Dot Dead Diary

Upgrade My Brain Now, Please

I leave for the East Coast and ThrillerFest on July 5 – that’s in less than two weeks.

Every few days my agent is sending 50-100 pages of my latest manuscript back to me with his comments neatly inserted by Word in the right-hand margin. I curse him as I read them, not because they are bad or misguided, but because he is hitting the nail on the head with each one. (I’m kind of sorry for cursing him now. He told me he’d come down with some illness and he’s accused me of voodoo powers.) Anyway, I’ve been busy rewriting at the local café that serves as my sanctum sanctorum. (Compadre Barry Eisler discovered me holed up there on Saturday. One can’t hide from him – he’s ex-CIA. OTOH, that means he can keep a secret.) My agent is supposed to have a polished manuscript in his hands by the time I board the plane.

But Friday I received the proofs of my next book, Smasher, from my editor at Midnight Ink. To stick to the publication schedule, which has it showing up on bookstore shelves in October, I need to review changes and make any necessary edits before getting on that plane. That’s priority #1.

In the meantime, the CPU between my ears is grinding away on a background task – coming up with inspiration for my next book. I do have a wispy cloud of an idea. But since it has a historical setting, I have research to do. On my East Coast trip, I’m flying first to Boston where I’ve made an appointment with an archivist to look at papers and correspondence relating to the people and period I’m interested in. He was quite accommodating even when I told him I was researching a novel. When I was in grad school in history, I used to love reading old letters, diaries, and meeting reports. We’ll see if I still do. And we’ll see if the archives inspire a plot.

I’ve never juggled three books at once this way. Jim Patterson must be able to handle a lot more than that (co-authors probably help,too), but then his brain is probably a later model with a faster processor and upgraded.

A version of this posting also appeared on InkSpot.

What Not To Buy Me

I have a weakness.  No, not drugs, alcohol, women, or gambling (well maybe a little of the latter).  Books!  What did you think?  I'm a writer.  When I read an interesting review (and I read lots of reviews), or see something that looks good on the shelves of Kepler's or M is for Mystery or Books Inc., there's no hesitation.  My credit card comes out of my wallet as fast as a gunslinger's draw. 

Now, I understand that it seems natural at birthday time or in December to buy me a book since family and friends know I'm a bibliophile.  But if someone does get me a book as a gift or presses a book on me saying "You gotta read this," one of two things happens over 90% of the time.  I've heard of the book or leafed through it and 1) decided I didn't want to read it or 2) I've already bought it.  It's awkward either way. 

Anyone else out there have the same problem?

USPS vs. UPS: A Book-Shipping Hint

Last week I was at BookExpo America in New York City.  Part of the fun of being there is getting ARCs (Advanced Readers' Copies) of forthcoming books.  Publishers are feeling strapped nowadays, so there were fewer ARCs than usual.  Still Saturday afternoon I packed up what I'd garnered and took them downstairs to the UPS booth where I paid $45 to ship them home.  I hadn't expected to be back at BEA Sunday morning, but there I was and I had even more ARCs to send home.  I had a brainwave.  The main post office, only three blocks away, used to be open 24 hours a day.  I walked over with my ARCs.  Bingo!  Even though the Post Office is suffering from the economic environment, too, its main office on Manhattan is open Sundays from 11 to 7.  I sent one more pound of books via the United States Postal Service than I had via UPS the day before.  For $10.50, less than a quarter as much, and they arrived Tuesday.  Still waiting for the UPS books.  Good thing to remember when I'm in NYC again next month gathering books at ThrillerFest.

BEA Report

Just back from BookExpo America.  Despite the economy and the parlous state of the publishing industry, the show seemed crowded and vibrant to me.

The only other BEA I attended was in D.C. just before Dot Dead came out. There’s no time like the first time. I remember being so incredulous that people would queue up to get me to sign their books. Margery Flax, the monarch of Mystery Writers of America, orchestrated an experience I’ll never forget.

(Left to right) Ken Isaacson, Hank Phillippi Ryan, me, Margery Flax, Lee Child, Chris Grabenstein, Alex Sokoloff



This time the book I was flogging was Smasher.  At the MWA booth I was seated between pal Alex Sokoloff and the elegant Hank Phillippi Ryan whom I’d never met. With Margery and husband Steve running the show, things were bound to go well. We had fun, the ARCs didn’t last long, and I managed to score a tube of the lip balm that Hank was passing out.

The next afternoon I was down in the general signing area and managed to scrawl my John Hancock in 150 books in an hour. People were there because they liked the cover, because the Steve Berry blurb enticed them, because they’d read Dot Dead and wanted more (!), because they ran bookstores, and because my line was shorter than some others.

I caught up with lots of friends. The effervescent Kathie Antrim and I ended up on the same plane. She was meeting up with two of my favorite people, Steve and Liz Berry, for a drink. I joined them and then headed out to dinner with my friends Ian and Lexa who tolerate me staying with them when in the City. Other friends I bumped into included the impressive M.J. Rose, the dynamite Houstonians David Thompson and McKenna Jordan, LA's Bobby McCue, the italophile David Hewson, and the intense Jon Land. Around the MWA booth got a chance to say hi to Karen Olson, Lee Child, Chris Grabenstein, Ken Isaacson, Frankie Bailey, Jason Starr, and Reed Farrel Coleman. (Whom am I forgetting?) Met Meredith Cole whose Posed for Murder came out in February. Lunched with the wonderful J.T. Ellison and her husband Randy who'd been admiring Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon at MOMA. On the way to lunch with them ran into Carol Fitzgerald who runs Bookreporter.com. “You have a book coming out?” she asked accusingly. Yeah, should have let her know. Mea culpa. Promised to email her when I got home. Great spending time with Midnight Ink folks, too. Even said hi to James Patterson who said he’d be at ThrillerFest and we’d talk more then.

On the trip I was even taken out for lunch by my New York agent. Isn’t that how’s this biz is supposed to work?

Once home discovered #2 is mad at me because I met her favorite writer ever, Meg Cabot, and had her sign an ARC for #3. “But it says the book is for middle schoolers and you are in high school,” say I. “Have you ever looked at my bookshelf, Daddy?” retorts she. “I have every book she has ever written.” Wonder when I will get out of the doghouse.

I didn’t wait in line for ARCs all that much. However, I did stop by and say hi to long-time idol and singing legend Judy Collins. I heard Judy sing at the Troubadour in LA when I was, what, 15 or 16?  An elegant woman with that wonderful voice which lets you know she has lived a full life.










Reunited! Judy and me.

Saturday night, chum Tim Maleeny and I went out to dinner around the corner from the Javits Center. (See previous post.) It was great catching up. Too bad, the wondrous Cara Black didn’t show. According to a posting on Facebook, she dropped her pink cellphone in the toilet and had no way of getting in touch.

Packing up my stuff to leave on Sunday I broke a glass of my hosts’, slicing open a finger. It took twenty minutes to stanch the blood flow. Of course, that later seemed appropriate as I read Megan Abbot’s Bury Me Deep while winging home. (Megan and I are almost related through marriage: her husband and I have the same agent.) Here’s my comment from Visual Bookshelf: “One of the best stories on the loss of innocence to temptation since Eve and the snake.” Then I turned to pal Maleeny’s latest, Jump. A crazy, mixed-up hybrid of a Donald Westlake comic caper, an Agatha Christie whodunit, and a Michael Connelly Harry Bosch. With ancestors like that, the book was bound to be terrific and has not disappointed.

The penalty for five days away is the mound of bills, the full email inbox, and the long list to of to dos.  Back to work!

A version of this post also appeared on InkSpot.

An Ode to M.J.

Wednesday I taught a "master" course in mystery-writing along with Cornelia Reid and John Billheimer.  We had a blast.  One thing all three of us commented on was how supportive the crime fiction community is.

This was brought to mind again yesterday when I saw M.J. Rose's name in the paper.  Her terrific thriller, The Resurrectionist, is being turned into a TV show called Past Life that will be on Fox this fall.  A great sign too:  David Hudgins, the co-exec producer of Friday Night Lights (pay attention, Shelby) is honchoing the show.  Holy mackerel, M.J.! 

Last summer when I needed advice on my career direction, M.J. steered me the right way.  In March when I was looking for blurbs for the book I have coming out this fall, M.J. got back to me fastest of all.  It's great to see wonderful things happen to good people.

 

A scene from Past Life, based on M.J.'s The Resurrectionist, on Fox this fall 

A New Face?

Despite the familiar aphorism, book buyers do seem to think you can tell a book by its cover.

In a recent story on NPR, Martha Woodroof reports “the use of novelist photos steadily increased as the text-driven magazines of the first half of the 20th century gave way to the picture-driven ones of the second half.” Nicholas Latimer of Knopf relates a conversation with a People’s Magazine editor who told him that “if you have an attractive looking author, there’s a better chance that your book will get reviewed.” Latimer bemoaned this state of affairs: “That is just shocking to think that you have to have an attractive author first, and then if they’ve written something interesting they might review it.” (Click here if you want to listen to the whole NPR story.)

I’m screwed. Damn! Is a plastic surgeon as necessary as a good editor then?

Jessa Crispin, the BookSlut, tells NPR listeners, “You know, I have met too many writers who look absolutely nothing like their author photo. So you meet them at a party, you're like, who are you? Like, did you hire somebody for your author photos? Should I get someone to stand in for me?”

Good idea! I have a book coming out in October. Maybe getting the right stand-in for my author photo is the answer. Others employ ghost writers. I'll use a ghost face.

Below are four potential author pix. Which one will send Smasher to the top of the bestseller lists?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

 

 

 

 

Laura Lippman Interview

A three-part interview of Laura Lippman by Agatha nominee G.M. Malliet kicks off today at InkSpot.  Click here. 

What's Better for Writers, Living or a Degree?

In an article in yesterday's Times (click here), Charles McGrath discusses the value of an MFA in Creative Writing.  From 1975 to 2004 the number of degree-granting writing programs in the U.S. exploded from 52 to over 300.  McGrath says, "In the 1940s and '50s, Americans who wanted to become writers went to Paris.  Now they go to Palo Alto or Iowa City."  I don't think he names my hometown of Palo Alto because it is the heart of Silicon Valley either.  It's named as the home of Stanford and its writing program.  So is the best route to becoming a writer getting an MFA?

A new grad asked me and other writers on an online forum what she should do to become a writer.  For me the answer was easy -- live.  Get a job.  Be observant. 

In the last few days I've hung with crime-writing friends who write wonderful books after having done stints in advertising, fashion, journalism, teaching, tech writing, legal practice, videography, and medicine.  All these experiences serve their writing well.  Now teachers like Peggy Lucke, Donna Levin, and Ellen Sussman got me going in the writing game and helped me understand the craft.  No reason an MFA can't do the same.  But it ought not serve as a substitute for life experience.  And an MFA is an expensive option.  I took writing courses at night and for a small fraction of what an MFA would have cost.

You can tell what McGrath thinks of the MFA phenomenon for writers from the headline of his article:  "The Ponzi Workshop."  He worries that "we are conceivably approaching a state in which there are more writers in American than there are readers."  Me?  I believe in courses, but even more in living and reading. 

Looking for a Thriller Plot?

Did you know that Shakespeare wrote a play based on Don Quixote?  That Hadley Hemingway lost a suitcase of her husband's unpublished short stories?  That Lord Byron's memoir were destroyed by a publisher who thought them only "fit for the brothel?" 

An article in this morning Journal runs through a catalog of such lost masterpieces.  (Click here to read.)  A search for (or discovery of) any one of them could provide a linchpin for a thriller, don't you think?  No need to thank me now.  Save it for the acknowledgments page of your book.

 

His publisher believed printing Byron's memoirs "would have damned Lord Byron to everlasting infamy."

Master Class on Mystery Writing Plus One

Ellen Sussman, one heckuva writing teacher, has put together a "master class" on mystery writing.  She's recruited the incredibly articulate Edgar Nominee Cornelia Read and the critically praised author of 5 books, John Billheimer , to offer hints, insights, and perspective.  Oh yeah, and Ellen asked one more local writer of crime fiction.  Me.

Here's Ellen's description of the class:  Three acclaimed mystery writers, Cornelia Read, Keith Raffel and John Billheimer, will join me in a panel discussion about their craft. I'll ask them about plotting the mystery novel, about character development, about conventions of the genre, about breaking those conventions. I'd like to find out what we non-mystery writers can learn from these masters of plot, character, voice. And for those of you who are writing mysteries, we can find out how these three have succeeded in a very competitive field. 
 

The class is scheduled for May 13 for three hours starting at 6.30 and the cost is $60. If you're interested, email ellen at ellen@ellensussman.com.  Should be fun and informative. 

Ellen Sussman