Jude Hardin

For the month of February...

2012-02-01T10:10:00.001-05:00

LAUNCH DAY!

2012-01-16T23:39:00.000-05:00

Available now, exclusively on Amazon.com

Latest Review for UNBORN

2012-01-14T09:22:00.004-05:00

Here's the latest Amazon customer review for my horror novella UNBORN, published under the pseudonym Carson Wilder. Thanks to Upstate "C" for the kind words!

I'm an avid horror fan, and it's hard to congeal my reader's blood, but this little gem did it. The author's voice is sparse, almost flippant, and that kind of writing is immensely effective as he leads the reader through a day in the life of John Rock, reluctant medium and hero. The crimes committed, by innocent people taken over by pure evil, are ingeniously detailed and presented as if we're reading nothing scarier than a walk in the park on a sunny day. It's that simplicity and economy of phrase that elevates murder to almost an art form. Less is more, and Mr. Wilder proves it. He doesn't skimp on shock value but he also avoids the ten-page set-up, thankfully. His scenes grab you right away and suck you in. Before you know it, you're looking out through a murderer's eyes and waiting for your heart to stop pounding.

I read this book in one fevered sitting, and did so late at night, my preferred time for horror. I had a tough time falling asleep. That tells me if what I've just read is good horror.

This is good horror. Don't miss out. It's not for the faint of heart and it's going to squick you out in places, but don't let that stop you. And, really, if you needed something not for the faint of heart, you wouldn't be reading horror in the first place, right?

Another Major Announcement!

2011-11-30T21:32:00.000-05:00

I am pleased to announce that I recently signed a multi-book deal with Thomas and Mercer, Amazon Publishing's imprint for mysteries and thrillers. The second book in the Nicholas Colt series will be released Summer 2012, and will be available on Amazon.com and in bookstores everywhere.

I have only been dealing with Amazon for a short time, but I am thoroughly convinced they are the future of major worldwide publishing. I'm really stoked to be part of their team!

Stay tuned for more exciting news, and for chances to win free copies of CROSSCUT, book #2 in the Nicholas Colt series!

Fire and Ice

2011-11-30T00:43:00.001-05:00

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
--Robert Frost

Now available for pre-order.

Major Announcement!

2011-09-20T14:55:00.001-05:00

From Lee Goldberg's blog:

Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint has picked up THE DEAD MAN series in a unique and exclusive 12-book digital & print deal ... with an option for more. But that's not all. Brilliance Audio will be also be rolling out their own editions of the books.

The five books that we've already published -- FACE OF EVIL, RING OF KNIVES, HELL IN HEAVEN, THE DEAD WOMAN, and THE BLOOD MESA -- will be re-released in the days leading up to Halloween ... so keep your eyes peeled for great offers.

The sixth book in the series will be released in November and will be followed each month by another new adventure in the continuing saga of Matt Cahill, a man resurrected from the dead to battle evil among us that only he can see.

Amazon will also be releasing three-book compilations of THE DEAD MAN series in trade paperback (as well as in specially priced digital editions). The release dates of the first compilation, and the Brilliance Audio editions, have not been determined yet ... but we’re hoping they'll be ready for Christmas.

Bill Rabkin and I will continue to run the series, which we're writing with a terrific group of action, horror, mystery, SF and western authors, like James Daniels, David McAfee, James Reasoner, Harry Shannon, Joel Goldman, Mel Odom, Jude Hardin, Lisa Klink, Mark Ellis, Matthew Mayo, Joe Nassise, Bill Crider, Marcus Pelegrimas, Matt Witten, Burl Barer, and Phoef Sutton.

And we couldn't have hoped for a better partner than Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer. I just returned from meeting with the Thomas & Mercer team (including editors Terry Goodman and Andy Bartlett) in Seattle and was blown away by their creativity, enthusiasm, and eagerness to see THE DEAD MAN reach its full potential. They get exactly what Bill and I are trying to do with this series.

And what is that, you ask?

We want to capture the spirit of the “men’s action adventure” paperbacks of the 70s and 80s – short, tightly-written books full of hard-boiled heroes, outrageously sexy women, wild adventure, and gleefully over-the-top plots – and reboot the genre for a new generation that maximizes the potential of the Kindle.

And with Thomas & Mercer behind us, I don't see how we can fail.

I'm proud to be part of this exciting news. Congrats to all involved!

What's Your Number?

2011-07-08T17:20:00.002-05:00

Over on the Kindle Boards I just saw the announcement by self-published author Mark Edwards that he and his co-author Louise Voss have signed a four-book deal with a major publisher. Here's the press release:

HarperFiction have moved quickly to snap up internet sensations, Louise Voss and Mark Edwards, whose two self-published novels have stormed both the Amazon Kindle and the Amazon Books chart. Catch Your Death, their second novel, has remained at the top of the Kindle chart for weeks and sold 42,000 copies in the month of June, while Killing Cupid, their debut, remains in the Top 10. The authors have sparked huge interest, appearing on BBC Breakfast, Sky News, Radio 2 and Radio 5, along with numerous newspapers and sites including BBC News, The Guardian and The Telegraph.

Kate Bradley secured World Rights for four books with a six-figure pre-empt from the agent Sam Copeland at Rogers, Coleridge and White.

Bradley said ‘When Killing Cupid and Catch Your Death were submitted, I ripped through them in just a few hours and it was clear that we had found something very, very special. Louise and Mark have done a fantastic job of publishing their own books in the digital space and I’m thrilled that we are going to take them to the next level, both in terms of their ebook profile and in the physical market. They are writing clever, fast-paced, psychological thrillers that are highly addictive and we can’t wait to get these out into the wider world.’

The first book Catch Your Death will be published as a physical edition in early Spring 2012, while the ebook editions will continue to sell online.

"Six figures" doesn't really tell us much, but for the sake of argument let's just say they're getting $999,999. World rights for four books, two of which are already top sellers as ebooks on Amazon. Is it worth it? What dollar number would a publisher have to come up with for you to sell the rights to four books?

A Conversation with Mark Terry--Are You Listening Lindsey Lohan?

2011-06-16T16:24:00.003-05:00

Author Mark Terry and I both had new releases recently. My debut thriller Pocket-47 came out May 2, and Mark's fourth Derek Stillwater thriller The Valley of Shadows hit the stores June 7. Both are available in hardcover, as well as all the ebook formats.

We thought it might be interesting to chat a bit about the business, and we've decided to let the rest of the world eavesdrop...

MARK: So, your first book came out. This is actually my 13th (yikes!). For promo I did this blog tour, visiting about 20 different blogs in about 30 days or so. I was also profiled on The Big Thrill, ran an ad in The Big Thrill, and hired a publicist to do a lot of short lead promo, so my book would get reviewed by book blogs around the date of publication. It's sort of fed into a couple other things - I just got interviewed for a freelance writing e-newsletter, discussing e-book publishing. How about you? What've you been doing?

JUDE: I've done some guest blogs and some bookstore signings, and I've been active on Kindleboards and Facebook. I've done some giveaways, and I frequently leave a link when I comment on other blogs. I have an interview or two pending, and Chuck Sambuchino (one of the editors for Writer's Digest magazine) recently posted the guest column he asked me to write. Pocket-47 received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, and I link to that whenever possible as well. I also have a review and interview coming up on Sons of Spade, a site specifically for lovers of fictional private investigators. What kind of sales expectations do you have for THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS?

MARK: Yeah, you received a dazzling review in PW. Very awesome. As for my sales expectations, I’m primarily hoping to sell more copies than I did of THE FALLEN. We’ll see. I’m seeing the overall marketing campaign having an effect on sales of all my e-books in general, which is nice. Have you been doing book signings? Are you enjoying them?

JUDE: I really did enjoy the signing I did at Books-A-Million in Louisville, KY, my hometown. I got to chat with some friends and family members I hadn’t seen in decades, and I sold all the books BAM had on hand along with some from the stash in my truck. For the most part, though, I don’t think signings are a very efficient way to sell books, unless you’re a celebrity or a NYT bestseller. This is especially true as ebook sales soar and print sales plummet. What are your thoughts on bookstore signings?

MARK: Although I’ve had a few good ones in terms of having pleasant chats with people – and I had a book launch party at Aunt Agatha’s Mystery Bookstore last year with author Craig McDonald that brought in a fair number of people (and a lot of family) that I would call a success – I’ve felt that in some ways they’ve hurt me. It has to do with expectations. Sometimes I was sold to the bookstores as this hot new author and they got excited and ordered a large number of books, which I was then unable to move at the book signing. They may have ordered 40 and I managed to move 5 or 6 at a signing, and I just feel that although it looked nice initially, it probably bit me in the butt in the long run because of returns.

And not to sound all curmudgeonly and antisocial, but that kind of cocktail party energy and presentation is slightly outside my comfort zone and I’m probably not very good at it. I’m not bad at one-on-one and even giving talks, but to do the small-talk thing at a bookstore, I’m just not sure I pull it off that well.

Some people just like playing author. I like meeting readers, they’re great, but I’m not sure I like “playing author.” I’m sort of uncomfortable with the attention. How about you?

JUDE: I would be okay with it if a lot of people showed up to buy the book. Sitting at a table and watching people stroll by trying to avoid eye contact is not my idea of a fun evening, though. If you’re not a superstar, it’s a waste of time. So that’s what we need to become. Superstars. Any ideas on how to make that happen?

MARK: Well, I’ve definitely had that experience and I thought my face was going to crack open from all those forced smiles and hellos to people who were interested in the latest book by somebody, anybody, else.

I’m inclined to think book signings don’t create successful novelists, successful novelists create successful book signings.

I don’t know. Maybe one of us – or both, I suppose – need to date Lindsey Lohan. That would get us some press coverage. I like Joe Konrath’s current business model, which involves writing a lot, primarily self-publishing e-books, and selling tons and tons of them, and not having to tour or promote.

Hasn’t quite worked that way for me, but since we’re on the subject … e-books. I’ve got a foot in both camps, with the traditional publishing, etc., and e-books, which I have published as both originals and as e-books. I find it intriguing, although I’m not a zealot like some people seem to be. Yourself?

JUDE: I think it’s smart to have a foot in both camps at this point. I know Joe and some others have had great success with self-publishing, but I’m not convinced it’s ultimately going to be the best way to go. I do think publishers are going to have to start making contracts more attractive to authors if they want to keep them around, though. Eight percent royalties on ebooks, for example, is absolutely obscene. Why would anyone take that when they can get seventy percent of the list price by self-publishing?

I have a top New York agent anxiously waiting to get her hands on my next book, so my plan is to try to get lucrative traditional deals for my novels and maybe self-publish some short stories and novellas along the way. I have one horror novella available now, although sales have been excruciatingly slow so far. So no, I’m not a zealot as far as self-publishing goes. But I do think ebooks will eventually replace print as the dominant format.

MARK: I agree with you on this. It reminds me too strongly of the hype that occurred about 10 or 15 years ago when iUniverse and other print-on-demand companies started up. It was going to be the end of publishing-as-we-know-it and some authors made a fortune and a lot of traditionally published novelists put their backlists that had gone out-of-print out, and then it faded as the typical writer discovered its limitations. There are differences now, of course. The distribution model has changed, the delivery model has changed, and the author has control of the pricing, which is a huge deal. When I published CATFISH GURU through iUniverse way back when, they did a nice job with it and it didn’t cost me anything at the time (that’s changed), but they priced the trade paperback at $17.95 at a time when hard covers were going for about $20 or so. It was a bit ahead of its time and bookstores weren’t willing to stock POD books and Amazon and online booksellers hadn’t become as dominant as they are now.

So there are differences. I think ebooks will become the dominant format, too, and if nothing else, a recent house cleaning and move of my office where I had to transfer a thousand books or so, convinced me to shift my reading over to ebooks even more than it already had simply so I don’t have to deal with moving so many books ever again.

And I can’t really tell if publishers are particularly concerned about ebook self-publishing yet or not. Mostly I hear disparaging remarks coming out of the industry, both agents and publishers, which is disheartening, because really, although I like my publisher quite a bit, the typical publisher is going to have to come up with some incentives to make them a better deal than what I can do myself through various ebook formats.

And this is going on a bit, but one thing I think traditional publishers might consider for ebook royalties is a staggered royalty with an endpoint. That is to say, perhaps a 30/70 split the first year, 50/50 the next, 70/30 the next, with an eventual point where ebook rights revert to the author. Publishers probably won’t go for it – why would they?, it represents a loss of control and revenue for them – but I think that if Amazon and B&N and Smashwords continue to offer their 70% royalties and control, and paper books continue to be marginalized, the deals traditional publishers are offering won’t make very much sense to the typical author. They’ll still be lucrative for big name authors who sell hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies, but for the typical midlist or below author who’s unlikely to make a living off their novels, they benefit by going on their own because they have more control, higher royalties and potentially more income delivered on a regular basis (i.e., monthly).

JUDE: I think publishers are going to have to offer some kind of royalty structure like the one you mentioned if they intend to survive. New York Times bestselling author Barry Eisler recently turned down a $500K offer from St. Martin’s Press and parted ways with his agent so he could self-publish. He subsequently signed a deal with Amazon’s new mystery/thriller imprint, so the terms of that deal must have been way more favorable than the terms with SMP. And Eisler is only the beginning. As more and more authors jump ship from the traditional houses, those houses will have to revise their boilerplates or go belly-up. You can’t very well run a publishing business without writers.

MARK: No matter how much some publishing houses would like to. It does make me wonder if, in the long run, what we’ll all look back on is that Amazon et al., changed things for the better for writers simply by taking their retail clout and then jumping into the publishing business. There has been a tendency for publishers to say, “Well, we’ve always done it that way” in regards to pricing and the hard/soft deals and the terms of contracts, returns, etc. Amazon, which is apparently driving these changes, is approaching it differently and doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about the way things have always been done.

I suspect it’s going to crush a lot of bookstores and probably not all the publishers will survive either. It seems – at least at the moment – like it’s a very favorable change for writers, for the most part, although my impression is that it’s even harder now than usual for new authors (and midlist authors) to get book contracts, advances are shrinking, and it’s hard for a $25.95 hardcover to find a readership when it’s competing with $7.00 paperbacks, and ebooks that range from $0.99 to $10.00 (or so). In some ways the changes make me sad and in other ways I find them exhilarating.

JUDE: Yep, a hardcover is pretty much a luxury item these days. I got a Kindle for Christmas last year, and I haven’t bought a single hardcover since. For that matter, I haven’t bought a single paperback either. It’s just so much easier to buy and read books electronically, and they don’t take up space and collect dust.

Well, it’s been great chatting with you, Mark. Best of luck with your new release and all your future books. All the changes going on in the industry should keep things interesting!

Unborn, Chapter One

2011-06-11T09:47:00.005-05:00

Judy Smith and her husband Charles had taken the two-lane blacktop, thinking they might be able to avoid the Friday evening interstate traffic. Now Judy braced herself against the dashboard, as if by sheer will she might be able to stop the eighteen-wheeler barreling directly toward them at ninety miles an hour.

“No!” Judy shouted. The truck kept coming.

Charles had a deathgrip on the steering wheel. He was frozen. Judy had to do something. She reached over and pulled the emergency brake, and at the same time grabbed the wheel and jerked it to the right. The car spun out of control and then rolled onto its side, finally landing upside down in a roadside drainage ditch. The airbag deployed, pinning Judy against her seat, and her neck was bent at a painful angle against the car’s headliner.

But she was alive.

She was alive, and she could wiggle her toes.

The semi’s airbrakes hissed to a stop on the other side of the highway.

It was dark, and Judy couldn’t see Charles, but she could hear him groaning. He was alive, too. Surely the trucker would call 9-1-1 now and help would be on the way shortly.

Judy felt something dripping on her left arm, something ice cold and stinging hot.

Then she smelled it.

Gasoline.

The tank must have ruptured when the car rolled. The liquid trickled down her arm in a steady stream and welled in her armpit. She could feel it starting to saturate her black dress.

“Charles? Honey?”

“I’m here,” he said. “I think my legs are broke. God, it hurts. It hurts so bad.”

“We’re going to be okay. They’ll take us to the hospital and fix us up good as new. You’ll see. I bet we’ll even get to ride in a helicopter. I’ve never ridden in a helicopter. Have you, honey? It’ll make one heck of a story for our grand--”

She almost said grandchildren, but she caught herself in time. No, there would be no grandchildren now. They had buried that dream earlier in a mahogany casket with brass hardware.

It was just a casket, she’d told herself, albeit a very expensive one. Just a casket, and the battered earthly shell that had once contained her son’s soul.

Charles had wanted Colin to be cremated, but Judy wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted to see him, to be near him, to touch and hold and kiss him before saying goodbye for the last time. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being slid into an oven on a slab.

“My legs are broke for sure,” Charles gasped. “I’m in agony. If I had a gun right now, I would shoot myself.”

“Don’t talk like that, honey. They’ll give you something for the pain. Dilaudid, or morphine, something like that. It’ll knock it right out. You’ll see.”

Charles didn’t respond. All was quiet and inky black. No traffic, no sirens in the distance, no chopper blades whirring to the rescue. What was taking them so long?

Judy tried to reassure herself. It hadn’t really been long at all. Five minutes, maybe. Of course help couldn’t have gotten there yet. They were on a stretch of road in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town. It would take at least twenty minutes for a rescue unit to arrive, maybe more.

The safety glass on Judy’s side had crumpled inward, and there was a gap between the window and the doorframe that allowed fresh air to enter the car’s interior. If that window hadn’t broken like it did, the noxious gasoline fumes flooding the car’s interior probably would have choked Judy and her husband to death by now.

Thank you, Jesus.

The door to the semi’s cab slammed shut and a pair of heavy shoes clomped across the pavement. Judy’s broken window faced that way, and she watched the trucker approach.

He didn’t seem panicked, or even in much of a hurry. He stopped a few feet from the wrecked vehicle, pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, put the cigarette in his mouth and lit a match. He held the burning matchstick for a few seconds, staring into it, entranced by the flame. He finally lit the cigarette and blew the match out with a lungful of smoke.

“Hey,” Judy said. “We got a gas leak here. Would you mind not smoking?”

The trucker took another drag. He didn’t say anything.

“Hey,” Judy repeated. “Can you hear me? There’s gasoline leaking into the car here.”

He still didn’t say anything. He hot-boxed the Marlboro like no tomorrow, blue-gray smoke jetting from his nostrils and rising into the cool night air.

What an idiot. Was he trying to blow them all to Kingdom Come? Judy wished he would go on back to his truck. She wished the ambulance would hurry up. She wished--

Then, faintly, there was a distant wail. Glory be. Help was on the way.

The trucker turned and started to walk away. He hesitated, pivoted back toward Judy, and flicked the smoldering cigarette in her direction. In slow motion the fiery butt twirled end-over-end and landed inches from Judy’s window in the dry roadside scrub grass.

She tried to pick it up, hoping to extinguish it, but it was out of reach. She leaned into the broken glass and stretched with all her might. If her arm had been a fraction of an inch longer, or if she had made it to her nail appointment that morning, she could have snatched the nasty thing and squashed it into the dirt.

No such luck.

Her heart pounded and her breath came in shallow gasps. She leaned and stretched, leaned and stretched, leaned and stretched and, finally, touched the filter with her middle finger.

She touched it with her finger but it was wet and slippery from the trucker’s saliva and she couldn’t get enough friction against it to guide it her way.

A plume of black smoke rose from a single blade of grass near the lit end of the cigarette, and then the unmistakable crackle of brush fire chewed its way into Judy’s consciousness like a team of hungry rats. She saw the flashing red lights of an ambulance and a fire truck seconds before bright orange flames engulfed the car and slowly roasted her and her husband until they were crispy dead.

FOR A LIMITED TIME, WHEN YOU BUY UNBORN FOR $2.99, THE ENTIRE NOVEL JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS: A KIM JOURNEY THRILLER BY S.J. HARRIS IS INCLUDED FOR FREE. THAT'S A $7.99 VALUE ABSOLUTELY FREE!

My Horror Novella

2011-05-27T19:04:00.005-05:00

Psychic medium John Rock once had his own primetime television show.

Sometimes, the dead would speak to him.

The show was a huge hit, but the network wanted a performing seal.

John Rock refused to be one.

Now, some twenty years later, he walks the earth...

Sometimes, the dead speak to him.

Sometimes, they do more.

Much, much, more.

The most powerful, cunning, malevolent entity John Rock has ever encountered is out for revenge.

The entity is unfathomable.

The entity is unrelenting.

The entity is unafraid.

And, perhaps most terrifying of all...

The entity is

I defy anyone to read the first chilling chapter of this book and not buy it immediately. It will be an irresistible compulsion, because it's clear from the get-go that you're in the hands of a master of suspense.
--Lee Goldberg, author of THE WALK and the MONK series of novels.

With UNBORN, Hardin wades into the blood-soaked waters of the paranormal horror genre and knocks one straight out of the park. This one is sure to keep you up late while it chills your blood.
--Blake Crouch, author of RUN

Cross Stephen King with Lee Child and you get Jude Hardin’s UNBORN. Don't be surprised if you follow this duel from beginning to end in one sitting.
--Eric Christopherson, author of CRACK-UP

The Great Manuscript Giveaway and a FREE KINDLE

2011-05-04T15:18:00.006-05:00

I've been trying to think of a unique way to promote Pocket-47, and to my knowledge this has never been done before.

Here's the deal: I still have, in my possession, the original manuscript of Pocket-47, submitted to Oceanview Publishing in the fall of 2009.

I want to give this manuscript away, one page at a time.

There are 260 pages.

Many of these pages have been marked by Patricia Gussin, my editor at Oceanview.

Each and every page will be signed by me.

Suitable for framing, these pages are sure to become collector's items. Someday, your grandchildren will be able to sell them on eBay and maybe make enough to buy A BRAND NEW CAR!

But wait, there's more. Once all the pages are distributed, one lucky participant will be chosen at random to win a Kindle e-reading device absolutely free.

That's right, A FREE KINDLE!

These pages are ONE OF A KIND, and once they're gone they're gone.

How can you get one?

Simple.

All you have to do is review Pocket-47 on Amazon.com. That's it! Write a review of fifty words or more and then email me with your mailing address. Really. That's all you have to do.

The email you send to me should have THE GREAT MANUSCRIPT GIVEAWAY as the subject line, and should include a link to your review.

Just think, your very own SIGNED PAGE from the original Pocket-47 manuscript. This is an incredible offer that has never been done before, and you should HURRY AND WRITE YOUR REVIEW before all the pages are gone.

Release Day!

2011-05-02T03:21:00.003-05:00

Please join me in the celebration of this very special occasion--the publication of my first novel.

I just checked, and the Kindle and hardcover versions of Pocket-47 are now live on Amazon. For those of you who have been waiting to post your reviews, now is the time!

They're Here!

2011-04-28T18:35:00.002-05:00

I received my complimentary author copies of Pocket-47. Aren't they beautiful? There's just something about holding your book for the first time that, well, makes you smile.

Get Dead for $.99!

2011-04-05T05:54:00.004-05:00

For a limited time, you can buy The Dead Man: Face of Evil, the first book in the series created by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, for only $.99. The second adventure, The Dead Man: Ring of Knives recently went live at the low price of $2.99. Why not buy both today?!

Major Announcement!

2011-04-02T17:23:00.005-05:00

I have been invited to write a book in the Dead Man series, created by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin. I'll be working alongside a bunch of great authors (James Reasoner, Bill Crider, David McAfee, Harry Shannon, Joel Goldman, James Daniels, Marcus Pelegrimas, Mel Odom, Matt Witten, Burl Barer, Matthew Mayo, Lisa Klink, Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin--forgive me if I've left anyone out), so it's quite an honor.

The first book in the series, The Dead Man: Face of Evil by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin gets the ball rolling, and is receiving rave reviews everywhere. I highly recommend it.

The second book in the series, The Dead Man: Ring of Knives by James Daniels went live a couple of days ago. I've read it already, and it is first-rate as well.

I have begun work on my book, and plan to have it ready for release in the fall. If you love adventure and horror with a few laughs mixed in for good measure, this is an excellent series to follow. The best time to get started is right now!

And a special thanks to author J.A. Konrath for putting me in touch with Lee Goldberg.

Starred Review!

2011-03-23T05:44:00.003-05:00

I learned last week that my debut thriller Pocket-47, to be released May 2 by Oceanview Publishing, received a starred review from the Big Daddy of trade magazines in the publishing world--Publisher's Weekly. Here's what they had to say:

Hardin gets everything right in his powerhouse thriller debut, which introduces rock star–turned–PI Nicholas Colt. The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed everyone in his band as well as his wife and baby daughter 20-some years earlier, Colt now works out of an SUV in north Florida. Strapped for cash, he agrees to help 23-year-old Leitha Ryan track down her missing 15-year-old sister, Brittney. Leitha is reluctant to involve the police out of fear that they will return Brittney to foster care. What appears to be a straightforward case proves to be anything but. Colt uncovers several murders as it becomes clear that Brittney disappeared in order to hide from someone who wants to kill her. The violence, while sometimes extreme, is never gratuitous, and Hardin crafts a well-constructed plot and conjures up a flawed protagonist who’s more than capable of carrying a series.

A Sneak Peek at Nicholas Colt

2011-02-26T10:01:00.003-05:00

My entire Nicholas Colt short titled "A Hard Line Drive to Wrong" is included in the sample. Check it out, and all the other great stories in this new anthology. Only $2.99!

Thoughts?

2011-02-25T18:55:00.001-05:00

Hello 2011

2011-01-14T11:50:00.002-05:00

Goodbye 2010

2010-12-31T09:54:00.019-05:00

Should You Self-Publish Your First Novel?

2010-12-28T10:16:00.003-05:00

I would still advise newbie writers to take a print deal, even a bad one, with a reputable house over self-publishing their first book.
--Lee Goldberg

I agree with Lee for several reasons:

1) If you can't make it past the Gatekeeper (even once), then how do you know your writing is good enough to be published?

2) A print deal is still the best way to get your name out there, and the notoriety will benefit you greatly even if you decide to go indie later on (as it has Lee Goldberg and Joe Konrath, among others).

3) The experience you gain working with in-house editors will make you a better writer.

4) There's nothing in the world like getting a call of acceptance from an agent or editor. It means all your hard work has finally paid off, you finally did it, you finally broke through. In most cases it means you busted your ass working on your craft for years. There's no substitute for writing and throwing away hundreds of thousands or words. You can't buy that. You can't learn it in a classroom.

So, even if you plan to go indie eventually, I believe a print deal with a reputable house is still the best way to go right out of the box.

Thoughts?

In Response to Mr. Parrish

2010-11-26T17:58:00.002-05:00

I grew up in a household with no car. There was a shopping center two blocks away with a grocery store, drug store, dime store, hardware store, diner...it was kind of like an early version of Super Wal-Mart, except all the stores were independently owned and one of them was a beer joint. The school I went to was right behind the shopping center, so for years the path leading to the Hazelwood area of Louisville, Kentucky was my world.

Not to get all nostalgic or anything, but…

It sucked!

The day I got my driver's license was one of the happiest days of my life. It represented freedom and unlimited horizons. I had wheels! I could go places! I was no longer at the mercy of mass transit, or tethered by the impracticalities of walking or cycling. I could go on a date, by golly, or hang out with my friends across town on a whim.

Those things were great, but you want to know the best thing about having a car? YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO WALK TO SCHOOL IN THE FUCKING RAIN ANYMORE.

Unlike this guy, I was never really one to laugh at getting caught in a downpour. It was rather an unpleasantry I was forced to endure from time to time as a child, like getting up for a drink of water at night and stubbing your toe on a chair leg. Hardee har har.

Not only did you get, you know, WET when you walked in the rain, but you also had to don one of those humiliating rubber coats they had back in the 60s. You know the ones I’m talking about? They were a shade of yellow that could be seen from outer space. They were completely impermeable to water, which meant they were also completely impermeable to a little thing called air. Oh, it was great. You didn’t get a drop of rain on your upper body (the bottom of your pants were always soaked regardless!) or your head (the coats came with attractive matching hats!), but by the time you got where you were going, you were dripping with sweat and smelled something like that stack of used tires at the filling station.

And that nice bologna and cheese sandwich your mom so lovingly prepared for you? Better get a spoon.

The walk to school itself was quite the adventure. It was always dark, as I remember it, and the toasty dry kids riding by in their parents’ cars would point and laugh at the neon yellow anomaly sloshing sadly along outside. Some of the cars didn’t even bother to slow down, which meant you got some extra water on your pants from the splash. Haha! Hehe! Unbridled joy!

I did try to raise my face to the sky and say, “Give it to me” one time. Unfortunately, I almost drowned.

I suppose it might be sort of quaint and poetic and even therapeutic to walk around laughing in the rain, but I had enough of that fun when I was a kid. Give me a car and an open road and an umbrella, and I’m good to go.

Now if I can just talk Wal-Mart into adding a beer joint.

ARCs!

2010-11-17T15:30:00.001-05:00

Great News!

2010-10-15T06:44:00.001-05:00

Amber Entertainment is teaming with my publisher to develop feature films from their acquired novels. Read all about it here.

For Series Writers

2010-09-05T09:27:00.000-05:00

I'm writing the second Nicholas Colt thriller, and the storyline in book #1 is very much pertinent to the storyline in book #2. I don't want to assume that everyone who reads book #2 will have already read book #1, so I'm trying to incorporate all the back story into the first few chapters. I'm using some exposition, and some dialogue, and trying to avoid the dreaded "info dump."

For those of you writing a series, how do you generally handle back story?

Bestseller Bound

2010-09-03T15:18:00.001-05:00

A new site for small press and indie authors.

Thoughts?

2010-07-06T16:12:00.000-05:00

My Website.

Thoughts?

2010-06-22T07:26:00.002-05:00

Happy Bloomsday!

2010-06-16T18:31:00.003-05:00

Let's all celebrate the freedom of artistic expression with a pint of stout. And maybe even a boiled kidney. ;)

My Friend Turns 50

2010-06-12T18:50:00.003-05:00

I've known this guy since 6th grade. Think we might have some stories? Happy birthday, my brother.

The Graduate

2010-06-05T11:33:00.002-05:00

Pocket-47 Flap Jacket Copy (Revision #2)

2010-05-20T07:54:00.004-05:00

Rule #2 in private investigator Nicholas Colt’s Philosophy of Life: If you have a good Tuesday, Wednesday is likely to be a bitch.

Welcome to Wednesday.

Fifteen-year-old Brittney Ryan has taken to the streets. Colt is hired to find her and bring her home.

Piece of cake, he thinks. A surprise visit to the forbidden boyfriend should put this one in the scrapbook.

But something more sinister is behind Brittney’s disappearance, and Colt soon finds himself in an ever-widening maze of deceit, betrayal, and murder.

And, when he learns what the mysterious phrase Pocket-47 means, he is haunted even more by the plane crash that killed his family and rock band twenty years ago--a crash he now realizes might not have been an accident.

Colt is determined to save Brittney and untangle the threads of his own tortured past.

Unfortunately, one of the most heinous and violent criminals in modern history has other ideas.

Which might be okay, because…

Rule #1 in Nicholas Colt’s Philosophy of Life: Screw the rules. Let's jam.

Pocket-47 Flap Jacket Copy (Revision #1)

2010-05-14T22:05:00.001-05:00

Furious for being grounded, fifteen-year-old Brittney Ryan has taken to the streets. Leitha, her older sister and legal guardian, hires private investigator Nicholas Colt to find her and bring her home.

Piece of cake, Colt thinks. With the forbidden boyfriend’s address in hand, he plans to make a surprise visit and put this one in the scrapbook.

But something more sinister is behind Brittney’s disappearance, and Colt soon finds himself in an ever-widening maze of deceit, betrayal, and murder. One treacherous path leads to another, the obstacles and pitfalls seemingly endless.

And, when Colt learns what the mysterious phrase Pocket-47 means, he is haunted even more by the plane crash that killed his wife and baby daughter twenty years ago--a crash he now realizes might not have been an accident.

Determined to save Brittney and untangle the threads of his own tortured past, Colt squares off with one of the most heinous and violent criminals in modern history. With time quickly running out, he struggles to exhume an astonishing secret buried for two decades.

Pocket-47 Flap Jacket Copy

2010-05-14T11:50:00.003-05:00

Twenty years after crawling from the fiery wreckage of a chartered jet and witnessing his wife and daughter perish, private investigator Nicholas Colt makes a horrifying discovery while tracking a runaway teenage girl.

Fifteen-year-old Brittney Ryan is in trouble. Fearing for her life because of some incriminating evidence she stumbled upon, she takes to the streets. Colt is hired to find her, but soon finds himself in an ever-widening maze of deceit, betrayal, and murder. One treacherous path leads to another, the obstacles and pitfalls seemingly endless.

And, when Colt hears the mysterious phrase Pocket-47 for the first time--and then learns what it means--the stakes are raised to new levels.

Determined to save Brittney and untangle the threads of his own tortured past, Colt eventually squares off with one of the most heinous and violent criminals in modern history. Lucius Strychar is a television preacher, militia leader, and raving lunatic.

With Strychar’s army on his tail and time quickly running out, Colt must struggle for his one chance to exhume the astonishing secret kept buried for two decades.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I would like to hear from anyone who loves books.

Workshop

2010-05-08T21:34:00.003-05:00

I spent the afternoon with the wonderful Alexandra Sokoloff, in her workshop titled "Screenwriting Tricks for Authors." Because, as a writer, there is always, always, always more to learn.

The gist of the workshop can be found on her blog, on the sidebar under "writing articles." Or, if you prefer everything presented concisely in book form, you can purchase an edition for Kindle here.

Also, Alex's latest supernatural thriller from St. Martin's, to be released May 25, 2010, can be ordered here.

This lady can write, my friends. I highly recommend her.

On Sale Today!

2010-05-01T07:16:00.004-05:00

This is book #2 in Erica's excellent series for middle-grade readers. If someone in your life is age 9-12, or if you're still a kid at heart and enjoy a rollicking good story (Edgar Allan Poe is a character in this one!), then by all means rush to the bookstore or order your copy online today. For more information on Ms. Kirov and the series, visit her website here.

Congrats, Erica!

An Interview with Stephen Parrish

2010-04-24T07:04:00.006-05:00

Stephen Parrish has been an online friend for a couple of years now. The first time I clicked on his sometimes-humorous and always-insightful blog, I thought man, this guy can write!

I knew he had written some fiction, and I figured it was only a matter of time before he landed a publishing deal. When he did, I knew it was a book I would have to own.

May 1 is the official release date of The Tavernier Stones, but it is available now at many bookstores and through online retailers.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Stephen a few questions regarding his past, present, and future. I think you'll find his answers interesting.

I know you live in Germany, but I never heard the story of what brought you there.

The U.S. Army. Signing up was the second best thing I ever did, after becoming a dad.

Is there any chance you’ll ever move back to the States?

I'm homesick. But having so many exotic cultures within a short drive is a fantasy come true. Once when I had business near the Dutch border I decided to drive home by cutting through Holland, then Belgium, then Luxembourg, before crossing back into Germany. Four countries in one afternoon, just for the hell of it. Try doing that from Indianapolis. My favorite city, London, is one hour away by air, and I can get a round trip ticket for a hundred bucks. Come to think of it, maybe I'm not so homesick after all . . .

What are some of the difficulties living in Europe and trying to promote a book published in America? Will there be any sort of American book tour?

The Atlantic Ocean is an obvious impediment to book signings, but I think the practice is dated and on its way out. The internet is exponentially more efficient at reaching people. I'm also convinced that ebooks will soon be the norm, sooner than most people predict, and print rights will be treated as subsidiary, like audio rights are today. You can't autograph an ebook.

When it comes to book marketing in general, I'm highly suspicious of conventional wisdom, and especially of what appears to be a prevailing notion that writers need to promote balls-to-the-wall in every arena they can. Some arenas are efficient, some are inefficient, some horribly so.

Where did the title The Tavernier Stones come from?

My editor chose it. It's the fourth title the book has worn. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (tavern-YAY) was a seventeenth century Marco Polo who traveled frequently to the Orient and brought back many gemstones to the court of Louis XIV, including a large blue diamond that would later be recut into The Hope. My novel capitalizes on the legend of his final voyage, during which he mysteriously disappeared.

How did you come up with the idea for the book?

Two of my passions are maps and gemstones. When it occured to me to marry the two, to conjure up a treasure map and make the treasure a cache of priceless jewels, I couldn't resist. Mind you, I tried to resist; my ambitions have always leaned toward literary fiction. I refused to touch the project for several years after conceiving it. But it kept nagging me.

I know you have a background in mathematics. When did you first become interested in writing fiction?

Literature is my first love. I've read omnivorously, particularly fiction, as far back as I can remember. When I say I would rather read a good novel than do anything else, and I mean anything, people think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. Math is another story, a parallel life I'm living.

What authors influenced you? Was there ever an author you considered a mentor?

Hemingway is probably tops. When he was good, no one was better. It can also be said that when he was bad, no one was worse. That suck-in-a-deep-breath moment near the end of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is, to my way of thinking, what we're all trying to achieve.

When I was very young I got swept away by Leon Uris. I still think Mila 18 is one of the best novels ever written. It was Leon, more than any other writer, and probably more than all of them combined, who inspired me to be a novelist.

You signed up for NaNoWriMo last year. What became of that? Would you recommend it?

I signed up two years in a row. I won't again. It's not for me.

Do you have any advice for newbies trying to break in? What are your thoughts on self-publishing?

I'm still a newbie myself. There's a lot of good advice out there, particularly about seeking and paying attention to criticism, and aspiring writers should listen to it. The one thing I would stress is: Don't Give Up. Lucky people aren't getting book deals, stubborn people are.

As for self publishing, well, you can do it if you want, but I won't buy it or read it.

I know you landed your publishing contract without an agent. Have you tried to get an agent since signing with Midnight Ink?

No, I'm exercising patience. Tavernier was represented unsuccessfully, and I ended up having to sell it myself. I learned that the expression "getting an agent" woefully lacks a critical adjective or two.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re working on now?

A juvenile delinquent is given a choice: remain in detention for the final six months of his sentence, or go to work on a vineyard.

Why should someone browsing in a bookstore buy The Tavernier Stones over the hundreds of other choices on the shelves? What makes your book stand out in the crowd?

It's got a shit-hot cover! All I ask is that people read chapter one. It's available in its entirety on the Amazon page by clicking the "search inside this book" option. If it doesn't make you want to read further, you have my gratitude for giving it a shot, and I hope we cross paths again.

Shit-hot indeed!

You can learn more about Stephen and his debut novel on his website.

Also, he is sponsoring a contest, based on the novel, where you can win a one-carat diamond here.

Thank you, Stephen, and best of luck with the book!

My First Blurb!!!!!

2010-04-18T14:12:00.003-05:00

Nicolas Colt is a PI who cares about people.

And, his creator, Jude Hardin, makes us care about Nicolas Colt.

Colt is tough, smart and persistent, characteristics he shares with most other private eyes in crime fiction.

But he’s a believable character as well - and that’s something many writers seem to have trouble bringing off.

Not Hardin.

Pocket-47 is a thoroughly engaging, nonstop slay ride.

Read it.

--Leighton Gage, author of Dying Gasp: A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation

Making Ezra Frech's Dream Come True

2010-04-17T20:26:00.001-05:00

If this doesn't get you, nothing will.

Countdown to Publication: 381 Days

2010-04-15T09:29:00.004-05:00

I thought it might be interesting to document my journey toward print. After all, having your first novel published is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I hope to publish many more, but there will only be one debut. So...

In a previous post, my friend Jon VanZile said he liked my title, Pocket-47. I’ve actually gotten quite a few compliments on it, and it came to me in sort of a crazy way. I work at a hospital as an RN, and we use a computerized medication dispenser with many drawers and cabinets filled with hundreds of drugs we might need during a shift. One night a couple of years ago, I logged in and selected a medication for a patient. The computer promptly directed me to a cabinet with groups of segmented plastic trays on shelves, the segments referred to as pockets.

The medication I wanted was in Pocket-47.

It wasn’t an uncommon med. I’d probably been to that location dozens of times, but for some reason that time the combination of the word Pocket and the number 47 struck me as a nice title for a book.

By the way, in the context of the novel, Pocket-47 has a completely different meaning.

Why 47? I don’t know, but there’s an entire society dedicated to that number. They say that it “appears to be the quintessential random number of the universe.”

Works for me.

And you can bet I will let them know when the book is soon to be released. Heck, I might even join.

Guest Blogger Mark Terry

2010-04-06T07:31:00.003-05:00

Is this a great looking cover, or what? I know Mark's excited about it, and I am, too, because the same artist is going to do the cover for my book!

I first "met" Mark Terry a few years ago on Joe Konrath's Blog. He has always struck me as a no-nonsense kind of guy, and very knowledgeable about contemporary genre fiction. His latest novel, the third in the Derek Stillwater series, came out this month and I'm reading it now. I'll give it a full review when I finish, but for now let me just say that the opening rocks.

Mark has been kind enough to stop by for a few words of wisdom today, so let's all give him a warm welcome. Take it away, Mark.

Launched Roller Coaster

Old fogey that I am, I remember when the only roller coasters around were ones where your car had to be hauled to the top of the hill via a chain before you could get that wild ride. From a physics point of view, the long haul up the hill stores the energy that is used for the rest of the ride.

Over the last 10 years or so something called a “launched roller coaster” or sometimes a “catapult coaster” has come into vogue. Off the top of my head, the one I’ve ridden on most recently was the Aerosmith Rockin’ Roller Coaster at Disney World. Basically, instead of the click-click-click ride up to the top of the hill, anticipation building, a hydraulic pump (or other varieties of propulsion systems) launch you from about 0 miles per hour to about 80 mph in about a second. Whiplash alert!

No, this isn’t all about roller coasters.

It’s about novels. You’ve got two choices (at least) when starting a novel. You can do a slow build or you can launch the reader. Typically, a “launch the reader” approach utilizes in media res, which is a Latin phrase that means “into the middle of affairs.” That is to say, you start your novel right in the middle of action and explain it all later.

I’m an advocate of in media res, but that’s largely because I’m writing very fast-paced thriller novels. I set the tone and pace by giving a reader a sense of speed and adrenaline right from the beginning (and try not to let up for the rest of the book). (I’m probably also impatient). My latest novel, THE FALLEN, starts with a sniper on a hillside watching a security checkpoint for the G8 Summit. Within a couple pages he’s dead and so are a bunch of other people. I launched, baby.

Although it works for me and the types of books I write, it’s not the only way, or even necessarily the best way. There’s a lot to be said for seducing the reader into the story. A little romance, a little flowers, maybe dinner, candlelight…. I think this works best for many different types of books, including straight mysteries, romance, and many books aimed at kids. Just don’t wait too long to get things moving or your agent, editor, and readers may give up, not a good thing.

For instance, in the Harry Potter novels, although as a reader it sometimes drove me crazy, the novels almost always started out with Harry living with his aunt and uncle in the Muggle world. The fun started when he finally got to Hogwarts. But JK Rowling was establishing the difference between the Muggle world and Hogwarts, she was showing the reader how different Harry’s life was between the two extremes. And that’s important, particularly in novels where a character is moving to a very different environment.

Now, I’m reading Jude’s novel in manuscript, POCKET-47, and like many PI novels, it starts out with some seduction: introducing the character, the setting, a client shows up, the case is presented, then we move on. Robert B. Parker wrote about 50 bestselling novels using the same approach. It works fine. And Jude’s book (and no, I don’t know yet what the title refers to) appears very character-driven, and an engaging character he is, too, rather than plot-driven. The seduction works well as complications build (insert sex metaphor of your choice here).

Can you give examples of each one?

Shopping Adventures

2010-03-27T21:26:00.012-05:00

I know it’s a bit old-fashioned, but I actually got in my vehicle and left the house today. I needed something decent to wear for author photos, and while it might be practical to buy books and canned tuna and printer cartridges (just to name a few daily staples) online, clothing is a different matter.

For me, anyway.

I do order my work scrubs from an internet source, but with most clothes I feel the need to actually see them on my body before shelling out the dough.

So I went out.

I drove to the mall, and parked near Books-A-Million. Now, I have to say, most of my trips to the mall start and end at this store. Normally, I do not feel the urge to venture into the vast mallevolent wilderness, with untamed predators pacing in front of their kiosk cages, hawking everything from “free” cell phones (just sign on the dotted line) to five-dollar scoops of ice cream.

“I don’t know if it’s worth five dollars, but it’s pretty fucking good.”

Today I was on a mission, though, so I only allowed myself a few minutes of browsing while making my way from the street side of BAM to the mall side.

I forced myself through the anti-theft portal (feeling rather violated as it magnetically frisked me with an audible click) and soon found myself in a different world.

“Welcome to The Suck.”

I briskly made my way toward the nearest department store, hands in pockets and eyes focused firmly on the terrazzo.

It was touch and go for awhile, but my shields must have been effective; I made it through unscathed.

I squinted and held my breath through a pocket of tear gas (i.e. the perfume aisle), finally finding my footing on the escalator to the second floor.

And there it was. The Men’s Department.

“We’ve been expecting you.”

I gravitated toward a rack of t-shirts (nice shiny ones woven from space-age polymers), and was practically gagging at the thought of paying thirty bucks for one when a stout middle-aged woman with an eastern European accent said, “Are you finding everything okay?”

I just got here, Hulga. Give me a chance.

“Yes,” I said, and sauntered toward the suits.

Hulga followed me. She had obviously been trained by Americans.

“If you need help with anything, just let me know.”

“Okay. I will.”

Hulga shut up for a while and marched back to her station, but I felt her eyes drilling holes through me from the register.

I fingered through some fairly boring blazers with fairly exorbitant price tags, and then, all alone on the clearance rack amidst a sea of rejected trousers, hung the perfect jacket.

Ralph Lauren.

The color and texture of soft suede.

Fit as though it had been tailored for me.

It had been discounted twice, making it 75% off the original price. Bingo. It was mine.

Now I needed a shirt. I thought about going back to the slick futuristic Ts, but then I saw some designer label shirt/tie combos also on clearance. I was working on choosing one when Hulga approached and said, “Would you like for me to hold that for you?”

I reluctantly handed her my prized blazer, hoping she wouldn’t neglect it and allow it to be abducted by another customer.

I found one shirt, and was looking at some others, when Hulga once again asked if she could hold what I was carrying.

“Actually, I’m ready to check out,” I said.

Fuck it. I was getting frustrated with all the attention. If she had left me alone, I probably would have bought more.

She rang me up. I swiped my card, and then she said, “Your phone number please?”

It’s an old retail trick. They want you to think you have to give them your phone number just because you didn’t pay in cash. You don’t. They just want to get you on their mailing list. Nice try, Hul.

“Um, I really don’t want to give you my number,” I said.

“It’s only so we can send you coupons and special offers.”

Really? I thought you were going to call and ask me for a date.

“No thanks,” I said, trying to be polite.

She frowned and wrapped my things and sent me on my way with the compulsory, “Have a nice day.”

Whew.

I trekked back to Books-A-Million, and as soon as I walked through the mall side entrance I noticed a man sitting at a table with a stack of books. He was signing one of them, and chatting with the customer who had bought it.

I stood off to the side, thinking I might like to talk with this author and maybe even buy one of his books. I had never heard of him, but he looked like a nice fellow and seemed to be very approachable.

Then a woman walked up to me, smiled, and thrust a bookmark in my direction.

“Do you read thrillers?” she said.

“Why, yes, I do.”

She went into her spiel, telling me all about the book and its author.

“Actually, I have a to-be-read pile this high, and I’m trying to avoid any book purchases at this time...”

“But you can get it signed if you buy one now!”

I thought about it, but there was just something about the aggressive sales pitch that turned me off. It was Hulga all over again. I was being targeted and accosted.

When I walk into a store, I want to be left alone to browse in my own way and my own time. This is especially true when I walk into a bookstore.

Note to self: when you do a signing, don’t have someone who walks around and annoys the customers with hype about your book. Don’t have someone who does it for you, and don’t do it yourself. You might gain a sale, but you’ll probably lose ten.

“Are you his wife?” I asked.

“Um...yes.”

I glanced at the bookmark.

“I’m not familiar with this publisher,” I said. I wasn’t making any assumptions at that point. There are plenty of legitimate small presses that I’ve never heard of.

“Oh, that’s his company. He’s doing it all himself. We decided to bypass trying to find an agent and submitting to publishers...”

I didn’t tell her that I’m also an author. I didn’t tell her the trials and tribulations I went through to finally get a book deal. I didn’t tell her that every self-published book I had ever read (all or part of) had left me with a sour aftertaste.

I doubt any of it would have made an impact.

I wished her best of luck and hurried toward the exit with my new duds.

At least I had gotten a good deal on the jacket.

The FREE All-You-Can-Read Buffet

2010-03-25T09:12:00.002-05:00

Right now eight of the top ten bestsellers on Kindle are listed for $0.00, with Andrew Gross's Dark Tide leading the way.

I'm not sure what kind of conclusion to draw from that, but it's interesting.

If you like Whoppers better than Big Macs, but Big Macs are free today, which one will you choose?

Personally, I believe in paying for what you like, but it seems a lot of people are swayed heavily by the word Free.

Is it even a good promotional tool, giving books away? I would like to see the stats on how many people go on to buy something from the author whose work they first got for nothing. I'm betting many of them just move on to the next free thing and never make any actual purchases.

Thoughts?

Goals

2010-03-18T23:26:00.003-05:00

Merriam-Webster Online defines the word goal as “the end toward which effort is directed.”

For my purposes here, I would like to modify that definition a bit for writers. My definition, then, would go something like this: The quantifiable end which effort within a writer’s control is directed.

With that definition in mind, would something like I want to be on the New York Times bestseller list ever be considered a valid goal?

Sorry, but it would not.

For one thing, getting your name and the title of your book on that list is far beyond your control as a writer. You can do everything humanly possible, starting with writing what you consider to be a commercially-viable story and ending with promotion out the ying yang, and 99.9% of the time you’re still not going to make the coveted list.

Why?

Because it’s not within your control. There are many factors that come into play (timing for the market, co-op placement, orders from major chains and big box stores, reviews, etc.). It’s just not a valid goal. It’s not within your control, and it’s not quantifiable. There’s no way to measure your efforts to insure that it happens.

But...but...but...you might say, if I land a top New York agent, and s/he submits to all the major publishers, and one of them agrees to publish my book...

Hold on thar, Bob-a-looey. Landing a top New York agent is not within your control, either, nor is it quantifiable. It’s the same thing as saying that your goal is to be a NYT bestseller. You can say it all you want, but nothing you do is necessarily going to make it happen.

Try to keep your goals quantifiable, and within your control. Here are a few examples for aspiring authors:

I will write X number of words per day (week, month, or whatever time frame you can manage).

I will improve my craft by reading more, writing more, attending classes and workshops, communicating with online groups and forums, etc.

When my book is finished (that is, when several drafts have been completed, and when comments and suggestions from beta readers and critique group members and possibly even a freelance editor or two have been incorporated to the best of my ability) I will submit X number of queries to agents I have researched, and to whom I feel would be a good match for my project and myself.

I will research and submit to X number of legitimate presses that accept unagented submissions, presses with the resources, memberships in professional trade associations, distribution channels, etc., commensurate with where I see myself as a published author.

While I’m pitching book #1 and hoping for the best, I will start book #2 and give it the attention it deserves, knowing I’m a better writer now than I was when I started book #1...

Those are just a few goals you can start with as an aspiring author. If you start with I want to be a NYT bestseller, you might as well start with a lottery ticket.

Realistic goals depend on quantification and control.

Keep it real, and you’ll be a better and happier writer for it.

The Call

2010-03-09T19:23:00.003-05:00

Your name is Jude Hardin. You graduated from the University of Louisville in 1983 with an English degree, and you’ve been writing in one form or another for a long, long time.

Six-and-a-half years ago, you decided it was time to try the big one--the novel.

It would be easy, you thought. Your idea was a surefire hit, and publishers would line up with their fat wallets open.

You didn’t know what the hell you were doing, but you kept at it. The pages you wrote in longhand started accumulating, and eventually you decided to type them up on an old Olivetti portable you found at a thrift store.

Now this thing, this monster you had painstakingly brought to life, had page numbers and chapter headings and description and dialogue and action and humor and irony and pathos and NO FUCKING PROTAGONIST.

You had written two hundred pages of what essentially amounted to rubbish, and you thought about chucking the whole shebang.

But you didn’t.

You ran across an article in Writer’s Digest by this guy, who had recently signed a six-figure deal for a mystery series.

If he could do it, so could you.

You bought a computer. You started reading more mysteries and thrillers. You took your two hundred pages of rubbish and used them for offstage backstory. You created a protagonist.

A few months later, you were over halfway through and moving right along. Time to start querying agents and publishers!

You didn’t know it at the time, but you were lucky to get form rejections. You were lucky to get any response at all.

You finished the book, and allowed a few friends and family members to read it. They said it was great, and you believed them.

In 2006, you attended a conference where the first chapter of another novel you were working on was chosen to be in a workshop headed by them.

You pitched the first book to an agent at the same conference. She requested a partial, and you thought you were on your way. You sent her the first fifty pages, only to receive a detailed letter in return outlining the reasons the novel was not right for her.

Soon after that, you struck up a conversation with her. She agreed to look at your first fifty pages, and echoed many of the same concerns as the agent. You thought about addressing those concerns and starting a major rewrite, but…

There was that other novel you were working on. The one that had been selected for the workshop.

The hero was a private investigator named Nicholas Colt, and people seemed to respond to him. They liked him. They liked the “voice.”

Eventually you finished the book and landed an agent, only to be disappointed time and again by rejections from major New York publishers. They liked it, but it just wasn’t “big” enough.

You did a rewrite.

And another.

Then came the recession, and for a while it seemed as though publishing was at a standstill. You became frustrated, and decided to part ways with the literary agent you’d worked so hard to get.

Now you were on your own again.

You thought about giving up, but this guy had recently signed with a small-but-well-respected press and you liked the way he spoke of them. You went to their website, found the submission guidelines, and submitted a short synopsis and the first thirty pages of your thriller Pocket-47.

A month or so later you got an email requesting two copies of the full manuscript. You were excited, but you didn’t tell anyone about it because you know rejection is the norm in this business. The publisher promised to get back to you with its level of interest within 90 days.

You wait. And wait. And wait. A month passes, then two. At the end of the third month, you’ve just about given up hope.

It’s Thursday, just past five, and you’re thinking about playing tennis when the phone rings.

Your name is Jude Hardin, and you’re going to be a published author.

Taking A Break

2009-03-19T12:42:00.003-05:00

Coolness

2009-03-11T06:46:00.003-05:00

I was browsing through my pictures the other day, and I ran across this wolf. I had no idea where it came from. Blood Tattoo was the tentative title for a YA horror novel I was working on a while back, but I didn't remember mocking up a book cover. In fact, I don't even know how to do what was done to this picture.

Then it occurred to me that my son must have done this. I asked him, and he said yes he did. I had told him the title, and he did the mock cover one day when he was bored. Never told me about it.

I think it's pretty cool.

And, it has prompted me to get back to work on the story.

You might find it impossible not to be...

2009-03-10T08:54:00.000-05:00

J.A. Konrath, author of the popular Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels mystery series, is currently on virtual tour promoting his new standalone horror thriller Afraid. Afraid will arrive in stores March 31, published under the pseudonym Jack Kilborn. I’ve read the first few chapters, and can honestly say I've never been more creeped out. If you’re looking for white-hot jolts of marrow-zapping electric fear, Afraid promises to deliver.

Joe Konrath has always been a champion for writers trying to break into the business, and you can find a slew of useful tips on his website and blog. Today, he has been kind enough to stop here and share some wisdom on the subject of landing a literary agent.

As most of you know, agents are sort of the intermediaries in the publishing process. A typical scenario would be for a beginning writer to finish his or her book, revise it until it shines, and then start sending letters (called queries) to agents. If an agent agrees to represent the writer, s/he will then submit the manuscript to publishers for consideration. Agents typically work for 15%-20% commission.

There are agents who blog, and most literary agencies have their own websites, but I thought it might be nice to get a successful author's perspective. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce author J. A. Konrath.

First of all, Joe, thanks so much for stopping by.

I’m happy to be here, Jude.

Why do writers even need agents? Wouldn’t it make more sense for writers to submit directly to publishers, thereby keeping all the money from advances and royalties for themselves?

There are multiple answers to that question. First off, many of the big publishers don’t accept unagented submissions. In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone and their brother has a book they want to sell. Hell, my dog is working on a manuscript (it’s called A Paws In Silence.)

LOL!

Publishers have appointed agents as gatekeepers, using them to vet out the crap. A good agent only submits good books, which save the publisher a lot of time.

Secondly, agents do more than sell your book. In fact, they don’t actually sell your book at all. They sell the rights for a publisher to print and distribute your book for a certain length of time.

Let me repeat that, for all the newbies out there. You don’t need to register a copyright for your recently completed opus. You own the rights automatically. Then an agent sells those rights to different companies.

Besides North American rights, that cover the US and Canada, an agent will try to sell to many other countries as well. They’ll also try to sell book club rights, movie rights, TV rights, theatrical rights, first serial rights, among others.

Finally, a good agent does more than sell your stuff. They keep track of who owes you money, make sure you get the best contract possible, offer career advice, and often work with you to improve your manuscript.

Not a bad deal for just 15% of your income.

Good points. Well worth the commission, I think. So, when should a writer start shopping for an agent? How did you know you were ready?

When you have a perfect, polished, marketable manuscript.

What exactly do you mean by marketable?

Marketable means it has a pre-existing audience. If you walk into a Barnes & Noble, you’ll notice the books are all divided into sections. Make sure your book fits into one of those sections.

Was it easy for you to find an agent?

It was easy as pie. But this particular pie took twelve years to bake. During that time I wrote nine unsold books and got over five hundred rejections.

There’s a word for a writer who never gives up. Published.

I agree. Persistence is crucial. What if an agent agrees to represent you, but insists on charging upfront fees. Is this ever a good idea?

It’s a great idea for the agent. I may give it a try. Agents don’t need any sort of license or accreditation, so anyone can claim to be one.

So I’m going to place an ad in a magazine, calling myself an agent, and asking for a $25 reading fee.

If I can get 200 people a month to submit, I’m making a pretty decent living without having to sell a thing. Then if I charge these people an extra $20 a month for office supplies, or phone calls, I could be earning six figures a year, preying on newbie writers.

Or a better bet is to only submit manuscripts to agents you belong to the Association of Author’s Representatives, who follow a strict canon of ethics which states they charge zero fees. You can find them at www.aar-online.org.

Where are some other good places to look for reputable agents?

Besides the AAR, there are two yearly books, The Writer’s Market and Jeff Herman’s Guide.

But the best way to find an agent is to meet one in person. Go to a writer’s conference where agents are taking pitches, then pitch to them.

Once you sign with an agent, are you pretty much guaranteed to become published?

No. Agents sell maybe five to ten percent of the projects they take on. But a good agent will continue to build you, nurture you, and stick with you until a sale is made.

Afraid is a rather dramatic departure from your first five novels, the aforementioned Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series. Was your detour into the horror genre something you discussed with your agent before you wrote the book?

My agent suggested it. I’d always wanted to do a horror novel, and had a lot of fan mail asking me to do so. I pitched her a concept, she liked it, and a few years later I had a horror novel, and a contract for another one.

Where do you think you would be in your career right now if you had never landed a literary agent?

I’d be asking you if you want fries with your burger. I’d also suggest pie for dessert. Mmmmm. Pie.

Man, all this talk about pie is making me hungry. Is there anything you would like to add in closing?

I’m all about helping newbie authors, because publishing is a difficult business to break into, and real professional advice is hard to come by. My blog and website are full of information about agents, writing, editing, marketing, and promotion. Best of all, they're free.

Now please rush right out and buy 17 copies of all of my books. Do it now, before you forget.

***

Thanks again to J.A. Konrath for stopping by and sharing his insights. Coming soon, a full review of his newest novel, Afraid, right here on this blog. So stay tuned!

A Semi-Serious Question

2009-02-26T17:37:00.002-05:00

First of all, check out J.A. Konrath's excellent post titled "Confident or Delusional" here.

Now. Let's say I'm working on the second book of a series without having a contract yet on the first. Considering the current publishing climate, does that make me confident or delusional?

Top Ten Reasons to Quit Writing

2009-02-18T09:11:00.002-05:00

10. The odds of landing a book deal right now are about the same as winning the lottery and being struck by lightning on the same day.

9. Even if you do manage to get a book deal, you can make more money bagging groceries.

8. Blank, white, rectangular thingies with the number 1 in the top right corner make you want to puke.

7. You could never write anything as good as {insert name of favorite author here}, so why even bother?

6. If you add one more rejection letter to the pile, the Earth might actually tilt on its axis.

5. There’s this abstract concept you vaguely remember called “a life,” and you’re starting to think you might need to get one.

4. You’re so preoccupied sometimes, complete strangers tap you on the shoulder and say, “Are you all right?”

3. You plan to make whoever was responsible for getting your order wrong at Hardee’s drive-thru yesterday a victim in your next mystery.

2. You have erotic dreams about the sales clerk at Staples.

And the number one reason to quit writing is...

Screw it. I'm not even going to waste my time posting the number one reason. If you’re really a writer, you’ll just ignore it anyway.

How to Lose Weight and Get a Seven-Figure Book Deal, Part Two

2009-02-04T16:44:00.003-05:00

So where am I going with this? What could any of this possibly have to do with writing? With getting a seven-figure book deal?

Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tess Gerritsen, Brad Thor, John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, Robert Crais...

What do all these bestselling novelists have in common?

I’ll tell you what they have in common. They are SKINNY.

Just a coincidence? Or is there something a little more sinister going on here? Is there a direct correlation between body proportions and book sales? Is the publishing industry secretly blackballing husky, paunchy, plump, rotund, tubby, beefy, heavy, pot-bellied, plus-sized writers while promoting their lean counterparts? What is an editor really saying when he tells you to trim the fat?

It’s a conspiracy, I tell you! Just ask any fat writer who hasn’t gotten a book deal yet or who hasn’t made it to the NYT bestseller list.

So, I’m determined to lose thirty pounds this year, and the only way I know how to do that is to eat less and exercise more.

But, as anyone who has tried can testify, eating less and exercising more isn’t as easy as it sounds. I can subject myself to The Administrator of Pain (no, I don’t have a dominatrix. I’m talking about my exer-cycle, you perverts, so get your minds out of the gutter!) for twenty minutes every day, only to see negligible results by the end of the week. You see, twenty minutes on level 5 of the Plateau mode only burns 140 calories. That doesn’t sound bad, until you consider that SITTING ON YOUR ASS DOING NOTHING burns about 40. So, twenty minutes of torture for a net expenditure of 100 calories. That’s one light beer. Half a Snickers bar. One friggin’ bite of a cheeseburger...

And now, without further ado, here’s what you’ve been patiently waiting for: Math!

According to my exhaustive, painstaking research (i.e. about thirty seconds on Google), to lose one pound a week, I need to alter my caloric intake/expenditure by 500 calories a day. So, if I burn 100 calories/day through increased exercise, and lower my caloric intake by 400, I should, in approximately four years, theoretically, disappear.

Gee. I hope I get a book deal before that happens.

How to Lose Weight and Get a Seven-Figure Book Deal, Part One

2009-01-29T22:57:00.003-05:00

One of my humanities professors in college, a rather portly fellow I’ll call Dr. Gibbs, once told me vigorous physical exercise is actually very bad for you. You’re only allotted a certain number of heartbeats per lifetime, he said, and exercise makes them tick off way faster than necessary.

Hmm...

About a year ago, I bought a stationary bicycle equipped with enough digital bells and whistles to plot the course of a rocketship to Mars. I’m sure you’ve seen similar ones--in gyms, in sporting goods stores, in dark cobwebbed corners of friends’ basements. Maybe you even have one yourself. Or, maybe you have a treadmill. Or a weight bench. Or the latest gadget from a TV infomercial.

Admit it. At some point during your lifetime, you have purchased an expensive piece of exercise equipment with the intention of finally getting in shape. If you can commit to just twenty minutes per day, you reckon, you’ll be looking like Michelangelo’s sculpture of David in no time. Right?

Well...

The models you see in ads have to work out several hours a day to maintain those perfect physiques. Working out is their job. It’s their life. They're really, like, you know, into it. If you can commit to just twenty minutes per day, it will take you approximately 314 years to have the kind of body those models have.

Okay, so maybe you’ll settle for losing a little weight and improving your overall fitness. That sounds reasonable.

That, I’ve decided, is my goal for 2009. To lose thirty pounds.

Will riding my fancy exer-cycle for twenty minutes every day help me achieve my goal?

First of all, if you’ve ever climbed onto one of those contraptions and started pedaling, you know twenty minutes is a glacial age. If an archeological team digs up my bike in 5000 years, they’ll undoubtedly think it was some kind of 21st century torture device. Back then, interrogators would escort a suspect into a dusty space illuminated by a naked bulb, unveil the machine and say, “Vee half vays of making you talk.” If the suspect lasted twenty minutes, well, it was a safe bet they were never going to give up the goods...

Twenty minutes of huffing and puffing. Twenty minutes of quadriceps screaming for mercy. Twenty minutes of ass-numbing boredom.

Not to mention the...perspiration. You know, you have to take a shower afterward. There’s just no getting around it. You can’t expect another human to want to be around you after your daily Sweat-O-Rama. So, you have to take a second shower for the day, use twice as much water, twice as much electricity, soap, shampoo, deodorant...

When you get down to it, this thing called exercise is costing you--and the planet Earth--a fortune. It’s totally un-green. If everyone stopped exercising today, we could probably stop global warming in its tracks.

But I digress. Back to my goal!

Must...focus...on...goal...Spock...

Regardless of what the latest fad diet book or dietary supplement advertisement might tell you, weight loss/gain is all about calories consumed vs. calories burned. If you eat more and exercise less, you will gain weight. If you eat less and exercise more, you will lose weight. It’s a very simple formula...

So where am I going with this? What could any of this possibly have to do with writing? With getting a seven-figure book deal?

Stay tuned.

Blue Chip Day

2009-01-23T19:09:00.002-05:00

52 weeks ago today, at approximately 6:30pm, I smoked my last cigarette. I had quit many times before, but this time I tried something different: poker chips.

After going one week without cigarettes, I gave myself a white chip. On the fourth week, I traded three whites for one red. And so on. Today, I traded all my red chips in for one blue chip.

52 weeks.

After a thirty-year love affair with tobacco, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I still dream about cigarettes. That's how strong the addiction is.

If you don't smoke, don't start. It's one of the worst things you can do to your body. If you do smoke, give poker chips a try. It worked for me.

We Have Nothing to Fear but...

2009-01-13T10:04:00.001-05:00

A few things that don’t scare me:

1.Ghosts
2.Vampires
3.Zombies
4.Werewolves
5.Witches

I think you get the idea.

A few things that do scare me:

1.Abduction
2.Confusion
3.Pain
4.Psychosis
5.Satan

So tell me. What frightens you most? If you were going to write a horror novel, what would it be about?

Should part of our journeys as writers be to stare down our darkest demons?

What's Your Book About?

2009-01-09T22:53:00.002-05:00

Ever been asked that question?

Sure you have.

My stock answer (to well-meaning but often naïve laypeople) is usually “murder,” which invariably stops them dead in their tracks. What they’re after, really, is a plot summary.

But plot summaries, to me, are boring. Every plot imaginable has been told thousands of times. Plots are finite, characters infinite. But even a well-drawn, compelling character might fall short in the eyes of an acquisition editor.

So what makes my book different? Why would anyone want to read another story where a PI gets involved in a murder/kidnapping case?

The answer, if you think about it, isn’t what the story is about, but why this character goes to great lengths, risking life and limb, to solve a case (or win someone’s love, or save the world, etc.), when it would be so much easier just to walk away. Why bother?

If you really want to answer the question, you have to start thinking about themes. Not what, but why.

You might not start out with a theme in mind. Even if you don’t, subconsciously there is a current that drives the people in your novel to do what they do. The characters themselves might not be able to vocalize it. The reader might never recognize it. But it’s there. It has to be there, or there is no story. Not one of lasting value, anyway.

Personally, I don’t think about themes at all while I’m writing. But when I go back and read, study, what I’ve written, I can often see that yes, that’s what this was all about!

It’s a magical moment when you discover a theme. Don’t waste it. Go with it, explore and exploit it, rewrite until every scene relates back to it.

If you don’t have any themes in mind when you start, don’t worry. They will emerge. When they do, the smart writer takes advantage of them.

So, dear friends. Tell me. What’s your book about?

This is a rerun. It was originally posted November 2006.

Donations for Travis

2009-01-06T19:24:00.002-05:00

Something horrific happened to blogger, aspiring author, and all-around nice guy Travis Erwin Sunday morning: his house burned to the ground. Travis and his family made it out alive, but they are now essentially homeless. Stephen Parrish and Erica Orloff have set up a site for doantions here.

Times are tough right now for all of us, but just think what it would be like to suddenly lose your home. Let's all pull together and give Travis a boost toward rebuilding his life.

Profound Cerebral Question #6

2009-01-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

Is it possible to be wasting time if you're enjoying yourself?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T08:23:00.002-05:00

Just think of all the fun we're going to have.

In 2009, I want to finish my YA horror novel, and I want to lose thirty pounds. Very doable goals, I think.

How about you? Any resolutions you'd like to share?

Marco, Part 2

2008-12-29T19:26:00.003-05:00

Just as, in my opinion, Marco needed to earn the title of perfumier, writers, in my opinion, need to earn the title of published author.

Anyone who can scratch out words on a page can have those words printed and bound and put up for sale on sites like Amazon. To me, that type of publishing is tantamount to bottling perfume from a basement lab and selling it from a briefcase in a bar.

In other words, it’s very likely that the end product will stink.

I was at a writer’s conference one time, outside smoking a cigarette, when a fellow attendee strolled up and asked for a light.

“What kind of stuff do you write?” he asked.

“Hardboiled. I’m working on a private eye novel.”

“Anything published yet?”

“Not yet. I’m still looking for an agent. How ‘bout you?”

“Yeah, I have a book out.”

“Really? Who’s the publisher?”

He named a certain POD outfit. "Here, let me give you one of my cards...”

He handed me a business card and walked away. He avoided me for the duration of the conference, preferring instead to hang around with other “published authors.” I felt like grabbing him by the collar and shouting you’re not published either, you punk, but of course I didn’t. Anyway, I doubt my harsh words would have penetrated his cloud of arrogance.

There are no shortcuts to becoming a published author. You have to earn the title by landing a contract with a legitimate publisher, and that can take years of hard work.

Some folks would rather throw up a lab in the basement and start hawking product right away (throw up and hawk being the key words there).

That’s their choice, I suppose, but I really don’t see the point.

Marco

2008-12-29T08:56:00.002-05:00

In a former life, I tended bar at a Mexican restaurant. It was a hole-in-the-wall dump of a place, a converted Frisch’s Big Boy with a few colorful blankets and sombreros and piñatas tacked to the walls for “atmosphere.” The food was authentic, though, and we always got good reviews in the newspaper.

I started each shift by cutting dozens of limes into wheels for garnishes, mixing five-gallon tanks of margaritas, and generally prepping the bar for what we called “Fiesta Hour.”

Between 2PM and 7PM, you could buy jumbo margaritas and well drinks for half-price, and you could eat fresh tortilla chips and homemade salsa for free. In theory, the cheap drinks and free snacks were supposed to stimulate customers’ appetites. In theory, they would then order a plate of rellenos or enchiladas or pollo con salsa verde. In practice, however, quite a few patrons regularly came in strictly for the cut-rate tequila buzz and comp munchies.

One of those patrons was a guy named Marco.

Mid-thirties, tall and thin, stringy blond hair, big Adam’s apple, still lived with his parents.

He always ordered multiple margaritas on the rocks (light on the ice; he got more booze that way), multiple baskets of chips, and multiple tubs of hot and mild salsa. He never bought anything off the menu, and he never tipped me a dime.

But those weren't the main reasons I dreaded seeing him.

You see, Marco was a self-proclaimed perfumier. He had a “laboratory” set up in his basement, where he distilled oils and essences, spices and extracts--all sorts of exotic and volatile concoctions designed to titillate the human olfactory nerve. Drop-by-drop, Mad Scientist Marco filled tiny glass vials with these precious potions of his, and then mounted the vials in a briefcase for display. Sometimes he brought the briefcase to the bar with him.

There was only one problem with Marco’s fragrances: they didn’t smell very good. In fact, they stunk.

That’s not just my opinion. Everybody who ever smelled Marco’s products said they stunk. Popping the cork on one of his bottles was like unleashing the hounds of perfume hell. Imagine an elevator full of blue-haired, lipstick-toothed octogenarians, whose senses of smell died sometime during the Carter administration. Add a couple of funeral sprays, some rubbing alcohol, and maybe a dash of Pine Sol. Shake well.

Oh, he occasionally sold one of those vile vials, to a kindly cocktail server or a nearby customer who took pity on him. I even bought a bottle one time, only to pitch it in the dumpster on my way home.

Unfortunately, our patronage only encouraged him. He kept making more of that kerosene cologne, kept trying to hawk it during Fiesta Hour. Eventually, the restaurant owner had a talk with him. Marco didn’t come in very often after that.

Marco’s dream was to be a famous perfume designer. The way I see it, he went about it all wrong.

Shouldn’t you know a little bit about chemistry? Shouldn't you be aware of how various substances might interact with human glandular secretions? Shouldn’t you maybe spend some time in Paris or New York or somewhere studying with masters of the trade? Shouldn’t you analyze popular scents on a molecular level to see just what it is about them that turns people on?

Marco didn’t do any of that. Marco bought some smelly stuff through the mail, pumped it into amateurish-looking containers, tried to sell it from a briefcase at the cantina.

And he wanted to call himself a perfumier.

Sorry, Marco, but you have to earn that title.

Amazing Fact #1

2008-12-25T20:00:00.002-05:00

As a nation, we eat 13,680 cans of Spam every hour.

P.I. Cri-Fi

2008-12-23T07:07:00.002-05:00

The novel I’m planning to go back on submission with in January falls under the general category of crime fiction, and under the general subgenre of private eye novel.

P.I. Cri-Fi.

You heard it here first.

One of the problems with private eye novels (or with any novels, for that matter) is coming up with a main character who stands out from the crowd.

Do we need another Philip Marlowe, another Spenser, or even another Amos Walker?

Nope. Those are all great characters, but they’ve been done. And done, and done...

Sometimes, especially with a P.I. novel, it’s tempting to fall into the voice of parody. Amusing, but not what I’m after.

What am I after?

I want a guy who’s honest. Compassionate. Loyal. Intelligent. A good lover and a capable fighter...

But, I also want a guy who’s wounded. Deeply wounded. So wounded, in fact, that the very essence of his being aches with it 24/7.

Is this the guy?

Twenty years after crawling from the fiery wreckage of a chartered jet and witnessing his wife and daughter perish, a blues guitarist turned private eye makes a horrifying discovery: the crash was not an accident...

Meet Nicholas Colt, PI. Once a successful recording artist with mansions on both coasts, he now resides near Jacksonville, Florida, in a 1964 Airstream Safari travel trailer. He’s forty-five, living paycheck to precarious paycheck, and is forever haunted by the memory of his wife and daughter. His music died with them, along with any faith in a higher power.

I think this is the guy. He’s my guy, anyway, and he’s different from every other private eye out there.

After a third major rewrite, the book is back in my agent’s hands now, and I’m hoping it will be back in some editors’ hands within the next month or so.

Will the third time be a charm?

Stay tuned.

Your turn. What makes your character stand out from the crowd?

Profound Cerebral Question #5

2008-12-21T18:19:00.001-05:00

Why are men so utterly pathetic at wrapping presents?

How to Write a Thriller: Part Three

2008-12-18T21:10:00.002-05:00

"And they're hanging their stockings!" he snarled with a sneer.
"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"
Then he growled, with his grinch fingers nervously drumming,
"I MUST find a way to keep Christmas from coming!"
For, tomorrow, he knew...

...All the Who girls and boys
Would wake up bright and early. They'd rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!
Then the Whos, young and old, would sit down to a feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They would start on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast-beast
Which was something the Grinch couldn't stand in the least!

And THEN
They'd do something he liked least of all!
Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.
They'd stand hand-in-hand. And the Whos would start singing!
They'd sing! And they'd sing!
AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!

And the more the Grinch thought of the Who-Christmas-Sing
The more the Grinch thought, "I must stop this whole thing!
"Why for fifty-three years I've put up with it now!
I MUST stop Christmas from coming!
...But HOW?"

Take a tense situation and pile on the complications. Just when it seems things have gotten as bad as they possibly can for you main character, make things worse. Start the clock ticking. Make the reader worry. The consequences of the main character failing to achieve his/her goals should be severe.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why is Jude Hardin qualified to give anybody writing advice about anything?"

That's a legitimate question. The answer?

I'M NOT!

These are just some tidbits I've learned from reading, reading, reading, and writing, writing, writing over the past few years.

And that's the best advice of all for aspiring writers, IMHO: Read more, write more.

You can belong to umpteen critique groups, pay thousands of dollars for an MFA, and visit every writing guru on the internet every day till Kingdom Come, but you're still going to have to put the reading and writing time in if you want a chance at publication.

There are no shortcuts. None at all.

Now get busy and write the next blockbuster, 'cause I really need something good to read!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas just ain't cuttin' it.

How to Write a Thriller: Part Two

2008-12-17T20:15:00.001-05:00

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

But,
Whatever the reason,
His heart or his shoes,
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos,
Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown
At the warm lighted windows below in their town.
For he knew every Who down in Who-ville beneath
Was busy now, hanging a mistleoe wreath.

Give us a sense of who your main character is. We need a reason to care. Give us a glimpse into his/her psyche and motivations without dwelling on back story too long. Always keep the story moving forward, with tension on every page.

Why is your character uniquely equipped and motivated to tackle the arduous tasks that lie ahead?

Stay tuned for Part Three tomorrow!

How To Write a Thriller: Part One

2008-12-17T05:20:00.000-05:00

Every Who
Down in Who-ville
Liked Christmas a lot...

But the Grinch,
Who lived just North of Who-ville,
Did NOT!

Start in media res. Blood on the floor. Tension from the get-go. Establish the primary conflict ASAP, and make sure it’s a clash that can sustain friction through to the climax.

Do you have an opening line or paragraph from a thriller that you'd like to share? It can be one of your own, or someone else's. Feel free to go nuts in the comment section.

Stay tuned for How to Write a Thriller: Part Two tomorrow.

Google Maps

2008-12-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

I can go here, type in my old address, click on the Street View option, and virtually roam the neighborhood I grew up in. I can actually see, with striking detail, the Crape Myrtle my grandmother planted in our front yard forty-some years ago.

Try it! You'll like it!

Isn't this a marvelous tool for writers? We no longer have to depend on memory for setting description. With a click here and a drag there, we're on location instantly.

Of course, I suppose this is also an excellent tool for burglars and other criminals. The real ones and the villains in our stories. They can case a neighborhood without ever leaving the comfort of their own lairs...

Profound Cerebral Question #4

2008-12-12T06:33:00.000-05:00

What happened to profound cerebral question #3?

So I've been thinking...

2008-12-10T17:39:00.000-05:00

About the MacGuffin thing. In the comments section of my previous post, my friend Erica said:

In a book, I would feel betrayed. Of course it's all in the exectuion, but depending on how big a plot point it is, if I got to page 300 and the author never clued me in, I don't think I'd be happy.

And in an email, my friend Lainey said:

I'm left wondering about that damn tape!

So I've been thinking, maybe this MacGuffin thing isn't such a great idea in a book after all.

When the book gets published, do I really want 500,000 emails saying What about that damn tape?!

Well, yeah, 500,000 emails would be awesome regardless of what they said. BUT, I definitely don't want my readers to feel betrayed, so I've decided to add some dialogue that will wrap up the loose MacGuffin ends. It'll take about five minutes, and that little problem will be solved.

Thanks to Erica and Lainey for catching me in time.

We hear a lot about how we should strive to make our books cinematic in nature, but it's always good to be reminded that what works in one medium might fail miserably in another.

My MacGuffin

2008-12-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

The book I’m planning to go back out on submission with in January contains what movie folks commonly refer to as a MacGuffin; that is, an object that motivates the characters and advances the plot, but is fairly meaningless otherwise.

Alfred Hitchcock is sometimes credited with coining the term. Someone once asked him about it in an interview, and he said (paraphrasing): It might have come from a conversation on a train. Traveler A asks Traveler B what he has in the baggage compartment.

“A MacGuffin,” says B.

“What’s a Macguffin?”

“It’s a contraption for trapping lions in the Scottish highlands.”

“But there are no lions in the Scottish highlands.”

“Then that, my good man, is no MacGuffin!”

So you see, said Hitchcock, a MacGuffin is really nothing at all...

In Pulp Fiction, it was the briefcase.

In my book, it’s a camcorder tape.

While readers might be curious about the history behind it, and how a certain character got her hands on it or whatever, the MacGuffin, by nature, is really of no consequence. It just...is. It’s a plot device, pure and simple.

In my case, I allow the reader to see what's on the tape, but everything else about it remains a mystery.

There would be no plot without it, yet it is of no importance.

Make sense?

Good.

Has anyone else ever used a MacGuffin? Planning to, maybe?

I’d love to hear about it.

Profound Cerebral Question #2

2008-12-09T05:26:00.000-05:00

All my life, I’ve heard the word handbasket used in only one context.

What exactly is a handbasket, and why is it perceived to be the most dreadful mode of transportation to Hell?

Profound Cerebral Question #1

2008-12-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

Why does anybody buy expensive trash bags?

Black Friday

2008-11-27T10:22:00.000-05:00

When I was seven, I wanted a Hot Wheels racetrack, and had been begging my stepfather for months to buy me one. Maybe for Christmas, he said, between gulps of whiskey. I ripped a picture of that racetrack from the Sears catalog and taped it to the refrigerator door. No mistake about which one I wanted. In the picture, the cars were neck and neck at the finish line, with a blurry trail of color behind them. That’s how fast those damn Hot Wheels went on that damn track. Engines roaring, crowd cheering, rubber burning. I thought about that racetrack every night before going to sleep. I thought about it for months.

On Christmas morning, there was a big package under the tree with my name on it. This was it! I was going to be the envy of every boy in the second grade. The anticipation was overwhelming. I almost peed my pants as I tore the shiny red paper and revealed...

A plain white box. I had seen the racetrack I wanted in the store, and it did not come in a plain white box. It came in a box with a picture of cars neck and neck at the finish line. Blurry trail of color...crowd cheering...rubber burning...

There must have been some mistake. Someone had put my name on the wrong present.

“Go ahead and open it,” my stepfather said. He always needed a shave and stunk of booze, even on Christmas. Especially on Christmas, truth be known.

I opened the package. It was a set of gray pajamas, pocked with pictures of blue Indy cars. Something a little kid would wear to bed, not a big second grader. I started bawling. I couldn’t help myself. I knew he would make me wear those PJs until they were threadbare and busting at the seams, and I knew I would never ever get that Hot Wheels racetrack as long as I lived.

When he saw my grief, he called me a spoiled brat and stomped away to fix himself another highball. I never forgave him, and things were never the same between us. We hated each other until he blew his brains out when I was fifteen. Now I always tell people with kids to buy them what they really want, even if you have to go in hock to do it.

I pulled a Parrish here. This is an excerpt from my work in progress. Still, as you go out shopping tomorrow, try to remember that your gifts just might affect the recipients for the rest of their lives. Especially the little ones.

The Best Anti-Depressant Ever

2008-11-26T09:32:00.000-05:00

I received this email yesterday, out of the blue, from someone I don't know:

Dear Jude,

It's been a long time, years probably, since I read a poem -- the best poem I've ever read -- a truly inspired piece, and all I can recall is that I thought it was written by someone named Jude, and it was the only thing on a website when his name was clicked on from Miss Snark's blog. Was it yours? If so, would you show me where to find it so I may read it again, and again?

She was talking about this, the very first entry on my blog, a poem I wrote the day after my dear aunt passed away.

This is the kind of thing writers live for. Thank you, Email Sender, for making my day.

I Need a Drink

2008-11-25T18:19:00.000-05:00

How depressing is this?

Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes

2008-11-24T08:59:00.000-05:00

I heard her for the first time on NPR last week. She's really something special, I think.

What Makes a Book a Work of Art?

2008-11-20T09:25:00.000-05:00

What makes one author an artist and another a hack? Are there objective criteria we can apply to literature, or is art entirely subjective? If it is entirely subjective, is one opinion more valid than another?

Ready, set, discuss!

Persistence

2008-10-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

Earlier this evening I had the pleasure of meeting NYT bestselling author Tess Gerritsen. She signed my copy of her newest title, and we got to chat a bit before and after her talk to the crowd (which included instructions on how to make one of these). I've known Tess for a while online, and she was everything I expected her to be in person: intelligent, witty, gracious, and just an all-around nice person. If you haven't read her books, you should.

I asked her if she had any advice for writers trying to break in (i.e. moi). The first word from her mouth? You got it. Persistence.

She mentioned having the right idea at the right time, creating characters who speak to you on a variety of levels, landing a good agent, the all-important factor of luck...

But I think there's a reason persistence came first. Persistence is, without a doubt, the most important word a pre-published writer needs to keep in mind. Rejection is the norm in this business. Get used to it. Get over it. Move on. Write a better book. If your better book gets rejected, write an even better one.

And an even better one after that.

Is there ever a time a writer should give up? Is it ever just not in the cards? Are there people out there who just don't have what it takes to succeed in publishing?

Only you can answer that.

If it's truly your dream to become a published author, though, you won't quit. You'll keep giving it one more try, for as long as it takes.

And someday, when you're on your own national book tour, and some goober in the audience asks if you have any advice for aspiring authors, the first word from your mouth might just be persistence.

"We don't need no stinking dialogue tags," he aggressively grunted.

2008-10-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

Fred must have had the day off. Jake was manning the register himself. He looked at me, squinted, and cocked his head to one side.

“Nicholas? Is that really you?”

“It’s me.”

“Holy guacamole. What happened to your hair, son?”

"I got bored and shaved it off.”

“Shit. I thought maybe you was getting radiation treatments or something.”

“Nothing like that. Anyway, it’s chemotherapy that makes your hair fall out, not radiation.”

He pressed a knuckle against his lips and nodded thoughtfully. “I see you found yourself a guitar. Nice one.”

“We both know it’s a piece of shit, Jake. I’ll give you thirty for it.”

“Shit. That’s a fucking antique, man. I been thinking about keeping it myself. But since you’re a friend and all, I’ll knock off ten percent. Thirty-six even and it’s yours.”

“I’ll give you thirty for it.”

“Thirty-four-fifty and I’ll throw in some picks and a strap.”

“I’ll give you thirty for it.”

“Damn it, Nicholas, you never was any fun to dicker with. All right, thirty fucking dollars. I ought to have my head examined.”

He pulled a silver flask from his back pocket, twisted the cap off, took a slug. He politely tilted the bottle in my direction.

I shook my head. “I need a favor.”

“Sure. You waltz in here and practically steal one of my fine musical instruments, and now you want a favor to boot?” He rolled his eyes in a faux expression of disgust.

It’s always tricky with alcoholics, but I could tell I’d caught him in a good mood.

“I need a fake ID. Just a driver’s license and Social Security card, but it has to be something that’ll pass a background inspection.”

He took another belt of bourbon. “Ah. That’s why you shaved your head. You’re going incognito.”

“Nah, I did it because chicks dig bald guys. Can you help me or not?”

“That’s illegal.” But he was already flipping through his old Rolodex. He penciled a telephone number onto a greasy Chinese takeout menu that happened to be lying on the counter. I paid him the full forty bucks for the axe, and then left the store...

Any Questions?

What's Your Gimmick?

2008-10-28T07:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my son and I were browsing in the bookstore. He asked me why all Dick Francis novels have a picture of a horse on the cover.

“Because his stories are set around horseracing,” I said. “It’s his gimmick.”

“What’s your gimmick?” my son asked.

“I guess I don’t really have one.”

“You should make poker your gimmick.”

“Hmm. I guess I could have a character who’s a professional gambler, a guy who goes to all the big poker tournaments. Of course, it would take a lot of research. I would have to live that life for a while.”

He laughed. “Yeah, sure. Research. That’s what you could call it.”

See, my son thinks life on the road as a gambler sounds exciting and glamorous. I’m not so sure about that, but a poker theme for mysteries does sound like a decent gimmick.

So what’s your gimmick? Do you have one? Does a series sell better with a gimmick?

It's Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled...

2008-10-24T18:29:00.000-05:00

Now that I’m embarking on yet another rewrite of my novel on submission, I thought it might be a good time to share parts of the process. Parts of my process, that is. Everyone’s is different, of course.

But maybe we can find some common ground on certain issues.

Let’s talk about rejection letters for a minute. Anyone who’s been writing and pursuing publication for a while has gotten some. This guy claims to have over 400. We all hate rejection. It’s depressing when The Publishing Powers That Be dismiss something we worked months or even years on with a hastily-folded form letter or a few electronic keystrokes.

It’s a smidgeon less depressing, though, when an agent or editor actually takes the time to offer some pertinent feedback. Are agents and editors always right? Of course not. But if several industry pros are telling you the same thing, then it’s wise to perk up and listen. It’s a gift, really, because the editors who take a little time to give you some useful feedback could just as easily have said, “Not for us,” and left it at that. So let’s be thankful for those little snippets of wisdom, even though they come in the form of rejection.

I recently received rejections (through my agent) from four editors at four major publishing houses, and they all said or implied pretty much the same thing: the ending is rushed. I need to flesh out the plot and characters, add more detail, slow down and let the story unfold...

I hadn’t read the manuscript for several months, since I sent it to my agent, but a quick review told me those editors are absolutely right. Maybe I needed that distance, those few months, to look at the book more objectively (there’s a lesson for those of you who type THE END one day and start submitting the next. Let that baby ferment in a drawer for a while and then give it at least one more polish...). At any rate, like the Scooby Doo theme song says, we got some work to do now.

First, I found the part of the manuscript where everything starts moving just a bit too fast. You know, like a fire truck moves just a bit too fast. “Fast-paced” is a good thing, right? Well, yeah, but it’s also true that speed kills.

My book’s final sixty pages HAULS ASS. We’re talking Warp-3. I was in such a hurry to get to the end and mail that puppy off to my agent, I unintentionally cheated the readers out of a good portion of Story. Never, ever, ever a good idea.

So now I need to fix it, and that involves adding pages. My agent says twenty, but I’m thinking more like fifty. Piece of cake, eh? Any writer worth his salt should be able to crank out fifty pages in a week or two, right?

Yeah, but I’m adding to something that’s already there, so everything needs to flow organically and seamlessly and nothing can feel tacked on, so it’s a little more involved than just writing fifty new pages. I’m shooting to have the new draft finished by Jan 1. We’ll see how it goes.

Which brings me to the real point of this post: details. While I don’t advocate getting bogged down in minutiae, or writing long adverbly (I just invented that word. Nice, huh?) paragraphs about the weather and the trees and whatnot, I do think readers appreciate strong images, and images can be strengthened and lengthened with details.

So here’s the first draft of brand new paragraph, part of my attempt to slow my novel’s pacing a bit in the last few chapters:

I came out of my self-imposed isolation one day to do some shopping. It was a Wednesday, half-price day at The Salvation Army Thrift Store. The place was packed with little old ladies wearing tremendous applications of little old lady perfume, kids running around and playing with toys that probably harbored more germs than an isolation ward, fat guys with glasses loading up on yesterday’s bestselling sci-fi, women with one in diapers and one on the way trying to stretch their meager budgets to the max...and me, a skinny middle-aged private eye searching for the perfect Lost Soul costume, as if the one I already wore wasn’t quite good enough.

As first-draft paragraphs go, that one’s not too bad I think, but now let’s beef it up with a few details:

I came out of my self-imposed isolation one day to do some shopping. It was a Wednesday, half-price day at The Salvation Army Thrift Store. The place was packed. Little old ladies wearing tremendous applications of little old lady perfume, cruising the bric-a-brac aisles and filling their buggies with sad-faced clowns and silver-plated crucifixes; kids running around coughing and sneezing and playing with plastic dinosaurs that probably harbored more germs than an isolation ward; fat guys with glasses loading up on novels with cigarettes and guns and scantily-dressed femme fatales on the covers; women with one in diapers and one on the way, trying to stretch their meager budgets till payday...

Now we have some images, some pictures to put in our readers’ minds: Sad-faced clowns and silver-plated crucifixes...plastic dinosaurs...novels with cigarettes and guns...

You get the idea.

Every reader will bring his or her own personal experiences to the table, of course, but I think peppering a paragraph with details enriches the reading experience for most.

Thoughts?

Oh, and thanks to Stephen Parrish for coaxing me out of blog retirement. Heckle away, my friend.

Happy 2008!

2007-12-31T23:56:00.000-05:00

One of my resolutions is to stay off the internet and get more work done.

See you in 2009, with a new website and blog.

Peace.

Though it's been said many times many ways...

2007-12-23T20:07:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to you.

Happy Columbus Day

2007-10-08T18:59:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all who left comments on WIP Chapter One and Synopsis, Page One. I've made extensive revisions on both, and I'm currently moving forward with the novel.

I'm taking another vacation from blogging, but I'll post any news about my novel on submission soon as I hear something.

Evil

2007-08-02T21:03:00.000-05:00

I would describe evil as the absence of moral obligation. Since morality, Goodness, it seems, is peculiar to one species, it would be logical to deduce that Evil is peculiar to the same. One cannot exist without the other. That being the case, what exactly causes the absence of moral obligation? Nature? Nurture? Sex? Drugs? Rock and roll? Could it be...SATAN?!!?

A philosopher and naturalist named Robert Ardrey wrote: "We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen."

I don’t think evil can be defined in terms of evolution, as Ardrey has suggested. Nature, left alone, without the intervention of human beings, thrives in perfect order. When animals kill, it is for a reason. Sex is for procreation. An ape might become violent, protecting its territory or its mate, but I’ve never heard of an ape torturing another ape for the mere pleasure of seeing it in pain. I’ve never heard of an ape clubbing its sleeping family to death.

So, let’s just say that Evil and Goodness are unique to one species--Homo Sapiens.

Again, what causes one of such species to become Mother Theresa while another becomes Jeffrey Dahmer?

One can argue, and make a good case, that a person’s environment shapes his/her attitude toward morality. Abused children, for example, sometimes become abusing adults. But what about the kid who, for no reason we can ascertain, peels the skin off of toads for the pleasure of watching them suffer and die? What about the same kid who, mesmerized by flame, takes a book of matches and torches his own house?

Anyone who has seen children grow from infancy knows that each is born with a certain personality, certain talents, etc. With proper nurture, most grow to be responsible adults with a strong sense of moral obligation. Some, however, do not. Prisons are bursting at the seams with murderers, rapists, child abusers, arsonists, thieves, many of them from perfectly good families and with siblings from the same circumstances. Why did Johnny stab thirty-seven women and leave them in dumpsters, while brother Billy sits at home with his wife and kids and golden retriever and is never late to his job at the bank?

We like to explain Evil away with words like environment, upbringing, poverty, and even mental illness. We like to intellectualize, to deny that Evil exists. Or, if we’re religious, we can easily dismiss it as a supernatural phenomenon. But is any of that right?

I'm not buying Ardrey's explanation either. To say we all started out, millions of years ago, as selfish, scared, and aggressive, and then rose above it, is no more plausible than saying we all started out perfect and then fell. It's the same argument, really, only in reverse.

What is Evil? Where did it come from? How can we rid the world of it?

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I know that Evil exists. Sure as I know that Goodness does. They exist side-by-side, in each of us, in that funky overgrown hunk of flesh between our ears. If we define evil as the absense of moral obligation, and agree that Goodness and Evil are unique among humans, then to deny that Evil exists is to deny that humanity exists. With the tools we have, and limited empirical data, we can only say that Evil and Goodness exist in varying degrees, dependent on the brain one is born with and the environment one is thrown into.

It’s one of the reasons I write fiction, to explore the dichotomies of the human experience.

Thoughts?

Does Being A Writer Spoil The Fun Of Reading?

2007-07-23T20:26:00.000-05:00

When my son was little (he’s 15 now), I sometimes performed simple magic tricks for him. It was fun, you know, watching his amazement as a quarter seemed to disappear from my hand or a hat seemed to levitate from the top of my head. He always asked, “How did you do that, Daddy?” When I showed him the secret, he said, “Oh!” He invariably wanted to try the trick himself. Knowing the secret was even more fun than not knowing it. Now, he was the magician.

As a writer, the same holds true for me with regard to reading. Even though I’m aware of what an author is doing, and even though I sometimes analyze the prose, plot, character development, etc., reading has not lost its magic for me. When an author is doing everything right, I can still become entranced and lose myself in the story. I can still experience what John Gardner called The Fictional Dream, even though I know all the tricks. For me, it’s one of the great pleasures of being alive. If reading somehow stopped being fun, I’m not sure I would even want to write anymore.

How about some of you other magicians out there? Is reading fiction still fun? Can you still kick back and be mesmerized by the show, even knowing the craft behind it all?

Book Review #1: Dirty Martini by J.A. Konrath

2007-07-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

What do you look for in crime fiction? Fast-paced action? Tension and conflict on every page? Three-dimensional characters with real motivations and emotions? Lean-cut prose? A bigger-than-life villain who pushes the protagonist to the utmost of his/her abilities?

I look for all that, and I found it in JA Konrath’s latest thriller, Dirty Martini.

This is Konrath’s fourth installment of the Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series. The first three, Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, and Rusty Nail are first-rate as well, and you should definitely check out his backlist.

But Dirty Martini blew me away. I wanted to sip and savor it like a gentleman, but I couldn’t. I gulped it down in two days. Konrath likes to mix in-your-face terror with goofy-but-realistic cop banter and humor, and I think he stirs the perfect concoction here.

Jacqueline Daniels is a forty-something homicide detective with the Chicago Police Department. She’s divorced. She loves designer clothes and the Home Shopping Network. She’s in love, but she’s on the fence about getting married again. She takes her job--to serve and protect--very, very seriously.

A man known only as The Chemist is doing the unthinkable: he’s poisoning food in and around the Chicago area. Delis, restaurants, grocery stores. He doesn’t care who dies, as long as he gets the cops’ attention. He wants two million in cash to stop.

How will Daniels and her task force stop The Chemist before thousands meet a horrible fate? Will two million dollars be enough, or does The Chemist have even more sinister ideas up his sleeve?

Buy the book. Try to take a few sips, like I did. Try to put it down. Bet you can’t.

I'll Be Back

2007-05-25T10:36:00.000-05:00

But it might be a while.

I've decided to take an extended sabbatical from the internet to do a crazy little thing called writing a book. I'll still be checking my email on a regular basis, of course, so don't hesitate to drop me a line.

To all who have taken the time to comment here: Thank you. I appreciate your support and help and kind words.

Peace.

Nothing New Under The Sun

2007-05-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

My mystery, the one that got me an agent, is currently on submission to several New York publishing houses. Yays or nays are forthcoming, probably around the first of July.

So what's a writer to do while waiting?

The advice I've gotten--and I think it's sound--is to start working on something new. I don't want to start a second book in the mystery series, because if book #1 doesn't sell there won't be a book #2 in that series.

So I'm brainstorming.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a friend at my "day" job. She's a big Survivor fan (the only remaining one, I think), and I said, "They should make a show where they play for real. "

She said, "Ooh! Yeah. You should write a book about that."

So I wrote up a brief synopsis:

Twelve select death row inmates. A tiny remote land mass. Dozens of cameras mounted on electrically-charged towers.

The last man living wins.

In 2019, reality TV is back. This time they’re playing for keeps.

Broadcasted live, 24/7, Survival Island is a big hit. Ratings are through the roof.

Then one day the channel goes black.

A law enforcement crew, sent to investigate, discovers that the finalists--two of the most notorious serial killers in history--have somehow escaped.

Bodies of identical twins start showing up in north Florida, with the contestants’ unmistakable signatures. Have the killers joined forces? Have they, in essence, become one maniacal bloodthirsty mind?

The hunt is on--with a five million dollar reward--but Dr. Michael Caldwell isn’t in it for the money.

His daughters are missing.

I showed it to a writer friend, and he sent me this link.

I'd never heard of the movie, and it amazed me that someone had stolen my idea. :)

It just goes to show, with so many creative minds in the universe, it's not unusual for two or more people to come up with the same premise.

Long before The Da Vinci Code became a publishing phenomenon, an author named Lewis Perdue wrote this. Dan Brown claims he never heard of Perdue or his work, and I believe him. At any rate, Brown and his publisher beat the plagiarism charges in court.

That's the thing. You can't really copyright an idea. If I wanted to go ahead and write Survival Island, I could. But what would be the point?

I have another thriller idea, but I'm keeping it to myself for now. I think it's pretty original, but who knows? Another author or screenwriter might be working on the same thing. Or, maybe it has already been written and just not become well-known, Like Lewis Perdue's book.

I need to hurry up and write it before the movie comes out. :)

Acquainted With The Night

2007-05-04T05:37:00.000-05:00

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

--Robert Frost

I’ve been having trouble sleeping at night. I guess you could call it insomnia, except I sleep fine in the daytime. I have become truly nocturnal, due to my work schedule and some other things going on. I don’t mind it, other than I’m out of sync with the rest of the world.

Perhaps it has something to do with the bite marks near my jugular. ;)

Actually, darkness intrigues me, literally and metaphorically.

I love bats, shrieking through the air, navigating by sonar. Owls with their watchful saucer eyes. Foxes slinking stealthily about. Wolves howling, their blood stirred by forces unknown.

What is it about the night, the darkness, that fascinates and frightens? Is it the unknown? The possibility that something unseen is waiting for a chance to get us?

The night is full of creepy things: Devils. Bad guys. Strange creatures. Monsters in the closet…

But it’s also full of nice things: Romance. The moon and stars. Quiet coolness. The Max Weinberg Seven…

How about you? Have you ever been acquainted with the night? Can you embrace it?

Fixing A Hole

2007-04-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go

June 1, 2007, will mark the 40 year anniversary of The Beatles’ release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album won numerous awards, including the Grammy for Album of the Year. It is considered by many to be the first “concept” album.

1967, folks. I was six going on seven. Some of you guys weren’t even born yet. Hell, some of you guys’ parents weren’t even born yet. I don’t remember the release, but I became a Beatles fan during my teen years in the 70s (after they’d broken up), and Sgt. Pepper’s remains one of my all-time favorite albums.

Fixing a Hole is my favorite song from the album.

I'm filling the cracks that ran through the door
And kept my mind from wandering
Where it will go

The song works on multiple levels, but I think it’s mostly about distractions. Things that get in the way and prevent us from performing at our optimum capacities as creative beings. As writers, as parents, as lovers, as people trying to find our way.

What are some of your distractions? What prevents you from taking the slice of life you know you deserve? Drugs? Alcohol? The day job? Gambling? The internet? Dysfunctional people who you’ve allowed into your daily existence? The media?

And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right
Where I belong I'm right
Where I belong.
See the people standing there who disagree and never win
And wonder why they don't get in my door

Lovely play on words. But how do we, as 21st century Americans, cut through all the distractions and get on with doing what we know we’re supposed to do?

I don’t pretend to have the answer.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”

How can we make those “other plans” a priority, and keep up with the holes that constantly need fixing?

I’m asking you.

How To Park a Buick in a Wheaties Box

2007-03-26T18:26:00.000-05:00

I’m talking about the dreaded synopsis, folks.

Boiling a complete novel down to three pages is no more difficult than, say, packing ten pounds of rice into a shot glass. Of all the writers I’ve talked to about it, only two say they actually enjoy writing synopses. They’re mutants, I tell ya.

The majority of writers simply loathe them. When you get down to it, they’re harder for most of us than writing the novel itself.

Why are they even necessary? Can’t an editor tell by reading the first few pages of the manuscript if they’re interested enough to read on?

Some can. Some editors hate synopses as much as writers do. But editors are busy people, and many of them like to get an idea of plot--whether it’s serviceable or not--before they invest the time it takes to read an entire manuscript. Sometimes, the synopsis is your only chance to make an impression.

So how do we, as writers, make that first impression a good one? How do we make that synopsis sizzle, and entice the editor to dive into Chapter One?

Here’s the first half of the synopsis I recently sent to my agent:

When a routine teenage runaway case turns into a complex murder and kidnapping, it’s up to private investigator Nicholas Colt to navigate a terrifying labyrinth of conspiracy and betrayal. With no real evidence to offer the police, Colt must rely on instinct and sheer will to bring a ruthless killer to justice...

He’s having a damn good day. Before the brain-baking north Florida sun rises, Colt catches and filets a few bass for breakfast. Later, he snags a thousand dollar retainer from Leitha Ryan--legal guardian for Brittney, her fifteen-year-old sister. Brittney, it seems, has run away from home. Colt figures to wrap the case tomorrow, in a few hours tops. He does a little research, and spends the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed with his girlfriend, Juliet. He’s weeks behind on his car payment, his home phone has been disconnected, and Juliet constantly gripes about his living quarters--a 1964 Airstream Safari travel trailer. He’s forty-five, and living paycheck-to-precarious paycheck; but, all-in-all, life is good. Not bad for a Tuesday, anyway.

Rule #34 in Nicholas Colt’s Philosophy of Life: If you have a good Tuesday, Wednesday is going to be a bitch.

When a runaway girl has a forbidden boyfriend, she’s usually easy to locate. Find the boyfriend, find the girl. Colt strikes out there, but learns Brittney is working as a “lingerie model.” With a little help from a sawed-off shotgun, he convinces the pimp to do the right thing. Brittney reluctantly leaves with Colt, but says she can’t go home. Someone is trying to kill her, she says. Likely story. But, if Colt forces her back home with Leitha, he knows she’ll only run away again. He takes Brittney to his campsite, teaches her how to fish, and works on getting to the root cause of why she ran away in the first place. Brittney doesn’t budge. In fact, she says it was all a lie. No one is trying to kill her. She wants to go home. Now.

While waiting to hand Brittney over to Leitha, Wednesday turns to Thursday and grows significantly worse. Colt’s Airstream is shot at. He unsuccessfully gives chase and, when he comes back, Brittney has disappeared. Maybe she went home. Hitchhiked, or something. When Colt goes there, he finds Leitha brutally tortured and murdered. Colt is horrified, sorrowful, and pissed off. Whoever killed Leitha must have kidnapped Brittney. Is Brittney dead, too? Colt is determined to find out.

Does this make you want to read the book?

First of all, synopses are always written in present tense. No exception. I started with a short hook, the protagonist’s main story problem. The second graf reveals a little bit about the hero’s ordinary world--the setting, his financial and marital status, age, etc., and his attitude toward the case he’s accepted--that it’s going to be a cakewalk, an easy and much needed thousand dollars.

In the third graf, I hint that the protag’s ordinary world is about to change--for the worse.

From there, I start telling the actual story. That’s right, telling. The old rule “show don’t tell” doesn’t really apply to synopses. You should make the language as colorful as possible, and try to maintain a smidgeon of “voice,” but you simply don’t have space for much description and nuance. You have to squeeze a hundred or more pages of story onto one page. Tell, don’t show.

Unlike jacket blurbs--those teasers designed to compel a purchase--synopses are the entire novel in miniature. Editors want to know how the beginning, middle, and ending are handled. The synopsis is, in essence, a tiny version of the whole book, the Reader’s Digest Super Duper Ultra Condensed five-minute version. It’s like chugging a can of Boost when you don’t have time for a seven course dinner.

Here’s what we all know: Boost sucks. Most synopses suck. Try to make yours the exception.

Synopses are necessary tools for selling your novels. Might as well get used to the idea of writing them. With a little practice, maybe they’ll more closely resemble a tasty appetizer--making an editor hungry for more.

The Top 5 Days of My Life

2007-03-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

These are some days I’ll always remember, jumping-up-and-down happy days. I’ve listed them in chronological order.

17 September 1969: I hit a grand slam, playing “batball” on the playground at Hazelwood Elementary School. Batball has the same rules as baseball, only there’s no pitcher and you hit an inflated rubber ball with your fist. This was huge. In elementary school, I was the fat kid. I’m sure those of you who grew up, like me, in ancient times, remember the fat kid. Don’t you? These days, thanks to fast food and video games, about half the prepubescent population is overweight. Not so in 1969. Anyway, I was slow and not athletic at all, the last person to be picked for teams (right behind the skinny little redhead boy with glasses and arms like toothpicks). But, the day I hit the grand slam, I was a star. All the kids on my team were cheering. They loved me. For one breezy September afternoon in 4th grade, anyway.

10 November 1976: I got my driver’s license. This is a big event in any teenager’s life, but in mine it was momentous. I grew up with my grandparents, neither of whom drove a car. Getting my license was a whole new level of freedom. I could go places. I could play my 8-tracks loud as I wanted. I could make out with my girlfriend in the park. It was a grand adventure, being able to drive.

26 February 1983: Eric Clapton had a song out called “Rock and Roll Heart,” and he was coming to town for a concert. One of the local radio stations sponsored a contest to win a Fender Stratocaster, signed by the legendary guitarist himself. You had to write, in 25 words or less, why you have a rock and roll heart. I hadn’t planned on entering. On the morning of the deadline, the day of the concert (I already had tickets and was going with some friends), I lay in the bathtub and composed this: Cupid’s rock and roll dart, sounded, pounded, found my heart. The sound was Clapton’s claim to fame--heartbeat and rock beat, one and the same. I rushed to the music store where the entries were being collected, made it there just a few minutes before the 2:00PM deadline. Later that afternoon, drinking some pre-concert beers at my friend Dave’s house, the radio station called. Perhaps there’s still a tape, in a dusty archive room somewhere, of me shattering the DJ’s eardrums with howls of joy. I won the guitar, and I still have it twenty-four years later.

30 July 1992: My son was born. He is--and always will be--the best thing that ever happened to me. I witnessed his birth, and I had tears in my eyes. He’s 14 now, a fine young man, but it seems only yesterday I was rocking him to sleep. He still gives me a hug and says “I love you” before going to bed each night. It’s difficult to comprehend, before you are one, what it’s like to be a parent. There’s no way to describe that kind of love.

7 March 2007: I’ve already emailed a bunch of you regulars, so you know what’s coming. I fell asleep last Wednesday afternoon, and when I woke up there was a message on my phone. Area code 212. New York City. I played the message a couple of times, thinking I still might be dreaming. It was real, and my hands trembled as I called back. Mr. Jay Poynor, literary agent extraordinaire, put me on hold for a few seconds while he said goodbye to a client. When he clicked back on, he told me how much he loved my novel. He wanted to represent me, and a contract would soon be in the mail. I know I probably sounded like a moron. I don’t remember what I said, but I can’t imagine it was anything very intelligent. Electricity was flowing through my veins, and when I got off the phone I started doing the Snoopy dance (appropriate, since Jay used to work with Peanuts creator Charles Schultz). Dig: Jay was the first agent I queried, my top choice. He called me the same day he received the manuscript. A referral from my sweet angel was the catalyst, but this just doesn’t happen. Not in a writer’s wildest dreams. Can you even imagine my level of excitement? A week later, it still doesn’t seem real. I guess it is real, though, since I received the contract in the mail yesterday and mailed it back, signed, to New York today. I guess it is real. I have an agent. I have an agent!!! The Call. One of the top 5 days of my life. When I get a book deal, I’m afraid that grand slam in 4th grade will have to drop a notch.

Okay, hate to do it to you guys (not really), but I tag Erica, Lainey, Aaron, and Kathy. Let’s hear about your top 5 days. If you choose to play, tag four more of your contacts. Let’s party!

Stormy Weather

2007-03-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

I woke this morning to the sound of thunder. I looked out my window at the molten-lead sky, the fierce lightning flashes, the bleak landscape. It reminded me about how my life has been going this week, and it reminded me about adding inner conflict to my fictional characters.

To me, characters who are emotionally tortured ring truer than those whose lives are always golden.

Maybe you’re developing a character, or maybe you have a finished novel and are looking for ways to add texture. Either way, adding inner conflict is one of the best ways to garner reader sympathy. Readers relate to characters with emotional holes, because we all have them.

Let’s say for now that you’re developing a character. Let’s say his name is Bill.

Bill is a doctor. He’s 29 years old, sandy blond hair, blue eyes. He’s 6’2” tall, weighs 185 pounds, drives a Jaguar. He reminds people of a young Brad Pitt. He has money, looks, brains, and he’s great with the ladies. Great in bed. He graduated first in his class, publishes regularly in medical journals. He is articulate both professionally and casually. He’s funny, and a pleasure to hang with at cocktail parties.

Bill is boring me to tears, because he’s too friggin’ perfect.

Let’s take that same character and mess with his head a bit.

Let’s say he has a controlling father who steered him into medicine, while all Bill ever really wanted to do was build oak furniture. He loves the smell of sawdust mingled with his own sweat, the feel of the wood, the sound of a power saw. He loves the clean lines, the perfect joints, the simple and stout designs of Gustav Stickley, and would like nothing more than to emulate him. Stickley is his hero, and wood is his passion.

When he was 14, Bill went out to the garage and built a table from scraps while he was supposed to be doing his math homework. His father came home, took an axe to the table and burned it in the fireplace. After that, he beat Bill with a belt and made him stay up until 2:00 AM until his math was finished. No son of mine is going to be a fucking carpenter. I bust my ass every day so you can have a chance at a better life. You’re going to med school, and that’s that.

And that was that. Now Bill is stuck in a stressful career that he hates.

He’s all grown up now, so why doesn’t he just quit being a doctor and go make some furniture?

For one thing, he has a ton of student loans to pay back. He has a nice house and a nice car, and Dad would blow a gasket if he threw all that away and moved into a one-room flat. All his money goes to paying bills, with only a little left over for a retirement account. How can he start a woodshop with no capital? How can he sustain himself for several years until his furniture designs start making money?

He’s figured out that he will be forty before he has enough money to even think about quitting medicine. Eleven more years of this soul-sucking existence. And what about his fiancé? The wedding date has been set, and they both want kids, and she is in love with the idea of being married to a doctor. She doesn’t even know about his passion for wood. If Bill gets married and starts a family, how will he ever be able to get back to his true love?

Bill is very unhappy. He’s having bad headaches, and starts taking Percocets prescribed by a friend. When they stop working, he switches to Dilaudid. Now he’s hooked on painkillers, and has to take them all day every day just to function. The painkillers give him chronic constipation, so he has to take laxatives and enemas. He keeps everything a secret, can’t allow his fiancé and his parents to discover how weak he really is. He has a loaded pistol in his underwear drawer, and sometimes thinks about putting it in his mouth.

One night, he sneaks into the hospital’s pharmacy and steals a bottle of pills. He doesn’t know it, but the tech on duty sees him. Now Bill is getting anonymous letters, threatening to expose his theft and drug addiction if a certain amount of money isn’t coughed up every month.

Bill is a mess. At twenty-nine, he can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. What will become of him?

I’ll let you finish the story.

The thing is, by giving Bill an emotional hole, I’ve made him interesting. On the surface, he’s everybody’s golden boy. Underneath, he’s a complete wreck.

Do you have some characters who are just a little too perfect? Give them some inner conflicts, and see what happens.

I just looked out the window again, and it’s still dark and cloudy. The thunder and lightning have stopped, though, and surely the sun will eventually shine.

If you want to sell books, let it shine on your character in the end. At least one little ray of hope. Their inner conflicts will still be there, but maybe there’s a chance they will overcome them.

Peace.

Giving Birth

2007-01-31T20:21:00.000-05:00

I asked several published authors this question: When do you decide your manuscript is ready to go out? How many people read it first? How many rewrites?

Follow the links. Buy their books. I've read works from each of them, and each is first-rate. A ton of thanks to them for answering my question.

Here are their responses, in the order I received them:

Erica Orloff (speaking specifically about her first novel, Spanish Disco) says--
For me, I had always been--for years--in what I knew was a really talented writers' group. A combination of good critics and brilliant craftspeople . . . and I worked on it with them continually for six months, honing and refining, and when it was finished, I was pretty sure it was as well-edited and good as it could be. My agent sold it in three months--and my editor
asked for no comprehensive changes. I think my group had accurate instincts.

JA Konrath, author of the Jaqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller series, says--
By the time I type THE END, the book has had two revisions, because I rewrite as I write. Then I go over it once more to make sure it gels, and give it to a select cadre of beta readers (which include several bigshot authors) and incorporate their suggestions.

From there, it's to my agent, and more rewriting.

If it's a book I'm under contract for, my editor usually asks for more changes, and then the line editor has a final shot.

So I'd say there are at least 6-7 rewrites between first draft and publication.

Aaron Lazar, author of the Gus Legarde mystery series, says--
I have an inner circle of at least a dozen people whose skills range from tough writing critics to readers who simply want to follow the series, but who are happy to catch my typos.

After my inner circle has fed back to me (and meanwhile I've written another book, usually), I will go over it, rewriting it carefully. Choosing the best verb, eradicating phrases I've grown to dislike, and trying to smooth the text and plot to perfection. I usually end up doing this a couple of times before considering submitting it. Then, if I get a publisher to request it, I often polish it again before it goes out. All in all, it probably gets revamped a dozen times before it's actually published, including two or three revisions by editors.

Tess Gerritsen, whose thrillers can consistently be found on the NYT bestseller list, says--
I don't let ANYONE read my manuscript until I feel it's ready for publication. Which means my ms's go through about six or seven drafts before I feel they're done. I want the writing to be clean and polished, and I want all questions of logic fixed. Then I let my husband read it for typos. Then it goes out to my agent and editor.

My editor once told me that I was one of very few authors whose manuscripts come in just about ready for the printer, and how much she appreciates that.

Marcus Sakey, whose debut The Blade Itself hit the stores a couple of weeks ago, says--
I write the whole thing, beginning to end, trying to avoid major backtracking. I'm always polishing as I go, but I focus on forward motion. Once I finish, I send it out to my parents and a handful of friends while I let it cool, a month-long process that involves an obnoxious amount of moviegoing and X-Box playing. Then I sit down, read the whole thing in a day, look at the feedback from my readers, marker the hell out of the manuscript, and roll up my sleeves. When I finish that rewrite, the book is ready to go to my agent.

PJ Parrish, who writes the Edgar-nominated Louis Kincaid mystery series, says--
This is a very hard question for me. I am a big believer in rewriting. To me, this is where the book is truly made. I quote this every time I teach writing: The first draft is made with the heart; the second, third, tenth is with the head. Maybe it is because our books are so plot intensive, our bread-crumb trail of clues so long and winding, but we HAVE to rewrite just to get things to work. For our newest, "A Thousand Bones," we rewrote three times then were still rewriting whole chapters after the copyeditor was done with it. My husband came over to me one night and sighed, "It's time. Let it go."

Now the hard part. I can't let it go. As my co-author and sister Kelly knows, I am a perfectionist who labors over each and every line like I will never get another crack at it. Then when something is finished, I go back and smooth it, polish it, gnaw away at it like a stray dog guarding its last bone. This, of course, is anal and as bad as not rewriting at all.

Because you gotta know when enough is enough. You gotta just heft up your courage and fling your baby -- warts and all -- out there and take your shots to the gut. As that great 20th century philospher Sting once said: If you love somebody, set them free. That applies to ex lovers, adult children and manuscripts.

Because you have to know when to let your baby go.

Sean Chercover, whose debut Big City, Bad Blood was recently released to rave reviews, says--
I'm constantly re-writing and tweaking as I go along, so by the time I get to the end, it's not really a first draft anymore. I also give it to my wife and parents in about 50-page chunks as I go, so I'm getting feedback, some of which I listen to and some of which I don't. Anyway, I take a break after I get to the end, while my early readers get a chance to look at the thing as a whole. At this point, there are a couple of friends who will see it for the first time, because my wife and parents have seen it quite a bit, and I need some "fresh eyes". Then I read it again and dive back in for revisions.At that point, it had better be ready to go out, at least to my agent. Then my agent reads it and I get her feedback, and tweak it again. Then my editor reads it, and I get her notes.

But having said all that, I'm not sure that I ever "know" that it is ready to go out. I just get to the point where I've really done all I know how to do. My wife may say something like, "Okay, now you're spending weeks obsessing over commas. It's time to stop." That helps.

My thanks again to all these authors.

Anyone notice a trend here?

I recently finished a novel I’d been working on for six months, and I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment when I finally typed THE END.

Now I’m anxious to start querying agents. My goal is to have a book deal by year’s end. But how do I know when the manuscript is ready for, if not the world, at least an agent’s eyes? Should I blitz the field with queries, like some writers do, or should I be selective and only send to a few agents at a time? Should I start licking envelopes?

No.

My son was a preemie. Five-and-a-half weeks. I witnessed the miracle of his birth, and then got to watch him through the glass walls of an incubator for several days, being fed through a tube. He did fine. He’s fourteen now, and six-feet tall already.

But being a preemie is never the ideal. A fully-developed baby fares much better in the world.

Same with books.

Tagging a first draft with The End is a first-degree misnomer, when you get down to it. Finishing the first draft is a milestone, to be sure, and anyone who has done it knows how much work it takes.

But, for most of us, it’s a far cry from actually being finished.

Two published authors (one who worked as a book editor for a decade) are reading my manuscript and offering feedback. A third has agreed to do the same after his deadline has passed. I’ve given it to several friends and family members, getting takes from the layperson’s POV.

Ernest Hemingway said, “A book is never really finished, it’s just due.”

Since this is my first novel, I have the luxury of taking as much time as I need to get it right. I don’t have a deadline (other than my self-imposed one). But here’s the thing I have to keep reminding myself:

It’s never going to be perfect.

Like a chick from the nest, you have to eventually let it go. Multiple rewrites are essential, but if you’re not careful you can edit the soul out of a book. You have to know when to let go, when enough is enough.

So how will I know?

My plan: After I get the feedback from my readers, I’m going to do one major rewrite and a polish. Then I’m going to give my baby wings. I’m going to start querying agents. When I find representation, there will probably be another rewrite. When a publisher buys the book, probably more.

Is it worth it? Putting all that effort into something you know will never be perfect? Something you might never earn a dime from? Is nurturing your baby to maturity worth the blood, sweat and tears?

Only if you want to be a writer.

The End

2007-01-03T22:14:00.000-05:00

Are there any two words in the English language that are sweeter for a novelist to write?

We love what we do, but actually finishing something evokes an emotion like no other. Something akin to bliss.

About an hour ago, I finished the first draft of my work in progress. After six months of hard work, it’s finally done.

I say “first draft,” but much of the manuscript has been worked twice or more. It’s pretty clean, I think, and ready to share.

I want to thank everyone who has been supportive along the way, especially my sweet angel who gave me strength when I had essentially given up on this novel.

Now I’m going to have a drink and click print.

ABC Gum

2006-12-18T23:27:00.000-05:00

Remember that disgusting little joke when you were in, say, sixth grade?

“Hey, Jude. Got any gum?”

“I have some ABC gum.”

“ABC gum? What’s that?”

Jude pokes finger in mouth and pulls out wad... “ABC. Already Been Chewed. Ha! Ha!”

Yuck.

Have you ever read a book and thought, Gee. Seems like I’ve seen all this before...

Sure you have. Like the old ABC gum, your book has become stale, lacks flavor, and is covered with someone else’s spit.

So where do fresh, new, flavorful ideas come from? Hasn’t every plot imaginable already been explored and exploited gazillions of times?

In a word...yes. As far as plots are concerned, there is nothing new under the sun. Read Shakespeare, and you have them all.

So how are we, as aspiring authors, supposed to impress agents and editors with something unique, something that blows them away, something so fresh that they think, I have to sign this writer?

1) CHARACTER

Plots are finite, characters infinite. Characters aren’t invented, they’re born. We have to nourish them, put up with their tantrums, give them the love and attention (and yes, sometimes discipline) they deserve. Then, something like magic happens. They take on a personality of their own, and sometimes lead the story to avenues unexpected. Give your characters at least three dimensions, and eventually they’ll start giving back.

2) VOICE

Agents and editors will always tell you they’re looking for a ‘strong’ voice. A ‘fresh, new’ voice. What the hell does that mean? Nobody knows for sure, but when you find your literary voice, you’ll know it. You might have to write a million words, and imitate innumerable successful authors you admire. Then, one day, something will click and the words will start flowing and...you’ll know. You’ll just know. It’s you. At long last, it’s you. You’re writing like nobody else in the world can write. That’s your voice, and it’s essential.

3) PLOT

“But, Jude...didn’t you rather dismiss plots earlier?”

Not really. I said plots are finite, and I believe that. Still, it’s extremely important to have a strong one. I like suspenseful mysteries and thrillers, because it’s 100% guaranteed that something is going to happen. You know, before you ever crack the spine of a Peter Abrahams novel, that you’re in for a roller coaster ride. You know, before reading the first page of a Stephen King book, that you’ll soon enter a nightmarish funhouse full of surprises. And, even though you know that the main character will somehow prevail, you want to see how. You want to ride along with them and feel every pothole.

So, there you have it. Character, voice, plot. Simple.

Now go and write that book.

And, the next time someone asks you for some gum...

Make sure to offer up a nice fresh stick of Juicy Fruit.

Nobody wants ABC.

Can't Start A Fire Without A Spark

2006-11-27T22:45:00.000-05:00

I don’t outline. Not in any “normal” way.

Sometimes, I wish I could. Or, better yet, that someone would do it for me. Just give me a nice complete skeleton of The Perfect Plot, and I fill in the blanks.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Sure. But it wouldn’t be real.

For me, a story must grow organically. Characters aren’t something you cut out of a magazine. Plots aren’t something you contrive. Plots happen because of who the characters are, their reactions under stress, their motivations as living, breathing beings.

Everything else is a lie. And we, as fiction writers, don’t want to tell lies, do we? No. We want to find the truth. That’s why we do this.

Sometimes, finding the truth takes some digging.

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time filling in behind-the-scenes information for my work in progress, i.e. what happens offstage.

Why is this important?

One word: Are you listening? Listen closely now...

Plastics.

Oops! Wrong word.

Plastics are artificial. Plots are artificial. We don’t want artificial. We want organic.

The word I had in mind was catalyst.

The action offstage acts as a catalyst for what the reader sees, and what the characters onstage ultimately do.

Why did a young lady show up at my protagonist’s door, seeking help to find her runaway sister? An entire series of events, that happened offstage, compelled her. Most of that backstory will never make it into the finished book; but, it’s important for me, the author, to know, because to truly understand my characters, I need to know what motivates them. The why of their actions, onstage and off.

For every stick of dynamite that explodes onstage, a fuse must first be lighted behind the scenes. I need to know who, what, when, where, why. Especially why.

Know where your sparks originate, and that big old thing we call Story will suddenly fall into place.

"What's Your Book About?"

2006-11-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

Ever been asked that question?

Sure you have.

My stock answer (to well-meaning but often naïve laypeople) is usually “murder,” which invariably stops them dead in their tracks. What they’re after, really, is a plot summary.

But plot summaries, to me, are boring. Every plot imaginable has been told thousands of times. Plots are finite, characters infinite. But even a well-drawn, compelling character might fall short in the eyes of an acquisition editor.

So what makes my book different? Why would anyone want to read another story where a PI gets involved in a murder/kidnapping case?

The answer, if you think about it, isn’t what the story is about, but why this character goes to great lengths, risking life and limb, to solve a case (or win someone’s love, or save the world, etc.), when it would be so much easier just to walk away. Why bother?

If you really want to answer the question, you have to start thinking about themes. Not what, but why.

You might not start out with a theme in mind. Even if you don’t, subconsciously there is a current that drives the people in your novel to do what they do. The characters themselves might not be able to vocalize it. The reader might never recognize it. But it’s there. It has to be there, or there is no story. Not one of lasting value, anyway.

Personally, I don’t think about themes at all while I’m writing. But when I go back and read, study, what I’ve written, I can often see that yes, that’s what this was all about!

It’s a magical moment when you discover a theme. Don’t waste it. Go with it, explore and exploit it, rewrite until every scene relates back to it.

If you don’t have any themes in mind when you start, don’t worry. They will emerge. When they do, the smart writer takes advantage of them.

So, dear friends. Tell me. What’s your book about?

Life As A Book

2006-11-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

I did a complete gut-rehab on a 500 square foot lake cabin a few years ago. I bought the place in a rundown state, but knew I would have to live there eventually. Divorce. Long story.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I bought books and videos from Home Depot on wiring, plumbing, roofing and siding, flooring, framing, decks, everything you can imagine that goes into building a house.

The demolition came first. The demolition was fun. There’s not much skill involved in tearing shit up. You just have to be careful not to kill yourself while doing it. If you’re going to rip out all the old wiring, for instance, please be sure to cut the power first. If you’re going to smash walls with a sledgehammer, wear gloves and goggles. If you’re going to saw away termite-damaged areas of bottom plate, brace the top plate so the roof doesn’t cave in on top of you.

Demolition was fun, because I had a vision of what everything would look like when replaced. I knew I would put cedar shingles on the gables, French doors where that old crank window used to be, board and batten siding (Little House on the Prairie style) on the exterior walls, stucco walls and tongue-in-groove pine ceilings inside, with faux exposed beams. I had a vision, but it had to come one nail at a time.

And that’s how we have to approach our fiction.

One word, one sentence, one paragraph, one page, one scene at a time.

Sure, we have a vision of the final product, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed when thinking about three hundred blank pages in front of you. The same way it was easy for me to feel overwhelmed facing all those naked two-by-four studs when demolition was complete. Doubt creeps in. Am I good enough? How can I possibly fill all these pages with something someone would actually want to read? How can I possibly build a livable house? How will I ever find an agent? What publisher would want to pay money for my drivel? How am I going to make this four hundred pound iron claw foot bathtub fit into that little space?

Then, we work through all that and write the story, but the doubts still haunt us. I spent six months writing this thing, and it sucks. I suck. I’ll never make it. Just look at this mess!

Hammer time.

Time to tear it down, and build it back up according to the original vision. As writers, we call this revision. Gut-rehab. To me, it’s the most important part of the process. You have to be dedicated to making every word count, every sentence sing, every scene saturated with conflict, emotion, movement, sensation. The story, the original vision, is there. It just needs perfectly aligned cedar shingles on the gables.

When you’re faced with doubts, smash a wall with a sledgehammer and put up a new, clean, textured one. It’ll feel good, and you’ll have something you’re proud to live in.