskins.net

Tim Dorsey, Neil Plakcy, Michael Haskins

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I love her, wait, I hate her…

By Mike Jastrzebski

Seventeen years ago today Mary and I bought our 36′ Islander sailboat, and trust me, my life has never been the same.

If you were to ask me if owning a boat is good or bad, I’d have to say it depends on the day. In fact, sometimes it depends on the hour. You see, owning this boat has been a love/hate relationship like none other that I’ve experienced in all my life.

On the good days, and there are plenty of those, I can honestly say I wouldn’t trade this lifestyle for a mansion in Beverly Hills. But it’s the bad days that get to me.

I curse more than I ever did before I had the boat. I’ve got more scars and aches and pains from working in the confined spaces of Rough Draft. And finally, there’s the cost of maintaining an old boat. If you’re not a boater you wouldn’t believe the drain Rough Draft has been on our bank account.

But that is the reality of owning an old boat. Had I known seventeen years ago what I know now, would I have bought the boat, or any boat? Maybe, but things have worked out for the best. Today I’ve got a great wife, a good dog and an old boat. What more could a nonconformist and a wanderer ask for in life?

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Social requires an effort for me

Writing my blog over dinner at Tavee2 Guest House in Bangkok

by Christine Kling

Social media, that is. See, I know I should do it. But what I seem to do is I post in fits and starts. I’ll decide I need to share what I’m doing with the rest of the world, and then I’ll tweet and post on Facebook regularly for several days – or even weeks. Then I withdraw back into my cave again and I ignore Facebook, Twitter, et al.

Wait a minute. I think most of my friends and family would say I do the same in the real face to face world, too. When my son went off to college, he was the one who called me finally and said, “Mom, you never writer, you never call…”

I don’t know why social stuff is so difficult for me, but I have got to get over it. Every indicator shows that deft use of social media, including real interaction with readers, creates die-hard fans. Hey, I’ve been on both sides of that equation. I’m a fan of many writers, and I LOVE reading their thoughtful, quirky posts and seeing pics from their lives. But saying clever stuff is HARD!

I follow Amanda Hocking on Twitter and I consider her the queen of Twitter. She NEVER posts something like “Buy my books.” She’s just smart and quirky and funny. Her personality really shines through. I would love to be that good at this stuff.

So here’s my vow. I’m going to try over the next four weeks (while I’m traveling) to post on Facebook and Tweet every day (assuming I have access to the Internet). I won’t just send along a travelogue because that’s not what this blog is about. I’m on this trip to do research, and while I was in Reno, my sister asked me – what exactly does that mean?

You know when people say that the setting of their book almost became another character? It’s always been that way for me. Even the plot turns around the setting. But now, for the first time, I’m writing about places that I don’t know intimately. So that’s what I’m here for.

And at the moment, I am one tired puppy. It’s 6:00 p.m. Friday Bangkok time, which means it is 6:00 a.m. Friday, Florida time. I left my hotel in San Francisco on Wednesday morning and spent the whole day playing in the city, then caught my plane and 24 hours of flying and lay overs, I arrived here. I haven’t slept in two days, and I can’t believe I am actually typing this blog while downing my second Singha.

But back to doing research and sharing what I’m doing with you all. As usual, serendipity is already playing a big part. Anyone who read Circle of Bones knows that I have a thing for submarines. So, while wandering the waterfront in San Fran, I found a great Maritime Museum with a WWII sub, the USS Pompanito. I took the audio tour and tons of notes. It was fantastic standing down below next to the torpedo tubes and the engines and the radio room. Then I saw the size of the command center. Bingo – my plot took a new turn.

Then when I was walking the waterfront, I head a head boat huckster calling out “Ride under the Golden Gate and around Alcatraz for $15! How could I resist? San Francisco was having one of her rare, beautiful sunny, windless days and the bay was calling to me. And during that cruise, the skipper said something about Alcatraz escapees that gave me another idea – and the plot changed again.

And now I’m sitting here eating my spicy Thai food, eyes watering, sniffling, and soaking up the atmosphere of the people out on the street. Tomorrow, I’ll head for the weekend market. I use Evernote on my iPhone to take audio notes and I snap loads of pictures. I’ll refer back to the photos later when I want to add local color.

So, it’s time for me to turn in and get ready for the upcoming days of exploring new places, taking photos, learning new historical details, and filling out the rest of this plot outline. I hope I can make it up to my third floor room before I pass out.

Fair winds!

Christine

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Silver linings…

Rather than images of destruction, I bring you Sunshine and Lollipops.

C.E. Grundler

As the numbers roll in, the toll that Sandy has taken continues to mount. The cost of this storm, in lives lost, of homes , businesses, and infrastructure destroyed, is staggering. But seeing the devastation first-hand, not only seeing it at every turn but being unable to escape it, is something the news footage and numbers can’t convey.

The region was hit hard. There are so many pictures I could take to show the extent of the damage, but aside from my own home, I can’t bring myself to snap a single shot. I don’t want to document this destruction. Even as I see the pictures online, I see once familiar places reduced to rubble. But through it all, there is a silver lining I’ve seen more times than I can count in recent days. It’s people pulling together to help one another rebuild, and the strength of communities to rally around those most affected. Quite simply, it is hope.

I suppose times like these force many of us to stop, whether we’d planned to or not, and re-evaluate our priorities. New friendships are forged as people who might otherwise never pause to notice one another join forces to set things back to right. It’s ironic that the book I’d been writing revolved around a hurricane that involved evacuations and a moderate storm surge, and that writing has been put on the back burner by the real thing. And it’s ironic that my boat, the perpetual ‘project boat’, is in better shape than most every other boat around me. But in the wake of this storm, I find my days full from morning to night, working along the water, helping to get other boats repaired. And while my writing and work on my own boat may have to take a back seat for now, I’m certain that when all is said and done, everything will rise stronger from this experience.

 

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Books & Bars

A couple of weeks ago, Jimmy Buffett’s ParrotHead Clubs held its Meeting of the Minds (MOTM) here in Key West. They’ve come for the past years the first week of November and it makes for a wild, colorful weekend of Trop Rock music in my favorite bars and some strange men and women in colorful clothing and hats! Less hats this year, but a lot of tropical shirts and dresses.

My friend, and fellow writer, John Cunningham arranged a MOTM sanctioned book signing at the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon and invited me to join him. I did one last year, at the invite of singer-songwriter Scott Kirby (I used his song title Free Range Institution for one of my KW mysteries). I didn’t do too well and learned that books and bars don’t mix. Not in my case, anyway. I did give away a lot of bookmarks and saw a bump in my Kindle sales a week to ten-days later.

We set up at 1 pm  on a Friday and that lead me right into the saloon’s North of Havana, Cigar Club Social, that we hold most Friday happy hours. I think I sold six books and I’m not sure John did much better.

John’s second book in his Key West series has just been released: Green to Go. The series featuring disgraced financier Buck Reilly, is a good read. I think John has a hit on his hands. His books are available on Amazon as Kindle and trade paperback, just like mine are. www.michaelhaskins.net.

 

Here’s a little more about Green to Go.

GREEN TO GO

synopsis

Buck Reilly went to hell and back in Red Right Return. In Green To Go, it’s a one-way trip. Good news turns bad fast, and the bad just keeps coming in this thrilling new Buck Reilly adventure. The unexpected contents of his parent’s Swiss bank account offer Buck a chance to dig himself out of the hole he’s been in since the recession hit, but first he must recover the treasure maps and clues he lost at sea. Those plans get put on hold when a friend is accused of orchestrating the biggest theft in Key West’s sordid history, and the FBI uses Buck’s past against him to demand that he search for the thieves who fled aboard a hundred year-old schooner.

No good deed goes unpunished, and Buck’s dogged by greed and double-crosses from Key West to the Bahamas and points south. His hunt for the missing treasure pits him against a crazed mercenary, Peruvian rebels, rogue Cuban Secret Police and a beautiful woman torn between turning Buck over to the authorities or succumbing to his charm.

Buck Reilly wants only three things out of life: A plane to fly, a treasure to find, and a beautiful woman to rescue. He got his chance at all three in the first of John H. Cunningham’s thriller series, RED RIGHT RETURN, but those interests get turned against him in GREEN TO GO. Set against the stunning scenery and freaky fabulousness of the Florida Keys, Cunningham joins the ranks of Carl Hiaasen, Randy Wayne White and Papa himself in a rich new series for thrill seekers everywhere.

But Buck Reilly’s no ordinary hero. A product of his times and ours, too, he’s laying low and trying to fly under the radar in the aftermath of economic catastrophe. Back in his bad old days on Wall Street, Buck ran e-Antiquity, plundering the world’s treasures, (and a few of his investors’ pockets) for some pretty handsome profit. He wasn’t a bad guy back then, he just didn’t know any better. But life turned ugly when the market crashed, the company cratered and the FBI investigated the bankruptcy. When his marriage ended and his parents were killed in a car crash, Buck found out for certain that business wasn’t just business anymore.

These days, Buck’s a lot like the rest of us—trying to make ends meet and hoping for better times. He operates The Last Resort Charter and Salvage Company, flying a 1946 amphibious Grumman Widgeon, hunting for sunken treasure and taking on an occasional passenger, no questions asked. But when he faces down the dark forces of Santero priests, the underbelly of the Havana underworld and a pissed-off FBI agent, Buck has nothing but ingenuity, guts and his ancient flying boat to save his skin, and the lives he put in peril. GREEN TO GO is the second book in the series. For more information see: www.jhcunningham.com of find John on Facebook and Twitter.

At the MOTM 2012 in Key West

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The truth about living on a boat

By Mike Jastrzebski

To set the record straight, we’ve been living aboard Rough Draft for nine years now and most of the time I love living on a boat. At this stage in my life I can’t envision living in an apartment or even a house. I like the people I meet and the places we’ve traveled to, but if you’re thinking of taking the plunge here are some of the realities we’ve had to face during our time living aboard.

Besides the boat projects that never seem to end, I think my biggest complaint about living aboard is space. However, it’s not the space confines of living within ten steps of my wife Mary 24/7 that troubles me, it’s having to dig through the cupboards and storage boxes everytime I need something.

Whether it’s digging through a tool cabinet that holds twice the tools it’s made to hold, or reaching for a sheet of paper, something’s got to be moved first. When you live on a boat space is a precious commodity.

As a writer I depend on the internet for research, promoting my books, and the news. It’s sometimes hard to get good internet service. We spent six years in Ft. Lauderdale and while there we had a phone line run to the boat for DSL service and had fast dependable service, but let’s face it, the idea of living on a boat is to travel, and that’s when the service gets a little iffy.

In Mobile, Alabama we depended on phone service in the office. We had to share the phone with all of the other boaters and as can be expected the service was slow. When we left Mobile we bought an internet card and picked up some speed over a phone line, but reception depended a lot on location.

Our current location, Harbortown Marina outside of Cape Canaveral, offers free internet with docking, but weekends I get faster connections by using my iPad and the 3G connection. At anchor we use the Linx wifi booster. Wifi in the Bahamas is about $100 a month, and again when there are a lot of boats in an anchorage service is slow.

If you like to watch TV it can be a problem. A lot of marinas are out of the way and when you’re at anchor, especially in Key West and the Bahamas, you might as well forget it.

Finally, whatever you think it’s going to cost you to live on a boat, double it. The truth is you’re going to be living in a harsh environment and things will go wrong. That pump you replaced last year, it may go down again. Fuel goes bad, stainless rusts, props get clogged. It’s all a fact of life with living on a boat.

Now I’m not trying to discourage anyone from moving onto a boat. If we didn’t find more positives than negatives to the lifestyle we wouldn’t have lived this way for nearly ten years, but you need to be aware of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just be prepared for the reality of the life.

So now that I’ve finished writing this post I think I’ll grab a cup of coffee and go sit in the cockpit and enjoy the good. I’ll leave the bad and the ugly until later.

 

 

 

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Lucky

by Christine Kling

I’ve been seeing this word “luck” again and again recently – and used by people who don’t seem to be all that lucky. In C.E.’s post yesterday, she described a multitude of natural disasters from 100-year storms to earthquakes to killer trees, and yet she said she feels lucky. If you have been watching the coverage of Super Storm Sandy, you’ve seen the people standing next to a pile of rubble that used to be their home, and yet they describe themselves as lucky because their families escaped uninjured. Alice Seybold titled her 2002 memoir Lucky about the brutal rape and beating she endured as an 18-year-old college freshman. Michael J. Fox wrote his memoir about learning to live with Parkinson’s Disease and titled it Lucky Man. Even Google asks us if we’re feeling lucky each time we search for something on the Internet.

According to Wikipedia, there are two ways of looking at this concept of luck: one is prescriptive meaning that there is some force in the universe, either fate, karma or some supernatural power that can make one lucky, and the other is descriptive, when people say after the fact that this event that was out of their control was either lucky or unlucky.

A British psychologist Richard Wiseman proposed in his book The Luck Factor that having good luck is something that can be learned as explained in the article I’ve linked to. He noted that lucky people tend to see the best in every situation, and they remain flexible and open to new ideas. It’s clear to me that people like C.E. will always be lucky because of how they see the world.

Tonight I spoke at the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club and I showed slides with my talk. I titled my talk “30 Years of Sailing in 30 Minutes” because I know how much people want to go home on a work night. I said in the beginning of my talk that I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people in the world. I get to write these stories I love, and I get to do lots of sailing. But it’s not just sailing. On Saturday, I am taking off on a trip that will take me to Thailand and the Philippines. I will be gone for 5 weeks doing research on my next book. I’m just taking a backpack and a couple of Lonely Planet guide books and I’m off to have an adventure like Riley would.

This will be my second trip to Thailand. In 2009, I flew to Bangkok after my mother had a stroke while traveling, and though her condition was frustrating and sad, I still feel lucky to have had the chance to visit Thailand. I fell in love with the country and her people and decided then that I would set my next book there. Many Thai people are Buddhist and while Buddha taught against the idea of luck, Thai people will give offerings to monks and ask for a blessing to bring them luck.

Part of me is a little bit frightened by this trip. I will be very far from home and all alone. I fear getting sick most of all. But to me, fear of the unknown is part of what makes it thrilling. And besides, I know I’m pretty damn lucky.

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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It’s a matter of perspective…

C.E. Grundler

First, the ‘SuperStorm’, Sandy. Then there was an earthquake, right in my neck of the woods. I kid you not. And now, six inches of snow on top of the already weakened trees, downed power lines, and tarp covered homes like mine. At this rate, I’m almost expecting to see locusts in the upcoming weather forecasts for New Jersey and the surrounding states. Last night I spent wakeful hours listening to the driving snow and 60 mph gusts batter the house. This morning began with mopping up where the storm found its way in to my kitchen and spare bedroom, which had been my home office. And yet, relatively speaking, I’m feeling pretty lucky these days, which seems to surprise most everyone who sees our home.

Minutes before the tree came down the radio reported the storm about to worsen, so my daughter and I decided to take the dogs out for what we imagined would their last walk for the night. Normally we take them out back, but she suggested they get down to business faster out front. We were standing in the lawn as the wind made an eerie moan, and dogs in tow, we bolted back to the house just as there was a terrifying crash and leaves showered down around us. We rushed inside to discover the damage. Had we gone out back, rushing back to the house at the very same moment we had, we would have been directly under the tree as it hit.

So yes, I feel extremely lucky. And I feel lucky that we still have most of our roof over our heads, which is so much more than so many others affected by the storm. The house can and will be rebuilt, while staggering numbers of homes throughout the region are beyond repair or gone entirely. Our home is still here, still livable, and my boat is one of the few in my region that survived, even as so many of the marinas around me were completely devastated. When I hear the news speak of the ‘victims of Sandy’ I realize that technically, I’m one of them. But I don’t feel that way. I feel lucky. Very lucky. And now that things are under coming under control here, I’m heading out, doing what I can to help others out there who weren’t as lucky.

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Thank You John Adams

The presidential election is over.  And we survived.  At least I think we did.  

Who imagined that a whole nation would be so very pleased to now return to the standard fare of TV ads.  Ivory Soap, Cialis, Viagra, who knew we’d miss you so much.

And if you have ever wondered why there aren’t more political thrillers or mysteries, the answer is simple – we’ve been exposed to far too much of the real thing.

There are structural problems, too, that sway us from writing political fiction.  Truly, what kind of story do you have if there is never any resolution?  What does an author craft with characters who rarely evolve? And what of the underlying problem of needing to find at least one protagonist to advance a narrative?

But before I go too far on this riff I will be the first to admit to being spoiled.  Just as we may lament about an entitled youth, we easily forget the freedom our successful electoral process guarantees.  As authors and readers we should be the first to recognize the freedoms we enjoy, rooted in our ability to write and express without fear of government control. 

There is no question that $1B worth of negative advertising leaves us fatigued and wary. But election day, even more than the 4th of July, underscores our liberty. I am reminded of the words John Adams shared with his wife in one of his letters to Abigail back in 1780. 

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

Thank you John Adams.

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