Help others, help yourself by Eric Beetner

 We all have to promote our work if we want to succeed, but there’s a lot of ground between hiding one’s light under a bushel and being that pushy author people hide from at events. What are your best promo ideas and what’s the most egregious hard-selling you’ve come across?

How to get your book out there is the million dollar question facing authors. In the absence of a marketing budget and the unwillingness to pay out-of-pocket for PR (it's a hard sell to my wife to convince her that me spending thousands of dollars to earn back hundreds is a wise business decision. Go figure) we can only rely on our own wits and hustle to get our books seen.

I have always seen parallels between publishing and the music biz. As a former indie musician and a punk rock youth, I came to publishing with a similar mindset of building a scene and a DIY mentality I got from my indie band days.

Consequently, I have always been a guy who tries to set up readings myself rather than wait for someone to hand me an offer. I started a podcast which ran for 4 years and invited hundreds of authors on to talk about their books. I've hosted the Noir at the Bar series in L.A. for 13 years now and given space to more than 350 readers. I've tried things that didn't work, sure, but I keep trying new things and inviting others along for the ride.

It's all about community for me. I never try to schedule a solo event at a bookstore. Why not get a group  together and we can all share each other's readers? Promotion doesn't always have to look like promotion. I prefer it when it looks like a party.

It helps that I'm not afraid of speaking to a crowd, something many authors abhor. But we all need to be a squeaky wheel at some point.

The inverse of that is someone who only promotes with no other goal aside from "Buy my book". If you're not offering some other incentive – writing advice, free short stories, other great authors, a good night out – then you might as well be going door-to-door like an old-time encyclopedia salesman. We all loved them, right?

I've heard from many readers that it's often the author, not the actual book, that will sell them on a purchase. And also drive them away. If you show up to a conference panel to see Big Time Author A, but I can charm you with a funny story and a good anecdote about my writing, that will sell a book much faster than reading you the synopsis or telling you it will be your favorite book of the year.

We've all fallen victim to the over-seller. Maybe I'm too much of an under-seller, much more adept at shilling for other people's books over my own, but I can live with myself easier with that style. I'm not ever going to push a book on you, or at least not one with my name on it.

So I'd say, promoting others is a great way to promote yourself. I've seen other writers like Beau Johnson or our own Gabriel Valjan do it to great effect. Their tireless boosting of other author's only endears them to readers and gets them out in front of potential new readers for their own work.

I've certainly seen my books moved much faster and easier by other authors. Once, at a conference, I was called out on stage by the keynote speaker as a writer more people should read and that day I sold out of books in the signing room. I'm forever grateful to that author (Stephen Mack Jones, author of the fantastic August Snow series) and it never would have happened if I'd gotten on stage and told the same crowd they should be reading me. So there's hard evidence that my approach works. 

Now if I could just get that coveted Stephen King blurb...

Nobody Knows Nada, by Gabriel Valjan

Nobody Knows Nada

 

We all have to promote our work if we want to succeed, but there’s a lot of ground between hiding one’s light under a bushel and being that pushy author people hide from at events. What are your best promo ideas and what’s the most egregious hard-selling you’ve come across?

 

I think it’s safe to say these two things:

 

1. Nobody knows what works

 

2. Most writers are introverts, so self-promotion ‘feels’ uncomfortable.

 

Implicit in the question is, What do ‘we’ mean by SUCCESS here?

 

Monetary or personal? There is something to be said about holding your book baby. You put in the hours. You wrote, edited and revised, and stared at the ceiling when the elusive and intrusive ideas came in the middle of deep REM sleep. As for money, it either liberates or enslaves the owner. You can do things you couldn’t before BUT it can put you on the hook to maintain the reality you create with money. I wouldn’t want to be an author on a compulsory book tour and yet be expected to deliver a manuscript on time and without excuses.

 

Context is everything. Sales matter to agents. Sales matter to stores. I went to a local bookstore once, and after the rep queried database, she said to me, “Nope, you’re nobody. Not enough Sales.” Stunned, my inner Jersey boy kicked in. I said to her, “Do you think before you talk?”

 

If you’re with Big 5, Sales earn your keep in the publisher’s stable or Not. You have arrived, but you have to keep the hustle alive. Careful what you wish for. I’ve known authors who have had respectable numbers and market momentum. They moved inventory. They were invited back to stores. They received prestigious awards and nominations, only to be inexplicably dropped by their publisher. I can name three writers who had strong regional sales. Poof, the Pink Slip.

 

Hence, my comment that nobody knows anything, and do what works for you.

 

It’s possible that some bean counter crunched the numbers and didn’t like them, or some Mad Man type had the Next Big Thing in his head, and it wasn’t you, the reliable and stalwart author. Marketing study trends with a crystal ball. They latch onto fads and suck the life and joy out of it.

 

Truth be told, if I wanted to make money, I’d pimp my cat Munchkin. Seriously. She has a thousand more faces than Lon Chaney, and she could be the next Grumpy Cat. I’d fire up all the socials, and have her do her thing. I’d waltz into the bank and give the teller a calendar gratis when I make my deposit.

 

·      Writers do craft workshops.

·      They write a monthly Newsletter.

·      Writers do Instagram reels and Book-Toks with their latest book.

·      Writers do online talks at libraries. [Shameless plug: I’m doing an online event tonight at Tewksbury Library with Anjilli Babbar, JR Sanders, and Liz Milliron].

 

Everybody has an opinion on the side hustle, as if writing and a numb butt and poor posture were not enough pain. My advice is to do what is comfortable to you because if you’re uncomfortable, it will show in the long run. You will resent it.

 

We all wear masks. We all have created a persona to function in this world. I suspect writing is personal and meaningful to you. I wish I could say that THE WORK should speak for itself, but some effort is required. Publishers either have no PR budget or they are stingy with it. Like those toys that say Some Assembly Required, the writer’s career takes some effort.

 

Networking helps. Meet local writers. Plan something together. There’s safety in numbers, too. Repeat and rinse often, and you may develop confidence. Don’t underestimate conferences. A face to a name makes asking for a blurb from another writer so much easier.

 

Reputation matters. Nobody likes a Drama Llama or a Diva. To paraphrase Sidney Falco in The Sweet Smell of Success, “The [diva] is in a bag and the bag’s in a river.”

 

That all said, some observations, and I think these fall under the rubric of common decency:

 

·      Don’t hog the microphone at panels. Don’t interrupt. It’s not all about you.

·      Don’t add someone’s email to your Newsletter without their permission.

·      Like life on the street, people talk. Speak well of others or don’t say anything at all.

·      Don’t hit someone up on Messenger, or DM them, the second after they follow you on social media.

·      Always say thank you to your moderator, fellow panelist, a reviewer, etc.

 

I can’t emphasize it enough: nobody knows what will sell or what works. By all accounts, Umberto Eco’s The Name of The Rose should not have been the global blockbuster that it was. Elena Ferrante violated every piece of marketing advice by refusing interviews, having no head shot on the books, or appearing at stores for signings. The charade about his/her real identity worked.

 

Munchkin knows I substituted ‘Diva’ for ‘cat.’

She says she’s ready for her close-up.

 

 

 

 

 

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

 Q: We all have to promote our work if we want to succeed, but there’s a lot of ground between hiding one’s light under a bushel and being that pushy author people hide from at events. What are your best promo ideas and what’s the most egregious hard-selling you’ve come across?

 

From Susan

 

I’m a mid-mid-list author with great professional reviews, a tiny cohort of Amazon individual reviewers, friends and readers who show up at my launch events and buy many books at the store. The bookstore likes that and always gives me a launch event. Every now and then, I get a reader’s email praising something about a book or asking me to revisit an earlier book and talk more about a detail I can’t recall, or asking when the next one in that series is coming out. Writers at conventions and conferences seem to think the advice I give (only when asked) is useful. This month, two published writers I spent time with at Left Coast Crime told me it was my suggestion that tipped their WIP to the right conclusion. Someone I worked with recently got the agent I offered to introduce them to. 

 

I’m on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram but not really effective at any of those social media platforms if responses are any judge. I have an Amazon profile. I spent a large sum on a social media marketing platform this year that, alas, has done little or nothing for sales. In fact, on that platform, authors are advised to not only offer free books but to add gift cards, so that what we’re really doing is bribing people to accept a free book. Supposedly they will review it on Amazon, but in spite of my nice note inside the book, they rarely bother.

 

Obviously, I don’t have a lot of sparkling marketing success stories to share. Sorry. I just have well written, “witty” (reviewer) “fast-paced” (reviewer), “cleverly plotted” (reviewer) books featuring characters that blurbers and reviewers love but that are swimming in a sea of similarly good books and many not so good but cheaper books.

 

The hardest sell I was ever victim of was at a Bouchercon when I was a newcomer and was thrilled to have a best-selling novelist talk with me. That male author, who was sitting behind a table ready to sign his latest hard cover thriller, got up, walked me to the bookseller, stayed at my side, handed me his book and waved me to the cashier. I had no particular interest in it but dragged out my credit card. He then walked me back to his seat and graciously offered to sign it for me! It sits unread to this day, but I don’t get rid of it because it reminds me of what I never want to do to sell a book.

 

Lots of people make better money than I do. Most work very hard for that success. I might be more financially successful if I studied them and followed their examples completely. Maybe that’s the advice: Follow authors whose work you like and copy what they do beyond writing good books and being liked by their peers!

 

 

 

 

Cooking versus cushions - by Harini Nagendra

 November is a busy month, at least in the USA. Some people send out for, pay someone to, decide to stop bothering with . . . the same things other people lovingly prepare, take pride in, look forward to. What bits of adult life would you ditch / have you ditched? What "chores" feel like treats?

November is a bittersweet month for me. It signals the end of the year, reminding me of the many promises I made to myself in January, which I didn't quite get to - but then, after November comes December, which is a time to slow down and take a few deep breaths, and unwind after the year's frenzied activity.

November is also the month when our climate festival takes form - at Azim Premji University, where I founded and lead the School of Climate Change and Sustainability, we spend the entire year working on a massive climate festival, and then run it for two weeks at our campus in Bangalore, where we get over 10,000 visitors, mostly young people in high school - after which the festival travels to multiple locations across the country, attracting several thousand additional visitors. 

This year's theme is Mountains of Life - we're back to looooong days at work, but the energy of the students visiting keeps us afloat for many days after the festival! Here are some photographs from the last couple of days

Of course this means that chores don't get done this month. What parts of adult life have I ditched? Cooking. We have a lovely cook, Lakshmi, who takes care of breakfast and lunch - and has done so for years. My husband, who is an incredible cook, spoils us at dinner time and loves trying out new recipes - which we will of course gladly consume. I used to enjoy cooking, especially traditional south Indian recipes passed down from my mother or mother-in-law, but these days I just don't have the time.  

What else would I ditch? Anything to do with laundry and grocery shopping - I do very little of it these days. But cooking is definitely something I miss, and would love to get back to, when I have the time once again.

What chores feel like treats? Shopping for house furnishings - new cushions, bedsheets, plants for the garden.... that's something I can always make time for!

Readers, what about you? What chores do you love to hate?  

 

My Work Is Never Done from James W. Ziskin

November is a busy month, at least in the USA. Some people send out for, pay someone to, decide to stop bothering with . . . the same things other people lovingly prepare, take pride in, look forward to. What bits of adult life would you ditch / have you ditched? What "chores" feel like treats?

Me doing a chore poorly so I won’t be asked to do it again.

I’m a doer. Not some spoiled rich kid with people to do my bidding. I handle these tasks myself.

So what are some of my regular chores? 

1.) I keep myself clean. I begin the day with a thorough bath. Yessir! Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Some days I even use two moist towelettes to get the job done.

2.) I make sure I breathe. Yes, I take breaths, even when I could wait a couple of seconds more before turning blue. Can’t be lazy.

3.) I eat. You may think this is no big deal. But when I eat, I don’t simply plunge my face into the plate and wolf it down like a hog. (Or, well, like a wolf.) No, I actually lift the food on a fork and put it in my mouth. And, of course, I chew. I don’t swallow my food whole like a python. I’m not an animal.

4.) Drinking liquids involves bending my elbow and ingurgitating. Lots of muscles at work if you’re conscientious about it like me. You should try it, you lazy sack of %#(@!

5.) I also do housework. Those dust bunnies don’t roll around the room by themselves. I have to blow pretty hard from my supine position on the couch to get them to hide under some piece of furniture.

6.) And no matter how many times I tell the cats to get their own damn dinner, I have to stop what I’m not doing, pry the top off a can of mystery fish chum, and dish it out for them. But it doesn’t end there. No. Once they’ve left the expensive stuff half-eaten, I have to bend over, pick up their dishes, and put them into the dishwasher! Can you imagine?

7.) And do you realize how hard it is to put food on the table? So many details to consider. Which app? DoorDash, Uber Eats? What type of cuisine? Which restaurant? And now that it gets dark early, I have to switch on the porch light for the delivery guy. And the plastic containers take up a lot of room in my recycle bin so I stuff them into my regular trash and sometimes get schmutz on my hand and have to wash it. I tell you it never ends.

8.) But I exaggerate. It’s no great hardship to maintain a clean house. If ever I miss the trash can with an errant toss of a lump of grimy ick, I make sure to text my wife about it so she can clean it up when she gets home from work.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Actually, I think chores are important. No matter how menial—in fact, the menial-er the better—they feed the soul and satisfy primal needs. They keep us active, and activity is a balm for the mind. I often make a to-do list and cross off the things I’ve finished. Sometimes I add tasks I’ve already done, just to tick the box as done. 

Even if you space out and think of nothing while performing physical tasks, chores are good. If nothing else, they give your thoughts a chance to rest and re-charge for the challenges to come. I like doing things, even if I complain and dread having to carry them out.

Bring on the donkey work

November is a busy month, at least in the USA. Some people send out for, pay someone to, decide to stop bothering with . . . the same things other people lovingly prepare, take pride in, look forward to. What bits of adult life would you ditch / have you ditched? What "chores" feel like treats?

by Dietrich

Like anybody, I’m all for ditching chores I don’t like to do. Who wouldn’t want to have more time for the fun stuff? It’s better to be munching a carrot than doing the donkey work, but let’s face it, fair is fair, and one needs to pull their weight. I’ve also learned that pushing these routine tasks aside for later can leave me with a niggling feeling — maybe it’s guilt — and undone chores have a way of piling up, meaning there’ll be even more to do later on.

One cure is delegation. This can be a good thing. I’m reminded of Tom Sawyer convincing Ben and his other pals that whitewashing a fence is a great pleasure. But, such hoodwinking may weigh on an adult conscience, and such gullible grown-up pals may be in short supply. Hiring somebody to do these tasks would be a better way to go. If one has kids, perhaps a negotiation for a bump in allowance could get the work done. If the nest is empty, perhaps an entrepreneurial youth in the neighborhood would like to earn a few bucks for cutting the lawn, raking the leaves, washing the car, shoveling snow, or whatever chores need doing. 

For the chores I don’t like to do but can’t ditch or hire out, discipline is required. I tell myself not to be such a baby and just get it out of the way. I often put on some music to lessen the tedium, or perk things up by listening to an audiobook. 

Then there are those tasks that I actually like to do. I started cooking and baking years back and I found I actually enjoy it and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Not to the point that anybody’s likely to offer me my own cooking show, but then again nobody’s gagged and fallen off a chair either. I also enjoy gardening and I find that quite relaxing as well. I’m also reasonably handy around the house, fixing things and making certain improvements and that can leave me with a feeling of accomplishment.

Writing is the first thing I do every day while the world around me still sleeps. I cherish the hours where I can get into whatever story I’m working on. So, as long as I have that, then I have no complaints, and I can say with a smile on my face — bring on the chores.

Let me Cook!

 

Terry here, with our autumn topic. November is a busy month, at least in the USA. Some people send out for, pay someone to, decide to stop bothering with...Thanksgiving dinner! While others lovingly prepare, take pride in, look forward to doing it. What bits of adult life would you ditch / have you ditched? What “chores” feel like treats? 

 I love this question. Let’s start with “treats.” I know several people who hate to cook, and for them it’s a chore. Me? By now, everyone probably knows that I love to cook. Even when I was single and lived alone, or when my husband was away, I’d always cook something nice for myself. I love the way things smell when I’m cooking, love to make sure there’s a variety of tastes and colors on the plate. Love to experiment with different recipes. For me, cooking is a way to unwind after a day of writing and writing-related nightmares. Would you rather work on book promotion or cook a nice meal? Yeah. And here is a shot from Thanksgiving during Covid...

I recently invited a friend for dinner and he told me he had serious dietary issues. There were many, many things he could not eat for health reasons. My response? I rubbed my hands gleefully and cried, “Lemme at it!” There are so many choices to make when I cook, that sometimes it feels overwhelming. Here's what I cooked. Looks good, right?

What am I going to cook tonight? Indian? Greek (since I just got back from Greece, this has been a new addition). Tex-Mex? Vegetarian? Italian? Just plain California (think salads and avocados)? So when someone narrows that array of choices, it’s something of a relief. Unless someone is just plain picky, and I have little patience for that. I had too much of that when my son was young and refused to eat anything that wasn’t white—potatoes, rice, or pasta (with nothing on it!). Thank goodness, he changed, so that isn’t an issue. 

 I love to entertain, and sadly, since we moved to SoCal, I don’t entertain much. Even when we lived in Italy, we had lots of people to help us celebrate holiday meals. Here, not so much. I don’t think there’s much sense cooking a turkey for a handful of people, so we may end up having a vegetarian Thanksgiving. Or maybe something exotic like pheasant or goose. Or chile rellenos. 

I wouldn’t call them treats, but I don’t even mind most housecleaning chores, even cleaning the cat box, which I scoop out every single day. But there are two I won’t do. When my husband and I were discussing getting married I told him there are two things I don’t do: vacuum and take out the trash. Well, eventually, I’ll do both. I’ll vacuum when the cat hair starts clinging to my pants legs. I’ll take out the trash when it either smells bad or is overflowing. So, he said he’d do both—and he does. 

He also does the dishes. He even gets huffy if I try to chip in, unless we’ve had a dinner party and it’s late—then, he reluctantly allows me into “his” domain. 

 I loathe doing laundry, but I do it anyway for a stupid reason: I don’t trust anybody else to do it right! Think pink socks, shrunken expensive T-shirts, wrinkled pants left in the dryer too long. I used to not mind it as much when we had side-by-side washer/dryers, but the washer is on bottom and therefore hard to reach, and the dryer is on top…and also hard to reach. Yes, I know I'm complaining, but that's the point of chores you can't stand!

 I love a beautiful garden and admire friends who are gardeners. Even when I had a big garden,

I simply didn’t have the urge to do the gardening myself. Oh, once I’d get into it, I enjoyed it, but I procrastinated something fierce. 

 And last I’ll mention bill paying. I didn’t mind it. When we first got married, I handled the bills. And then, I discovered that my husband painstakingly went over every bill I paid to make sure I had done it “right.” Bingo. Gone. I thought it was ridiculous for both of us to spend time on it, and I haven’t done it since. 

 As for bits of adult life I would “ditch,” could we please go back to the time when plump women were all the rage? I would gladly ditch dieting!

Finding Our Groove

November is a busy month, at least in the USA. Some people send out for, pay someone to, decide to stop bothering with . . . the same things other people lovingly prepare, take pride in, look forward to. What bits of adult life would you ditch / have you ditched? What “chores” feel like treats?

Brenda starting off the week.

Being an adult means doing a lot of repetitive chores - cleaning, shopping, cooking, paying bills, and on and on. All of these tasks are real time-eaters, and as every writer or creative person knows, time is precious. Perhaps paradoxically, even daydreaming requires time and focus.

We've raised two daughters, and while they lived at home, I did all the grocery shopping and cooked most of the meals. Laundry, cleaning and the bulk of those endless, repetitive errands fell to me, although we had a housecleaner once every two weeks after I returned to work full-time until I retired from the government. I wrote when I could throughout this period. My husband Ted worked in a physically demanding job, and he also renovated our house almost continually. For example, he gutted and rebuilt the bathroom. Another time, he built a back deck. He replaced the roof on our house twice since we've lived here. We each had our strengths and we did what we needed to do to keep our lives running smoothly. It wasn't perfect, maybe not even equal at times, but somehow we managed.

Ted working on our roof

These last several years, writing from home has become my full-time job. Ted recently retired, although not really. He works for the company sporadically and often can be found helping somebody out when they need work done on their house. However, he's also taken on a portion of the mundane household chores, including laundry, cleaning and cooking. He also doesn't care if I suggest we eat out or order in, and he doesn't get upset by much. I'd put him in the feminist category - supportive, willing to pivot, not married to traditional roles.

Which brings me to this week's question. I've shed the guilt from letting housework slide. Sure, I keep the dishes clean, vacuum and dust, but none of these chores is my priority. If I want to spend the day reading and writing, this is what I do. I used to bake quite a bit but now only once in a while. I make meals from scratch less often, but enjoy it when I do. I still spend a lot of time working in the garden in the summer months, but only because I enjoy it. One chore/pastime that I spend a lot less time on is shopping. I rarely go into the stores and only when necessary. 

As for which chores feel like treats, I quite enjoy spending a morning or afternoon vacuuming and washing the floors (with environmentally friendly cleaner), believe it or not. I like the exercise and the end result. Those times I do get around to baking or making a lovely meal, especially when we have company over, are also happy-inducing. My outlook now is that time shouldn't be squandered on chores if there's a more fun alternative, because nobody will care if the baseboards are clean or the windows washed when our time comes to leave this earth.

Website: www.brendachapman.ca

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“The arc of the moral universe,” and Other Stories Ripped from the Headlines, by Josh Stallings

 

Q: As we head into a rather big news week - do you ever write stories “ripped from the headlines”? How much do you rely on current events to fuel your work?

A: I feel I sometimes write “ripped from the headlines that are about to happen”. I wrote a short story Life Time Appointment, not long after that beer swilling rapist Brett Kavanaugh was installed on the Supreme Court, but before they overturned women's rights to bodily autonomy. It was a dark futuristic tale that came true way too fast. I wrote about sex trafficking and US domestic kidnapping and trafficking young people, forcing them into the sex trade years before 60 Minutes would touch the subject. A subject we have yet to shine a bright enough light on, and stop. Many states still look at teenage prostitutes as criminals instead of what they are, sexually abused children. The johns who pay to have sex with them are pedophiles. 

I don’t write books based on headlines, I think that should be left to South Park, no really I do. They built a way to have news on the air in a week after it hit. And they make it shamelessly funny. Podcasts can move at the speed of news. For the rest of us we need to look farther down the road. From when I have a book idea to when a reader opens it will be a year or more at best. For that reason books need to have a longer shelf life than a cartoon or true crime podcast.

Sometimes you get lucky. Don Winslow’s The Cartel was published in June 2015. In July 2015 Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, broke out of a maximum security prison. For two weeks every news or newser-taiment show grabbed Winslow up as the expert to talk about Mexican Cartels. Rightfully so, he is an expert on Cartels. The book took years to research and write so he had no way of knowing this exposure was coming or that it would launch The Cartel sales into the stratosphere. It is an amazing book and it got lucky.

The second part of the question is, “How much do you rely on current events to fuel your work?” I try to avoid writing about current events. I write from a world view that is informed by my personal history. Conversations with friends and acquaintances. Once into a novel I interview people connected with the world I write about. I follow current events from multiple sources. Lately I find myself looking to history to understand the world we are living through. 

Follow me down this rabbit hole… I’m writing this on election day. No results are in, but everyone agrees it’s a razor close race. How the fuck is that possible?

I searched out this quote to help me feel a tiny bit safer-

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In a deeper dive I discovered that King, scholar that he was, cleverly rephrased a much older quote-

“Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” - 1853, Theodore Parker a Unitarian minister and abolitionist.

I pray to the divine universal power of nature that they are both correct.

Back to writing. I hold a romantic, non cynical world view in my heart, because if I didn’t I couldn’t go on living let alone writing. Cynicism and nihilism are afforded to those who haven’t walked through life altering pain and heartbreak. People lucky enough to never discover a time when a little hope in a better tomorrow is all that keeps the noose from around your neck. 

I have been lucky enough to love deeply. I have lost extraordinary people and animals too soon and right on time. Neither are easy. But if pain is the price of truly loving, it is a price I will continue to pay gratefully.

I write from my life and dress it in world facts. The core cannot be torn from any headline except the ones in my brain, heart, and soul.

While my first draft gently weeps, by Catriona

As we head into a rather big news week - do you ever get stories “ripped from the headlines”? How much do you rely on current events to fuel your stories?

Ha-HA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. If that's how we're spelling hollow and yet deranged laughter. I'm writing this on Wednesday night and my kneejerk answer is to say that this week's big news doesn't fit anywhere into my fictional universe. But let's see. 

(I'm illustrating the rest of the blog, not with book pics for once, but with a few recent snaps from around Washington DC, where I'm currently billeted. I'm not in a promo state of mind.)

I write a series of preposterous detective stories, in the style of the British Golden Age. They started in 1922 and the latest is set in spring 1939. You know 1939: when a western nation had let a petty tyrant lead them into darkness and were just about to unleash unprecedented misery on the world? Thing is, in my fictional universe, he's not much cared for and ultimately won't prosper.

I also write a less preposterous series of historical sleuth novels, set in 1948, when said petty tyrant had chowed down on his cyanide pill and the world was trying to recover. In Britain, where my detective lives, a large part of that recovery was the formation and launch of the welfare state, including a national health service. My heroine works for the NHS and the first book, written in 2020, ended up being a love letter to it as well as being dedicated to it. The book was pitched and commissioned in 2019, but the headlines ripped into it thematically, I suppose you'd say.

I write stand alones too. The stories that draw me are about secrets, betrayal, shame, trauma, survival, and . . . here's the rub . . . justice. In my standalone psychological thrillers things make sense in the end and evil doesn't triumph. In my standalone thrillers, women find their feet, their voice and their power. They are unstoppable. They face tough odds but they prevail. I'll just leave that there with no further comment.

And I write comedies. In fact I'm writing the first draft of a comedy right now. I wrote 2.5K words today. It took me six hours and - understand that I'm a pantser - all of a sudden, in my story, there was an abandoned Mustang full of blood and bits of scalp. So, yes, some of the first draft of Scot's Eggs has a mood, if not a plot, ripped from today's unconscionable headlines. I'll have to get rid of it in the edit, but for now it stays. It answers the moment perfectly.

Cx

Be Here Now by Eric Beetner

 As we head into a rather big news week - do you ever get stories “ripped from the headlines”? How much do you rely on current events to fuel your stories?

I don’t typically write anything that is “of the moment” or places it in a specific here and now. I’ve written period pieces set in the 1930s, the 50s and the 60s. For those books the time was a factor in the story for sure. And you have to get the details accurate to make the world believable in everything from pop culture to news of the day. But to start dropping in references to things happening now I feel dates a book pretty quickly.

One reason is the slow pace of publishing. By the time I write something, submit it, sell it, go through an editing process, etc. it will have been 18 months on the short end. Much longer can be typical. So already those topical references would be dated.

Songs, movies, slang terms, fashion trends all work like cement shoes to weigh a story down in one particular time and space. If I populate a book with people doing the ice bucket challenge or dancing to Gangam Style, I’ve unwittingly written a period piece. But when a period is only a few years ago, it just seems dated.

For me, one thing that couldn’t be denied was Covid. In my latest book, The Last Few Miles Of Road, I made mention of it once. When the main character, Carter, is thinking about friends of his who have died, I listed Covid among the reasons people he knew had passed on. That was it, though. It didn’t play a part in the story. I merely acknowledged that it was a part of the world and moved on.

If you write political thrillers, to contend with the ever-changing political landscape must be difficult to navigate. But to ignore social changes also risks stagnating a book into tired tropes. Are the bad guys really the same as they were 20 or 30 years ago? Authors need to move with the times.

Stories that come from news reports or some kind of current event are often best used if they could have happened at any point in history. It’s one reason why crime novels in general work so well over time. The motivations for criminal acts never change. Lust, greed, jealousy all remain untouched in the human psyche no matter what the decade, or century for that matter.

So if you manage to capture the zeitgeist and time it perfectly, you might get a hit book out of it. But the chances of writing something topical that will last is slim. You’d have to wait for it to get old enough to become a period piece. 

But I suppose if a book was set in my own youth it would be considered period now. So maybe that’s not so far off after all. Or maybe I just want to think that.

Write with Special Sauce

 

Do you ever get stories “ripped from the headlines”? How much do you rely on current events to fuel your stories?

 

We’ve all heard the familiar chestnuts: ‘Reality is stranger than Fiction’ and ‘Every story has already been told,’ or a permutation on the latter, ‘Every book has been rewritten.’

 

I think the reason why readers see the same stories over and over again, and why agents and publishers are reluctant to take on inventive stories or creative uses of language is twofold: one, formula provides comfort and familiarity; and two, reason one is reliable, predictable, and profitable. The truly inventive works of literature challenge readers and critics.

 

Writers are left with two choices, either recast the ancient tropes or create a twist that I’ll call the Special Sauce.

 

The original movie Star Wars is a collection of tropes of classical (and world) literature. The royal baby is raised in the wild, unaware of his origin. Siblings are separated at birth. There is a Master (Yoda) and a Helper (Han Solo). There is a divine power (the Force), etc. etc. It’s Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth, the Hero’s Journey 101.

 

The Secret Sauce is it all occurs in a galaxy far, far away.

 

There are books and movies that have gone rogue, become unexpected blockbusters and bestsellers, the ones every agent or publisher said didn’t stand an ice cube’s chance in hell. These are the underdogs or underground classics we have all come to love. The film Rocky is an example. Frank Herbert’s Dune was universally (pun intended) rejected before it became the best-selling science fiction novel of all time.

As for the question of Repetition vs Originality, I can’t help but think of the machine in Orwell’s 1984. It recombines prefabricated stanzas to create “new” stories to entertain the prolets in order to keep them distracted.

My Shane Cleary series, set in Seventies Boston, uses real locations to create ‘atmosphere’ and suggest the mores of the decade. DIRTY OLD TOWN kicked off the series. I drew inspiration from real events in SYMPHONY ROAD, such as the arson-for-profit ring that included corrupt city officials, law enforcement, and insurance adjusters. The Special Sauce is that a mafioso seeks justice. In HUSH HUSH, I revisited the murder of Andrew Puopolo in the Combat Zone in 1976, a case that changed jury selection in America and almost brought Boston to the edge of chaos because of judicial racism—as if the court-ordered desegregation of schools and public housing hadn’t brought Bostonians to blows. The Special Sauce I added to the story was that a father of the accused sought justice, and I provided an alternate fictional motivation for the crime. LIAR’S DICE, which received the Shamus Award for Best PI this year, brings forward elements of a war over narcotics within the Sicilian and Calabrian mafias, in the US and Canada during the 70s. I also hinted about clandestine activities and atrocities in Vietnam (Shane is a Vietnam veteran). The Special Sauce is the FBI’s questionable tactics in trying to dismantle organized crime. In ‘real life,’ the agency would later cite ‘rogue elements.’ In The BIG LIE, I dove deeper into those ‘rogue elements,’ mixing fact and fiction.

Level Best Books is reissuing my Company Files, and I’ll be adding a fourth title by the summer of 2025. The inaugural book, THE GOOD MAN, is set in Vienna, as Operation Paperclip is underway. The nascent CIA is recruiting former Nazis to counter Soviet progress in the arms race. This was real history that most people (cough, agents) didn’t want to hear when I shopped the pitch. One agent called it ‘morally offensive’ and challenged the veracity of the premise. I sent her the declassified file on Paperclip. In THE NAMING GAME, I revisit the Hollywood studio system and its use of blacklisted writers during the Red Scare. There’s no real Special Sauce here. I had fun with the era, and the material wrote itself. In THE DEVIL’s MUSIC, I extended the consequences of McCarthy’s Red Scare. I remind readers of the special relationship between Senator McCarthy and the Kennedy family (he was godfather to Robert Kennedy’s children). If there’s any Special Sauce here, it’s revisiting the relationship of convenience between organized crime and the CIA. In the fourth novel, out this summer, I explore Operation Ajax. You can Google if you haven’t heard of it. It’s History in plain sight.

I have written another series that I am debating whether to bring to the fore, but I don’t know if there is any interest in it. In the Roma series, I present corporations and governments as no different from organized crime (Special Sauce). I explore history that seems unknown to most Americans: the US’s decades-long destabilization of the Italian government, in what became known as the Strategy of Tension and Years of Lead.

All said and done, writers combine and recombine stories. If there is a thing we call Originality, it is our use of language, and what chapter in the familiar forest we’ve chosen to mine for material.

There is no accounting for LUCK, in being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the right people.

Until then, I follow Yoda’s advice: “Do or do not. There is no try.”