by Barbara D'Amato
The Malice Domestic conference begins today and I'll be there. I've attended every Malice and always been glad I did.
Why go to crime writing conferences? Transportation and hotel fees are costly, although the conferences themselves are usually not pricey. And you can hardly get in and out without the cost of about four days.
Libby's wonderful post "I Don't get haircuts anymore--"[April 4 2010] about how much of her life has become virtual, reminded me of the value of real stuff--like face-to-face interactions with the people I enjoy. Some of my best friends are writers who live in North Carolina, Kansas, California, and elsewhere. I am not going to get together with them every couple of weeks for coffee, and an e-hello isn't quite enough. But I can see them at mystery conferences. It's a gathering of the clan.
Mostly.
"Who are all these people?" New people I don't recognize turn up. This is good.
"Everybody looks so young." One has to deal with this.
Conferences are truly worthwhile. Beginning writers with a book or two out ask, "Will you sell enough books to pay for your room charge?" Not likely. Unless you have become very famous, you won't sell enough to pay for the soap. You will sit at the signing table, with maybe a customer or two. Next to you may be Mary Higgins Clark, whose line goes out the door, down the hall, and passes the elevator bank. You will chat with your single customer as long as possible, so that you don't have to look woebegone. [By the way, Mary Higgins Clark is one of the most gracious people on the planet.]
Unpublished aspiring writers ask, "Can you actually make contacts to help you sell your manuscript?" Yes, over the years I've seen several people do exactly that, including the famous case of an aspiring writer at Bouchercon who forgot his car keys, went back to his room to get them, and came down on the elevator with an editor who asked him, "What do you write?" The rest is history. However, it has to be said that it's fairly rare. Still, it happens. And of course, that's just the contact. [By the way, you don't give any editor a five-pound manuscript to carry home on the plane.]
When you leave you will have:
Learned a lot about the business. I have never attended any conference without learning useful stuff.
Had fun.
Met some people who may become lifelong friends.
Made business contacts.
And to readers and fans, mystery enthusiasts who are not writing--in 99 percent of the cases, your favorite author will be happy to meet you and chat. Try the signing line, although you can't talk long because they have to pass on to the next person. If you find him/her at a reception or sit next to him/her at dinner, he/she [isn't this he/she thing cumbersome?]will be pleased that you are a fan and in most cases happy to talk. Trust me on this.
There are downsides, apart from the expense. Somewhere in Day Two of the conference, I start to get the feeling that everybody is working more efficiently, publishing while I'm dithering, and generally making me feel inadequate. Look at all the new books! Look at the beautiful covers. Listen to the rumors of stratospheric advances and ten-city author tours. Go to the book room: gee, this store and this store and that one don't have my books. This one has? Oh, splendid proprietor.
But by Day Three, when I'm packing the suitcase, I'm sorry it's over and planning the next.
It's probably too late to get to Malice this year unless you live in the area and can get a day pass. But Thrillerfest is coming up in July, Bouchercon and Magna cum Murder in October, Love Is Murder in February, and there are several others. These are real resources. Have fun with them.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Things Unsaid…
by Michael Dymmoch
A fellow writer just alerted me to a web site opening for business June 1st. The Things Unsaid Project, promises to be quite as interesting as Overheard in Chicago. Where Overheard, allows people to send in interesting, weird, funny or poignant conversations they’ve enjoyed, Things Unsaid will allow people to remedy omissions anonymously.
Judging by some of the anonymous responses to The Outfit’s blogs, this could expose the new site’s operators to some interesting vitriol. But it could also be an opportunity for the site managers to share confessions, apologies, thank yous, and—
Well, we’ll see what.
It sounds like a brilliant idea, and I wish the site well.
On another note…
Spring is officially here.
A fellow writer just alerted me to a web site opening for business June 1st. The Things Unsaid Project, promises to be quite as interesting as Overheard in Chicago. Where Overheard, allows people to send in interesting, weird, funny or poignant conversations they’ve enjoyed, Things Unsaid will allow people to remedy omissions anonymously.
Judging by some of the anonymous responses to The Outfit’s blogs, this could expose the new site’s operators to some interesting vitriol. But it could also be an opportunity for the site managers to share confessions, apologies, thank yous, and—
Well, we’ll see what.
It sounds like a brilliant idea, and I wish the site well.
On another note…
Spring is officially here.
Monday, April 26, 2010
What a glorious mess
By David Heinzmann
It’s not been a quiet week here in Lake Woe… I mean Chicago.
Actually, a couple of weeks. If you like crime and political intrigue, where else could you possibly want to be than Chicago?
I’ll start at the end, at least for me, with the return of Illinois’ most imfamous pawnbroker, Scott Lee Cohen. On Saturday, I broke the story with Rick Pearson that Cohen is going to try to run for governor, amazing as that sounds. After reading the story, which includes the laundry list of almost all (didn’t quite have room in the paper for each one) false statement and embarrassing revelations that collectively imploded Cohen’s candidacy for lieutenant governor earlier this year, a friend of mine joked, “Other than that, it’s a great idea.”
Anytime a reporter can get a prostitute girlfriend, a massage parlor meeting, unpaid child support and an open statewide office in Illinois…. Well, that’s a pretty good story. But the problem is we’ve already been there with Mr. Cohen, so I’m not sure this attempt at running for governor is going to be that much fun. Maybe you don't get to publicly flame out twice in one year, even in this state.
While that sideshow was developing on Friday, the main event in the city was the federal takeover of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ family business, Broadway Bank. Giannoulias is running for U.S. Senate, a campaign that’s bogged down in some seriously thick weeds thanks to the scandals surrounding Broadway. A mountain of red ink and bad loans—some of them to convicted felons who happened to be connected to the Outfit—caught up to the bank on Friday. Oh, look, more prostitutes. (One of the guys the bank gave loans had been convicted of helping run a nationwide call-girl ring.)
It was hard to keep the political corruption stories straight. The day before the feds finally took over Broadway Bank, there was of course the story of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich filing court papers attempting to compel President Obama to testify at Rod’s trial this summer. Details of what Rod was claiming about what Obama might know were supposed to be redacted in the filing. But thanks to the digital age, reporters soon discovered that when you cut and pasted the court document from a PDF to a Word document, all the redacted parts magically reappeared. Rod claims there’s evidence he had a conversation directly with the president-elect about filling Obama’s senate seat. Obama has been on the record maintaining he never talked to Rod about the seat. From the filing, it’s not clear the alleged evidence adds up to what Rod is claiming. Either way, will the leader of the free world have to provide some kind of testimony in a trial that may turn into a real three-ring circus this summer?
Let’s see, what else: three men bound and executed found in a car on the Southwest Side last week; the vicious wilding-robbery attack on two young women in Bucktown last week—both of them bludgeoned with a baseball bat over their frigging purses; lots of bodies washing up on the shore of Lake Michigan.
But the thing that stunned me, a little more than a week ago, was seeing that 17 people had been shot in Chicago in one night, with eight of them dying. In the years I covered the Chicago Police Department for the Tribune, when the murder rate was significantly higher than it has been the last couple years, that would have been a bad weekend. This was all in about 12 hours, on a week night.
When I was covering cops, I became familiar with the phenomenon of weather-change violence. Murders and shootings typically are down in Chicago during the winter because of the harsh cold. Much of the mayhem in this city is casual malevolence wrought by gang-bangers running into each other on the street, arguing about just about anything and then pushing it to the point that they know only one way to settle it—with a gun. So a lot of that kind of crime settles down during the long cold winter. But look out in spring. The first warm weekend—often in March or early April—will bring a little boomlet of shootings as people head back outside to enjoy the weather, only to be reminded of the simmering hostility they felt toward some rival over the long cold winter.
But 17 shootings in one night is not a boomlet. That’s a serious mess and indicates something else is going on. After a few years of lower, stable homicide numbers, murders in 2010 are now on pace to be about 20 percent higher than last year. And when you’re talking about the number of killings being in the 500 range, 20 percent is a serious and troubling increase.
So pay attention, crime fans, it’s going to be an interesting summer.
It’s not been a quiet week here in Lake Woe… I mean Chicago.
Actually, a couple of weeks. If you like crime and political intrigue, where else could you possibly want to be than Chicago?
I’ll start at the end, at least for me, with the return of Illinois’ most imfamous pawnbroker, Scott Lee Cohen. On Saturday, I broke the story with Rick Pearson that Cohen is going to try to run for governor, amazing as that sounds. After reading the story, which includes the laundry list of almost all (didn’t quite have room in the paper for each one) false statement and embarrassing revelations that collectively imploded Cohen’s candidacy for lieutenant governor earlier this year, a friend of mine joked, “Other than that, it’s a great idea.”
Anytime a reporter can get a prostitute girlfriend, a massage parlor meeting, unpaid child support and an open statewide office in Illinois…. Well, that’s a pretty good story. But the problem is we’ve already been there with Mr. Cohen, so I’m not sure this attempt at running for governor is going to be that much fun. Maybe you don't get to publicly flame out twice in one year, even in this state.
While that sideshow was developing on Friday, the main event in the city was the federal takeover of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ family business, Broadway Bank. Giannoulias is running for U.S. Senate, a campaign that’s bogged down in some seriously thick weeds thanks to the scandals surrounding Broadway. A mountain of red ink and bad loans—some of them to convicted felons who happened to be connected to the Outfit—caught up to the bank on Friday. Oh, look, more prostitutes. (One of the guys the bank gave loans had been convicted of helping run a nationwide call-girl ring.)
It was hard to keep the political corruption stories straight. The day before the feds finally took over Broadway Bank, there was of course the story of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich filing court papers attempting to compel President Obama to testify at Rod’s trial this summer. Details of what Rod was claiming about what Obama might know were supposed to be redacted in the filing. But thanks to the digital age, reporters soon discovered that when you cut and pasted the court document from a PDF to a Word document, all the redacted parts magically reappeared. Rod claims there’s evidence he had a conversation directly with the president-elect about filling Obama’s senate seat. Obama has been on the record maintaining he never talked to Rod about the seat. From the filing, it’s not clear the alleged evidence adds up to what Rod is claiming. Either way, will the leader of the free world have to provide some kind of testimony in a trial that may turn into a real three-ring circus this summer?
Let’s see, what else: three men bound and executed found in a car on the Southwest Side last week; the vicious wilding-robbery attack on two young women in Bucktown last week—both of them bludgeoned with a baseball bat over their frigging purses; lots of bodies washing up on the shore of Lake Michigan.
But the thing that stunned me, a little more than a week ago, was seeing that 17 people had been shot in Chicago in one night, with eight of them dying. In the years I covered the Chicago Police Department for the Tribune, when the murder rate was significantly higher than it has been the last couple years, that would have been a bad weekend. This was all in about 12 hours, on a week night.
When I was covering cops, I became familiar with the phenomenon of weather-change violence. Murders and shootings typically are down in Chicago during the winter because of the harsh cold. Much of the mayhem in this city is casual malevolence wrought by gang-bangers running into each other on the street, arguing about just about anything and then pushing it to the point that they know only one way to settle it—with a gun. So a lot of that kind of crime settles down during the long cold winter. But look out in spring. The first warm weekend—often in March or early April—will bring a little boomlet of shootings as people head back outside to enjoy the weather, only to be reminded of the simmering hostility they felt toward some rival over the long cold winter.
But 17 shootings in one night is not a boomlet. That’s a serious mess and indicates something else is going on. After a few years of lower, stable homicide numbers, murders in 2010 are now on pace to be about 20 percent higher than last year. And when you’re talking about the number of killings being in the 500 range, 20 percent is a serious and troubling increase.
So pay attention, crime fans, it’s going to be an interesting summer.
Friday, April 23, 2010
But This Gangsta Here Is A Smart One
Today's guest contributor is Jonathan Eig, a Chicago writer who hit bestseller lists with his terrific biographies of Lou Gehrig and Jackie Robinson. Jonathan's next subject is a little closer to home (and by home I mean both Chicago and this site).
Get Capone! The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster has picked up a starred review from Publishers Weekly, as well as raves from historians like Ken Burns and Eric Larson, and it is sure to have crime buffs buzzing in the coming weeks and months. Jonathan drew on a treasure trove of new resources for this book, and he uncovers some unheralded heroes in this story, names you probably haven't heard of if your knowledge of the case doesn't go much past Elliot Ness.
Jonathan will be having two big events in the city next week. On Tuesday, April 27 he will be at the Chicago History Museum at 7 PM (you'll need a ticket for that event). And on Wednesday April 28 at 7 PM, he'll be at the Book Cellar (4736 N Lincoln, Chicago). Also be sure to check out his terrific web site, where he has links to many of his original sources. Fascinating stuff.
By Jonathan Eig
When I was in my twenties, I played in a couple of jazz bands. If you happened to live in New Orleans between 1987 and 1990, and if you happened to hear a trio called Don’t Blame Us playing in a coffee shop or poolside at a cocktail party, I think it’s pretty safe to say you wouldn’t remember it today. Nevertheless, despite our lack of recognition, we were almost certainly the finest trumpet-guitar-bass trio comprised of New Orleans Times-Picayune staff members of our era.
I was the trumpeter. As a jazz musician, I had one fatal flaw: I was lousy at making stuff up. I could read music. I could play a melody with reasonably good tone and some semblance of swing. But when it came time to improvise, I always felt like the guy at the wedding who didn’t notice the invitation said black tie. I didn’t belong. The best I could do was stick close to the melody and hope no one noticed, which, of course, isn’t very likely when you’re blowing a trumpet in people’s faces.
I tell you this because I always feel a little bit like a bad jazz trumpeter when I’m comparing notes with some of my friends who write crime fiction, including several of the distinguished members of this Outfit. Maybe I’m jealous because they’re allowed to make things up and I, as a writer of nonfiction, am not. But I think I’m mostly jealous because they’re good at it.
When I wrote my first book, a biography of Lou Gehrig, I decided at one point in the process that I would enliven the story with a few imaginary details. I would reveal some of Gehrig’s thoughts. I would recreate scenes where I thought I knew what had happened, even if I didn’t really know what had happened.
It didn’t work.
Every peck of the keyboard felt like a lie. I went running back to the truth, promising that I would never again stray. And I’m glad I did. It’s a biography, after all. It’s a man’s life. Who the hell am I to make up details?
For my latest book, Get Capone, I started out with an amazing collection of weapons at my disposal. I had in my possession thousands of pages of secret government documents no one had seen in 75 years and no writer had ever used in telling Al Capone’s story. I had Capone family relatives giving me interviews for the first time. I even had the transcripts of some of the interviews Capone gave to the would-be ghostwriter of his autobiography (before the big fellow pulled the plug on the project). I felt like I had the guy nailed.
Still, in one moment of weakness, under the influence of several beers and a friend who writes insanely good crime fiction, I thought about getting creative. My friend’s idea was this: I should invent a character—a journalist much like myself—and insert him in Capone’s story. I saw his point. An invented character could have helped drive the plot. He could have filled in gaps where I didn’t know what Capone was doing. He could have served as a link between the federal agents leading the investigation and the man they were hunting. He could have had a lot of sex and said a lot of witty stuff.
But even under the influence, I knew it wasn’t right for me. Some authors can pull off tricks like these. I can’t.
OK, my friend suggested, then how about opening the book with a short preface that described the dramatic conditions in which you wrote this book?
Well, there were some pretty hairy trips to the library, I admitted.
What about the secret government documents, my friend asked. You’re the only in the world who’s got those. Can’t you make your pursuit of those papers part of the story? Make the reader feel like it’s you hunting Al Capone. Your whole career, your whole life was on the line. You quit a good job at the Wall Street Journal to do this book. What if you failed?
My reply: Who cares?
In the end, this story isn’t mine. It’s Al Capone’s. And if Capone’s story isn’t compelling enough without little old me to juice it up, then I’m doing something very, very wrong.
Eighty years after his fall from power, Capone remains one of the most fascinating figures in American history. Yet most people don’t know the real Capone. They know De Niro’s Capone from The Untouchables.
The real Capone was full of contradictions. He was ravenous for power and yet desperate for public approval. He was a compulsive gambler and chronic philanderer yet also a devoted family man. He felt little guilt about using violence when he had to and yet he wished to be viewed by the public as a legitimate businessman. He spent wildly on fancy cars and clothes yet never amassed great wealth.
He reminded me a little bit of Anthony Soprano, except Capone used female newspaper reporters instead of shrinks to explore his feelings and plead for sympathy.
I once had a dream that I showed up at Capone’s house in Miami to ask him for an interview. He showed me all around the place, took me out to the garage to see his collection of cars, and poured me a tumbler of whiskey. In the dream, it seemed like we hit it off.
I suppose I could have used a scene like that in my book.
But I’d rather play it straight.
Jonathan Eig’s new book is Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster.
UPDATE: A nice piece in today's NYT (with quotes from Jonathan) about Capone's enduring legacy in Chicago.
Get Capone! The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster has picked up a starred review from Publishers Weekly, as well as raves from historians like Ken Burns and Eric Larson, and it is sure to have crime buffs buzzing in the coming weeks and months. Jonathan drew on a treasure trove of new resources for this book, and he uncovers some unheralded heroes in this story, names you probably haven't heard of if your knowledge of the case doesn't go much past Elliot Ness.Jonathan will be having two big events in the city next week. On Tuesday, April 27 he will be at the Chicago History Museum at 7 PM (you'll need a ticket for that event). And on Wednesday April 28 at 7 PM, he'll be at the Book Cellar (4736 N Lincoln, Chicago). Also be sure to check out his terrific web site, where he has links to many of his original sources. Fascinating stuff.
By Jonathan Eig
When I was in my twenties, I played in a couple of jazz bands. If you happened to live in New Orleans between 1987 and 1990, and if you happened to hear a trio called Don’t Blame Us playing in a coffee shop or poolside at a cocktail party, I think it’s pretty safe to say you wouldn’t remember it today. Nevertheless, despite our lack of recognition, we were almost certainly the finest trumpet-guitar-bass trio comprised of New Orleans Times-Picayune staff members of our era.
I was the trumpeter. As a jazz musician, I had one fatal flaw: I was lousy at making stuff up. I could read music. I could play a melody with reasonably good tone and some semblance of swing. But when it came time to improvise, I always felt like the guy at the wedding who didn’t notice the invitation said black tie. I didn’t belong. The best I could do was stick close to the melody and hope no one noticed, which, of course, isn’t very likely when you’re blowing a trumpet in people’s faces.
I tell you this because I always feel a little bit like a bad jazz trumpeter when I’m comparing notes with some of my friends who write crime fiction, including several of the distinguished members of this Outfit. Maybe I’m jealous because they’re allowed to make things up and I, as a writer of nonfiction, am not. But I think I’m mostly jealous because they’re good at it.
When I wrote my first book, a biography of Lou Gehrig, I decided at one point in the process that I would enliven the story with a few imaginary details. I would reveal some of Gehrig’s thoughts. I would recreate scenes where I thought I knew what had happened, even if I didn’t really know what had happened.
It didn’t work.
Every peck of the keyboard felt like a lie. I went running back to the truth, promising that I would never again stray. And I’m glad I did. It’s a biography, after all. It’s a man’s life. Who the hell am I to make up details?
For my latest book, Get Capone, I started out with an amazing collection of weapons at my disposal. I had in my possession thousands of pages of secret government documents no one had seen in 75 years and no writer had ever used in telling Al Capone’s story. I had Capone family relatives giving me interviews for the first time. I even had the transcripts of some of the interviews Capone gave to the would-be ghostwriter of his autobiography (before the big fellow pulled the plug on the project). I felt like I had the guy nailed.
Still, in one moment of weakness, under the influence of several beers and a friend who writes insanely good crime fiction, I thought about getting creative. My friend’s idea was this: I should invent a character—a journalist much like myself—and insert him in Capone’s story. I saw his point. An invented character could have helped drive the plot. He could have filled in gaps where I didn’t know what Capone was doing. He could have served as a link between the federal agents leading the investigation and the man they were hunting. He could have had a lot of sex and said a lot of witty stuff.
But even under the influence, I knew it wasn’t right for me. Some authors can pull off tricks like these. I can’t.
OK, my friend suggested, then how about opening the book with a short preface that described the dramatic conditions in which you wrote this book?
Well, there were some pretty hairy trips to the library, I admitted.
What about the secret government documents, my friend asked. You’re the only in the world who’s got those. Can’t you make your pursuit of those papers part of the story? Make the reader feel like it’s you hunting Al Capone. Your whole career, your whole life was on the line. You quit a good job at the Wall Street Journal to do this book. What if you failed?
My reply: Who cares?
In the end, this story isn’t mine. It’s Al Capone’s. And if Capone’s story isn’t compelling enough without little old me to juice it up, then I’m doing something very, very wrong.
Eighty years after his fall from power, Capone remains one of the most fascinating figures in American history. Yet most people don’t know the real Capone. They know De Niro’s Capone from The Untouchables.
The real Capone was full of contradictions. He was ravenous for power and yet desperate for public approval. He was a compulsive gambler and chronic philanderer yet also a devoted family man. He felt little guilt about using violence when he had to and yet he wished to be viewed by the public as a legitimate businessman. He spent wildly on fancy cars and clothes yet never amassed great wealth.
He reminded me a little bit of Anthony Soprano, except Capone used female newspaper reporters instead of shrinks to explore his feelings and plead for sympathy.
I once had a dream that I showed up at Capone’s house in Miami to ask him for an interview. He showed me all around the place, took me out to the garage to see his collection of cars, and poured me a tumbler of whiskey. In the dream, it seemed like we hit it off.
I suppose I could have used a scene like that in my book.
But I’d rather play it straight.
Jonathan Eig’s new book is Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster.
UPDATE: A nice piece in today's NYT (with quotes from Jonathan) about Capone's enduring legacy in Chicago.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Comedy = tragedy + time
by Laura Caldwell
It's been said that comedy is tragedy plus time. It's true, right? Sometimes when things are fresh they're simply too tortuous, too painful, to even come close to laughing at them.
Being from a partly Irish family that considers black humor important, I can testify that sometimes you don't need that much time for the humor to erupt and to help ease your pain. For example, I can easily go funny about the time I was mugged last year. In fact, I remember that within an hour after it happened, I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, c'mon, when your ex-husband, your assistant, her boyfriend, the police and all your neighbors are looking for your teeth on the street with flashlights, that's just good shit. (Excuse the language, that's a technical comedy term).
I was impressed, however--very, very impressed--to come upon comedy at the annual Innocence Conference this past weekend. The conference brings together all the innocence projects from around the world (the people who take letters from prisoners claiming to be innocent and investigate their cases, helping to free those wrongfully convicted). The grand-daddies of the innocence movement were there--Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld--along with 89 exonerees (innocent people who have been released from prison).
I lucky enough to spend some time with Kirk Bloodsworth, the first man exonerated from death row by DNA evidence. (http://truthinjustice.org/bloodsworth.htm). As we talked, I learned that Kirk was going to be teaching some college courses in the fall. When I asked what would teach, he said, with a straight face, "Shank Making 101." (A shank is prison slang for a homemade knife). I didn't know what to say. Then Kirk guffawed and raised his cocktail glass in a salute.
I knew Kirk had faced impossibly anguished days, sitting on death row for nearly nine years for a murder he didn't commit. But when he laughed again and winked, I saw there no doubt about it--he'd been able to go black with it; he was able to go to the funny.
"What else are you going to teach?" I asked.
He said me he was debating curriculum that would involve various recipes for hooch (prison booze).
Once I stopped laughing, I had to ask. "How can you joke about this?"
"Hell," he said, "you have to." And then he continued to riff on other possible mock courses, and people started leaning in, and soon he had a crowd cracking up and slapping him on the back.
And that wasn't the last time I witnessed something like this at the conference. Over and over, I met exonerees who could take the route of black humor. I finally realized that in addition to help alleviate their own mental wounds, most of them had realized that to be to laugh about it allowed other people to laugh with them and then to go ahead and ask about their real experiences. They wanted people to be able to talk about them because they didn't want the horror of a wrongful conviction to happen to anyone else.
If comedy can do that, I say - amen.
It's been said that comedy is tragedy plus time. It's true, right? Sometimes when things are fresh they're simply too tortuous, too painful, to even come close to laughing at them.
Being from a partly Irish family that considers black humor important, I can testify that sometimes you don't need that much time for the humor to erupt and to help ease your pain. For example, I can easily go funny about the time I was mugged last year. In fact, I remember that within an hour after it happened, I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, c'mon, when your ex-husband, your assistant, her boyfriend, the police and all your neighbors are looking for your teeth on the street with flashlights, that's just good shit. (Excuse the language, that's a technical comedy term).
I was impressed, however--very, very impressed--to come upon comedy at the annual Innocence Conference this past weekend. The conference brings together all the innocence projects from around the world (the people who take letters from prisoners claiming to be innocent and investigate their cases, helping to free those wrongfully convicted). The grand-daddies of the innocence movement were there--Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld--along with 89 exonerees (innocent people who have been released from prison).
I lucky enough to spend some time with Kirk Bloodsworth, the first man exonerated from death row by DNA evidence. (http://truthinjustice.org/bloodsworth.htm). As we talked, I learned that Kirk was going to be teaching some college courses in the fall. When I asked what would teach, he said, with a straight face, "Shank Making 101." (A shank is prison slang for a homemade knife). I didn't know what to say. Then Kirk guffawed and raised his cocktail glass in a salute.
I knew Kirk had faced impossibly anguished days, sitting on death row for nearly nine years for a murder he didn't commit. But when he laughed again and winked, I saw there no doubt about it--he'd been able to go black with it; he was able to go to the funny.
"What else are you going to teach?" I asked.
He said me he was debating curriculum that would involve various recipes for hooch (prison booze).
Once I stopped laughing, I had to ask. "How can you joke about this?"
"Hell," he said, "you have to." And then he continued to riff on other possible mock courses, and people started leaning in, and soon he had a crowd cracking up and slapping him on the back.
And that wasn't the last time I witnessed something like this at the conference. Over and over, I met exonerees who could take the route of black humor. I finally realized that in addition to help alleviate their own mental wounds, most of them had realized that to be to laugh about it allowed other people to laugh with them and then to go ahead and ask about their real experiences. They wanted people to be able to talk about them because they didn't want the horror of a wrongful conviction to happen to anyone else.
If comedy can do that, I say - amen.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Cheap, But Not Easy
by Marcus Sakey
So Amazon is having a sale on my second novel, AT THE CITY'S EDGE--they're selling it for $1.72 per hardcover copy. Considering that's about $22 off, it's a pretty good deal.
When I discovered that this morning, I promptly went on Facebook and Twitter and announced it to the world. Which prompted, among other things, a question from a fellow novelist:
"Why are you promoting this? Aren't you a little, well, embarrassed?"
The reason my friend asks, of course, is that the fact that they can sell it at that rate tells you that the hardcover has been remaindered, and that Amazon was left with a larger quantity than they might have hoped.
Remaindering, in case you don't know, is what happens to the hardcovers that don't get sold. You see, publishers have no clear way of knowing how many copies they'll be able to move in advance. They have to estimate, and because of the nature of costs in printing, as well as a lot of other factors I don't want to get into, they not infrequently print more than they end up selling. (Incidentally, those estimates become a part of the promotional process--announcing you are printing a large quantity is a message to booksellers that you expect a book to do well.)
The end result is that after a book has come out in paperback, and a respectful time has passed, the remaining books are sold to clearinghouses which resell them. You know those bargain books in the entryway of your local Borders or Barnes & Noble? The hardcovers going for $5? Those were remaindered.
Many authors are made bitter by remaindering. We don't make money on those sales, and of course the books are sold so cheap that it feels like a personal sting somehow.
Me, I disagree.
See, as a novelist, there are so many things you don't have control over. It's not up to you how many copies are printed, or what the cover looks like, or whether Dan Brown has a new book out that month. You can't control the decision to go hardcover or trade or mass market, or how big an order a store makes, or whether the economy is in the toilet.
The only thing you can control is the book itself.
Luckily, that's great. Because the best advertisement for an author's next book is the one you're already reading.
So I say, go for it! Buy a copy. Buy a handful. Get your holiday shopping done early! If you buy 15, shipping is free. You can stuff stockings. You can leave them on the bus. You can trade them with your friends. Hell, I don't care.
Because a book out in the world--instead of in a warehouse--is a book that might be read. And in the end, that's the game. We're not marketers or sales reps or promotional speakers. We're novelists.
As a novelist, the job is simply to write your damn heart out. Let somebody else worry about the cover price. My only concern is making a reader happy.
Hopefully, so happy that they pay full price for the next one.
So Amazon is having a sale on my second novel, AT THE CITY'S EDGE--they're selling it for $1.72 per hardcover copy. Considering that's about $22 off, it's a pretty good deal.
When I discovered that this morning, I promptly went on Facebook and Twitter and announced it to the world. Which prompted, among other things, a question from a fellow novelist:"Why are you promoting this? Aren't you a little, well, embarrassed?"
The reason my friend asks, of course, is that the fact that they can sell it at that rate tells you that the hardcover has been remaindered, and that Amazon was left with a larger quantity than they might have hoped.
Remaindering, in case you don't know, is what happens to the hardcovers that don't get sold. You see, publishers have no clear way of knowing how many copies they'll be able to move in advance. They have to estimate, and because of the nature of costs in printing, as well as a lot of other factors I don't want to get into, they not infrequently print more than they end up selling. (Incidentally, those estimates become a part of the promotional process--announcing you are printing a large quantity is a message to booksellers that you expect a book to do well.)
The end result is that after a book has come out in paperback, and a respectful time has passed, the remaining books are sold to clearinghouses which resell them. You know those bargain books in the entryway of your local Borders or Barnes & Noble? The hardcovers going for $5? Those were remaindered.
Many authors are made bitter by remaindering. We don't make money on those sales, and of course the books are sold so cheap that it feels like a personal sting somehow.
Me, I disagree.
See, as a novelist, there are so many things you don't have control over. It's not up to you how many copies are printed, or what the cover looks like, or whether Dan Brown has a new book out that month. You can't control the decision to go hardcover or trade or mass market, or how big an order a store makes, or whether the economy is in the toilet.
The only thing you can control is the book itself.
Luckily, that's great. Because the best advertisement for an author's next book is the one you're already reading.
So I say, go for it! Buy a copy. Buy a handful. Get your holiday shopping done early! If you buy 15, shipping is free. You can stuff stockings. You can leave them on the bus. You can trade them with your friends. Hell, I don't care.
Because a book out in the world--instead of in a warehouse--is a book that might be read. And in the end, that's the game. We're not marketers or sales reps or promotional speakers. We're novelists.
As a novelist, the job is simply to write your damn heart out. Let somebody else worry about the cover price. My only concern is making a reader happy.
Hopefully, so happy that they pay full price for the next one.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The (Sometimes) Thin Line Between Advice and the Slammer
By Jamie Freveletti
While working as a lawyer I handled some white collar criminal cases. My law firm specialized in food, drug, and medical device issues, and many of the cases involved pharmaceuticals. For my part, most of the so called “criminals” were just regular people involved in regular jobs that during a particularly stressful time stepped over the line from good judgment to bad.
Sometimes really bad.
Remember that scene in “The Firm” where an attorney dies in a boating “accident” and Tom Cruise as Mitch goes to the house of an older associate to express his condolences? The man is sitting in his garden, unmoving, while the lawn sprinkler is systematically spraying his pant leg on each pass. I loved that scene, because it’s the first time that Mitch gets a sense that something is not quite right in his new firm. It’s understated; quiet, but you see the other lawyer’s numb despair and it leaves you worried for Mitch and wondering what’s actually going on in this firm.
There’s a whole lot that Grisham did right in that story. The other young lawyer characters were friendly, filled with camaraderie, and yet also trapped. You liked them, but knew they weren’t going to help Mitch out of his troubles. Grisham could have made them all unrelentingly evil, but in my opinion that wouldn’t have worked as well. It matched the world of white collar crime, where the criminals are essentially con men and women in suits and they can move among society a lot easier than a gang member in droopy pants. (An FBI agent once told me that in general white collar criminals cave under pressure from his office remarkably fast, but that's a blog post for another day).
I also liked that some of the older partners were evil but showed glimpses of grim determination tinged with regret. Several of the actors, especially Hal Holbrook as the white haired managing partner, were pitch perfect. They expressed that “I regret to inform you that I’m going to kill you” attitude that is the hallmark of a wonderful, menacing performance.
I’m fascinated by the group mentality that convinces smart, moral people to do stupid, immoral things. The lawyer who writes the memo suggesting ways to avoid revealing the defect in a car (Toyota), or the one who gives a legal opinion that allows for multiple layers of corporations be used to shuttle money around within an entity to give the appearance of productivity (Enron). Were you able to pull these people out of their suits, sit them down at their kitchen table and ask them to do the same, many would squirm and hedge, and some would flatly refuse. Yet, take them off to the job and have a fee paying client demand the same thing, and these “smart” people apply their not insignificant intelligence to do just that. Often it involves a blind adherence to the corporation that baffles me, but that I saw over and over in my years as a litigator. Grisham must have too, because he wrote it beautifully.
I use the blind adherence principle in my own writing. It requires painstaking set-up, because the reader needs to see the trajectory of the white collar criminal as he takes each step down the path toward that line between legal and illegal, but the payoff for a crime writer is great. It’s a bit of reality that lends a feeling of truth and makes for a great read.
Monday, April 19, 2010
More Dangerous Than Lawn Darts...
by Sean Chercover
When I was a sprout, we had many dangerous toys. Some of which (slingshots, BB guns, pogo sticks, skateboards) are still around today. Others are not. One of my favorites was the (ubiquitous in the 1970s) Lawn Darts.
Man, those were fun.
Lawn Darts were big, heavy, sharp ... well, darts. They came in a set, with plastic rings that you put on the lawn as targets, and you tossed the darts from a distance at the rings.
Simple enough, and fun ... until someone loses an eye.
And sadly, more than a few children did just that. In the late '80s, Lawn Darts were banned, after racking up three kills and almost 7,000 serious injuries.
The packaging clearly stated that the toy was "a skillful sport for adults" and I'm a big fan of personal responsibility, but I can't really get too worked up about Lawn Darts being removed from the market, much as I miss them.
Folks a couple decades older may remember a toy called the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab. This was one hell of a science kit. It included actual radioactive uranium samples, along with various instruments for measuring radioactivity and particle disintegration.
The toy was developed at M.I.T., with the blessing of the federal government, who thought it would help promote nuclear energy.
The kids just glowed with excitement on Christmas morning...
Today, we are somewhat more careful about the toys we give our kids (as long as you don't mind poisoning from the lead paint that China still insists on using for toys...) But a friend recently sent me a link to a toy that is, perhaps, even more dangerous than Lawn Darts.
Not physically dangerous, but dangerous in a more insidious way. The good people at Gizmodo.com wrote an amusing piece on it, called: Baby's First Cubicle: The Most Depressing Toy Ever?
The piece begins, "It's all about expectation management, you see. If you make your kid think he can be president, he will grow up disappointed. Tell him he's headed for a life as an office drone and at least he'll be mentally prepared."
It got me thinking, and searching for other toys in a similar vein. Here are just a few...
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing dishonorable about flipping burgers for a living, but is this the job you really want your child to fantasize about during play time?
The McDonald's Drive Thru Play Set boasts, "realistic looking and sounding play kitchen and restaurant toy cookware sets that have the look and feel of what the pros use..."
"What the pros use"? Really? The McDonald's pros??
At least it comes with a nifty visor.
It's depressing, if not surprising, that the majority of these set-the-bar-low career indoctrinating toys are aimed at girls.
My Cleaning Trolley is just such an example. With this gem, you can prepare your daughter for an exciting career as a maid at Super 8.
Not only is it pink, but the box clearly says "Girls Only".
I'll spare you the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Barbie, which won the Worst Toy of 2009 Toady Award, because I found something even worse...
Yup. It is a pole dancing doll. I kid you not.
Apparently, this is a popular toy for young girls. So popular, that there are at least three companies making competing models of the toy.
Of course, I use the word models reluctantly; if they could be models, they wouldn't be working in a strip club.
Am I nuts, or are these toys more dangerous than Lawn Darts?
When I was a sprout, we had many dangerous toys. Some of which (slingshots, BB guns, pogo sticks, skateboards) are still around today. Others are not. One of my favorites was the (ubiquitous in the 1970s) Lawn Darts.
Man, those were fun.
Lawn Darts were big, heavy, sharp ... well, darts. They came in a set, with plastic rings that you put on the lawn as targets, and you tossed the darts from a distance at the rings.
Simple enough, and fun ... until someone loses an eye.
And sadly, more than a few children did just that. In the late '80s, Lawn Darts were banned, after racking up three kills and almost 7,000 serious injuries.
The packaging clearly stated that the toy was "a skillful sport for adults" and I'm a big fan of personal responsibility, but I can't really get too worked up about Lawn Darts being removed from the market, much as I miss them.
Folks a couple decades older may remember a toy called the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab. This was one hell of a science kit. It included actual radioactive uranium samples, along with various instruments for measuring radioactivity and particle disintegration.The toy was developed at M.I.T., with the blessing of the federal government, who thought it would help promote nuclear energy.
The kids just glowed with excitement on Christmas morning...
Today, we are somewhat more careful about the toys we give our kids (as long as you don't mind poisoning from the lead paint that China still insists on using for toys...) But a friend recently sent me a link to a toy that is, perhaps, even more dangerous than Lawn Darts.
Not physically dangerous, but dangerous in a more insidious way. The good people at Gizmodo.com wrote an amusing piece on it, called: Baby's First Cubicle: The Most Depressing Toy Ever?The piece begins, "It's all about expectation management, you see. If you make your kid think he can be president, he will grow up disappointed. Tell him he's headed for a life as an office drone and at least he'll be mentally prepared."
It got me thinking, and searching for other toys in a similar vein. Here are just a few...
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing dishonorable about flipping burgers for a living, but is this the job you really want your child to fantasize about during play time?
The McDonald's Drive Thru Play Set boasts, "realistic looking and sounding play kitchen and restaurant toy cookware sets that have the look and feel of what the pros use..."
"What the pros use"? Really? The McDonald's pros??
At least it comes with a nifty visor.
It's depressing, if not surprising, that the majority of these set-the-bar-low career indoctrinating toys are aimed at girls.
My Cleaning Trolley is just such an example. With this gem, you can prepare your daughter for an exciting career as a maid at Super 8.
Not only is it pink, but the box clearly says "Girls Only".
I'll spare you the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Barbie, which won the Worst Toy of 2009 Toady Award, because I found something even worse...
Yup. It is a pole dancing doll. I kid you not.Apparently, this is a popular toy for young girls. So popular, that there are at least three companies making competing models of the toy.
Of course, I use the word models reluctantly; if they could be models, they wouldn't be working in a strip club.
Am I nuts, or are these toys more dangerous than Lawn Darts?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
When Truth is Stranger than Fiction
We have a special guest today on the OUTFIT: crime fiction author Michael Harvey, whose third novel, THE THIRD RAIL, will be out this week. Along with THE CHICAGO WAY and THE FIFTH FLOOR, this novel features Chicago PI, Michael Kelly, and is based on the 1977 L accident in downtown Chicago as well as a 1993 Pentagon report on terrorism at home. But what you might not know about Michael is that he's a journalist and documentary film-maker who has won several Emmys and was nominated for an Academy Award. Today he posts about his current film project. Click here for more about Michael, his books, and his documentaries.
A man named Paul is sitting in his living room when he hears a knock at the door. He gets up and squeezes a look through the peephole. There’s a woman on his stoop. She identifies herself as a police officer and asks if she could talk to him. Paul is forty-three years old. White. No criminal record. Never even been inside a cop shop. Paul opens the door. Four cops tackle him, roll him onto his back and cuff him on his living room floor. Two minutes later, Paul is in the back of a cruiser. And the shit begins to roll.
Paul is brought into a room and told he’s going to be put in a lineup. What for? There’s been a woman raped. An anonymous tipster told police Paul’s the guy. He asks for a lawyer. The police tell him they’ll get him one. But the lineup first.
Paul is placed in one lineup. Then, a second. On the other side of the glass is a victim named Louise. Three months earlier, she’d been raped repeatedly in her home over the course of several hours. Louise tells police her attacker wore a mask. But Louise got a glimpse of his face. And so, the lineup.
Louise is scared. Louise is nervous. Louise is angry. She looks through the glass at the faces. The first time, she’s unsure. Police take her outside and talk to her. The second time, she’s certain. Paul raped her. The more she looks at him, the more certain she becomes. Paul raped her. And she wants him punished.
Police charge Paul with multiple counts of sexual battery. He’s denied bail, given a public defender and stuck in a county holding cell. In the cell with Paul is a man named Danny. He’s looking at a third felony conviction and possible life sentence when a detective pulls him out of the cell. Danny is offered the “deal of a lifetime”. If he testifies against Paul, Danny walks with a slap on the wrist. Danny’s all for it, but tells police he doesn’t know any details about the crime...because Paul didn’t tell him anything. Not a problem. According to Danny, the detective slides a police report across the table. Plenty of details in there. Then, according to Danny, he’s allowed to meet with the victim...so Danny can make sure he’s got it all straight. Danny takes the stand, points at Paul and gives the jury chapter and verse about how Paul raped Louise. It’s all a lie. Told by Danny and allegedly orchestrated by law enforcement. Taken together with Louise’s mistaken ID, and the lack of any forensic testing of the evidence, Paul doesn’t have a chance. After a trial that lasts less than a week, he’s convicted and sentenced to sixty years in prison.
Four months after sitting in his living room and hearing a knock on his door, Paul finds himself on a bus, hands cuffed to a belly chain. The bus turns a corner and Paul gets a first look at his new home -- a maximum security lockup where society houses its rapists and murderers. Once inside, Paul is told to strip and run through a delousing shower. Then he gets his prison uniform and bed linens. Paul stands at the top of a small ramp that leads into the main cell block. His hands and arms shake. His legs are like water. He’s crying, but barely aware of it. A female correctional officer reads out the charges. Fifteen counts of rape? They’re going to have fun with you. Paul tells the woman he’s innocent. She laughs and pushes him down the ramp. The noise builds. And then he’s in the house.
The cell block itself is five stories high and filled with four hundred inmates. Paul walks the main drag, holding his prison blues. Inmates love it. They yell at the fresh meat, tell him the many ways they’re going to shank him, rape him and otherwise own him. Paul climbs five flights to his cell and sits on his bunk. His neighbor next door pounds on the wall and screams at him. Paul listens to the noise, and wonders what happens next. He’s never been inside any sort of prison, never mind a max lockup. He’s got no money, no connections, no skills, no way to defend himself. Paul’s sentence is sixty years, but his life might be better measured in days. Maybe minutes.
That first night he rips his bed sheet into strips and prepares to hang himself. Something stops him. Maybe it’s the lies that put him there. Maybe it’s the truth that only he knows. Whatever the reason, Paul decides to walk a different road. The police have buried him. Society has washed its hands and walked away. But Paul is still alive. Doing another man’s time. And unwilling to hand over his life for a crime he didn’t commit. Instead, he decides to fight. And that’s where the story gets fun.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Find a child. Read.
by Barbara D'Amato
Yesterday I was talking with a staff member at our neighborhood Barnes & Noble. She was optimistic about reading in general and about children reading. She pointed me to their Teen section, which I had not realized existed, and said it was their fastest-growing area. Now, I realize that a lot of people view teen-specific books as Literature Light, but I looked at the stock and most of it is good stuff.
This past January Publishers Weekly reported on a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that total media use by eight-to-eighteen-year olds rose from six and a half hours to seven and a half hours per day between 2004 and 2009. Yes, much of the increase was digital media, but that is still reading. The decline was in print media, but that turned out to be entirely the result of the kids reading fewer newspapers and magazines. They are still reading books.
In another survey, 56 percent of children reported reading more than ten books a year. Of middle schoolers it’s seventy per cent.
Really encouraging was the finding by the National Center for Education Statistics that the percentage of prekindergarten children read to by a family member increased from seventy-eight percent in 1993 to eighty-six percent in 2005. Not only does this bode well for future young readers, but it suggests that the message is getting through to families and caregivers.
I know I’ve said this before. Maybe my optimism is the result of seeing the children I know reading avidly. But the surveys suggest that reading is not dead.
And reading is vital for all of us. Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association has said that the connection between literacy and being a useful member of society is so strong “that some states use grade-level reading statistics as a factor in projecting future prison construction.”
Of course the bottom line here is read to children. Find a child and read.
Yesterday I was talking with a staff member at our neighborhood Barnes & Noble. She was optimistic about reading in general and about children reading. She pointed me to their Teen section, which I had not realized existed, and said it was their fastest-growing area. Now, I realize that a lot of people view teen-specific books as Literature Light, but I looked at the stock and most of it is good stuff.
This past January Publishers Weekly reported on a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that total media use by eight-to-eighteen-year olds rose from six and a half hours to seven and a half hours per day between 2004 and 2009. Yes, much of the increase was digital media, but that is still reading. The decline was in print media, but that turned out to be entirely the result of the kids reading fewer newspapers and magazines. They are still reading books.
In another survey, 56 percent of children reported reading more than ten books a year. Of middle schoolers it’s seventy per cent.
Really encouraging was the finding by the National Center for Education Statistics that the percentage of prekindergarten children read to by a family member increased from seventy-eight percent in 1993 to eighty-six percent in 2005. Not only does this bode well for future young readers, but it suggests that the message is getting through to families and caregivers.
I know I’ve said this before. Maybe my optimism is the result of seeing the children I know reading avidly. But the surveys suggest that reading is not dead.
And reading is vital for all of us. Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association has said that the connection between literacy and being a useful member of society is so strong “that some states use grade-level reading statistics as a factor in projecting future prison construction.”
Of course the bottom line here is read to children. Find a child and read.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Eunice
by Michael Dymmoch
When I was a child, back in the stone age, editors knew the rules of grammar. And publishers adhered to the rules. I hated school back then and got through it by daydreaming or sitting in the back of the classroom, reading—something impertinent but interesting. I never studied the rules of grammar, but I learned how to diagram sentences. And since the books I read had been well written and properly edited, I didn’t do too badly on written assignments. In college, my rhetoric professor told me I didn’t need to name the parts of speech as long as I could use them properly.
I found the Red Herrings around the time my first book was published. Led by Phebe Waterman, the writing group met weekly at Scotland Yard Books: David Walker, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Ron Levitsky, Eunice Fikso, and I—among others. Eunice was old—sixty at least. She was well read and well schooled in grammar. She had little patience for unintentional violations of the rules.
Eunice moved away and, eventually, passed away. Scotland Yard Books closed. But the Red Herrings continued, adding and dropping members as the years flew by. We still meet weekly. David and I still participate. Libby Hellmann has replaced Phebe as our unofficial leader.
And I’ve replaced Eunice. I’m usually the first to pontificate on a dangling participle, or to get apoplectic over lack of agreement between parts of speech. And not just in the writing group. I can’t concentrate on TV news. I’m too incensed that the people writing it for anchors to read can’t get their grammar facts straight. If they don’t bother to be accurate with grammar facts, how am I to trust the accuracy of their news facts? And if the people reading the teleprompters aren’t smart enough to recognize and correct grammar mistakes, why should I trust their reporting?
TV commercials are even worse. I should trust my child’s education to a tutoring company that offers to let you Learn how Sylvan can help your child reach their full potential? And should I trust my eyesight to a company that offers Two complete pair of glasses for only ninety-nine dollars? Thanks, but I’d rather have my eye wear made by people who speak English adequately. There’s a better chance they’ll read the prescription correctly and… You get the idea.
I’ve ranted before on this subject, but it keeps coming up. I believe that fuzzy speech is indicative of fuzzy thinking—or strong drink. And I believe I’ve turned into Eunice.
When I was a child, back in the stone age, editors knew the rules of grammar. And publishers adhered to the rules. I hated school back then and got through it by daydreaming or sitting in the back of the classroom, reading—something impertinent but interesting. I never studied the rules of grammar, but I learned how to diagram sentences. And since the books I read had been well written and properly edited, I didn’t do too badly on written assignments. In college, my rhetoric professor told me I didn’t need to name the parts of speech as long as I could use them properly.
I found the Red Herrings around the time my first book was published. Led by Phebe Waterman, the writing group met weekly at Scotland Yard Books: David Walker, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Ron Levitsky, Eunice Fikso, and I—among others. Eunice was old—sixty at least. She was well read and well schooled in grammar. She had little patience for unintentional violations of the rules.
Eunice moved away and, eventually, passed away. Scotland Yard Books closed. But the Red Herrings continued, adding and dropping members as the years flew by. We still meet weekly. David and I still participate. Libby Hellmann has replaced Phebe as our unofficial leader.
And I’ve replaced Eunice. I’m usually the first to pontificate on a dangling participle, or to get apoplectic over lack of agreement between parts of speech. And not just in the writing group. I can’t concentrate on TV news. I’m too incensed that the people writing it for anchors to read can’t get their grammar facts straight. If they don’t bother to be accurate with grammar facts, how am I to trust the accuracy of their news facts? And if the people reading the teleprompters aren’t smart enough to recognize and correct grammar mistakes, why should I trust their reporting?
TV commercials are even worse. I should trust my child’s education to a tutoring company that offers to let you Learn how Sylvan can help your child reach their full potential? And should I trust my eyesight to a company that offers Two complete pair of glasses for only ninety-nine dollars? Thanks, but I’d rather have my eye wear made by people who speak English adequately. There’s a better chance they’ll read the prescription correctly and… You get the idea.
I’ve ranted before on this subject, but it keeps coming up. I believe that fuzzy speech is indicative of fuzzy thinking—or strong drink. And I believe I’ve turned into Eunice.
Monday, April 12, 2010
By the dawn's early light
By David Heinzmann
The last couple times I’ve posted I’ve written about recent mob stories in the news. I don’t want to sound like too much of a broken record so I’ll just mention that there was another good one that broke on Friday. A trio of 70-year-old mob jewel thieves caught casing a bank and the house of another dead mobster. Read about it here, and follow the link to read the FBI affidavit for a search warrant. It’s pretty entertaining. And crime writers will find the details of the affidavit intriguing, and maybe even useful.
Anyway, I’ve started writing a new book while I wait to see what’s going to happen to Book 2, which is a sequel to A Word To The Wise. If it sounds like I’m overly productive, don’t be misled. This second book had been mostly written a few years ago, but I set the revisions and rewriting aside for a loooong time once A Word To The Wise was picked up for publication and I had all sorts of editing and other stuff to do.
Over the last few months, I’ve finally gotten the revisions done, and I’m on to the next one. I’ve been messing around with a plot line and a few characters, and have the arc of the plot lined up solidly enough to start writing. I’m half way through the second chapter.
But moving directly into a new book has some special challenges this time around.
The first two books are both about a character named Augustine Flood, and writing about him had grown to feel pretty comfortable and familiar. But this next book is a departure. It is still set in Chicago, but there is no Flood. Most of the characters are Chicago cops, including the protagonist. I’m still finding my way with this character and fighting the urge to throw Flood’s name in there somewhere.
I have faith that once I’m a few more chapters into it the new story will take over and pull me along. But at the moment I’m still laboring to get out of the Augustine Flood mindset and into the new guy. I’m guessing some of you have had the same struggles, especially if you have written a standalone book or started a new character after a few in a series. Thoughts, experiences, advice?
Part of my problem is that I haven’t managed to string together a big block of time to write yet to get the pump primed for this book. I haven’t quite found the writing schedule that’s going to work for me this time around. I was originally a morning writer, but switched to a nighttime writer after we had a baby. Now my second kid is sleeping a little later some mornings, making me flirt with the idea of going back to being a morning writer. If I can keep everybody else in the house in bed until seven, I’ll gladly starting getting up at five to write.
Nights just aren’t working. Lately, I’ve just been too beat in the evenings to do much other than pour a drink and sit down with my wife to watch Damages and Justified. Speaking of which, Justified is sort of a delight if you like Elmore Leonard. It’s an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s character, Raylan Givens. Some of the dialogue and story lines are lifted from his books, but Leonard is also a producer of the show and the episodes feel a little like reading his books. (I shouldn’t be shilling for FX, but both of those shows are pretty good.)
Anyway, it’s 5:25 a.m. as I finish this and I’m about to start Chapter 3. Keep your fingers crossed for me that nobody under four feet tall wakes up in the next two hours.
And P.S., I wish I would have been more on top of the blog last week so I could have been the first person to comment on Bryan's blog about the powers that be evaluating stories by how well they're doing online. The tyranny of the clicks is reshaping the news. It's a frightening trend as media companies get more and more desperate waging a losing battle for online market share.
The last couple times I’ve posted I’ve written about recent mob stories in the news. I don’t want to sound like too much of a broken record so I’ll just mention that there was another good one that broke on Friday. A trio of 70-year-old mob jewel thieves caught casing a bank and the house of another dead mobster. Read about it here, and follow the link to read the FBI affidavit for a search warrant. It’s pretty entertaining. And crime writers will find the details of the affidavit intriguing, and maybe even useful.
Anyway, I’ve started writing a new book while I wait to see what’s going to happen to Book 2, which is a sequel to A Word To The Wise. If it sounds like I’m overly productive, don’t be misled. This second book had been mostly written a few years ago, but I set the revisions and rewriting aside for a loooong time once A Word To The Wise was picked up for publication and I had all sorts of editing and other stuff to do.
Over the last few months, I’ve finally gotten the revisions done, and I’m on to the next one. I’ve been messing around with a plot line and a few characters, and have the arc of the plot lined up solidly enough to start writing. I’m half way through the second chapter.
But moving directly into a new book has some special challenges this time around.
The first two books are both about a character named Augustine Flood, and writing about him had grown to feel pretty comfortable and familiar. But this next book is a departure. It is still set in Chicago, but there is no Flood. Most of the characters are Chicago cops, including the protagonist. I’m still finding my way with this character and fighting the urge to throw Flood’s name in there somewhere.
I have faith that once I’m a few more chapters into it the new story will take over and pull me along. But at the moment I’m still laboring to get out of the Augustine Flood mindset and into the new guy. I’m guessing some of you have had the same struggles, especially if you have written a standalone book or started a new character after a few in a series. Thoughts, experiences, advice?
Part of my problem is that I haven’t managed to string together a big block of time to write yet to get the pump primed for this book. I haven’t quite found the writing schedule that’s going to work for me this time around. I was originally a morning writer, but switched to a nighttime writer after we had a baby. Now my second kid is sleeping a little later some mornings, making me flirt with the idea of going back to being a morning writer. If I can keep everybody else in the house in bed until seven, I’ll gladly starting getting up at five to write.
Nights just aren’t working. Lately, I’ve just been too beat in the evenings to do much other than pour a drink and sit down with my wife to watch Damages and Justified. Speaking of which, Justified is sort of a delight if you like Elmore Leonard. It’s an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s character, Raylan Givens. Some of the dialogue and story lines are lifted from his books, but Leonard is also a producer of the show and the episodes feel a little like reading his books. (I shouldn’t be shilling for FX, but both of those shows are pretty good.)
Anyway, it’s 5:25 a.m. as I finish this and I’m about to start Chapter 3. Keep your fingers crossed for me that nobody under four feet tall wakes up in the next two hours.
And P.S., I wish I would have been more on top of the blog last week so I could have been the first person to comment on Bryan's blog about the powers that be evaluating stories by how well they're doing online. The tyranny of the clicks is reshaping the news. It's a frightening trend as media companies get more and more desperate waging a losing battle for online market share.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Like Sevens Come, Elevens Come, Like Manna From the Heavens Come
By Kevin Guilfoile
Earlier this week, as the White Sox and Cubs were read separate fortunes on Opening Day, I was invited to participate in a discussion about baseball literature for local television. Joining me on the panel were Geoff Forsyth, an accomplished short story writer and professor at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and Terry Sullivan, a former English teacher who is now a scout for the Red Sox. We talked about the long relationship between baseball and fiction, and about our favorite baseball novels, including Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, Bernard Malumud's The Natural.
Inevitably the conversation turned to W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe, the novel on which the film Field of Dreams was based.
That book of course, is about Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella who, urged on by a voice in his head, carves a perfect baseball field out of valuable farm land and then tries to figure out why he was asked to do it. In his search he drags reclusive writer J.D. Salinger from his New Hampshire home and takes him to Fenway Park. He tracks down a former ballplayer named Moonlight Graham up in Minnesota. The ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson (as well as the rest of the 1919 White Sox) and Ray's own father emerge to play on Ray's field.
If you build it, he will come, the voice had told Ray.
I said the book was about faith. Not religious faith, necessarily, but any sort of compulsion that we don't understand or recognize.
Then Geoff pointed out something that should have been obvious to me.
The story is a perfect metaphor for writing.
Most writers will tell you they don't understand why they do it. Or why they started. Writing a novel, especially a first novel, must seem like insanity to our spouses and friends. A first novel is a diamond carved out of your precious time over months or usually years. If you're persistent enough to finish, there's no guarantee that anything will come of it. In most cases nothing will.
Somehow you're convinced that if you build it, they will come. Agents. Publishers. Readers.
I would bet that four out of five of the American writers I know are baseball fans. Maybe we are drawn to the baseball player's courage and persistence in the face of failure, and the narrow margin between immortality and mediocrity. A baseball player who gets a hit in six-out-of-twenty at bats is an immortal, a Hall of Famer. A player who gets a hit in five-of-twenty at bats is a bust, forgotten except for the record books. That sounds a lot like being a novelist.
Or maybe we're all just Ray Kinsella's following the whispers in our heads.
As long as it's still opening week, what are your favorite baseball novels? Because I still have a long list.
Earlier this week, as the White Sox and Cubs were read separate fortunes on Opening Day, I was invited to participate in a discussion about baseball literature for local television. Joining me on the panel were Geoff Forsyth, an accomplished short story writer and professor at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and Terry Sullivan, a former English teacher who is now a scout for the Red Sox. We talked about the long relationship between baseball and fiction, and about our favorite baseball novels, including Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, Bernard Malumud's The Natural.
Inevitably the conversation turned to W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe, the novel on which the film Field of Dreams was based.
That book of course, is about Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella who, urged on by a voice in his head, carves a perfect baseball field out of valuable farm land and then tries to figure out why he was asked to do it. In his search he drags reclusive writer J.D. Salinger from his New Hampshire home and takes him to Fenway Park. He tracks down a former ballplayer named Moonlight Graham up in Minnesota. The ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson (as well as the rest of the 1919 White Sox) and Ray's own father emerge to play on Ray's field.
If you build it, he will come, the voice had told Ray.
I said the book was about faith. Not religious faith, necessarily, but any sort of compulsion that we don't understand or recognize.
Then Geoff pointed out something that should have been obvious to me.
The story is a perfect metaphor for writing.
Most writers will tell you they don't understand why they do it. Or why they started. Writing a novel, especially a first novel, must seem like insanity to our spouses and friends. A first novel is a diamond carved out of your precious time over months or usually years. If you're persistent enough to finish, there's no guarantee that anything will come of it. In most cases nothing will.
Somehow you're convinced that if you build it, they will come. Agents. Publishers. Readers.
I would bet that four out of five of the American writers I know are baseball fans. Maybe we are drawn to the baseball player's courage and persistence in the face of failure, and the narrow margin between immortality and mediocrity. A baseball player who gets a hit in six-out-of-twenty at bats is an immortal, a Hall of Famer. A player who gets a hit in five-of-twenty at bats is a bust, forgotten except for the record books. That sounds a lot like being a novelist.
Or maybe we're all just Ray Kinsella's following the whispers in our heads.
As long as it's still opening week, what are your favorite baseball novels? Because I still have a long list.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Readers Crave Crappy Story
By Bryan Gruley
Shit is popular in The Wall Street Journal.
This may come as no surprise to liberals who stoop to read our editorial page or conservatives who insist we’re soft on Obama.
But I mean it quite literally.
On March 25, the newspaper that employs me as its Chicago bureau chief published a story about giant bubbles that had formed in a manure pond in Indiana.
See it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704266504575142224096848264.html?KEYWORDS=lauren+etter
The story quickly ascended our “Most Popular” lists ranking the articles viewed and emailed most frequently by readers. As I write this blog, it remains at Number 6 on the most-viewed list for the week.
On one hand, I’m happy to report this, because I love quirky-but-true stories like this one; because the reporter, Lauren Etter, works for me; and because I edited the story. And, icing on the cake, it made the most popular list for all of our readers and our WSJ peers to see.
But the rankings--now standard in newspaper, magazine, blog and other websites across the U.S.—bother me. Does the effort to quantify quality tempt us, however subtly, to focus on coverage we think will please the public and look away from stories or subjects that readers or viewers might not want but arguably need to know?
I suppose this marks me as a dinosaur, or at least someone taking things a tad too seriously. Lighten up, Gruley: these lists are just a fun way of seeing what people are reading about, a nifty window on the day’s water-cooler chat. And I haven’t heard reporters or editors talking about pursuing a particular story because it’ll make the most-popular list.
But I have heard people try to end arguments about the relative merits of a story by declaring that it made a most-popular list, as if that were definitive. By that standard, of course, Kelly Clarkson is a finer musician than Van Morrison and James Patterson a better writer than Ian McEwan--and the National Enquirer a better paper than The Wall Street Journal
Of course writers and producers crave readers and viewers. That’s how we justify our existence and, no small matter, pay the bills. But now that we can measure with a greater degree of precision what it is they like to consume, do we gravitate, like a Procter & Gamble or an Apple, to giving them what they want to hear?
News talk shows on radio and television do so every minute of the day, on the left and the right, with Rush Limbaugh telling his fans what they want to hear, Rachel Maddow doing the same for hers. But the people who actually gather and report what happens in the world have to guard themselves against playing to one constituency or another. It would undermine their credibility, of course, and as a crass business matter, risks alienating a big chunk of audience.
Perhaps our inability to predict what people will gobble up will protect us. Some years ago, my former WSJ colleague Roger Thurow wrote a story about a young African girl who had a fistula—an injury to the urethra caused by sexual relations at an abnormally young age.
We had no most-popular list back then, but judging by the emails, letters and calls Rog received, his story would’ve shot to the top. Had we asked readers ahead of time, though, whether they would like a story about a fistula, I doubt many would have said yes, please.
Who really knows what readers desire? A story about shit ponds in Indiana, apparently.
We who write fiction and secretly hope to hit the New York Times Bestseller list face the same dilemmas, and the license to make things up doesn’t make it easier. Do we consciously write what we think our audience wants, create characters that will attract more readership, concoct plots that play off the evening news? Do we create virtual focus groups in our minds? Or do we just try to tell a great tale? Do we write from our hearts or our heads?
My next book: a teenage vampire writes a memoir about her childhood learning magic in the catacombs of the Vatican.
What do you think?
By Bryan Gruley
Shit is popular in The Wall Street Journal.
This may come as no surprise to liberals who stoop to read our editorial page or conservatives who insist we’re soft on Obama.
But I mean it quite literally.
On March 25, the newspaper that employs me as its Chicago bureau chief published a story about giant bubbles that had formed in a manure pond in Indiana.
See it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704266504575142224096848264.html?KEYWORDS=lauren+etter
The story quickly ascended our “Most Popular” lists ranking the articles viewed and emailed most frequently by readers. As I write this blog, it remains at Number 6 on the most-viewed list for the week.
On one hand, I’m happy to report this, because I love quirky-but-true stories like this one; because the reporter, Lauren Etter, works for me; and because I edited the story. And, icing on the cake, it made the most popular list for all of our readers and our WSJ peers to see.
But the rankings--now standard in newspaper, magazine, blog and other websites across the U.S.—bother me. Does the effort to quantify quality tempt us, however subtly, to focus on coverage we think will please the public and look away from stories or subjects that readers or viewers might not want but arguably need to know?
I suppose this marks me as a dinosaur, or at least someone taking things a tad too seriously. Lighten up, Gruley: these lists are just a fun way of seeing what people are reading about, a nifty window on the day’s water-cooler chat. And I haven’t heard reporters or editors talking about pursuing a particular story because it’ll make the most-popular list.
But I have heard people try to end arguments about the relative merits of a story by declaring that it made a most-popular list, as if that were definitive. By that standard, of course, Kelly Clarkson is a finer musician than Van Morrison and James Patterson a better writer than Ian McEwan--and the National Enquirer a better paper than The Wall Street Journal
Of course writers and producers crave readers and viewers. That’s how we justify our existence and, no small matter, pay the bills. But now that we can measure with a greater degree of precision what it is they like to consume, do we gravitate, like a Procter & Gamble or an Apple, to giving them what they want to hear?
News talk shows on radio and television do so every minute of the day, on the left and the right, with Rush Limbaugh telling his fans what they want to hear, Rachel Maddow doing the same for hers. But the people who actually gather and report what happens in the world have to guard themselves against playing to one constituency or another. It would undermine their credibility, of course, and as a crass business matter, risks alienating a big chunk of audience.
Perhaps our inability to predict what people will gobble up will protect us. Some years ago, my former WSJ colleague Roger Thurow wrote a story about a young African girl who had a fistula—an injury to the urethra caused by sexual relations at an abnormally young age.
We had no most-popular list back then, but judging by the emails, letters and calls Rog received, his story would’ve shot to the top. Had we asked readers ahead of time, though, whether they would like a story about a fistula, I doubt many would have said yes, please.
Who really knows what readers desire? A story about shit ponds in Indiana, apparently.
We who write fiction and secretly hope to hit the New York Times Bestseller list face the same dilemmas, and the license to make things up doesn’t make it easier. Do we consciously write what we think our audience wants, create characters that will attract more readership, concoct plots that play off the evening news? Do we create virtual focus groups in our minds? Or do we just try to tell a great tale? Do we write from our hearts or our heads?
My next book: a teenage vampire writes a memoir about her childhood learning magic in the catacombs of the Vatican.
What do you think?
Writers In My Head
Alex Berenson, a New York Times reporter and novelist, wrote a great piece for the Sunday paper about, in part, coming up with intricate plots. He wasn't talking about his spy novels, though. Instead, he'd been asked to be a consultant for the final season of the Keifer Sutherland show, 24.
He described how the writers 'spitballed' plots. "We sit on couches and comfortable chairs, looking for answers. Season 8 will be set in New York. But why is Jack in New York? He’s a diplomat. No, he’s in a hospital, rehabilitating from his near-death experience in Season 7. No, he’s handling security for a rich guy... When the process is going well, it is like playing soccer with an invisible ball. One writer pushes an idea forward until another steps in. Someone says, “So the terrorists seize a school bus filled with rich kids. ...” “except one kid hides a cellphone. ...” And away we go."
As I read the piece, I became envious because this was the same experience novelists squirm through while writing a book, but all in their own mind. I have about six 'writers' in my head when I'm writing. I'll suggest a plot point - Izzy McNeil should represent a woman in Chicago charged with poisoning her best friend to death. But the lawyer writer in my head will pipe up that Izzy has no criminal law experience, and she isn't certified to try a murder case. Then the voice my friend, Beth, who doesn't take no for an answer and who sometimes helps me with my books will speak up and say that's fine, Izzy can second chair the murder trial. Well, who's going to first chair it? the lawyer asks. Another writer, one of the characters, Izzy's friend, Maggie, chimes in that she's happy to take Izzy on and teach her the ropes. A disapproving writer from the back of the mind-room will say well, that's all fine and good, but really, why would a woman poison someone who is her 'best friend?' And as Berenson says, "away we go."
Wouldn't it be great, I kept thinking, if there really were six Izzy McNeil writers, who lob away ideas and scenarios with each other, who could whole the half-hatched plot points that someone brilliantly sketched out.
But ultimately, Berenson said, after rounds and rounds of the brainstorming on 24, the process with all the writers became, "exhausting and circular. As a novelist, I’m not used to this. My ideas are my own. I don’t have to listen to other people tell me how stupid they are."
All right, so maybe I don't want a democracy of writers on my novel. Maybe. If you could have a team working on your books, would you do it?
He described how the writers 'spitballed' plots. "We sit on couches and comfortable chairs, looking for answers. Season 8 will be set in New York. But why is Jack in New York? He’s a diplomat. No, he’s in a hospital, rehabilitating from his near-death experience in Season 7. No, he’s handling security for a rich guy... When the process is going well, it is like playing soccer with an invisible ball. One writer pushes an idea forward until another steps in. Someone says, “So the terrorists seize a school bus filled with rich kids. ...” “except one kid hides a cellphone. ...” And away we go."
As I read the piece, I became envious because this was the same experience novelists squirm through while writing a book, but all in their own mind. I have about six 'writers' in my head when I'm writing. I'll suggest a plot point - Izzy McNeil should represent a woman in Chicago charged with poisoning her best friend to death. But the lawyer writer in my head will pipe up that Izzy has no criminal law experience, and she isn't certified to try a murder case. Then the voice my friend, Beth, who doesn't take no for an answer and who sometimes helps me with my books will speak up and say that's fine, Izzy can second chair the murder trial. Well, who's going to first chair it? the lawyer asks. Another writer, one of the characters, Izzy's friend, Maggie, chimes in that she's happy to take Izzy on and teach her the ropes. A disapproving writer from the back of the mind-room will say well, that's all fine and good, but really, why would a woman poison someone who is her 'best friend?' And as Berenson says, "away we go."
Wouldn't it be great, I kept thinking, if there really were six Izzy McNeil writers, who lob away ideas and scenarios with each other, who could whole the half-hatched plot points that someone brilliantly sketched out.
But ultimately, Berenson said, after rounds and rounds of the brainstorming on 24, the process with all the writers became, "exhausting and circular. As a novelist, I’m not used to this. My ideas are my own. I don’t have to listen to other people tell me how stupid they are."
All right, so maybe I don't want a democracy of writers on my novel. Maybe. If you could have a team working on your books, would you do it?
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Welcome to Weenie Nation...
by Sean Chercover
Let's just get this straight, right off the bat...
I AM THE BIGGEST WEENIE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.
There, I said it.
If you're a regular at The Outfit, you may have noticed the mildly amusing post that occupied this spot is now gone. I removed it, because...
I AM THE BIGGEST WEENIE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.
See, a friend of mine (not me, really, a friend of mine) told me about something amusing that happened to her at work, and I wrote about it here (with her permission), and then this friend (who may in fact be the biggest weenie in the entire Universe) panicked, convinced that my mildly amusing blog post would lead to her immediate termination.
So, here we are. Because - yes, say it with me...
I AM THE BIGGEST WEENIE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.
In fact, I feel a little like Henry Limpet, before he became a fish and discovered the power of his "whale-busting thrum."
Let's just get this straight, right off the bat...
I AM THE BIGGEST WEENIE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.
There, I said it.
If you're a regular at The Outfit, you may have noticed the mildly amusing post that occupied this spot is now gone. I removed it, because...
I AM THE BIGGEST WEENIE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.
See, a friend of mine (not me, really, a friend of mine) told me about something amusing that happened to her at work, and I wrote about it here (with her permission), and then this friend (who may in fact be the biggest weenie in the entire Universe) panicked, convinced that my mildly amusing blog post would lead to her immediate termination.
So, here we are. Because - yes, say it with me...
I AM THE BIGGEST WEENIE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE.
In fact, I feel a little like Henry Limpet, before he became a fish and discovered the power of his "whale-busting thrum."
Sunday, April 04, 2010
I Don’t Get Haircuts anymore -- I Update My Profile
by Libby Hellmann
I wrote this a week or so ago for Kaye Barley's blog, Meanderings and Muses, but decided to give it an encore.
Drew Barrymore ‘s riff in He’s Just Not Into You was probably the best thing in that otherwise unremarkable film. She was talking about dating, and how people no longer meet each other organically. That the entire process is now either on voicemail or online.
To that end, it struck me recently that I no longer do anything much “organically.” In fact, I don’t have much of a physical, tactile life. Over the past 10 years, almost everything I do has moved online.
For example:
News
I just canceled my subscription to the Chicago Tribune. At least during the week. Why? I get all my news online. The Trib sends me a daily email; so does Huffington Post and Salon. MSNBC is my home page on the computer. I follow a bunch of news outlets on Twitter. And I’ve bookmarked a slew of other publications and blogs which I visit daily.
Professional Life
I get most of my crime fiction news on line. Wait – who am I kidding? I get it ALL online: DL, 4MA, Sisters in Crime, Shelf Awareness, bloggers like Kaye and Sarah Weinman and Joe Konrath, CrimeSpree, Goodreads, plus PW Daily. (I know I’ve left out a ton of others). I do almost al my research online, order books for my research online, and – well – let’s not even get started on marketing online. Suffice it to say I’m here and here for starters. With bells on.
Book Discussion Groups
I am a member of two online Mystery Book Discussion Groups, plus a private group that focuses on love of our genre. I actually write book reviews (well, a few) and get most of my book recommendations from these lists. I also belong to a flesh-and-blood mystery group at my library, but guess what? We did an online chat with an author last month!
Shopping
This winter saw me redecorating a bit, and I got some fabulous things from Overstock.com. In addition, I ordered two new TVs from Amazon, plus a camera (they had the best prices). I book airline tickets, buy clothes, gifts, and office supplies online. Oh, and I make restaurant reservations online too.
Socializing
Facebook has taken over my social life. What little is left goes on Twitter. My war with the skunks has been well documented, and I’m in touch with friends from waaay back in my life. I’ve probably been on every dating website there is -- with less than stellar results, unfortunately, but that’s another story.
Entertainment
I play Scrabble online, do Suduko puzzles online, and play solitaire on my computer. I listen to music online, forward YouTube clips to friends, as well as greeting and birthday cards. Sometimes I even email thank you notes.I'm not into online gaming, but I know there are people who do little else in their lives. I renew library books online, decide where to go on vacation online. I watch movies through Netflix. Åll my photos are on my computer – I haven’t had a physical photo album since 2001.
Health
Whenever I have an unknown symptom or health problem (which happens more frequently these days), I don’t automatically call the doctor. First I check online. Of course, that can be a double-edged sword since I’m prone to thinking the worst. It could be just indigestion, but I’m convinced it’s ulcers… or worse.
Bills
I pay 90 per cent of my bills online. Haven’t needed new checks in years. And I do my accounting on the computer as well.
Volunteer/Donations
I make charitable contributions online, volunteered for Obama online. I receive at least one solicitation, maybe more, a day.
I can’t remember the last time I used a phone book. Or asked for directions. If I can’t remember who directed a film, I no longer blame it on a failing memory. I just Google it (if I remember). I receive a lost pet alert every few days, and I even communicate with my handyman online. And what would I do without Angie’s List?
Publishing
I don’t have a Kindle yet but am considering an iPad, and as of a couple of days ago, ALL of my books are on Kindle and the other e-book format (at Smashwords)(Yay!). I’m thinking of publishing an e-collection of my short stories this summer. Of course, if I go ahead with it, I will do all my marketing and promotion online.
Whew!
So, what’s the point? The internet has made my life much more convenient (as long as the computers work), but it’s also unsettling. Because I leave tracks wherever I go, it’s a certainty that someone could develop a detailed dossier on me, warts and all. And if it’s true that – as some predict – it’s possible to take control of the internet, what would happen to my life if they did? Could I be erased? Could someone eliminate or – worse -- take control of my virtual footprint? And if they could, what would the ramifications be in my real life? Am I, and are we all, heading toward virtual disaster?
It’s too spooky to contemplate. Happily, I don’t have time. I have to update my profile.
Btw, I’m sure I left out other activities people do online… What have I missed?
I wrote this a week or so ago for Kaye Barley's blog, Meanderings and Muses, but decided to give it an encore.
Drew Barrymore ‘s riff in He’s Just Not Into You was probably the best thing in that otherwise unremarkable film. She was talking about dating, and how people no longer meet each other organically. That the entire process is now either on voicemail or online.To that end, it struck me recently that I no longer do anything much “organically.” In fact, I don’t have much of a physical, tactile life. Over the past 10 years, almost everything I do has moved online.
For example:
NewsI just canceled my subscription to the Chicago Tribune. At least during the week. Why? I get all my news online. The Trib sends me a daily email; so does Huffington Post and Salon. MSNBC is my home page on the computer. I follow a bunch of news outlets on Twitter. And I’ve bookmarked a slew of other publications and blogs which I visit daily.
Professional LifeI get most of my crime fiction news on line. Wait – who am I kidding? I get it ALL online: DL, 4MA, Sisters in Crime, Shelf Awareness, bloggers like Kaye and Sarah Weinman and Joe Konrath, CrimeSpree, Goodreads, plus PW Daily. (I know I’ve left out a ton of others). I do almost al my research online, order books for my research online, and – well – let’s not even get started on marketing online. Suffice it to say I’m here and here for starters. With bells on.
Book Discussion GroupsI am a member of two online Mystery Book Discussion Groups, plus a private group that focuses on love of our genre. I actually write book reviews (well, a few) and get most of my book recommendations from these lists. I also belong to a flesh-and-blood mystery group at my library, but guess what? We did an online chat with an author last month!
ShoppingThis winter saw me redecorating a bit, and I got some fabulous things from Overstock.com. In addition, I ordered two new TVs from Amazon, plus a camera (they had the best prices). I book airline tickets, buy clothes, gifts, and office supplies online. Oh, and I make restaurant reservations online too.
Socializing
Facebook has taken over my social life. What little is left goes on Twitter. My war with the skunks has been well documented, and I’m in touch with friends from waaay back in my life. I’ve probably been on every dating website there is -- with less than stellar results, unfortunately, but that’s another story.
EntertainmentI play Scrabble online, do Suduko puzzles online, and play solitaire on my computer. I listen to music online, forward YouTube clips to friends, as well as greeting and birthday cards. Sometimes I even email thank you notes.I'm not into online gaming, but I know there are people who do little else in their lives. I renew library books online, decide where to go on vacation online. I watch movies through Netflix. Åll my photos are on my computer – I haven’t had a physical photo album since 2001.
HealthWhenever I have an unknown symptom or health problem (which happens more frequently these days), I don’t automatically call the doctor. First I check online. Of course, that can be a double-edged sword since I’m prone to thinking the worst. It could be just indigestion, but I’m convinced it’s ulcers… or worse.
Bills
I pay 90 per cent of my bills online. Haven’t needed new checks in years. And I do my accounting on the computer as well.
Volunteer/Donations
I make charitable contributions online, volunteered for Obama online. I receive at least one solicitation, maybe more, a day.
I can’t remember the last time I used a phone book. Or asked for directions. If I can’t remember who directed a film, I no longer blame it on a failing memory. I just Google it (if I remember). I receive a lost pet alert every few days, and I even communicate with my handyman online. And what would I do without Angie’s List?
Publishing
I don’t have a Kindle yet but am considering an iPad, and as of a couple of days ago, ALL of my books are on Kindle and the other e-book format (at Smashwords)(Yay!). I’m thinking of publishing an e-collection of my short stories this summer. Of course, if I go ahead with it, I will do all my marketing and promotion online.
Whew!
So, what’s the point? The internet has made my life much more convenient (as long as the computers work), but it’s also unsettling. Because I leave tracks wherever I go, it’s a certainty that someone could develop a detailed dossier on me, warts and all. And if it’s true that – as some predict – it’s possible to take control of the internet, what would happen to my life if they did? Could I be erased? Could someone eliminate or – worse -- take control of my virtual footprint? And if they could, what would the ramifications be in my real life? Am I, and are we all, heading toward virtual disaster?
It’s too spooky to contemplate. Happily, I don’t have time. I have to update my profile.
Btw, I’m sure I left out other activities people do online… What have I missed?
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Readers Crave Crappy Story
By Bryan Gruley
Shit is popular in The Wall Street Journal.
This may come as no surprise to liberals who stoop to read our editorial page or conservatives who insist we’re soft on Obama.
But I mean it quite literally.
On March 25, the newspaper that employs me as its Chicago bureau chief published a story about giant bubbles that had formed in a manure pond in Indiana.
See it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704266504575142224096848264.html?KEYWORDS=lauren+etter
The story quickly ascended our “Most Popular” lists ranking the articles viewed and emailed most frequently by readers. As I write this blog, it remains at Number 6 on the most-viewed list for the week.
On one hand, I’m happy to report this, because I love quirky-but-true stories like this one; because the reporter, Lauren Etter, works for me; and because I edited the story. And, icing on the cake, it made the most popular list for all of our readers and our WSJ peers to see.
But the rankings--now standard in newspaper, magazine, blog and other websites across the U.S.—bother me. Does the effort to quantify quality tempt us, however subtly, to focus on coverage we think will please the public and look away from stories or subjects that readers or viewers might not want but arguably need to know?
I suppose this marks me as a dinosaur, or at least someone taking things a tad too seriously. Lighten up, Gruley: these lists are just a fun way of seeing what people are reading about, a nifty window on the day’s water-cooler chat. And I haven’t heard reporters or editors talking about pursuing a particular story because it’ll make the most-popular list.
But I have heard arguments about the relative merits of a story culminate in the declaration that it made the most popular list, as if that settled everything. By that reckoning, James Patterson is a better writer than Ian McEwan, Kelly Clarkson a finer musician than Van Morrison and the National Enquirer is a better newspaper than The Wall Street Journal.
Of course writers and producers crave readers and viewers. That’s how we justify our existence and, no small matter, pay the bills. But now that we can measure with a greater degree of precision what it is they like to consume, do we gravitate, like a maker of widgets or software or frozen pizzas, to giving them only what they want to hear?
News talk shows on radio and television do so every minute of the day, on the left and the right, with Rush Limbaugh telling his fans what they want to hear, Rachel Maddow doing the same for hers. But the people who actually gather and report what happens in the world have to guard themselves against playing to one constituency or another. It would undermine their credibility, of course, and as a crass business matter, risks alienating a big chunk of audience.
Perhaps our inability to predict what people will gobble up will protect us. Some years ago, my former WSJ colleague Roger Thurow wrote a story about a young African girl who had a fistula—an injury to the urethra caused by sexual relations at an abnormally young age.
We had no most-popular list back then, but judging by the emails, letters and calls Rog received, his story would’ve shot to the top. Had we asked readers ahead of time, though, whether they would like a story about a fistula, I doubt many would have said yes, please.
Who really knows what readers desire? A story about shit ponds in Indiana, apparently.
We who write fiction and secretly hope to hit the New York Times Bestseller list face the same dilemmas, and the license to make things up doesn’t make it easier. Do we consciously write what we think our audience wants, create characters that will attract more readership, concoct plots that play off the evening news? Do we create virtual focus groups in our minds? Or do we just try to tell a great tale? Do we write from our hearts or our heads?
My next book: a teenage vampire writes a memoir about her childhood learning magic in the catacombs of the Vatican.
What do you think?
Shit is popular in The Wall Street Journal.
This may come as no surprise to liberals who stoop to read our editorial page or conservatives who insist we’re soft on Obama.
But I mean it quite literally.
On March 25, the newspaper that employs me as its Chicago bureau chief published a story about giant bubbles that had formed in a manure pond in Indiana.
See it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704266504575142224096848264.html?KEYWORDS=lauren+etter
The story quickly ascended our “Most Popular” lists ranking the articles viewed and emailed most frequently by readers. As I write this blog, it remains at Number 6 on the most-viewed list for the week.
On one hand, I’m happy to report this, because I love quirky-but-true stories like this one; because the reporter, Lauren Etter, works for me; and because I edited the story. And, icing on the cake, it made the most popular list for all of our readers and our WSJ peers to see.
But the rankings--now standard in newspaper, magazine, blog and other websites across the U.S.—bother me. Does the effort to quantify quality tempt us, however subtly, to focus on coverage we think will please the public and look away from stories or subjects that readers or viewers might not want but arguably need to know?
I suppose this marks me as a dinosaur, or at least someone taking things a tad too seriously. Lighten up, Gruley: these lists are just a fun way of seeing what people are reading about, a nifty window on the day’s water-cooler chat. And I haven’t heard reporters or editors talking about pursuing a particular story because it’ll make the most-popular list.
But I have heard arguments about the relative merits of a story culminate in the declaration that it made the most popular list, as if that settled everything. By that reckoning, James Patterson is a better writer than Ian McEwan, Kelly Clarkson a finer musician than Van Morrison and the National Enquirer is a better newspaper than The Wall Street Journal.
Of course writers and producers crave readers and viewers. That’s how we justify our existence and, no small matter, pay the bills. But now that we can measure with a greater degree of precision what it is they like to consume, do we gravitate, like a maker of widgets or software or frozen pizzas, to giving them only what they want to hear?
News talk shows on radio and television do so every minute of the day, on the left and the right, with Rush Limbaugh telling his fans what they want to hear, Rachel Maddow doing the same for hers. But the people who actually gather and report what happens in the world have to guard themselves against playing to one constituency or another. It would undermine their credibility, of course, and as a crass business matter, risks alienating a big chunk of audience.
Perhaps our inability to predict what people will gobble up will protect us. Some years ago, my former WSJ colleague Roger Thurow wrote a story about a young African girl who had a fistula—an injury to the urethra caused by sexual relations at an abnormally young age.
We had no most-popular list back then, but judging by the emails, letters and calls Rog received, his story would’ve shot to the top. Had we asked readers ahead of time, though, whether they would like a story about a fistula, I doubt many would have said yes, please.
Who really knows what readers desire? A story about shit ponds in Indiana, apparently.
We who write fiction and secretly hope to hit the New York Times Bestseller list face the same dilemmas, and the license to make things up doesn’t make it easier. Do we consciously write what we think our audience wants, create characters that will attract more readership, concoct plots that play off the evening news? Do we create virtual focus groups in our minds? Or do we just try to tell a great tale? Do we write from our hearts or our heads?
My next book: a teenage vampire writes a memoir about her childhood learning magic in the catacombs of the Vatican.
What do you think?
Friday, April 02, 2010
Out of Whole Cloth?
by Anthony D'Amato
Barbara D"Amato: Quite often when I'm on a panel at a writing workshop, someone in the audience will ask, "Can I use real people and places without being sued for libel?" I have said, "Your protagonists can have lunch at McDonald's, but they can't find a fried mouse in the quarter-pounder." The issue is actually more complicated -- and probably too complicated for a brief panel answer. I asked Tony D'Amato to guest blog today. Tony is a professor of law at Northwestern University in Chicago.
A successful French novelist is being sued for two million dollars by a famous Parisian fabric store for setting her story in their établissment. Lalie Walker’s book features voodoo at the Marché St. Pierre, abductions of the store’s staff, a crazed killer, and a mysterious malaise affecting the “kingdom of fabric.”
Tech Dirt is one of the internet blogs that carried the story, and Dark Helmet is one of the readers who has posted a comment: “I find it nearly impossible to not include the city of Chicago and the surrounding areas as chief setting locations, strictly because my familiarity with the area means I can write more believable setting descriptions.”
With a little surfing I discover that Dark Helmet is author Timothy Geigner. He quotes with approval the writer of the blog, Mike Masnick, who says that “most characters that novelists write are loosely based on people they know... and exaggerated or composited with others. That's how you create realistic believable fictional characters.”
My wife’s investigative reporter Cat Marsala lives on Franklin Street in Chicago. If she had to change the name of the street and the city to avoid being sued for defamation, how could Alzina Dale write her “Walking Tour” books where she visits and describes the places where fictional sleuths like Ms. Marsala live and work? How could the movie “Some Like it Hot” state in bold letters that it took place in Chicago and then go on to film the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre with George Raft on the machine guns and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon witnessing the proceedings from under a car?
You’re entitled to exaggerate. For example, a theater critic who writes that “the producer who decided to charge admission for that show is committing highway robbery” would be immune from liability because no reasonable reader would understand the critic to be accusing the producer of an actual crime. On the other hand, if you accuse a real identifiable person in your novel of having committed a crime, you can not only be sued for defamation but the person does not even have to prove damages—what you’ve written is libelous per se. And you don’t escape by changing his name. For example, a Massachusetts newspaper reported that a Brookline deli owner was involved in an “Israeli mafia” cocaine operation out of his deli. Although the owner was not named in the news reports, he successfully sued for defamation because the news story could reasonably be understood to refer to him.
Of course a newspaper is not a work of fiction so that made the deli owner’s case easier. But suppose you really wanted to get revenge on someone and worked it into your novel. Let’s say your target happens to be the mayor of the town you live in who once lied to you and jilted you. So you change the name of the town, change the name of the mayor, make him 8 inches shorter, give him glasses, sport him a bow tie with polka dots, add ten years to his age, and give him a pot belly. Then you really let him have it. You say that he was arrested for sexually abusing a child and that he paid off the cops and the judge and successfully covered it all up—true in the novel but false in the real world. If the mayor’s friends knew about your past encounter with the mayor and are able to see through the disguises in your book, he can sue you for defamation because you accused him of a crime. If you say that the story about sexual abuse was just another disguise like the bow tie and pot belly—well, it won’t work. The jury will see right through it.
Nevertheless, if I were Lalie Walker’s lawyer, I’d countersue the Marché St. Pierre for using the lawsuit itself to stimulate business. They knew or reasonably should have known that Ms. Walker’s intent was homage and not dommage.
Barbara D"Amato: Quite often when I'm on a panel at a writing workshop, someone in the audience will ask, "Can I use real people and places without being sued for libel?" I have said, "Your protagonists can have lunch at McDonald's, but they can't find a fried mouse in the quarter-pounder." The issue is actually more complicated -- and probably too complicated for a brief panel answer. I asked Tony D'Amato to guest blog today. Tony is a professor of law at Northwestern University in Chicago.
A successful French novelist is being sued for two million dollars by a famous Parisian fabric store for setting her story in their établissment. Lalie Walker’s book features voodoo at the Marché St. Pierre, abductions of the store’s staff, a crazed killer, and a mysterious malaise affecting the “kingdom of fabric.”
Tech Dirt is one of the internet blogs that carried the story, and Dark Helmet is one of the readers who has posted a comment: “I find it nearly impossible to not include the city of Chicago and the surrounding areas as chief setting locations, strictly because my familiarity with the area means I can write more believable setting descriptions.”
With a little surfing I discover that Dark Helmet is author Timothy Geigner. He quotes with approval the writer of the blog, Mike Masnick, who says that “most characters that novelists write are loosely based on people they know... and exaggerated or composited with others. That's how you create realistic believable fictional characters.”
My wife’s investigative reporter Cat Marsala lives on Franklin Street in Chicago. If she had to change the name of the street and the city to avoid being sued for defamation, how could Alzina Dale write her “Walking Tour” books where she visits and describes the places where fictional sleuths like Ms. Marsala live and work? How could the movie “Some Like it Hot” state in bold letters that it took place in Chicago and then go on to film the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre with George Raft on the machine guns and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon witnessing the proceedings from under a car?
You’re entitled to exaggerate. For example, a theater critic who writes that “the producer who decided to charge admission for that show is committing highway robbery” would be immune from liability because no reasonable reader would understand the critic to be accusing the producer of an actual crime. On the other hand, if you accuse a real identifiable person in your novel of having committed a crime, you can not only be sued for defamation but the person does not even have to prove damages—what you’ve written is libelous per se. And you don’t escape by changing his name. For example, a Massachusetts newspaper reported that a Brookline deli owner was involved in an “Israeli mafia” cocaine operation out of his deli. Although the owner was not named in the news reports, he successfully sued for defamation because the news story could reasonably be understood to refer to him.
Of course a newspaper is not a work of fiction so that made the deli owner’s case easier. But suppose you really wanted to get revenge on someone and worked it into your novel. Let’s say your target happens to be the mayor of the town you live in who once lied to you and jilted you. So you change the name of the town, change the name of the mayor, make him 8 inches shorter, give him glasses, sport him a bow tie with polka dots, add ten years to his age, and give him a pot belly. Then you really let him have it. You say that he was arrested for sexually abusing a child and that he paid off the cops and the judge and successfully covered it all up—true in the novel but false in the real world. If the mayor’s friends knew about your past encounter with the mayor and are able to see through the disguises in your book, he can sue you for defamation because you accused him of a crime. If you say that the story about sexual abuse was just another disguise like the bow tie and pot belly—well, it won’t work. The jury will see right through it.
Nevertheless, if I were Lalie Walker’s lawyer, I’d countersue the Marché St. Pierre for using the lawsuit itself to stimulate business. They knew or reasonably should have known that Ms. Walker’s intent was homage and not dommage.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
The Clown Defense
by David Ellis
Probably the most frequently asked question I get about Rod Blagojevich these days is: What will be his defense at trial? At the most recent talk I gave, someone noted that they’d been watching Rod on Celebrity Apprentice, listening to him repeatedly claim that he was innocent and that he would show as much at his trial. How, this person wanted to know, did he plan to accomplish that?
My answer: Keep watching that dumb show.
I have to admit that I’ve watched Celebrity Apprentice this season. I’m not sure why. The guy’s a complete buffoon, but unfortunately he wasn’t a harmless buffoon. He was remarkably destructive. The system of government effectively braked to a standstill while he was governor. Nobody could trust him, and when the man with so much power can’t be trusted, how can you do anything?
He also made my life, personally, rather hellish with the retributive, childish games he played, including forcing the legislature to remain in session, pointlessly, for almost two years straight.
I had enough Blago to last me a lifetime. And yet I watch that show.
A lot of people think he’s making matters worse by running around like a moron, blabbing to every talking head and now appearing on this reality show. (By the way, how is that show in any way reflective of “reality?”)
But I disagree. I think that Rod is selling his defense on that show.
Have you seen it? It’s guys against gals, and the first week the challenge was to run a diner for a day and see how much money you could raise. Rod, not surprisingly, completely blew his assigned task and was openly mocked on the show for doing it. The only reason he wasn’t the first celebrity eliminated was because his side—the men—won the competition.
Last week, he once again proved absolutely worthless. He couldn’t even turn on a computer, much less type or do any kind of research. Again, he looked completely stupid, and he quite possibly would have been eliminated had it not been for the fact that another celebrity volunteered to be eliminated.
Plus, even in his interactions with others, he looks like the polar opposite of a leader. He’s a wall flower, a blowhard at best with no substance. That’s the Rod I remember; the guy couldn’t run a meeting to save his life. He could hardly organize a thought.
And that, in broad terms, will be Rod’s defense at trial. He’s a clown. A blowhard. He smiled for the cameras and issued press releases, but his aides did everything else. Those things he said on tape? That was just blabber. Nobody took him seriously. The people around him said, “Yes, Governor, right away, Governor,” but then they blew him off when he left the room. Nobody actually followed through on the things he said, and he knew they wouldn't.
The harmless goof. He plays it naturally on TV. Let’s see how he plays it at trial.
Probably the most frequently asked question I get about Rod Blagojevich these days is: What will be his defense at trial? At the most recent talk I gave, someone noted that they’d been watching Rod on Celebrity Apprentice, listening to him repeatedly claim that he was innocent and that he would show as much at his trial. How, this person wanted to know, did he plan to accomplish that?
My answer: Keep watching that dumb show.
I have to admit that I’ve watched Celebrity Apprentice this season. I’m not sure why. The guy’s a complete buffoon, but unfortunately he wasn’t a harmless buffoon. He was remarkably destructive. The system of government effectively braked to a standstill while he was governor. Nobody could trust him, and when the man with so much power can’t be trusted, how can you do anything?
He also made my life, personally, rather hellish with the retributive, childish games he played, including forcing the legislature to remain in session, pointlessly, for almost two years straight.
I had enough Blago to last me a lifetime. And yet I watch that show.
A lot of people think he’s making matters worse by running around like a moron, blabbing to every talking head and now appearing on this reality show. (By the way, how is that show in any way reflective of “reality?”)
But I disagree. I think that Rod is selling his defense on that show.
Have you seen it? It’s guys against gals, and the first week the challenge was to run a diner for a day and see how much money you could raise. Rod, not surprisingly, completely blew his assigned task and was openly mocked on the show for doing it. The only reason he wasn’t the first celebrity eliminated was because his side—the men—won the competition.
Last week, he once again proved absolutely worthless. He couldn’t even turn on a computer, much less type or do any kind of research. Again, he looked completely stupid, and he quite possibly would have been eliminated had it not been for the fact that another celebrity volunteered to be eliminated.
Plus, even in his interactions with others, he looks like the polar opposite of a leader. He’s a wall flower, a blowhard at best with no substance. That’s the Rod I remember; the guy couldn’t run a meeting to save his life. He could hardly organize a thought.
And that, in broad terms, will be Rod’s defense at trial. He’s a clown. A blowhard. He smiled for the cameras and issued press releases, but his aides did everything else. Those things he said on tape? That was just blabber. Nobody took him seriously. The people around him said, “Yes, Governor, right away, Governor,” but then they blew him off when he left the room. Nobody actually followed through on the things he said, and he knew they wouldn't.
The harmless goof. He plays it naturally on TV. Let’s see how he plays it at trial.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
