M. Saylor Billings's Blog, page 3

I can toe-tally explain. I haven't posted in a couple of ...

I can toe-tally explain. I haven't posted in a couple of weeks because I was busy!  I published the third O Line book, "The Rot is Deep"  as you can see here:


  This is the cover of Book 3 and you can buy them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble in print or e-readers.  But then I got a wild hair up there and decided to publish all the books on Smashwords for all the other e-readers. "Oh but Saylor you published all 4 books in an entire new format, how ever did you do that in just 3 weeks?"
"Because I am a publishing machine!"  Actually, it's mainly because we moved last year and I have made only 1 friend in town who is probably getting very sick of inviting me to dinner.  (Sorry Joe, reciprocal dinner coming soon! We even bought a kitchen table.)

Hold up a tic, did I say 4 books?  Why yes, I did. And thanks for catching it.  I've republished the satirical self-help guide, Nobody, really, Likes You. (It got 5 stars from an amazon reviewer in it's earlier version.)  I had pulled the book due to the asinine nature of the earlier publishers, which will go unnamed here.  I thought since in Book 3, Lorna finally publishes a book, it might be fun to actually have that book available to readers.

 So it's a book written for reality television stars by a fictional  character who is going to tell them what's what.  Yes, I did that. I wrote a book, in character, for people who make fools of themselves in front of the whole world, on "tape".  And it's funny.

Margaret and Grandma

            Margaret looked at her watch again, the heat of the day had broke but it was still a sweltering 92 degrees according to the pink flamingo thermometer that stuck out of the rocks that lined the driveway of her Grandma’s car port.  She heard the air conditioner kick on inside the trailer as she stared at the cat, “Cat”, inside the kitchen window.   Cat licked his paw and rubbed it against his nose.   Margaret felt both pity and envy toward Cat.  She generally felt pity for the beast but in 98 degrees the envy won out and she began to secretly loathe him, sitting in the cool air conditioning so smugly.      After two hours of waiting Margaret had enough and was opening her car door to leave when she saw the white PT Cruiser that swayed along the narrow lane, sauntering past the other car ports and swung it’s wide girth into the car port and smack the back wall where Margaret had folded the lawn chair.  The car was put into reverse and made a jerking motion backward.  After a moment her Grandma flung open the driver side door and swung her legs out.  Grasping the inside door handle to balance herself she pulled herself out of the car.       “Why’d you put the chair in my way?”  Margaret’s grandma blamed her for the incident.     “I put it back where I got it from.”  Margaret answered.     “Are you saying I put that chair in the middle of the car port?  How’d I do that when I had parked the car here?”     “I have to go Grandma, I’ve been waiting here for two hours for you in this heat.”     “Well that was stupid.  Why didn’t you leave?  Clearly I wasn’t home.”  Her grandma laughed at her.     “Why didn’t you answer your cell phone?  I called you three times.”     “I know that, Dummy.  I got the phone right here.  But they won’t let you use your phone in the church.”     Margaret paused with the car door open and one leg poised on the drivers side floorboard.  Church?  She did say church.  She looked back at her grandma who was smiling and waving a fanned out wad of cash at her doing a little side-to-side dance sway.  She robbed the church, Margaret thought.  Margaret slammed the car door shut and looked around at the other trailers as she hurried over to her Grandma and pulled her cash waving arm down.     “Did you rob a church?”  She whispered between paranoid clenched teeth.  “Did you take money from their collection offering?”     “No you dummy, I beat them at their own game.  Bingo.  The jackpot too, they thought they were going to take my twenty dollars but I showed them!”     Margaret sighed, the heat had gotten to her and she felt a little dizzy.  Her grandma pulled her arm from Margaret’s grip.     “I’m going inside, it’s hot as hell out here.”Margaret looked back at her own car.     “Are you coming in or should we go out to eat?  I’ll pay.”  Grandma was making her way inside the trailer as Cat scrambled out of the window.  Margaret followed her reluctantly, she was angry about something and it was making her dizzy, she needed to sit down and have some water in the air conditioning and she was a little, if not a lot, curious.     “Do you go to play bingo a lot now?”  She asked wanting to get the story.     “No.  Just today.  Of course they want you to stick around and pay for their crappy dinner and then pray with them or some such shit and then give the money all back.  But I said to hell with that - take the money and run.”  Grandma slammed the refrigerator door and gave a yelp of mirth and popped open a can of beer.     Margaret put her face between her hands and said, “May I have a glass of water?”     “You want a beer?”     “No, just some water from the tap is fine.”  Margaret said calmly.     “Where do you want to eat? Let’s really do it up, how about Applebee’s?  We’ll get appetizers.”  Grandma schemed as she slid the water glass to Margaret.     “Grandma, I don’t think they’ll let you back in there...” Margaret stopped short and backed away from that can of worms she just unleashed.  “I’d rather go to the steak house.  I mean if you’re going to really do it up let’s do it right.”     Grandma’s eyes became slits behind her thick glasses.  She paused, probably thinking of the Applebee’s incident, Margaret thought.     “Yes.  But let me put some lipstick on and pee.”  Grandma said as she turned to go back to the bathroom.  Cat came out from behind the couch and Margaret fed the beast.       “So how much did you win?”  She called out as she stroked Cat.     “Five hundred smackarooons!”  Grandma yelled back.     “Are you going back?”  Margaret asked.     “Hell no! That’s how they get ‘ya.  What’s that song?  You got to know when to fold ‘em.”       “Grandma’s a card shark.”  Margaret quietly said to Cat.     “What?”     “I’m glad you had a good day.”  Margaret called back as Grandma reappeared into the room.     “No your not.  You’re mad because you stuck around here while I was cooling my heels getting free money.  And now you’re going to make me pay by making me take you to the steak house. ”     “No, Grandma, I’m really glad you won.  Next time I’ll just know not to stick around and wait for you.  That’s all.  Where did you say you won it, which church?”     “Those fish eaters off of the main drag there.”     “You mean the Catholic church, Saint John’s?”     “The one with those do gooder nun’s.  The one’s that are always trying to convert those Indians.”     “Saint Catherines.”     “Yeah.  Their probably just trying to get into the casino business.”     Margaret put her head down to suppress a laugh and inhaled deeply.  As she moved to the door she added, “You may be right, Catholics are trying to take the Indians casino business.”     “Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition smart ass?”  Grandma added as she made her way down the steps.     “I’ll drive.”  Margaret said as she closed the trailer door behind her.

Fear of Food Touching

I’ve been outlining some character ideas for a new novel and something, as ‘something’ always does, sidetracked me.  Character quirks.  Everybody has their own character quirks and it’s funny to see them reflected back to us in a story.  Character is the motivational force of how I work through plots.  And for the upcoming story I’m hashing out here the quirks are essential to the story. But for so long I have kept silent about my own and what I now found out to be a relatively harmless character quirk. But let me just say at the outset here, if you have this same quirk or issue and it is disrupting your life in an unproductive manner you should seek professional help from a licensed mental health professional.
I have Brumotactillophobia, fear of food touching.  I don’t think the world is going to end if my chicken touches my broccoli but, honestly, I may not eat my meal if they do.  It’s not that I’d rather go hungry but I physically can’t put those foods in my mouth without my gag reflex involuntarily kicking into high gear.  This truth has been with me for as long as I can remember.  I’ve always gone to great lengths to hide this faulty wiring thing in my brain.  Generally, if I’m a guest at someone’s house and am offered a plate of food I would simply eat the top portion of what was on my plate or I’d eat the outside facing parts.  When I’d have guests over I’d carefully load my plate, instead of eating off a separate plate for each food group or hauling out my adult sized separator plate. I’m very careful about not making other people uncomfortable about this weirdness.  That is my issue, not theirs. 
For a long time I thought it was just me with this quirky brain bend.  I did not grow up with weird food rules from my parents.  My family loves to eat -- the more people, the more food, the more good times were had.  Both my parents were good cooks and bakers.  My father was making homemade breads and cinnamon rolls decades before it became a fashionable thing to do.  I wasn’t abused by or with food so this is all on me.  So, what’s with my mild OCD with touching food?  Is this a gateway psychological defect?  Am I going to end up with severe food disorder?
No.  I talked this over with a couple of friends, one of whom just happens to be a psychiatrist.  The other one is a systems analyst, for the record.  Turns out this ‘no food touching’ thing is very common, and happens on a sliding scale of severity.  There are a variety of reasons and/or inciting incidents and/or brain chemistry causes for not wanting your food to touch.  Mine is taste and tactile.  I can’t eat boiled eggs, but I like egg salad sandwiches. I can’t eat raw tomatoes but I like spaghetti sauce. I don’t eat soup. I don’t eat ice cream, but I like malted shakes and fruit in yogurt.  The list goes on. But it doesn’t cripple my daily food intake. I don’t find myself under duress if I order a salad and a boiled egg comes with it. (Well okay, I generally take out the egg and the pieces of lettuce it has touched.) I don’t freak out and run away screaming if someone offers me soup. But if it’s a soup with raisins in it, I really might. Why would anyone in their right mind offer up a bowl of soggy food with Satan’s testicles in it?
But I digress.  I was glad to find out I didn’t need to be hospitalized or medicated.  So now I can continue exploring mild OCD brain blips and add them to my story characters.

New Websites.

Okay. It's done. New websites for  The O Line Mysteries and Billibatt are up and running.  I redirected the old URL's for the wordpress blog sites.

Aaah Technology, you are such a two faced, ponzi scheming, steaming pile of shit.  But what can I do?  You're like family now,  I hate you because I need you.  I want to stay away from you because you reflect my truth and you cut me to my wick.  You force me to think in foreign languages and conquer your quixotic ways using my evil genius which I should be using to harness the sun's power using tanning lotion and cat litter.  I committed a big marketing slash publishing sin by not putting on the links to other websites and blogs. Pfft. I'll get to it.  How important could that be? (hint to newbies reading this: very important. Don't listen to me, newbies,  I've been reading code for about 24 straight hours.)

Yay! zzzzzzzzzzz.

Up yours iweb.

Remember a few weeks ago, after the LCC convention and then you didn't hear from me for a while?  Well that's because I was busy with the final drafts of book 3 and blowing up computers again, this time it was my laptop. I know, I work the little engines to death. Back around 2007 when I was doing the t.v. thing with the television show and the documentaries and I was preparing to podcast The O Line's I was overjoyed to discover iweb. Because I was sick of coding, and html, java whatever. SHUT UP! Just give me a WYSIWYG! Enter the iweb. Plug and play, fischer-price toys for adults, I'll take it.
So fast forward to last month when I killed the mac lap-top.  I go to buy another one. Well, first I tried to fix it with a new hard drive...I might as well have eaten a 100 dollar bill, at least I would have some fiber from that effort. Anyway.  At the Apple store the conversation went like this:
Me:  Well, I'm worried about my website. I really need to update it and do a bunch of stuff to it has Mac up dated iweb at all?
Overfriendly associate: (Eyes glaze over.): We're discontinuing iweb.  (Voice lowers) It's kind of a thing, you might want to transfer that.
Me: What the hell?
Oa: Yeah. People are kinda angry about it.
Ya' think?

So, for all you other podcasters who have oh, say, 50 podcasts up and running do not fret. Wordpress.  That's all I'm saying. Wordpress.
I've been dreading, and I mean sick to my stomach about it kind of dreading, redoing 2 websites. I even fleetingly considered forgoing the whole thing.  But as we speak I'm loading up the new website and it's about 1/3 of the trouble I thought it would be.  1/3 because a: I have to do it in the first place and b: I have to learn how this little gadget works.

I say unto you iweb users, do not freak out. I'm sure there are a lot of other WYSIWYG sites to help but I'm kinda lovin' the wordpress.  And every time I get stuck I just google the issue and thankfully there are others out there who have posted how to's and solutions.

Dust and Shadow

FINALLY!  Book 3 is done.  But before I get to all that, let me first tell you about what I am now reading:  Dust and Shadows by Lyndsay Faye.  The book came out in 2009.  The gist of it is Sherlock Holmes is on the trail of Jack the Ripper.  And that's all I'm going to say about the plot.
Overdone, you say? Tsk, tsk. It is written in the voice of Dr. Watson and written quite good in the voice I might add. I've read most of Sir Conan Doyle's works and Ms. Faye has nearly nailed it.  Sometimes I find it arduous to read Conan Doyle's work because of the dated language, whereas Faye's novel is less cumbersome.  I'm not taken out of the story by the words.  I'm sure some others have snubbed this but I find it enjoyable.  If you're a Sherlock fan then I think you really will enjoy this throwback.  And as it is possibly one of the most famous unsolved crimes, I'm really enjoying this suspension of disbelief of having Sherlock Holmes in the thick of it.  Clever twist.

Midwest Book Review is in!

The first book of the O Line was reviewed by Midwest Book Review :

"When justice fails, people take it into their own hands. "Saint Charles Place:  An O Line Mystery" is a novelization of the throwback to the Radio Drama, a podcast cult favorite.  M. Saylor Billings presents a humorous and exciting spin into the vigilante justice and the creative characters of Ohlone Island.  "Saint Charles Place: An O Line Mystery" is a fine read, not to be overlooked."

It's weird to read reviews of your own work. I was lucky that they were so even handed and kind.  They could have said, "What the hell is this shlock!"  or  "I could bespeaketh a derogatory remark if this twaddlewad rag deserved such impudence Lo! it does not even rise to the soles of my shoes!  Harumph!"  But a couple of words struck me a tad sideways.  The review said, "When justice fails" and "vigilante justice", I never thought of it that way, but yeah that's very true.  It is a humorous spin into vigilante justice...why didn't I think of that? 

LCC 2012 Banquet Dinner

I hate these things, banquet dinners at hotels.  The food is bad and I generally get stuck next to an absolute bore or worse and end up trying to make the best of a bad situation.  It's not that convention hotels have bad food it's just that it is impossible to make a good meal for 500+ people at the same time.  (Although this being Northern California I did see a lot of people eating at this one.) And when there is assigned seating everyone always put me next to the worst person because "Oh Saylor, you have such a good spirit with difficult people."  All ya'll are now on notice! 'Cause now I've had a taste now of what a good time a banquet dinner can be.  No more sitting me next to the shmo! No more dried chicken breast smothered with nasty sauce! Okay, here's what happened:

Now, I don't really know anyone from Adam or Eve at this thing.  I've met people, very nice people, but I wasn't planning ahead or really thinking ahead enough to realize I was walking into.  I get to the hotel and everyone is in groups around the bar and talking it up.  There's me, not making eye contact, not recognizing anyone specifically.  So I do the old playground act where you walk around as if you have a destination in mind hoping against hope an arm will reach out and stop you to chat. No such luck, I do a cursory lap and when I'm almost done with it, thinking: crap now what?  I catch Al - my breakfast buddy - out of the corner of my eye.  Al does this 'come on over' head bob at me and I think 'Oh no. Not Al.'  I'm kidding, I was so grateful I almost lost my cool.  Because you know, when you do the lap, you gotta play it cool.

So I sit down next to, are you ready for this?  William Kent Krueger.  Shut up! I kid you not!  I honestly didn't notice him at first because Al was wearing such an obnoxious tie I couldn't take my eyes off of it.  No seriously, Al looked like he got dressed in the throw away bin at the Goodwill store. And that's because Al is the most self-possessed person I've met since Phyllis Diller who, at the age of 90, was so smooth  she could be the most interesting woman in the world.  Anyway, what do you say to WKK?  I went with 'Hi, it's nice to meet you, I'm Saylor."  My other fleeting thought options were: Dude your shit is goooood and How the (F) did I get so (F-ing) lucky just now. So we chat for a few minutes, mainly about me and my little dog and pony books, because he's a pro at sighting crazy people and calming us down.

Things start to return to normal when another person shows up.  A librarian...here me out here.  Despite the much maligned librarians of yesteryear I happen to think a lot of librarians have a touch of super hero in them.  Good librarians know things.  Important, obscure, and if they don't know the answer, they know where to find it, things. So, I'm good with the librarian.  This night has just turned book geek epic for me.  I realize, somehow in my giddy daze, I'm going to be having dinner with the Sacramento Library Director, W.K.K., and the chair of Bouchercon 2013.  And if you don't know what Bouchercon is stop reading right now and get out.  You don't deserve to read the denouement of this blog.

So dinner is going fine, we're at a table of like 10 people.  I have no idea who the other people are but they all had a deer in the headlights look about them. (And honestly who of us can blame them.)  So midway through the wine pouring we hear Rivkah say "Yes, that's so profound."
WKK:   What is?
Rivkah:  Al just said, when the revolution comes you need someone who's not drinking.
              (Blank stares. What revolution?)
Al:         No I did not.
Rivkah:  Yes you did and it was very profound.
Al:  (blank look at Rivkah) I did not say that.
Rivkah:  That's okay, it's true.
WKK:    You're planning a revolution?
Al:          There's no revolution. I said, (enunciating) when you do the wine tour you're going to need someone who's not drinking.
EVERYONE:  Bwhahahahahahaha.

Okay, it was funnier in person.  But you know me, I'm not a gusher, not easily given to unearned praise and idol worship. I keeps ma' cards close to ma' chest.  But really is there anything better than when you feel like a fish out of water, and you happen upon people who are self-possessed and relaxed in their skin and they say, 'come over and sit by me?'  In that situation, there is no greater gift.

Of course you know what this means now.  It means no more playing grab ass with the writing.  I have to do my very best with this next book.  I have standards now. I've had the epic book geek dinner. I have something to live up to.  Some day these three people will look at me and say, "I remember when you were walking around LCC 2012 like a lost sheep and we had to round you up...".  And worse yet,  I'm going to have to reload my good ju-ju jar by volunteering for Al at the Bouchercon in 2013. Damn you Al, the breakfast buddy.

LCC 2012 Afternoon Panels

The panels on the 1st Saturday afternoon set of panels included:  Forensics, Private Eyes, and 20th Century Mysteries.  But I chose the Action! which was described as authors improvising from their own books.  I took that literally and couldn't understand how would one improvise their book? I mean, don't you already know what you've written?  BUT it turned out to be more of a pantomime, with a person reading from their works and the other authors acting it out.
Now then, I am not a ready laughter.  I'm generally more interested in how people have crafted their performance, the beats they take to set a story up, the body language, and I'm often worried for the performer.  Also, I'm not naive, these authors are here at the fan-o-rama to sell books, to meet their audience too, but don't kid yourself, they're here to sell books. All that to say this:  I have never laughed so hard at a panel or comedy performance as I did watching Harley play dead, a pant-less Parnell, Clive's fake phone conversation,  Bill as a "blind" date, Donna giving birth or whatever that was, and Robin confused as to which character she was - running back and forth across the stage - in every reading, she just kept getting so involved in the reading.
I'm still chuckling about this whole 'thing' that happened.  You know, you'd think there would be some ego, or self-awareness or at least some self-preservation involved with these 'well known' authors. But no, that's not what happened.  They all bought into what they were doing, which was to entertain us - lock, stock and six smoking barrels.  It was one of those things I wish I had video taped.  Lee Goldberg sat across the aisle from me and I heard him catch his breath and mutter:  Man, am I glad I sat this one out. His tone did not indicate he thought, because they were a bunch of asses up there, he meant because he wouldn't have wanted to miss watching it.
This whole thing could not have been planned, I don't think anyone could have guessed how unbelievably funny it would turn out to be.  Needless to say it went over the 45 minute time allotment.  But no one cared. Whoever the person running the panel was, they were smart to let this one keep going. I left with a sore face and somewhat nauseous stomach. My hats off to this gang of six.  Comedy is the hardest thing in the world to pull off.  A lot of the authors involved here use a lot of humor in their books and you can't 'write' a sense of humor, you just have to have it inside your brain.  The next time I want a comedy/mystery you better believe I am going to find a Harley Jane Kozak, Clive Rosengren, Parnell Hall, Bill Fitzhugh,  or a Donna Andrews first.  I think Robin was an odd person out in the comedy writing realm here but don't think for a minute I'm not going to find one of her books, because she gained my trust.
Here's a couple of snaps I took between gasping for breath.
 

So I missed the second set of panels.  Partly because of the absolute exhaustion I felt after watching the above.  The Panels included A Game show, Sex in mysteries, A talk about location, and more paranormal mysteries. Not that I was uninterested, especially in the game show panel, but I needed to get home and rest and change before the banquet.  Which p.s. involves Al - my breakfast buddy and talk of a revolution.
But first, at the lunch break I met Rochelle Staab.  She writes the Mind for Murder Mystery Series, the first of which Who do, Voodoo?  is out now.  Bruja Brouhaha will be out in August of this year.  I don't like to shill in this blog and I'm not a reviewer but since I completely busted through that boundary with the above paragraph's I'm adding one more.  I haven't read Who do, Voodoo but I've added it to my list because when someone says something off the cuff funny I take notice. We were sitting around chit chatting about what attracts people to others or something like that and Rochelle says off-handed, "Yeah, I don't know what it is people see in one another, why they fall in love, it's always some (insert eyeroll) tragic reason."   It was such a smart and funny summation of the conversation, so yeah, I'm going to follow this one closely as well.

LCC Saturday Morning Panels

I opted for the YouTubing of Film panel.  No, it doesn't have a lot to do with writing or reading mysteries but it did have a lot to say about how we receive, access, and digest entertainment. I thought this panel could have been called: Is it democratization or the Big Dogs vs. The Dog and Pony Shows?  And who better to lead this panel but Lee Goldberg who has written in for the page and screen.  Spoiler alert:  Nothing was decided upon in this panel.  Either we're going to hell in a hand basket or it's a new and exciting world which must be navigated...kind of like when the printing press was invented and the radio was invented, the nickelodeon was invented (not the network, the film shows) and when television was invented...
Left to Right:  Stephen Buehler, Charles Rosenberg, Travis Richardson, Chantelle A. Osman, and Lee Goldberg.

Then on to the third panel of the day, criminal minds.  The panel was led by L.J. Sellers.
Left to Right:  L.J., William Kent Krudger, John Lescroart, Denise Hamilton, and Rick Reed.

It seems that there is always one panel of the day that really stands out in your mind and at the time, I thought it would be this one.  The writers on this panel were SUCH good story tellers, whether it is on the page or in person and improvising an answer to one of L.J.'s questions.  For the entire 45 minutes, you could hear a pin drop in that room.  Rick Reed quite literally had us sitting on the edge of our seats talking about his experiences as a policeman.  Honestly, he even flummoxed the other panelists. William Kent Krueger spoke about having compassion for the bad guy in his stories and asking questions of the characters back stories, i.e. Why is he a bad guy? Denise Hamilton talked about her experiences as a reporter and not being able to print stories, even though they were known to be true, due to liability issues and the newspaper.  Finally John Lescroart broke up the tension by saying, "I think I have experience envy."  Giving us all a much needed stress reliever. Well spotted.

I have to say, there were a 11 panels to chose from in the morning schedule, as you can see I chose three of the panels that most interested me.  There were also panels involving lawyers writing mysteries, supernatural mysteries, children and young adult...the list goes on.