Carter Wilson's Blog, page 6

A Review of Reviews

You know what interviewers like to ask? They always like to ask if I read my own reviews, and they ask in a way that always makes me think they’re going to feel sorry for me no matter how I answer. Oh, poor, thing, you do? OR Oh, you don’t? That’s probably best.

Here’s my answer: I do read reviews. Not all of them, and not obsessively. But this is how I look at it. My publisher and I are putting a product out in the marketplace. A product we want to sell. Why wouldn’t we want to know what the buyers of the product think of it? Sure, we can’t change it, but it could inform future products.

I’ll look at the early reviews (especially trade reviews, like Publishers Weekly) and pre-publication reviews that trickle in on Goodreads. Those give me a sense of what the general consensus might be. Then I’ll continue looking at them until about a month post-launch, at which point I let it go, because, as I said last month, letting go is almost always the best thing to do.

I definitely learn some interesting and useful things in reading reviews. There may be several reviewers who say they guessed the ending early on, and I’m always fascinated by that because I never know the ending myself until I’m about 80% into the writing of the book. Or reviewers might comment that the book design didn’t match the story, and that’s something my publisher and I can be more attuned to for future books. Or I might get a general sense of exactly how scary or creepy my book is to the general public, something I have no perception of when writing it.

I never, ever, EVER engage with a reviewer. I’ve seen instances when authors have done that, and it’s never pretty. What’s to be gained? You’re not going to convince someone to like your book after they’ve slammed it. All you can do is stay silent, hope most people will enjoy your book, and see if there’s anything to be learned from those who don’t.

HOWEVER.

Sometimes I get an itch to reply to reviewers.  Whether the review is good or bad, there are some that just hit me in such way I have to walk away from the keyboard before I do anything stupid.

For example.

This book didn’t resolve anything at the end, which I hated. I mean, we don’t even know what happened to the main characters!Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I was writing for an audience who might want to own their own interpretation of what happened at the end. Okay, here’s your ending. They all drive off a cliff, Thelma and Louise style. And the car lands on a picnicking church group.

I borrowed this book from my sister. It was a fun, easy read that I whipped through on the beach one afternoon. THAT BOOK TOOK ME A YEAR TO CRAFT AND I CRIED WRITING THE LAST CHAPTER.
AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN BUY YOUR OWN COPY??

John and Clarice’s storylines intertwine with palpable tension, culminating in a satisfying ending.Thanks for the nice review. But it’s JACK and CLARA. (This actually happened in a major newspaper review).

Easily the best thriller I’ve read all year! ONE STAR!!!THAT’S NOT HOW STARS WORK
YOU’RE FUCKING UP MY AVERAGES

I actually bought this book by mistake. I don’t even like thrillers. I read about 20 pages then put it down. One star.BOUGHT IT BY MISTAKE? THEN WHY DID YOU EVEN REVIEW IT?
YOU’RE FUCKING UP MY AVERAGES

Wilson is my new favorite author.Will you be my best friend for life?

Trigger warning: there’s animal cruelty and death in this book. The author doesn’t depict it explicitly, but a poodle does meet an untimely end. IT WAS A POODLE

Jane, thanks for posting that trigger warning. I’ve read and enjoyed all of Wilson’s other books but I think I’ll be skipping this one. There’s never, ever a reason to have an animal suffer, not even in the make-believe world of fiction. But apparently you were okay when I cut a baby’s head off in my first book?

I found a typo on page 278. Should be “they’re” and not “there.” That pulled me out of the book and I did not finish.  I AM BLIND WITH RAGE
 
And so on… Overall, however, very few reviews stir much of any reaction in me, as I’ve grown a pretty thick skin over the years. And honest reviews are helpful in so many ways, from their basic purpose of providing valuable reader feedback to increasing search-result positioning on book sites. So please, I want you to leave reviews! Unless you’re a poodle-lover, in which case let’s just go our separate ways quietly. 

Making It Up
Newly added episodes of my new interview series Making It Up are out! This month I chatted with bestselling and award-winning novelists Julia Heaberlin (We Are All the Same in the Dark), Mark Stevens (The Melancholy Howl), Steven James (Synapse), and Graham Hurley (Last Flight to Stalingrad).In addition to the personal, in-depth conversations, each episode features an impromptu short-story each guest and I craft together.

All episodes are available on my YouTube channel and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Check them out now here!
 

What I’m Reading
Mike Nichols: A Life  by Mark Harris (2021, Penguin)  I do love a good biography, because  I want to know how a person became that person, and this book did not disappoint. I’m ashamed I wasn’t more aware of the scope of Mike Nichols’s cultural impact beyond being the director of The Graduate, Silkwood, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But his career launched in the 1950’s as a comedy duo with Elaine May, and from there he went into directing, overseeing the making of a bajillion plays and movies.  Biographer Mark Harris does a tremendous job with his research–you HAVE to see the list of celebrity acknowledgements at the end of the book….hundreds of them–and reveals Nichols to be the flawed genius we want him to be. Running about 700 pages, there are no shortages of Hollywood behind-the-scenes stories, with the best ones centering on Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. A worthy read.

What I’m Watching

No Sudden Move (2021, HBO Max) – Oh my goodness, Steve Soderbergh has created a wonderful noir picture here. I mean, first, just look at the cast: Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Amy Seimetz, Jon Hamm(!), Ray Liotta, Kieran Culkin, Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon (!!). And look at those sets of 1950’s Detroit..gritty, beautful, sometimes breathtaking. And look at how the film is shot–with special, very large lenses that warps the edges of the camera frame just a bit, making you feel a little unsettled the whole time. The story itself is serviceable (from IMDB: “A group of criminals are brought together under mysterious circumstances and have to work together to uncover what’s really going on when their simple job goes completely sideways.”), but the reason to see this movie is to appreciate a director who knows how to assemble the finest of talent (actors, art directors, set designers, cinematographers) and just let them have the time of their lives.

Photo of the Month
Spotted this fella near my hometown on July 3rd.

Update from My Kids
My kids went on a Colorado mini-road-trip last month and made a stop at the Royal Gorge Bridge, where Ili and Sawyer went on the Skycoaster, which allows the riders to “sweep 50 mph through the Rocky Mountain air in a free fall, momentarily dangling 1,200 feet above the Arkansas River on this one-of-a-kind attraction.” Well, they just about lost their minds as their mother filmed the whole thing. You can clearly hear Sawyer praying to God. Harder to hear–but it’s there–is Ili’s war-cry of HOOOOLEEEEE SHEEEETTTT.

Update from My Cat
Relaxed indifference or contemplating evil? You decide.

Internet Find of the Month, Sent to Me by a Friend
Click to watch all the glory…https://mobile.twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1279798454319853570

A Reader’s Instagram Pic That I Love

Another Reader’s Pic That I Love
This person was the grand-prize winner from my recent pre-order contest. They were kind enough take a picture of their loot and send it to me.

That’s it for now! See you next month.




   

Now What?

With the launch of my seventh book now more than a month behind me, it’s natural to wonder what I should be doing now. In books past, during the few weeks post-launch I would obsessively monitor sales ranking (It just hit #1,054 in Domestic Thrillers Featuring Killers With a Limp! What does that mean? Is that good?) and every new review posted on Goodreads (My God, I’m doomed. MamaBearReader47 hated the ending and she has dozens of followers).

But I’m a bit more zen about it all now. That’s not to say I’m not interested in the reviews and mentions I get on social and regular media, but I also believe it’s important to let go (you will see that expression in many of my books). Yes, I promote my book as much as I possibly can, but I don’t worry about the results, because they’re out of my control.  When someone asks me how my book is doing, I honestly reply, “I dunno.” I’ll find out in six months when I get my first royalty statement.

So with my baby out in the wild, hopefully thriving, my attention returns to other things. Book #8 is out in less than a year and we’re finishing up copyedits (and I just saw the cover art for the first time. Holy shit, is it awesome). I’m in the midst of writing book #9 and am in that debilitating middle part where I’m not quite sure the best next direction. I’m knee-deep in my new interview series Making It Up and having a blast talking to some amazing writers. And I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time with friends and family this summer, especially since my very FIRST baby, my daughter, is headed out of state to start college in the fall.

So I’m working hard, planning, writing, learning, moving forward. But I’m also letting go, because that’s usually the best thing to do.

Carter Wilson’s Making It Up
Newly added episodes of my new interview series Making It Up are out! This month I chatted with USA Today bestselling thriller writer David Bell (Kill All Your Darlings), award-nominated author Sean Eads (Lord Byron’s Prophecy), and ITW Thriller Award-winner K.J. Howe (Skyjack). In addition to the personal, in-depth conversations, each episode features an impromptu short-story each guest and I craft together.

All episodes are available on my YouTube channel and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Check them out now here!  What I’m Watching
So many things!

Mare of Easttown  (2021, HBO) – Did you have a good day? Are you smiling? Well, tune into any episode of this depression-inducing drama to hobble that spring in your step. If you can handle the constant misery of miserable lives, this series is indeed worth a watch, if for nothing else than Kate Winslow’s screen presence. Man, she’s just great.

 

Bo Burnum: Inside  (2021, Netflix) – The comedian’s last special, Make Happy, is one of my favorites, and I was happy to see something new from him. This is a different comedy special, having been written, produced, and shot by Burnum in pieces during quarantine. It’s original-music heavy, soaked in grief, and highly original. Not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, but Burnum is one of the most creative comics around, so if you’re looking for something different, edgy, and a little bit out there, give this a watch.

 

The First  (Hulu, 2018) Well, in looking this up right now I just realized Hulu canceled this show after just one season. Jess and I just started watching it, and it doesn’t suck, but maybe it takes a bad turn. The series, set in 2031, follows a team of astronauts who prepare to become the first humans to visit Mars. A steady burn with decent focus on the character’s backstories, at least the first two episodes are worth your time. And holy hell, is Sean Penn ripped!
 

Bits of New Writing
A micro-sample from my work-in progress.

Of all the stores in the mall the only one she didn’t care for was JCPenney. On that grand-opening day eight months ago, Penny’s mother had confessed with a twisted grin that Penny had, in fact, been named after the store. That she’d been conceived in a dressing room of the Watertown JCPenney’s back in 1965 after a drunken road-trip. It was the first time Penny heard that story. Nearly twenty-one years old, and never heard where her name came from. She’d only ever asked her mother once why she was named Penny, back when she was ten. The answer her mom gave was delivered without hesitation or even a touch of sarcasm.

Because you’re pretty much worthless.

Penny never asked again.

Photo of the Month
Flashing back a couple of years to when I found this dude in a tree in my backyard.Update from My Kids
This lil’ genius is off to college! Ili will be attending Michigan State Honors College this fall, looking to major in psychology and criminal justice. After binging on Criminal Minds for the past year she has her sights set on exploring the dark inner thoughts of the sick and depraved. Makes a dad proud!Update from My Cat
My daughter took this pic of Guff, and I love it because it looks like he’s eight feet long.Meme of the Month, Sent to Me by a FriendInstagram Pic of the Month Featuring One of My BooksThat’s it for now! See you next month.
   

Making It Up

I enjoy talking to people. Mostly.

I believe everyone has a good story to tell. The trick is getting the story out of them, and I love that challenge. Likewise, I hate small talk, and am slowly dying inside whenever the discussion turns to weather or Zoom backgrounds. If I meet you at a cocktail party (remember those?) there’s a decent chance within five minutes I’ll be asking you about your deepest fears. 

With that in mind, a few months ago I decided to start talking to writers in order to unearth their personal stories. I wasn’t interested in what books are on their bedside table or what one piece of advice they’d give to aspiring authors. I wanted to know what their lives were like growing up, what struggles they’ve faced writing. What makes them happy. Or even what their deepest fears are.

Today I’m launching the first three of my conversations in my new writer interview series Carter Wilson’s Making It Up. In these 45-minute episodes I talk to Edgar Award-winning thriller writer Alex Marwood, gritty noir novelist Joe Clifford, and NY Times bestselling author Julie Clark. I’ll be posting new episodes about every 10 days, available both on my YouTube channel and as podcasts.

And why, you ask, is it called Making It Up? Well, at the end of every conversation, my guest chooses a random sentence from a random book on my shelves and we use it to create an impromptu short-story together. Talk about deepest fears…this part scares even the most seasoned of writers. 

For a taste of the show, here’s a short trailer:

I just love the conversations I’ve been having, and I’m excited to share this series with you. You can access both the video or podcast versions of the show HERE, or you can subscribe on my YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy!

How a Book is Born

This month my seventh novel will officially launch. Maybe “will be born” is a better phrase, considering how many of my titles have either had boy or girl in them. In this case, my publisher will be giving birth to a dead husband, and I’m not sure what kind of balloons one buys for that occasion.

You might think conception occurs with the idea for the book. You conceive of the idea, after all. But no, without the publisher, the writer is merely indulging in partnerless self-pleasure (okay, I’ll stop with the metaphor here). The book really starts to become a reality once that contract is signed and a timetable is set for the launch. The time period between contract and launch is often a year or more, as publishing schedules are set well in advance. I thought it might be interesting to share all that happens in that year leading to the the launch.

16 Months Before: Terms agreed upon. Contract signed. Sigh of relief. Have a drink to toast and celebrate.
15 Months Before: First-round notes from editor. Read quickly and then assure yourself they’re no big deal. Have a drink to numb yourself.  
15 Months Before: Re-read notes from editor. Wait, you want a sub-plot?  
14 Months Before: Initial round of edits done.  Drink to celebrate. Notice pattern, take a month off drinking. 
13 Months Before: Second round of edits from publisher–much easier than first round. This is when the book actually feels done. 
12 Months Before: Third round of edits from publisher–copyedits. No too much to do with these except approve them.  Also, the publisher suggests a new title. Wait, you think, you’re not convinced Bonfire of the Manatees is going to fly off the shelves?
11 Months Before: Title decided after being focus-grouped and algorithmically digested. You envision the title on the cover of Time Magazine under the headline “Is This the Book That Will Save Us?”
10 Months Before: You get an email with the proposed cover art. Take a deep breath and open it. This is when you find out if your baby will be beautiful or ugly (you promise to love it either way, which is a lie). Whew. Your kid is gonna be just fine. 
7-9 Months Before: This is a weird Bermuda Triangle time where time just kind of disappears and you actually forget about your book. You can’t even remember character names. 
6 Months Before: The advance-reader copies (ARCs) are printed, which is when you see the almost-ready book for the first time. Time to write dedication and acknowledgements. Don’t forget your mother.
5 Months Before: The PR machine starts gearing up, sending out ARCs to media, trades, social-media influencers. Launch-day events get booked, podcast appearances lined up. You begin writing guest blogs for outlets like Writers Digest, The Strand, and CrimeReads.
3 Months Before: Early reviews start to trickle in. You write down the user names of snarky Goodreads reviewers and vow to smite them.
2 Months Before: Trade reviews come in. You hope for those rare starred reviews from the likes of Publishers Weekly and Kirkus but are content just not getting trashed. 
1 Month Before: Your author copies of the final book arrive. They smell great.
3 Weeks Before: You flood social media and your newsletter readers with  those early reviews, pre-order giveaways, and book excerpts. You gets lots of nice comments. You also notice an uptick in your unsubscribes. 
2 Weeks Before: You firm up all your launch-week events, beg your friends to come, and shore up your talking points. Skim through the book so you can remember the characters’ names.
1 Week Before: You vow to stop checking Goodreads. Your hiatus lasts about 2 hours.  You add more names to your smite list. 
Launch Day: You announce through every communication outlet available to you that your book is OUT TODAY, to which you can almost hear the universe reply WE KNOW.
Launch Night: You have your launch event at a beautiful local indie bookstore. Your friends and family arrive, and no small amount of folks you don’t know. You talk about your book, suddenly remembering all the joy you had writing it, despite the occasional struggle. You do a very short reading, and even though you hate going back and reading your writing, you decide at least that passage is decent, perhaps even good. People buy your book, ask you to sign it, seem genuinely interested. Afterwards there’s a nice bar close by where they make a great gimlet–they even use chilled glasses. You sit with your family and maybe a friend or two and just soak everything in. You sleep well that night.
Launch Day +1: You get back to work on that next book, because, damn, that felt good.

Hey, look, Publishers Weekly didn’t trash my book!

What I’m Watching:

Patriot, (Amazon, 2017-)  I just re-watched season one of Amazon’s wholly original Patriot and appreciated it even more than the first viewing (Jess and I are well into season two at this point).  On the surface the plotline seems like a mundane thriller: a U.S. government agent needs to funnel money to an Iranian opposition party to help stop Iran’s nuclear program. But this show is anything but mundane, and is the quirkiest spy thriller I’ve ever seen. The lead is a morose agent working for his father who also likes to write folk songs, and has a bad habit of singing about his exploits in European coffee shops during open mic nights. The writing is exceptionally clever, the show is infused with real emotion despite its idiosyncratic nature, it doesn’t mind showcasing jarring violence when necessary, and features some of the most creative sequences of any series out there (case in point: a single-take scene of two people playing rock-paper-scissors in which they tie at least forty straight times while carrying a conversation). Sometimes it’s tough to follow the plot, so best to watch a few episodes at a time to avoid getting lost.

What I’m Reading:

Is This Anything?, (Jerry Seinfeld, Simon & Schuster, 2021)  Seinfeld writes down all of his jokes and keeps them forever. In Is This Anything? he’s unearthed all of his material, organized it by decade, and created a book out of it. So basically it’s just a volume of all the bits Seinfeld’s ever told on stage, along with some brief observational interludes at the beginning of each decade.  While this is an entertaining book that provides a nice dose of nostalgia, I was hoping for more of a memoir from Seinfeld. I’ve read/listened to a lot of interviews with him and he has some pretty profound thoughts regarding how he approaches comedy, his work ethic, aging, raising kids, etc. I’d rather read 300 pages of his philosophies and experiences rather than his jokes. Still, this kept me entertained.

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch next month I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

Colin went with his gut, knowing there was something. Something about Bury. If not outright malevolent, then at least mysterious. Suspicious. There are no perfect communities. Every town has a stain.

“How about way back, say ten or twenty years ago?” Colin asked. “Any major crimes in Bury? Any…I don’t know…anything that got Bury a little attention beyond the town borders?”

Chief Sike peered up into the acoustic ceiling tiles of the police station, as if all the answers he ever wanted could be found in their thousands of craters. After taking a moment’s reflection, he directed his gaze back to Colin.

“Missing kid. Back in the nineties. Sixteen-year-old boy named Caleb Benner. Never found him.”

“A sixteen-year-old boy?” Colin said. “That’s not a missing kid. That’s a runaway.”

“Ayuh, that’s what most say. Not his family, though. Not his friends.”

Colin crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his fingers into his armpits. “Were you here then?”

“Manchester. But we came down to help search. Mike Patterson was the lead on the case.”

“Is he still on the job?”

Sike shook his head. “Heart attack killed him back in oh-nine.”

“Do you remember the details of the case?”

“I do, indeed.”

Colin nodded over to the coffee machine in the back corner of their room.

“Buy you a cup of coffee if you tell me everything you know about it,” he said.

“Coffee’s free here,” Sike said.

“It’s the gesture that counts.”

Sike grunted, which Colin took as an affirmation. Colin walked over the pot, still half-full, and filled two paper cups. He took a sip from one, surprised that it tasted decent.

He walked back over and handed a cup to Sike, who offered another grunt.

Sike took his own sip, tilted back in his chair, and said, “Kid went missing on a Friday night.”

It took about twenty minutes for Sike to tell Colin the story of a missing boy named Caleb Benner.

Afterward, Colin couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Photo of the MonthSpent a couple days skiing with my boy. This is the view from 12,100 feet, right before we skiied all the way back down.

Update From My Kids AND Cat

I’m going to share a group text between my kids and me. Here’s the context you need before reading:

1. My daughter gave my cat Guff several bites of meatloaf one night.
2. Later that night, Guff violently puked all the meatloaf in my son’s bedroom.
3. The location of the cat vomit was on some carpet scraps that we use to play with Guff.
4. My son, being woken by the awful noise, took a paper towel and grabbed as much of the puke as he could in one pass and put it in his closed-lid trashcan in his bathroom. Then he just flipped the carpet scrap over with no further cleaning and went back to bed.
5. SIX DAYS LATER I walked into my son’s bathroom, smelled something off, opened the trashcan and was nearly brought to my knees by the smell. 
6. I immediately texted the kids. 

Best Image Sent To Me By a Friend Last Month

What’s in My Backyard?

This racoon, who scaled my bird feeder to try to get to some suet, only to tip over the very pole to which he was clinging.

That’s all for now…see you next month!

I Remember

I write a lot about memory in my books. Good memories, bad memories, and especially false memories.  My dad was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 62 and he passed at 69, so the horror of slipping into a milky haze of one’s own existence has never been far from the surface of my thoughts. My first published novel featured a memory-care facility a lot like the one my dad was in, and every subsequent novel contained some thread about memory woven through it. With The Dead Girl in 2A I abandoned that thread and made memory-loss the outright central theme of the book. I think writing that book helped me move a bit beyond my own fear about losing my memories, though whenever I walk into a room and forget why I went there in the first place it still freaks me out.

So here’s a fun little exercise. Set a timer for thirty minutes and write down specific memories of your life.  You won’t be able to, but try to avoid recalling your easiest-to-access memories, the big life events like births, deaths, marriage, divorce, the Broncos winning the Super Bowl, etc. Clear your mind, think about different stages in your life, and see what smaller, almost random memories pop up. Write them down, and stop once the timer goes off.

I think you’ll find it interesting to see what comes up. Likely you’ll find some things in there you haven’t thought about in years, but for some reason they came up in the first half-hour of reviewing your entire life. Weird, huh?

Here are the results from my thirty minutes:

I remember a day in our backyard in New Mexico. Scrubby land, dry, huffing wind. There was a fire, but I don’t know why. This might be my first memory.

I remember a book fair when I was in grade school. I picked up a book way beyond my reading level and bought it. I think the name Emily was in the title. I don’t know who I was trying to impress. I didn’t read it.

We had a pet rabbit. He got hurt somehow. I remember finding him and it looked like his eye was hanging outside his head. He was still alive. I ran to get my mom.

I remember being out with friends wandering the streets on Halloween night when I was 16. A Santa Ana wind swirled around us. There’s something about a warm wind at night. I wanted it to be that night forever.

I remember drinking with friends in high school, then deciding to take some pictures. I perfectly caught the moment when my buddy vomited all over himself–for some reason, he was trying to catch it with cupped hands. Later, that print was accidentally included in a stack of photos I took with me when I studied abroad in France. A family member in whose house I was staying saw the photo and started screaming. My French wasn’t good enough for me to explain to her I had no idea how the photo got in that stack. I just sat there as she screamed French things.

I remember nearly getting killed by a lawn dart while playing a stupid game with my best friend in middle school. Lawn darts are illegal now. 

I remember driving very late at night/early morning on the 101 freeway in L.A., almost falling asleep. At one point I saw a car far ahead of me go off the side of the freeway, but when I reached that area I didn’t see anything. To this day I don’t know if that actually happened or not.

I remember my daughter throwing up in a restaurant when she was about two, and I picked her up and literally ran out the doors and down the street as she continued to leave a trail of puke. I remember all the puke stories. She also puked all over me in a grocery store. Also, at a Red Robin.

I remember first tasting a Chipotle burrito and honestly believing it was the only food I needed for the rest of my life.

I remember seeing my dad after he’d been suddenly transferred to a different memory-care facility, where he’d been drugged to his limits. He was down the hallway, on the other side of the locked double doors, this ghost, this shell, wandering, stumbling aimlessly in that antiseptic corridor, not knowing where, or possibly who, he was. I burst into tears and said to no one, that’s my dad. Then I said it louder, and the third time I might have screamed it. This might be my worst memory.

I remember the look on my kids’ faces when they saw The Sixth Sense for the first time and we got to the big reveal. It took my son a few seconds longer than my daughter to figure it out, but he got there.

I remember watching the Packers playoff game where Aaron Rodgers successfully completed a Hail Mary pass, then thinking my son truly saw the face of God for the first time.

I remember the taste of  filet mignon with a bleu cheese crust at a restaurant in Block Island. I have no idea what the name of the restaurant is.

I remember wandering among thousands of penguins in Patagonia, really wanting to pet one but not being allowed to. Also, I was a little afraid they would bite.

I remember my agent telling me you can’t write from the point-of-view of a bug. What did I know?

I remember the first time I opened a box of books that had my name on the cover. They looked beautiful, but they smelled fucking amazing.

I remember my daughter waking me up in the middle of the night to show me what the tooth fairy had brought. It was so sweet I nearly cried. Also, I thought, how can you believe in this shit?

I remember an elephant charging our Land Rover in South Africa. In the moment I knew it would be a horrible way to die, but I figured at least I was with Jessica and it would make a helluva story.

I remember arriving at my mom’s house for Christmas dinner a couple of years ago and feeling an overwhelming sense of ease, happiness, and comfort.

Last year, maybe around January, I remember talking to my friend about COVID and saying, “Wait, it’s just the flu, right?”

Time’s up, thirty minutes over.

See? I remember lots of things.

I have no clue what I had for dinner last night.

Meet me? Ha, ha, don’t be silly – I’m not coming anywhere near your germs, you filth-monger.

I have a few author friends who had to go through virtual book launches last year rather than in-store events, and I thought how tough that must have been. Well, who knew?  It’s 2021, my book is out in May, and virtual events are still the thing (for good reason).

I’ll be doing some virtual events hosted by awesome Colorado indie bookstores (Boulder Book Store, Tattered Cover, Bookbar, etc), so make sure to check my event calendar, which gets updated regularly.

I also do virtual book clubs, so write me if you’re featuring one of my books and would like me to join the discussion.

The all-mighty Kirkus weighs in on The Dead Husband.

 

What I’m Watching:

Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself, (Hulu, 2021) – Stop everything you’re doing and go watch this show. Don’t have Hulu? Get a trial subscription. A friend sent me an email telling me to watch this and not to read anything about it before doing so. That was great advice, so I’ll do the same here and tell you only a few barebones facts about it:

It’s a single show, not a series, about 90 minutes longIt’s based on a one-man stage show that ran for two years under the same nameYou don’t know who Derek DelGaudio is, but you will never forget himIt is equal parts beautiful, moving, and mind-blowingIf you don’t cry watching it, you’re a monster

Cobra Kai (Netflix, 2018-present) – No other show on TV right now has as many characters who deserve to die agonizing and humiliating deaths as Cobra Kai. My kids and I started watching this on a whim, figuring a campy throwback series following the current lives of the characters from The Karate Kid would be cheesy fun. And it was, for awhile. Until the show started taking itself seriously (or became uber-ironic,  which I’m not going to give them credit for). And yet we watch, mostly out of rage-glee. We all actually groan when certain character appear on the screen, like in 5th grade when your teacher announces a pop quiz out of the blue. I hate that we still watch this. Screw you, Netflix, and your deep understanding of the American psyche.

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch in May I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

Photo of the MonthAnother throwback photo in celebration of over a year without stepping foot on a plane.

This is 2013 in Hong Kong. I met up with an old friend and we hit the streets on a Friday night and wandered about the bars until the early morning. I mean, LOOK AT THIS. So many people! No social distancing! Just hordes of drunk people swarming the streets.

Otherwise known as the good ole days.

Update From My KidsMy kids took this picture of themselves in imitation of the type of photos they hate on Instagram. They sent it to me and I actually love it. They’ll kill me for putting this in my newsletter.Update From My Cat

Guff has been such a pain in the ass lately. He just follows me around the house and screams all day. A week ago I was gone for six hours and you would’ve thought he’d been shipwrecked for seven years with only a volleyball for a friend based on his reaction when I came home.

Best Image Sent To Me By a Friend Last MonthThat’s all for now…see you next month!

“Not Enough Time” is a Myth

Not to brag (okay, maybe a little), but someone recently told me they were impressed by my productivity. The thing is, this person is the lyricist/singer for a band that’s produced 15 studio albums, selling more than 25 million copies worldwide. So, a productive person, one could argue.

This led me to start thinking about what it means to be productive, and I realized productivity is a mindset rather than a function of time. It’s this mindset that allows me to get things done, namely maintaining two full-time jobs (writing and a 9-5er) while trying to remember my kids’ names. This mindset has a slogan: not enough time is a myth.

You will never hear me saying “I can’t do it because I don’t have enough time” unless you are asking me to help you move.

Sure, there are only 24 hours in a day, but that only matters if you choose to define your life as a series of days. But what if, rather than defining your life through time, you defined it though passion? Through the things that made you happy rather than the things you felt you had to do? What would that look like?

I have a formula for all of this, and it doesn’t factor in time as a variable at all. It’s this:

                                         PASSION + COMMITMENT = HAPPINESS

I didn’t start writing until I was 33, learning the publishing industry mostly through Google. What do I do with a completed novel? Find an agent. How do I do that? Write query letters. And so on. After 70 or so rejections, I landed that agent. She shipped my book around to all the publishing houses, where it took about a year to be soundly rejected.

Two years earlier, I never would have conceived that I’d soon be writing a novel, landing an agent, and having my book rejected by all the big publishing houses. With that final rejection, it was time to define exactly what this life path was. Give it a name. Was this a whim, or was this a passion? Did writing make me happy?

Yes, I decided. It did.

So I found the time around my already busy life to write a second novel, which took a year to finish and another year to be rejected. As did book number three. Finally, roughly eight years after that day when I began my first story, I landed my first publishing deal with my fourth book. Today, eighteen years after I began writing, I’ve had six novels published and a seventh coming out in May. And yet, I still have that day job. I’ve still managed to co-parent two pretty cool kids. I still spend cherished quality time with my partner, Jessica. I still manage to log a minimum of 250 workouts a year.

It’s not a miracle. It’s not some secret time-management technique. I do all of those things because I have a passion for them all. I love writing, my job, my kids, Jessica, and exercise. When I make the things I’m passionate about priorities, the rest slips away.

When people say, “I don’t have the time,” it’s usually just an excuse. What they really mean is that they don’t want to prioritize something into their life because it’s less important to them than other things. Sure, sometimes there’s literally not enough time to do something even if you love it (like writing a book in a week), but if you really wanted to do something, like master the guitar, you could do it. It could take years, but that shouldn’t matter.

Which leads me to the second part of the equation. Commitment. You can be passionate all you want about something, but if you don’t throw yourself fully into something, the happiness you seek around that thing will never be fully realized. Many instances when I sit down to write, there is no muse guiding me. No sense of losing time as my fingers take control of my brain and the story magically unfolds. Lots of times writing sucks, feeling more like a low-level data-entry job than crafting a piece of creative fiction. But I have to sit in that chair every day, seven days a week, because for all the times it’s not fun, I know I’m an overall happier person for it.

Next time you actually use the phrase, “I don’t have the time,” catch yourself and think about what it is you really mean. Do you not have the time, or do you not have the passion? Asking yourself that simple question might reshape how you view what it means to be happy.

I’m beyond excited to announce I just signed a two-book deal with Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press for thriller novels to come out in 2022 and 2023. Here’s the announcement from Publishers Marketplace:

And, of course, THE DEAD HUSBAND is coming out this May. Stay tuned in the coming months for pre-order giveaways and contests! In the meantime, this wonderful early review just came in…

What I’m Reading:

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong (Penguin Random House, 2019) – OK, so above I wrote that anything can be accomplished with the proper levels of passion and commitment. But that doesn’t mean we can all accomplish at the same level. Sit me in front of a laptop for the next four decades and I don’t think I could ever write sentences as consistently unique and sublime as what I read in this book. In Vuong’s debut novel (he’s also a critically acclaimed poet), a son in his late 20’s pens a letter to his illiterate mother, unearthing deep complexities about his family’s history in the process. But that brief description doesn’t do justice to the transformative reading experience of this book. I haven’t been so in awe of word choice, sentence structure, and metaphors since reading Cormac McCathy’s The Road. This is not a book to skim. This is a book to read with care and intention, to absorb every word, and to witness what singularly beautiful writing looks like.

Longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal in Fiction, the 2019 Aspen Words Literacy Prize, and the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award. Shortlisted for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Winner of the 2019 New England Book Award for Fiction.

What I’m Watching:

Ted Lasso, (Season One, Apple TV, 2020) – This is a show that has no right being any good. This is a show that you see flash by on your streaming service, you recognize Jason Sudeikis in the picture and remember he’s pretty funny, and you look over at your kids (both on their own phones) and say, “We’ll give it ten minutes, then turn it off if it blows.”

Tad Lasso surprised us, so much that we burned through the first season. The premise is lame: a fledgling  American college football coach is hired to be the new coach of a struggling Premier League football club, though he doesn’t even know the rules of “soccer.” There’s a twisted logic to his hiring, which I won’t get into, but suffice it to say the plot is predictable in that the doofus, naïve American ends up winning the hearts and minds of all. So why is it good?  Because this is much more of a character-driven series than it portends, the writing is sharply funny and idiosyncratic, and Sudeikis hits just the right note in his acting, playing more of a sage than a doofus. Ted Lasso doesn’t require much brain-power from its viewers, yet it does deliver a genuine feelgood experience, something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing until I watched.

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch in May I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

Photo of the MonthTraveling back over five years to Africa, where Jessica and I spent ten glorious days on safari. Photo credit to her for this great shot of a young lion on an early-morning wildlife drive. This guy reminds me of Guff.Update From My KidsMy 16-year-old son has many distinct characteristics, two of which came into direct conflict last month. One thing he’s known for is his obsession with the Green Bay Packers football team, which is evidenced by nearly every photo I’ve posted in this newsletter in which he’s wearing a Packers jersey.  Another trait of his is a general lack of profanity use. Sure, he’ll drop a curse word every now and then, but nothing compared to his sister, who doesn’t mind speaking like a Marseilles dock worker from a gritty 1970’s spy film.  In fact, sometimes his sister and I make fun of him for his repeated outbursts of “oh, shoot!” and “aw, dang!”

But back to his love of the Packers. His team made it all the way to the conference championship this year, so he and I watched it alone (he doesn’t allow anyone else around for such occasions). For the first half of the game, his profanity abstinence was tested whenever the other team made a great play or scored. Still, what clearly was going to be FUCK! came out more like FAAAAA…. He held back, is what I’m saying.

But, my lord, that second half. Things got tense, and the damn burst. The f-bomb started flying all over the place and suddenly I didn’t even recognize this kid. Moreover, the cursing wasn’t just reserved for moments of despair, but joy as well.  So there I stood, slack jawed in amazement when the Packers defense piled on Tom Brady and sacked him for a big loss, when my boy, my sweet little boy, the kid who is more gentle than a baby fawn napping in a dew-glazed meadow, jumps off the couch in an ecstatic blood-rage and screams, YEAHHHH!!! SUCK MY ASS, BRADY!

Kids say the darndest things.

Update From My Cat

That moment on the Zoom call when the needy little furball jumps from the floor to the top of my high-back office chair.

Meme of the Month, sent to me by a friend

Reader Mail

In your experience, what’s the best place to dispose of a body? Assume 185 lbs, approx. 6 feet tall, rigor mortis set in while body in a “making a snow angel” position. 

This is a question I wished I’d received, but sadly, didn’t. I like weird questions. Send me a weird question this month and the best one gets an answer in my next newsletter. Write me HERE.

 

 

My 2021 To-Do List

Well, so much for hoping the flip of the calendar into 2021 would magically erase all the shit 2020 threw at the wall. COVID is worse than ever, murderous rioters descended on the US Capitol, and Netflix took The Office off its platform. Two weeks into this year and it’s like:

Still, I remain hopeful that at some point in 2021, things will become a little more normal, inasmuch as the concept of normal still exists. With that in mind, I’ve made a to-do list for this year, and I’ll remain optimistic on being able to get to most of these by December 31st. Or by the Apocalypse. Whichever comes first. 

TO DO IN 2021:

Go to doctor, get jabbed with a needle. Take one last swig of 180-proof hand sanitizer to celebrate.Get on a plane, lick the tray table, cough on the person next to me. We’ll laugh about it!Haircut.Enjoy checking the news without always clenching my stomach first.Lose some of that 2020 belly fat.Book launch of THE DEAD HUSBAND in May! Prepare speech for Pulitzer Award.Toes in the sand. Somewhere. Anywhere. Holy shit, do I need a beach.Finally shake my next-door neighbors’ hands and welcome them to the neighborhood. They moved in last February.Go inside a mall. I hate malls, but still.Do an in-store book event. Blame lingering COVID concerns if no one shows.See a movie in a theater, remind myself how much I didn’t miss hearing people eat popcorn.Have a meeting by phone. Actual phone, with an actual phone number, and no video. Be naked during it.Forever continue to begin email greetings with “hope you’re saying safe,” because it sounds so goddamn ominous.TP someone’s house, just for the sheer waste of it all.Go to a concert, remind myself how great live music can be.Go to a Broncos game, remind myself how much they suck.Restaurants. Restaurants. Restaurants.Write another book.Halloween party!Send my daughter off to college. Cry. Turn her room into another place to watch TV.Write inside coffee shops and bars again.Keep watch out for murder hornets. Those fuckers are still out there somewhere.Eat raw bat, because lightening never strikes twice.Get a puppy. Name her Karen. Don’t potty train her and let her loose in every store I go to.Continue to wear a mask everywhere I go. When the time is right, rob a bank.Sell a TV deal for one of my books. Insist I play a major character. Lose deal. “Too Barry Gibb,” the studio execs insist.Go to Wal-Mart, be happy about seeing people’s maskless faces. Find other things to judge them over.Spend less money on stuff.Re: #28. Who am I kidding?Be happy.Be grateful.Love ferociously.Just breathe.

Still getting some early praise in for my upcoming book, The Dead Husband. Let’s hear from Julie Clark, wonderfully talented author of the 2020 New York Times and USA Today bestselling breakout thriller The Last Flight:

What I’m Reading:

Uncommon Type: Some Stories, Tom Hanks (Random House, 2017) – Yes, that Tom Hanks, and it’s not surprising he’s more than just a great actor. This book of short stories came out a few years ago and when I discovered it (somewhat randomly) thought, hey, I’ll bet those are happy little stories that will give me pleasant dreams. Well, not so much, but in a good way. The conceit of the collection is that every story has a typewriter in it, and it could be central to the story or just a passing moment. I don’t think Hanks really needs this gimmick, as the stories hold up just fine without it. If there’s one true thread to the stories it’s the raw emotion present in his writing. There’s tremendous tenderness (“Three Exhausting Weeks”), fear and regret (“Christmas Eve 1953”), and even some fine humor (“A Junket in the City of Light”). Most of the stories have no solid ending and many of them border on the melancholic, but all provide a small emotional journey that left me feeling better for having read them.

What I’m Watching:

Schitt’s Creek, (Netflix, 2015-2020) – I was late to the game with this series, but after they scooped up all the awards at the 2020 Emmy’s my kids and I decided to check it out. We BURNED through this show. The setup is simple: the wealthy and snobby Rose family goes broke, and their only remaining possession is a small Canadian town (Schitt’s Creek) they’d bought as a joke years before. They relocate to Schitt’s Creek with the hope of selling it but, of course, they end up living there for years. It’s a fairly standard fish-out-of-water through-line, but it works because of the smart and edgy writing and, of course, the sublime comedic performances.  I could go into much more detail, but it’s probably sufficient just to mention that this show won the 2020 Emmy awards (comedy category) for best series, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and  actress, best writing, and best directing. Wow.

“Oh, I’d kill for a good coma right now.” – Moira Rose

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch in May I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

Photo of the MonthWith travel on my mind, I dug up this photo from a trip to Israel back in 2008. This is in the port town of Akko on the Mediterranean coast. I just like all the textures of this shot (along with the rotting boat on the roof).

 

Update From My Kids

Safe (as possible) thing to do in a pandemic? Top Golf! Outdoor bays and plastic tarps separating widely spaced groups made me feel comfortable enough to get out and do something fun with the kids. There was snow on the ground and it was literally freezing out, but space heaters kept us cozy as we hit golf balls for a couple of hours. Sawyer remarked it was the first thing we did all year that felt pre-COVID.

Strangest Christmas Gifts

#1. So my son found an epilepsy medical bracelet at Wal*Mart and thought it would be a good gift for me (Note: I don’t have epilepsy). It’s such an odd thing, mostly because the band is festooned with cartoony dinosaurs and the words “dino” and “hello.” Sawyer also filled out the Medical Info card. My favorite part was where the card asks you to list “Special Needs” and he just wrote YES.

#2. My daughter is college-bound later this year and has expressed some interest in studying criminal psychology. Jessica got her a serial-killer coloring book. It’s kind of amazing.

Update From My Cat

When you’re so bored you resort to putting YouTube bird videos on the 82″ TV to entertain the cat. As expected, he was only mildly entertained. I found the videos quite relaxing, however.

Reader Mail

Do you only write novels?

Good question! The answer is: mostly. I’ve done a few short stories, some for practice, some for publication (and several rejected for publication). I struggle to write anything SHORT and I have so much respect for those who can deliver a powerful and moving tale in 5,000 words or less. But it’s fun as hell to try. My published short stories have been featured in the R.L. Stine anthology Scream and Scream Again, the Josh Viola anthology Blood Business: Crime Stories From This World And Beyond, the Mario Acevedo anthology Blood and Gasoline: High-Octane, High-Velocity Action, the Denver Horror Collective anthology Terror at 5,280′, and in Suspense Magazine. I also have several non-fiction essays about writing featured in various publications, including Writer’s Digest, Westword, Strand Magazine, and Killer Nashville. 

Have a question you want answered in my newsletter? Email me HERE.

What Didn’t Suck About 2020

My end-of-year newsletter is usually a reflection of gratitude for the year. Then along came 2020 and spit globs of infectious goo in all of our faces, making this year’s annual rite a bit challenging. Still, there were things in 2020 that didn’t suck. In no particular order (and certainly not an exhaustive list), here are 30 things about 2020 for which I’m grateful.

Saving money on haircuts and gas and using it on late-night Ben & Jerry’s runs.Not setting alarm clocks.More family time, even when we were all on video calls in separate rooms.Curbside pickup for everything.Saving money on vacations and using it to redesign nearly every room of my house.Staying healthy (so far!)Spending a wonderful 50th birthday with a few friends in the backyard.Discovering the joy of putting vanilla extract on my mask, making every shopping trip a sensory delight.Getting to stay in the car for Guff’s annual vet appointment. It should always be like that.BIG-TIME GRATITUDE: Not being economically devastated, as so many others have been.Not showering and simply using the “Touch up my appearance” option on Zoom.Halloween still happening.Learning how to install flooring.Joining in a BLM march in my little town and seeing the passion on my kid’s faces.Our trip to the mountains with Jessica, Henry, Ili and Sawyer.Walks around the neighborhood throwing the football with my kids.Fun new games, including Judging Those Who Wear Their Masks Beneath Their Nostrils and Sanitizing Until The Skin Bleeds.Netflix, Netflix, Netflix.Having a home gym and exercising more than ever, being on-track to surpass my 300-workout annual goal.My agent, Pam, continuing to work her magic (news coming soon!)Socially distanced cocktails at my mom’s house.Watching my publisher Sourcebooks thrive during tough times–reading still rules!New puppies in our extended bubble.Jessica. Because always.The election.Whole Foods’ Thanksgiving dinner.Having to just say, “because, pandemic” to get out of doing anything I didn’t want to do.My evening writing-time ritual with a vodka gimlet.Watching everyone put up holiday lights extra-early this year.Knowing it will be 2021 in just over two weeks from now.

Still getting some early praise in for my upcoming book, The Dead Husband. Let’s hear from the amazing, award-winning thriller-author Jennifer Hillier:

“A rich family with shocking secrets in an affluent small town, Carter Wilson’s The Dead Husband is Succession meets Big Little Lies, and I loved every bit of it. This marvelously crafted thriller is the perfect escape, so find a quiet spot and sink in—you’ll be glad you did.”

—Jennifer Hillier, award-winning author of Jar of Hearts and Little Secrets

What I’m Reading:

Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, Judd Apatow (Random House, 2016) – If you’ve been reading my newsletters for some time you know I’m a huge comedy fan, and particularly of stand-up. Of course, so is Judd Apatow, who, after a brief stint doing stand-up became a very famous comedy writer and director (40-year-old Virgin, Bridesmaids, Anchorman, etc). But his obsession with stand-up dates back to his teen years, when he started interviewing comics for his high-school newspaper. Those interviews continued throughout all his years of success, and this book is nearly 600 pages of those transcripts. Think of any famous comedian and there’s a good chance they are part of this book. It’s a fascinating look at the creative (and often dark) mind of the comic, and I was riveted by every word.

What I’m Watching:

The Queen’s Gambit, (Netflix, 2020) – An orphaned girl discovers the game of chess, and along with it her savant-like ability to play. The series takes the viewer through Beth Harmon’s tumultuous teenage and young-adult years in the mid-1950’s and early 60’s, showcasing her rise to global chess fame while she deals with a cornucopia of challenges, not the least of which include drug and alcohol addictions. Beautiful in its period detail, wonderfully acted (especially by Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth), and paced just right, The Queen’s Gambit  is likely the best limited-series I’ve watched in 2020. And I’ve watched EVERYTHING.

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch next May, I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

Photo of the MonthWhenever I travel out of the country I always buy a Christmas tree ornament from that place.

This is my only new ornament for 2020.

Update From My Kids

I found this the other day. Ili might have done the whole mall-Santa thing twice in her seventeen years, and I believe this was the second time. She’s either star-struck or on tranquilizers.

 

Update From My Cat

Guff meeting Benny, my kids’ new Shiba Inu puppy. The puppy lives at my kids’ mom’s house, so they’ve only interacted a couple of times. Overall, Guff was pretty chill, though a couple of times I feared he was seconds away from disemboweling the dog.

What’s in My Backyard!

The bobcat is back! After many months of absence, I’ve spotted her on camera a couple of times in the last month. Click on the image to watch the brief video.

Have a question you want answered in my newsletter? Email me HERE.

Halloween Recap

BIG NEWS: Halloween wasn’t a horrible disappointment! After my rant last month about the challenges of Halloween during COVID, I’m pleased to announce that it ended up being quite the success at the Wilson household.

Instead of creating a suffocating walk-through in my garage, I staged everything out on the lawn, creating the random theme of The Washburn Toxic Waste and Candy Company.  I had two mannequins and two large barrels, once barrel labeled “candy” and one “biohazard.” Then Sawyer and I took turns wearing a white hazmat suit and pretending to be a third mannequin. Henry was there as a “live” scientist reminding everyone that “COVID is real” and providing a distraction while the “third mannequin” came to life.

We had some candy on the ground and some in the candy barrel. A fog machine blasted smoke over the lawn, and the sound effects of a creepy laboratory filled the air. Then, the execution was simple. As kids would come up for candy, Henry the scientist would distract them while whomever was in the white hazmat suit would suddenly animate and turn on a leaf blower and scare the kids.

The overall trick-or-treater count was higher than I expected. The final tally (most accurately recorded by my neighbor) was 280. And, I’m happy to report that I personally heard at least one kid cry. Sure, absent COVID we probably would’ve had more kids and better screams, but at least for one night it was nice to feel like things were a little normal.

Highlight reel below. I’m already planning for next year, and it’s going to be goddamned epic.

Just starting to get some early praise in for my upcoming book, The Dead Husband. Let’s hear from thriller-author extraordinaire and all-around good guy, David Bell:

In other book news, I’m excited to share that my 2018 award-winning thriller Mister Tender’s Girl is getting a makeover. The title has fantastic new cover art to be used with e-books and future printings. I really love the new look!

Some quick takes on what I’m reading, watching, and listening to:

Book:
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (Knopf, 2005) – Okay, so this won the National Book Award and I went in with pretty high expectations. I dunno…it was…kinda blah. Beautiful writing, tragic enough, but by the end I simply wasn’t all that compelled with Didion’s memoir about losing her husband. Maybe I’m just a heartless bastard.

Netflix:
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman – Specifically, Season 3, episode 3 featuring Dave Chappelle. Whether or not you’re a fan of Chappelle’s comedy, he is a beautifully vulnerable interview subject in the hands of David Letterman. He espouses on reasons he left his popular show, on racism and police brutality, on the frayed state of the country, and on the importance of small-town communities like the one in which he lives in Ohio. I watched this interview twice.

The Haunting of Bly Manor – Oh my god, what a piece of shit this series was. I was actively rooting for most of the cast to die already so I could be spared the anemic acting and  nonsensical plot lines. The Haunting of Hill House was far better; skip this one.

Amazon Prime Video:
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm – Oh, hell yes. Any movie that can get my 15 year-old to nearly pee himself laughing is going to rank high with me. Of course, you should know what you’re getting into with Borat; it’s definitely NOT for everyone. But this is the sharpest satire to be found, and worth watching alone just for the astoundingly pervy Giuliani scene.

Music:
I’m SO tired of my Spotify music. I need something new to listen to. Give me suggestions!

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch next May, I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

 

Photo of the MonthYou may have heard about all the horrible wildfires in Colorado. While none were close enough to be a threat to my neighborhood, there were some large ones in my same county. Here’s a photo of a smoke-filled sky above my house around two in the afternoon. Rather apocalyptic.Update From My KidsNothing says fall more than when my mom makes ghost pie (chocolate pudding pie) and pumpkin bread for the kiddos. Ili was given the honors of drawing the ghost with whipped cream and let’s just say it wasn’t her finest piece of art.

Update From My Cat

Bastard always climbs on my laptop as I’m trying to write.

Reader Mail

Do you know the ending of your books when you start writing?

Never! Hell, I barely know the beginning. I’m a seat-of-my-pants writer, because that’s the most interesting way for me to tell a  story. It’s exciting to sit down every day and not know quite where the story is going, because then I get to discover surprises and plot twists just as the reader does. I probably start to get an idea for the ending when I’m about 75% completed with my first draft. There’s nothing better than being nearly done with a book before realizing what it’s all about. 

Have a question you want answered in my newsletter? Email me HERE.

 

 

A Very COVID Halloween

This was going to be THE year, man. First, Halloween 2020 falls on a Saturday, Second, that’s also the night the clocks get set back an hour in the U.S.. Finally, there will be a full moon that night (a blue moon, actually). Do you know the last time a full moon was visible in all U.S. time zones on Halloween? 1944! That’s right, way back at the end of WWII. (Side note: according to The Daily Meal, the 1940’s was the decade that first introduced the idea of a sexy Halloween costume. Thanks, Eleanor Roosevelt!)

In a normal year, a Saturday-night, daylight-savings, full-moon Halloween could have brought my trick-or-treating traffic to over 400 kids. Do you realize how many nightmares and lifelong phobias I could have induced? But then along came coronavirus. I’m guessing the numbers will be down at least 75% from a normal year. Goddamnit.

Last year I converted my entire garage into the Upside Down world from Stranger Things. Kids packed to get inside and walk through heavy fog, flashing lights, blaring music and lots of screaming. It was wonderful. Do you know what that same idea would be called this year? A SUPER-SPREADER EVENT. I don’t want to be singled out on the national news like a reckless bar owner from Lake of the Ozarks, so I am having to scale things back this year. I created the wholly random theme of The Washburn Toxic Waste and Candy Company,  I’m building some props to go out on the lawn, and I’ll be out there in a haz-mat suit flinging candy at the little ones. Everything will be outside and it’ll be safe. Sure, it’ll be fun, but it won’t be the same. *sigh*

P.S. Fuck you, 2020.
P.P.S. Wear your mask.

We’re seven months out from the launch of The Dead Husband but a few readers now have access to advance-reader copies of the book. That means the reviews on Goodreads start. It’s always a little nerve-wracking to start getting those early reviews, but I was quite happy to see this very first one posted.

Well, I wouldn’t call it a crappy ending, but I know what you mean.

What I’m Reading

If It Bleeds, Stephen King, (Scribner, 2020) This is how stupid I am: I thought this was a novel when it’s actually a collection of four novellas. I got this book as a gift and I didn’t want to know anything about it before reading, so I hadn’t even glanced the dust jacket for the description. So I read the intriguing and nicely creepy first novella “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone”, and then moved onto the next story (which I thought was merely a new chapter name) “The Life of Chuck”, and of course I couldn’t understand why the plot took such an abrupt and jarring turn (new characters, new setting, etc). But “The Life of Chuck” was so damn interesting (the best story in the book) that I gave King some leeway and was willing to patiently wait and see how everything tied together. It wasn’t until I was halfway through the book’s third and eponymous story that I smacked myself in the head  and realized all the stories were self-contained. My application to the Mensa Society has since been denied.

The novella “If It Bleeds” is both the longest and the weakest in the collection. It’s a fascinating premise about an ageless shape-shifting news reporter who covers only tragedies because he feasts on pain and anguish. However, King places his minor character Holly Gibney from a previous trilogy in the center of the story, and because I never found her interesting in even her small roles in the other books, this becomes problematic when she serves as a central figure in this story. (King, in this author’s note, confesses that he adores her). In addition to the mesmerizing “The Life of Chuck” (about how we all contain multitudes), the collection’s final story “Rat” is classic King and perhaps the closest the book dances toward psychological horror. A struggling writer is suddenly overcome with an idea for a novel, then leaves his family to go write in a cabin in the woods. He develops a nasty fever (coronavirus?) and hallucinates a rat who offers the writer a Faustian bargain.

A tight collection of stories overall and well worth reading. And, I have to say, it does make for more interesting reading if you are trying to figure out how all the stories relate to one another, when, in fact, they don’t.

What I’m Listening To

Smartless Podcast  Actors Jason Bateman (Ozark), Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Sean Hayes (Will and Grace) are all friends and decided to create a podcast where they take turns bringing in a surprise guest to interview. And what a guest list they’ve achieved to date, with names like Will Farrell, Seth Rogan, Robert Downey Jr., Jimmy Kimmel, and even Senator Kamala Harris.

But what makes this a stand-out podcast is how organically funny the three of them are. They alternate between asking the subject serious questions and delivering brutal takedowns of one another. Nor do they shy away from taking shots at their guests. (In one instance, Robert Downey Jr. starts answering a question in a slow and plodding professorial tone when Sean Hayes cuts him off, saying “Can you talk slower? I’m having a hard time keeping up with you.”)

If you’re looking for some serious laughs while still wanting a meaningful interview with a subject who interests you, this podcast is what you need.

Bits of The Dead Husband

Up until my book launch next May, I’ll be sharing snippets of The Dead Husband in this space. This month’s passage:

Photo of the MonthSo my son is in an advanced-photography class in high school, and a recent assignment required them to use photos to recreate a famous painting . I have no idea where this inspiration came from, but with the help of his mom and sister, Sawyer recreated Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, with himself as the subject. Behold the results (by the way, he aced the assignment). Update from My KidsSenior portraits! Man, can you believe this is the same kid from this wisdom-teeth-extraction-anesthesia video?

I just love this girl. (all photos credit to Bertarelli Photography

Update From My Cat

Big ol’ eyes.

 Reader Mail

Dear Carter,

What happens to The Dead Husband between now and May 2021?

A lot! In the six-to-eight months prior to a book launch many things happen behind the scenes. The publisher prints hundreds of advance-review copies to send to media outlets (trade publications, national and major-market outlets, bookstagrammers, popular bloggers & celebrity book clubs) in order to get early reviews in and help build the hype. The sales team starts reaching out to their accounts (Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, Hudsons, indie bookstores, etc.) to get orders placed for them to (hopefully) all carry the title.  We reach out to other authors for potential blurbs that would be placed on the book, and my PR team gets to work and coordinates with the publisher’s PR team on a launch plan. The launch plan is highly detailed and includes eblast announcements, pre-order contests, giveaways, and heavy email and social media marketing. Finally, as we get closer to launch, we start booking live events and interviews for the first few weeks post-launch (though those may still all be virtual by May of next year).

My publisher, Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press and my PR team, Kaye Publicity, do a fantastic job coordinating and executing all the thousands of tasks that need to be done in order to successfully launch a title.  As you can see, it’s a lot of work!

Want to write to me? Email me HERE.