Up around the bend

The world, and the way we live in it, has changed. These are extraordinary times. How has the business of being an author changed, for you, in this new reality?

by Dietrich

These are extraordinary times, and the world keeps revolving and evolving and many of the events going on around us keep us on the edge of our seats. And in order for me to get any decent writing done, I sometimes feel I need to extract myself from what’s going on in the real world, tune it all out, sit at my desk and get my head into the imaginary world that my characters live in.

As far as the publishing industry goes, in the years that I’ve been an author a lot has happened. Digital print-on-demand has become a great option to traditional offset printing. And we’ve bounced from print books to books-on-tape, to ebooks on disc to ebooks online, and back to print again. And audiobooks have come along, and they continue to be a growing segment of the industry. And self-publishing has evolved and continues to offer another avenue for authors as well as for readers. Platforms like Smashwords and CreateSpace allow indie authors to upload and market their work. 

While there has been a recent decline for the big-box book stores, it seems that many indie bookstores are starting to pick up and thrive once more. And Amazon’s book sales just keep jumping and showing stronger numbers every year. Social media, blogs and podcasts have become popular ways for published authors as well as those who are self-published to get noticed and promote their work online. And more literary festivals, conventions and special events keep popping up. 

Whatever the format, print books, ebooks, audiobooks, traditionally published or self-published, the good news is people continue to read, and they’re not just looking for the latest books, they’re also interested in backlists too.

And there are great blog sites like this one where an author can join in with other authors and be heard, and if they’re crafty, they can sneak in a little self-promotion. For example:

Cradle of the Deep 

Getting into bed with the wrong guy can get you killed.

Wanting to free herself from her boyfriend, aging gangster ‘Maddog’ Palmieri, Bobbi Ricci concocts a misguided plan with Denny, Maddog’s ex-driver, a guy who’s bent on getting even with the gangster for the humiliating way in which he was sacked.

Helping themselves to the gangster’s secret money stash, along with his Cadillac, Bobbi and Denny slip out of town, expecting to lay low for a while before enjoying the spoils.

Realizing he’s been betrayed, an enraged Maddog calls in stone-cold killer Lee Trane. As Trane picks up their trail, plans quickly change for Bobbi and Denny, who now find themselves on a wild chase of misadventure through northern British Columbia and into Alaska.

Time is running out for them once they find out that Trane’s been sent to do away with them, or worse, bring them back – either way, Maddog will make them pay.

It comes out November 3rd, and can be preordered from my publisher ECW Press here.

Showing up for downtime

Besides writing, what else do you do? What’s on your writer’s bucket list?

by Dietrich

It’s too easy to get wrapped up in a story. Even when I’m not writing, I often want to jot down notes as I think of a scene, or work out details for one in my head. So, it’s important to pry myself away and leave time for other things. Writing is solitary, so I need time to be social. And writing means a lot of sitting, so it’s important to get off my butt.

Art is entertaining, and I like anything from theatre, dance, live music, visiting an art gallery, to stopping to listen to a busker on a street corner. Whether I’m writing or not, I’m often listening to whatever music that suits my mood. I’m partial to my music on vinyl, and I know LPs are gaining popularity again. It’s interesting, I’ve been around long enough to see how we play music go full circle from records to eight tracks to cassettes to MP3s and back to vinyl again. And I still listen to much of the same music from the days when I first started collecting LPs. Does anybody remember those cheap little transistor radios we used to carry around, playing the top 40, even before the days of those suitcase-size boom boxes?

Not that I make much time for it anymore, but I occasionally paint, abstracts mostly, and I like to dabble in photography, creating images a different way. And I play guitar and create my own sound, or in my case, noise.

“I know a good many fiction writers who paint, not because they’re any good at painting, but because it helps their writing. It forces them to look at things. Fiction writing is very seldom a matter of saying things; it is a matter of showing things…Any discipline can help your writing: logic, mathematics, theology, and of course and particularly drawing. Anything that helps you to see, anything that makes you look.” — Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners 

“I basically like to apply paint onto canvas. I just like the act of it — I make it up as I go along. I really don’t analyze them that much.”  — Paul McCartney.

It’s interesting how many writers are musicians, and musicians who are also writers: Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, Steve Earle, Josh Ritter, Stephen King. And many musicians and writers who are visual artists: Charles Bukowski, Miles Davis, John Lennon, John Mellencamp. Ronnie Wood, Grace Slick, David Bowie, Kim Gordon, Tony Bennett, George Frayne, and the list goes on.

"I'm a painter first, and a musician second.” — Joni Mitchell

And it’s interesting how some famous writers incorporated their outside interests into their work. Dame Agatha Christie accompanied her husband on archaeological digs, her experiences inspiring several novels. Tolkien studied languages, and Hemingway was an avid outdoorsman.

Aside from painting and music, I’m an avid reader, and I’ve always got a stack on books on the go with the occasional audiobook tossed in.

So, as you can see, I don’t live life on the edge; I don’t run with the bulls, or jump out of planes or off cliffs or bridges with a big rubber band attached to my foot. And while I’m in pretty good shape for a fiction writer, I don’t compete in many sports these days. In fact, my sports are pretty much limited to the TV. And these days, it’s down to soccer, mostly European matches and tournaments, and the world cup every four years. 

“It’s better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it.” — Charles Bukowski

I don’t know that I really have a bucket list, but I do like to travel, and there are a number of places that I’d like to see. One of my favorite places to go once the rain clouds start to gather here in the northwest is down the coast to California, and we get down there every chance we get. In fact, it’s just about time to get out the suitcase as I get set for another book tour down the coast. 

Which reminds me, I should mention my new one Call Down the Thunder will be released October 15th. You can order a copy or find out more at www.dietrichkalteis.com or at www.ecwpress.com.

Here’s the short pitch: 

Sonny and Clara Myers struggle on their Kansas farm in the late 1930s, a time the Lord gave up on. The land’s gone dry, barren and worthless. And the bankers, greedy and hungry, make life even more impossible, squeezing farmers out of their homes. The couple can wither along with the land, or surrender to the bankers and hightail it to California like most of the other farmers. But Sonny comes up with a way for them to stay on their land and prosper while giving the banks a taste of their own misery.

Dog days

The end of summer is fast approaching. Did you find a happy balance between writing and social/family time?

Any humorous/interesting/exciting tales to share from your summer? What are your writing and publicity plans for the fall?

by Dietrich

It’s always about a happy balance. Naturally, I want to get outside in the nice weather as much as possible and work on my writer’s tan. So, I use the mornings to write and the afternoons to play outside. There’s nothing like going for a long walk along the seawall or through the woods in the summertime, sitting under a shade tree or lying in a hammock with a good book and a cold drink. The evenings are a good time for family, friends and socializing.

On my walks, I’ve had the good fortune to watch a pair of eagles nesting near my home. I never get tired of hearing their calls and seeing the adults fly to the nest.

I’ve also been working on a draft for a new novel. It’s still in the early stages, and I’m still playing around with some key details. All I can say so far is this one takes place in my own backyard, and it’s set in present-day Vancouver and involves an old man, a young kid, some sketchy characters, along with one killer motor home.

For publicity plans, I’ve got a new book coming out this fall. Call Down the Thunder will be released October 15th by ECW Press, and I’ve been putting together a book tour around its launch, in other words I’ll be following the sun down the coast to California. They’ve got some of the best beaches in the world and some of the best book stores to boot. There will also be a blog tour just ahead of the release. If you’re interested there will be more info on my website.

Okay, now that I’ve stirred your interest, here’s the elevator pitch: Sonny and Clara Myers struggle on their Kansas farm in the late 1930s, a time the Lord gave up on. The land’s gone dry, barren and worthless. And the bankers, greedy and hungry, make life even more impossible, squeezing farmers out of their homes. The couple can wither along with the land, or surrender to the bankers and hightail it to California like most of the other farmers. But Sonny comes up with a way for them to stay on their land and prosper while giving the banks a taste of their own misery.

A shot in the arm

Are you creative in other ways besides writing – i.e. photography, painting, music, widget making, any other creative pursuits that you might have? Tell us about them and why you pursued writing as a career instead of one of them.

by Dietrich Kalteis

Last time around the minds talked about other forms of creative expression we might pursue if we weren’t writing. I think we can all be creative in just about everything we do. Creative thinking points us to new paths and allows for new ways of seeing things, and it can help us solve problems by seeing different ways around them. 

The one thing needed in order to be creative is inspiration. When I was a kid I loved to get lost in a favorite book. I remember some of the wonderful images I’d draw from novels like the adventures Mark Twain wrote about. And there was Edgar Allen Poe to scare the hell out of me, had me checking under the bed for years, and Rudyard Kipling’s tales of exotic places. 

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” 

— Pablo Picasso

I still read a lot, and a great novel often inspires my own storytelling and makes me want to raise the benchmark. Sometimes its Charles Bukowski, sometimes James Ellroy. I also find inspiration in films like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Watching Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand give great performances is a real treat. And I find inspiration in the photos of Elliot Erwitt and Robert Doisneau, and in the paintings of Francis Bacon and Georgia O’Keefe.

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” — Twyla Tharp

I’ve mentioned I listen to music while I write. Sometimes it’s Leonard Cohen, and sometimes its Miles Davis. Whatever suits the mood, and when I get it right, the rhythm of what I’m listening to matches what I’m writing. 

When I’m working on a story, I’ve also learned when not to push it, when to get away from my desk and go and recharge the batteries. So, a walk in the woods or along the shoreline could be in order. Here on the west coast we’re blessed with mountains and ocean all around us, so there’s miles of seawall and endless trails.

Being a creature of habit, I tend to write at the same time of day. For me, it’s early in the day since I’ve got more energy then. But sometimes it’s good to break from that routine and write in a different spot or at different times, or for longer or shorter periods. It’s also good to set it aside for a while and take a break, like between drafts.

I’m not an expert at plants or working the soil, but digging in a garden is a great way to unwind and clear my head, and it can be a good time to work out some story ideas.    

As much as I steer to what inspires me, I try to avoid what drags me down. So, I don’t make a habit of catching the news, even though it’s almost impossible to avoid glimpsing a headline, or having someone say, “Hey, did you hear about …” The news isn’t often uplifting, but once in a while it gives me a spark for a scene or a story idea. 

And as much as we need inspiration, we need courage too. Putting any story out there subjects it to rejection. When I started out I was writing a lot of short stories and submitting them to various publications, and I ended up with enough rejection letters to paper a room. While we all love good reviews, we have to learn to deal with the bad ones, dust ourselves off and just keep going.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” — Dr. Seuss

There’s just something about imagining the scenes and characters, and seeing the stories come to life. And it never comes hard, it never feels like work, and I really can’t see myself doing anything else.

“There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.” — Henry Moore

Oh, and speaking of putting stories out there, my new one Poughkeepsie Shuffle was released yesterday. 

You can check it out at my publisher's website: https://ecwpress.com/products/poughkeepsie-shuffle 

Or, at my website: https://dietrichkalteis.com

Work in progress

Share the earliest/a really early photo you have of yourself with us, and tell us what it means to you personally and – if it does – in terms of your writing.

by Dietrich Kalteis

I don’t have a suitable early photo on hand, but I have a few memories of wanting to be a writer. I loved reading from an early age and the images it created in my mind. And I loved spinning my own stories too. In my early teens I penned a first draft of a novel. I can’t remember much about it, just that I kept its handwritten loose-leaf pages in a shoe box, worked on it after school and on weekends. I finally gave up on it, but the idea of writing a novel stayed with me, and I always thought I’d write one someday.

"Everything is hard before it is easy." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Growing up, I pursued other ventures, taking time now and then  to pen a short story. At one point I started a draft of another novel, but the spark wasn’t there, and after getting a couple of rejection letters, I gave up on it. Finally, after years of hearing me say I wanted to write someday, my wife finally said, ‘If not now, when?’

"Dwell in possibility." —  Emily Dickinson

Those words stuck with me, and I worked out some story ideas and put pen to paper, drafting some short stories during any spare time I could find, mostly late at night. I got my hands on several books on grammar and brushed up on the proper English I’d learned back in school. I tried different approaches and genres, but what I wrote often ended up in the trash bin. That, or I’d rewrite what I’d written the day before, trying to get it to sound right.

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.” — Philip Roth   

It didn’t dawn on me then that the many hours and all those pages that ended up in the scrap bin were important, allowing me to gain the chops and find my voice. Back then I thought I either had the talent or I didn’t. Lucky of me, it wasn’t hard to put time into something that I enjoyed doing. And when I finally felt confident that I had a short story worth submitting, I sent it out, and seeing that first short story in print sure had a way of boosting my confidence, letting me know I was on the right track. The other thing I learned was to not let all that proper grammar get in the way of the rhythm of what I was writing. 

So, I kept on writing short stories and submitting them to various publications. Some of those publications have sadly vanished, but others are still there, and I owe a big thanks to publications like Defenestration, Lowestroft Cronicle, Bête Noire, SN Review, Verdad Magazine, Foundling Review, Poor Mojo's Almanac, Oddville Press and Dew on the Kudzu and several others who published my stories.

One of the shorts I worked on was a piece of dialog between an insurance investigator and a woman who faked a claim, and when I reread it the next day, I thought it had a rhythm to it. It didn’t end up in the scrap bin, and I expanded and merged it with a couple of other ideas. And I had the early stages of Ride the Lightning, and after I worked through a couple of drafts, I submitted it to ECW Press. When I got that letter of acceptance … well, let’s just say not much beats that feeling.

Mostly I write novels now — my sixth is called Poughkeepsie Shuffle, and it will be out in early September, published by ECW Press. I still enjoy writing short stories, and I’m pleased to have one included in the anthology Vancouver Noir. Published by Akashic Books and edited by Sam Wiebe, it’s due out early in November.

Closing thoughts on opening lines

by Dietrich Kalteis

As a writer, what do you make of readers who flip to the end and see what happens last first?

Flipping to the end of a novel to find out how it ends is like reaching under the Christmas tree when no one’s around and unwrapping a present, getting a sneak-peek, then rewrapping it, and trying to act surprised Christmas morning. To me, that just ruins the moment. 

The ending to a good novel is the wrap up of everything that came before. At times the author may hint at several possibilities to a story’s ending, or throw some last minute twists and surprises to keep the reader from predicting the ending. Maybe for some people, novels should come with spoiler alert stickers. 

William Goldman said, “The key to all story end­ings is to give the audi­ence what it wants, but not in the way it expects.”

While the ending to a good story is like the punchline to a good joke, I’m more interested in the first few pages of a book — the opening. If it doesn’t grab me, I may not read much more before putting the book down. If it doesn’t grab me, I won’t keep turning pages to see what the ending holds in store.

There’s a lot of promise in a strong opening, and it’s hard to imagine putting a book down that starts like this:

Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin’s feet were placed in a tub of cement. Twelve gunmen stood waiting until they got far enough out to sea to throw him overboard, while Joe listened to the engine chug and watched the water churn white at the stern.

— Dennis Lehane, Live by Night

As Roy Dillon stumbled out of the shop his face was a sickish green, and each breath he drew was an incredible agony. A hard blow in the guts can do that to a man, and Dillon had gotten a hard one. Not with a fist, which would have been bad enough, but from the butt-end of a heavy club.

— Charles Willeford, Miami Blue

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. — James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

Dennis Lenahan the high diver would tell people that if you put a fifty-cent piece on the floor and looked down at it, that's what the tank looked like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder. — Elmore Leonard, Tishomingo Blues

Great opening lines are real grabbers, but a great book is a combination of all the story elements that have to work together to keep me turning the pages. It’s the writer’s voice, the pace, plot, conflict, setting, and the characters and their dialog. And when it’s all working together, it’s like magic. I recently finished The Force by Don Winslow and it was like that for me, the story just fired on all cylinders. Another one I just read that was hard to put down was Trouble in Paradise, Robert B. Parker’s second Jesse Stone novel, and one of his best.

While I love to discover authors I’ve never read before, the greats are always worth revisiting because they just did everything so well. And although I already know the story’s outcome, I like to reread classics by Hemingway, Steinbeck and Salinger from time to time — those rare authors who mastered every aspect of a great story, from the opening line to the final scene. And there are great crime writers who I’ve read more than once — authors like Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, James Crumley, and Charles Willeford.

So, if a novel can be this great adventure, with a killer opening, interesting characters and dialog, with exciting and unexpected twists, and told in a voice that resonates, why flip to the last few pages to see how it ends?

The bits and pieces

Writers gather a huge miscellany of info - drafts, notes, contracts, plot ideas, pix, reviews, etc; do you have any tricks for keeping it all organized?

by Dietrich Kalteis

I don’t plot or outline my stories, it’s all seat-of-the-pants stuff, but under the surface I’m fairly organized. Electronic files and folders, that’s the key. I keep a general file on my computer for each category of what I write: novels, short stories, screenplays, etc. Then there are sub-folders for the drafts, edits, final files, cuts, reference files, character files, character names used, references, timelines, graphics, photos, marketing files, and so on.

When I finish a novel, I cull through the files and folders and toss out anything that I don’t need anymore. Clearing the clutter. And I start new ones for whatever I’m working on next. The trick is to keep it simple and organized, and in the end I just hold onto what I really need. 

Right now, I’m sifting through the final files for Zero Avenue, and except for copy edits, I’m pretty well finished the one after that, Poughkeepsie Shuffle. Meanwhile, I’m close to sending my publisher a final draft of a new story I’ve been working on, and I’ve got a longhand draft ready to key into the computer for the one after that. Then there are a couple of short stories I’ve been working on. So, with all that going on, I have to stay very organized.

I back up all electronic files on two separate drives. Everything. Every day. Hitting ‘command save’ has become a reflex — as my character Zeke Chamas from Zero Avenue might say, “It’s automatic, like scratching.” And it’s something I learned back when I was in the graphics field (saving, not scratching) — and yes, I learned it the hard way, by losing something I had been working on.

I write first drafts in longhand, keeping the pages in old-school folders. There’s something organic about working with pen in hand. Then the second draft gets keyed into my computer. I wish I could write the whole thing in longhand, but I edit and add too much, and my studio would just end up being a sea of crumpled paper by day’s end. Before the computer came along, I did type out a novel on my old Selectric. Working drafts were a mess of lines scratched out and scribbled notes, and the final draft was painted in Wite-Out and had cut strips of paper taped across the pages, not individual letters like a ransom note, but pretty close. There was never a clean final copy. It was all smoke, mirrors, correction fluid and tape by the time I had a submission ready to photocopy and send out. I guess I sometimes have this love/hate relationship with my computer, but it sure saves me a lot of time.

I still write myself little notes for whatever story I’m working on, and these litter my desk. They’re the little ideas that pop into my head and need to find their way onto the page.

When I wrote House of Blazes I did more research than for the novels set in present-day. The setting was the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in addition to the usual files, I had to keep some on ships, autos, dress, which buildings were destroyed, street maps, statistics, newspapers, files on army involvement, ships involved in rescue, a time sequence of actual events that ran concurrent with the story’s events, personal accounts, and so on. When I started out, I thought all that research and organization would drive me nuts, but I actually liked it and learned so many interesting facts along the way. After which I’ve gone on to write more novels steeped in history.

Back when I was writing mainly short stories, I kept lists of where each story had been submitted, often making simultaneous submissions to three publishers for each story, keeping track of rejections and what was still out there. Once a rejection came in, I’d send the story right back out to another publication, keeping track of all that.

In the end, coming up with a system that keeps me organized and avoids disaster sure gives me a lot more time for writing.