The Wonder of Me ; )

It’s a New Year – and we Criminal Minds are taking the chance to (re)introduce ourselves. First up – how we’ve arrived where we are in our writing career.

by Paul D. Marks

My name is Paul and I’m a wordaholic. I write ’em. I read ’em. I horde ’em. I find secret hiding places for them. How the hell did I get in this fix?

I started young. At first I didn’t mainline. I just read a few words here and there, cat, dog, see Spot run. Then I began to string more and more words together, until I could read a whole book. Sure, it might have been a little Golden Book, but a book. These were my ‘gateway’ books to other, longer and harder books.

As Bob Dylan said, “I started out on burgundy, But soon hit the harder stuff.”

And since I already did my Adventures in La La Land post both here and at SleuthSayers (http://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2015/11/adventures-in-la-la-land-redux.html ), which introduced a lot of my influences this will focus more on my writing history. So here’s the wonder of me (not totally in chronological order):

I’m a multi-generation L.A. native. Being from L.A. definitely influenced my writing and probably my career choices as well. It was a good city to grow up in........the city of Raymond Chandler’s “mean streets,” Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer and Cain’s Double Indemnity. In fact, I grew up in a Spanish-style house very much like the one that Barbara Stanwyck lives in in the movie version of Double Indemnity. A film noir town for a film noir kid.

I was born in the heart of Hollywood, literally. And, even though no one in my family was in the film biz, it must have been destiny, providence, fate, kismet that I ended up a script doctor (Hey, mom, I’m a doctor…), even though my initial “goal” was to be a rock star. But as someone who did make it as a rock star said, ““Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

As a kid I loved reading and watching movies. My first venture into “writing” was when I would pretend my army men were on a film set instead of a battlefield and use TinkerToys as Klieg Lights. So I was creating scenarios, making my little men talk, move and go through plots of one sort or another. Eventually I lost the men and started doing pretty much the same thing on a typewriter and now a computer, making characters talk, move and go through the paces of plots of one sort or another.

My long and winding road to becoming a professional writer started with writing songs for that rock superstardom that was sure to come. Yeah, they were classics. (Well, some weren’t so bad.)

My first paid writing gig was for a piece on John Lennon for one of the L.A. papers. What a thrill to see my name in lights, or at least on newsprint and, of course, to get a check. Wow!

While still doing that, I was also trying to break into Hollywood, so I could see just how far Sammy really could run. I would try almost anything to get noticed and have people read my scripts. I’d send letters to everyone. The bigger they were, generally speaking, the nicer they were. Gene Kelly invited me to his house to drop off a script. And when I got there he invited me in for a chat. Cary Grant called me—twice. (And you ought to hear where I was the second time he called, that story can be found on my website.) Burt Reynolds asked to take a look at a script. I got invited to pitch to the biggest producers of the day. And more. And eventually I started getting work as a script doctor, no credit, no glory, but fun, at least for a time. So a fun time was had by all, except for the screaming matches or the producer threatening to send his friends in the Mossad after me after an argument. Y’know, fun, like Day of the Locusts. Fun.

At one point, I shot a film on the last surviving MGM backlot, giving me the distinction, dubious though it might be, of being the last person to have shot a film on any of the fabled MGM backlots before they bit the dust to make way for condos. According to Steven Bingen, one of the authors of the well-received book MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot: “That 40 page chronological list I mentioned of films shot at the studio ends with his [Paul D. Marks’] name on it.”

And after several years, I went back to grad school at USC, where, even though I was a cinema major I took an advanced short story class from T. Coraghessan Boyle. Today, after donations from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and others, the cinema department at SC just about rivals any major studio with top of the line equipment and modern buildings. When I went there the soundstage was an old army cavalry barn and the editing rooms were the former horse stalls. I think we could still hear the ghosts of the horses. Things being what they were, I never did finish my degree. Sometimes I actually think about going back and doing that.

So after years of optioning scripts that paid well but didn’t get produced, doing rewrites, with my dad never being able to figure out what I did for a living, I guess I became one of the disenchanted, plus I wanted more autonomy. Didn’t want everyone and their chef and gardener sticking their two cents in, saying how something should be done, so I started writing short stories and novels (ah, those glorious rejection slips, but they did make nice targets).

The transition from screenwriting to prose was a difficult one. Screenplays are great for structure, not so hot for description. And people said my first stories and novels read like screenplays. It took a while for me to be able to do description and interior character thoughts. (See the piece I did for Ellery Queen Magazine’s Something is Going to Happen site for more on the differences between novels, stories and screenplays: https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2014/10/22/words-and-pictures-short-stories-novels-and-screenplays-by-paul-d-marks/ )
So I honed my craft and one of those early novels, maybe my first, hard to remember now, was even accepted for publication at a major publisher. Of all things, it was about a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood and as absurd as much of it was, little of it was made up. But then the sky fell in. The whole editorial department at that publisher was swept out and new brooms sweeping clean and all of that, the new editors dumped me and my novel. So the experience was like something out of a Hollywood movie…minus the happy ending. And by the time all this happened the humor in the novel was dated as it had a lot of topical satire, so it couldn’t go to another publisher right away and, in fact, went on my shelf. But you know what they say about satire anyway, it closes Saturday night. Still, some day I’ll resurrect this tale.

Eventually, I started placing short stories here and there and slowly started reaching some of my prose writing goals and winning writing awards along the way, which is a great honor and thrill.
One of my goals was finally reached when my story Howling at the Moon was published in Ellery Queen and it was short-listed for both the 2015 Anthony and Macavity Awards, as well as coming in # 7 in the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award Poll, I also reached another writing milestone when my story Deserted Cities of the Heart was published in Akashic’s St. Louis Noir last year.

And sappy as it sounds, I hope this is just the beginning of the journey. So there you have it, the wonder of me.

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And now for the usual BSP:

Coming on January 30th from Down & Out Books:

Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea 
A collection of 15 Private Eye stories from some of the best mystery and noir writers from across the country. Available for pre-order now on Amazon:

And I have a couple of appearances in January.

Santa Clarita: The Old Town Newhall Library
Saturday, January 14, 2017, from 10:00 AM-3:00 PM.
24500 Main St, Santa Clarita, CA  91321

Cerritos Library, where I’ll be moderating a panel:
Saturday, January 28 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
18025 Bloomfield Avenue, Cerritos, CA  90703

www.PaulDMarks.com

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To Suffer the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune...or Misfortune...of Having Gotten This Question

Is there a well-regarded classic mystery that you’ve read and didn’t see what all the fuss was about? Why not?

by Paul D. Marks

I want to thank Cathy Ace for citing Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as a classic mystery she had issues with. As every graph of this post except this one was written prior to her piece you’ll see why I owe her a debt of gratitude to be the first to publicly take the Christie heat. Though I guess my not seeing the fuss in Christie goes way deeper than hers. So I’m ready to start shaking in my hobnail boots.

As Susan said on Monday “This week’s question is perfectly designed to get us all on the wrong foot with readers, writers, and obsessive fans.” Well, I like a good fight as much as the next person. And I like a classic mystery as much as the next person. And I’m going to assume that when we say “classic” here we’re talking dead writers. ’Cause we sure don’t want to piss off anyone who’s still living, do we?

And instead of focusing on one book, how about one author, so get your slings and arrows ready: I don’t like reading Agatha Christie. Now, it’s been a long time since I have but I clearly don’t feel the need to go back to her. It’s not that I don’t like her stories, I do. But the style of writing is not one that I enjoy reading.

I hate to be like the person who won’t watch black and white movies because they’re old and look dated or funny to them. I love black and white movies as a whole. But there’s something about Christie’s style of writing that I just don’t spark to though, as I say, I do love her stories. And I like the movie versions of many of her stories, especially And Then There Were None (1945 and despite some changes from the novel), based on Ten Little Indians and its earlier title, which I won’t repeat here.

But, instead of dwelling on the negative and turning an army of Christie fans into haters who will then have to feel horribly guilty, go to a shrink, spend tons of money, and still feel guilty, how about I mention some classic books that I do like and end the week on a more positive note. The style I prefer is more hardboiled, gritty and urban. There are exceptions, of course, but that’s where I’d go first.

Here are some choices, all of which have been turned into movies for good or ill. And even though you might have seen the movies, maybe check out the books too or vice versa. My purpose here isn’t to analyze each novel, just to give a shout out to some I like, so if you haven’t read them you might want to give them a shot, since I know you have nothing but time on your hands and no TBR pile next to your bed:

Down There (a.k.a. Shoot the Piano Player) (1956), David Goodis’ magnum opus. I’m a huge Goodis fan. Came to him through the movies, the Bogart-Bacall film, Dark Passage, based on Goodis’ book of the same name. Geoffrey O’Brien said of him, “David Goodis is the mystery man of hardboiled fiction. ... He wrote of winos and barroom piano players and small‑time thieves in a vein of tortured lyricism all his own. ... He was a poet of the losers. ... If Jack Kerouac had written crime novels, they might have sounded a bit like this.” And I would agree. So if you’re just feeling too bubbly and happy one day, read a Goodis book. That’ll bring you down a notch. On the other hand, it might also make you appreciate all the good things in your life more. And by-the-by, I think the novel of Down There/Shoot the Piano Player is much better than the Truffaut movie based on it.

Black Money (1966). Ross MacDonald is one of my favorite mystery writers. And Black Money is one of my favorite books of his. Right now it appears that the Coen Brothers (of Blood Simple and Fargo fame) are set to write and direct an adaptation of the book. I’m not sure if I love or hate this idea, but it’ll be interesting to see the final result. You betcha. 

The Grifters (1963) by Jim Thompson. Thompson wrote a series of hard-assed noir novels and even a handful of screenplays, including The Killing and Paths of Glory for Stanley Kubrick—there’s a match made in someone’s idea of heaven. And he led one hell of an interesting life. This one’s a nice mother and son story, just the kind of family story that warms the heart and the barrel of a gun.

Double Indemnity (1936). James M. Cain practically invents noir with this book and the film that followed. Unfaithful femme fatale, shady insurance guy, trains, crutches, murder and anklets. What more could you ask for?

Build My Gallows High (1946) by Geoffrey Homes (a.k.a. Daniel Mainwaring) is the basis for one of the all-time great film noirs, Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer as the most alluring of all femme fatales. The screenplay had an uncredited assist from one James M. Cain, among others—something I know oh so much about...

And just about everything by Raymond Chandler and Hammett.

Adventures in La La Land Redux

Settings play a key role in mysteries. Where do your mysteries tend to be set and why?

by Paul D. Marks

Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, I hope you don’t mind if I repost a piece I did for another blog I write for (Sleuthsayers.org). This was the first post I did for them and I think it pretty much responds to our question this week.

And though I have stories set in other places, I consider myself an LA writer and Los Angeles does play a major role in many of my stories. Many people have said it’s another character and I agree. S.W. Lauden said, “I just read your novel Vortex. I loved how the action bounced around Southern California, almost as if the region was one of the main characters.”

So here are (some of) my Adventures in La La Land (with a couple of minor revisions from the original as posted on Sleuthsayers):

I thought I’d write about two things I know pretty well, Los Angeles and me. Sort of an introduction to my writing and me, my influences, especially my inspiration for setting. And since it is an intro it might be a little longer than a normal post...

I’m old enough to have grown up in Los Angeles when both Raymond Chandler’s L.A. and Chandler himself were still around. When I was a kid L.A. still resembled the city of Chandler's "mean streets," Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer and Cain's Double Indemnity. In fact, I grew up in a Spanish-style house very much like the one that Barbara Stanwyck lives in in the movie version of Double Indemnity.

L.A. was a film noir town for a film noir kid. And that certainly had an influence on me and my writing. And a lot of my writing involves L.A., not just as a location but almost as a character in its own right. Of course, we’re all influenced by our childhoods, where we grew up and the people we knew. And those things, whether conscious or unconscious, tend to bubble to the surface in our writing like the black pitch bubbling up from the La Brea tar pits.

* * *

Two things that Los Angeles means to me are movies and noir, oh, and palm trees, of course. Movie studios and backlots were everywhere in this city. You couldn’t help but see the studios, feel their presence and be influenced by “the movies” one way or another. Many of the studios and backlots are gone now, but almost everywhere you go in this city is a movie memory and often a noir memory. L.A. is Hollywood’s backlot and many films, including many noirs, were filmed throughout the city.

As a kid, a teenager and even a young adult, I experienced many of the places I read about in books and saw in the movies, once the movies got out of the backlot and onto those mean L.A. streets. Not as a tourist, but as part of my “backyard.”

So Los Angeles has insinuated itself into my writing. Here’s some examples of how it might have gotten there and how it reflects my view of the ironically named City of Angels.

photo credit: Angels Flight via photopin (license)

Angels Flight is a funicular railway in downtown Los Angeles. Star of many films and many noirs, including Kiss Me, Deadly, Criss Cross and others. Chandler visits it in The High Window and The King in Yellow. As a young boy, my dad took me to the original Angels Flight (now moved down the road and since closed). And though I may not have known about noir films and hardboiled novels then, it was an experience I’ve always remembered. Such a cool little pair of trains going up and down that hill, the tracks splitting in the middle just as each car approaches the other and you think they’re going to smash into each other head on. Angels Flight slams back to me in memory every now and then and makes its way into my writing, most notably in the eponymous story Angels Flight, which I must say came out before Michael Connelly’s novel of the same name.

That story, about a cop whose time has come and gone, is still pretty relevant today. The world is changing and he’s having one hell of a time catching up, if he even wants to. He’s a dinosaur. And he knows that Angels Flight is an anachronism, just like he is. He says to the other main character:
 

“Will Angels Flight bring back the glamour of the old days? Hollywood’s lost its tinsel. Venice’s lost its pier. And there are no angels in the City of Angels. What can Angels Flight do to bring that back?”

“Sometimes you need something for the soul,” the other person says.

I think that sums up a lot of my attitude not only toward Angels Flight but to the City of Angels as well. 

In Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust, Tod Hackett comes to L.A. thinking he’s an artist. And like so many others he gets trampled by that dream. Not much has changed all these decades later in my story Endless Vacation, when a young woman comes to Hollywood with big dreams and a bigger heroin habit. The narrator tries to help but he also knows:

Who the hell am I to talk? I came to L.A. looking for a Hollywood that died before I was born. A glamorous town of movie stars and studios and backlots. A studio system that nurtured talent, whatever you say about how it also might have stifled it with the other hand. A town that made movies in black and white but whose streets were, indeed, paved with gold. Yeah, I bought it – hook, line and clapboard.

Luis Valdez examines the Zoot Suit Riots that took place in L.A. during World War II in his play Zoot Suit. I remember my grandfather, who lived through that time, talking about “pachucos” when I was a kid. In my story Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne, set during the war, I take a stab at dealing with the racial tension of that era.

Hot jazz—swing music—boogied, bopped and jived. And Bobby Saxon was one of those who made it happen. Bobby banged the eighty-eights with the Booker “Boom-Boom” Taylor Orchestra in the Club Alabam down on Central Avenue. It was the heppest place for whites to come slumming and mix with the coloreds. That’s just the way it was in those days, Los Angeles in the 1940s during the war.

Venice Beach and boardwalk is the number one tourist destination in Los Angeles. People think it’s cool and flock to see the “freaks,” and maybe the nearby Venice Canals. Developer Abbott Kinney wanted to recreate Italy’s Venice in L.A., and he did, to some extent. But it didn’t quite work out. Many of the canals were drained and filled in, though some remain. They can be seen in several movies, too numerous to name. And, because they were another place I’d done time at, they pop up in my short story Santa Claus Blues, which opens with a bunch of kids playing along the canals and coming across a dead Santa floating in one of them.

Staring at the canal, Bobby thought about Abbott Kinney's dream for a high culture theme park, with concerts, theatre and lectures on various subjects. Kinney even imported Italian gondoliers to sing to visitors as they were propelled along the canals. When no one seemed to care about the highbrow culture he offered he switched gears and turned Venice into a popular amusement area. And finally the people came.

My grandparents always referred to MacArthur Park, on Wilshire Boulevard on the way to downtown, as Westlake Park, its original name. It was renamed for General Douglas MacArthur after World War II. But for my grandparents it was always Westlake. When I was a kid it was the place they took me to have a picnic and rent a boat and paddle around the lake. A nice outing. In the movies it’s the scene of a murder in one of my favorite obscure noirs, Too Late for Tears. By the time of my novel White Heat, set during the 1992 “Rodney King” riots, the nature of the park had changed from when I was a kid:

MacArthur Park is midway between Hancock Park, not a park, but an upper class neighborhood, and downtown L.A., a neighborhood in search of an identity. When I was a boy, my grandparents used to take me to the park. We’d rent rowboats and paddle through the lake, tossing bread crumbs to the birds. The park is a different place today. You can still rent paddle boats – if you want to paddle across the lake while talking to your dealer. Sometimes on Saturdays or Sundays immigrant families still try to use it as a park. Most of the time, it’s a haven for pushers, crack addicts, hookers and worse. Even the police don’t like treading there. If they were scared, who was I to play Rambo?

Even if someone’s never been to Los Angeles, most people know Sunset Boulevard and the Sunset Strip. Sunset begins or ends, depending on how you look at it, at Pacific Coast Highway on the west and continues to Union Station in downtown L.A., though recently the last part of the jog has been renamed. It goes from wealthy homes in Santa Monica and the West Side, into Beverly Hills, through the Strip in West Hollywood, where hippies back in the day and hipsters today hang out. Into Hollywood and on to downtown. It’s a microcosm of Los Angeles. Of course, both Union Station and Sunset have made multiple appearances in movies and novels and have made several appearances in my writing. Sunset was a major artery in my life as well as in the city. One time I walked almost the entire length of Sunset on a weekend day with my dad, ending up at Union Station. Later, I hung on the Strip. I drove it to the beach. I slammed through the road’s Dead Man’s Curve, made famous in the Jan and Dean song. Sunset appears in my stories Born Under a Bad Sign, Dead Man’s Curve, L.A. Late @ Night and more. In the latter, Sunset is as much of a character in the story as any of the human characters.

She'd only noticed the mansion. Not long after that, her parents had taken her to the beach. They had driven Sunset all the way from Chavez Ravine to the ocean. She had seen houses like the one in the movie. Houses she vowed she'd live in some day. 

What she hadn't realized at the time was that there was a price to pay to be able to live in such a house. Sometimes that price was hanging from a tag that everyone can see. Sometimes it was hidden inside.

And who doesn’t know the famous—or infamous—Hollywood Sign? Something I saw almost every day as a kid, and which a friend of mine and I hiked up to many, many years ago, before it was all fenced in and touristy. In Free Fall, originally published in Gary Lovisi’s Hardboiled magazine, a man recently separated from the service, heads west, as far west as he can go until he comes to the terminus of Route 66 in Santa Monica, near the Santa Monica Pier. This is the end of the road for him in more ways than one.

I kept looking at the Hollywood Sign, wondering about all the people down below, pretending to be in its glow. Where do they go after L.A.? There is nowhere, the land ends and they just tumble into the arroyos and ravines, never to be heard from again.

So this is a sampling of my writing and my relationship to L.A., La La Land, the City of the Angels, the Big Orange. Could I have written about these places without experiencing them? Sure. We can’t experience everything we write about. But hopefully it has made my writing more authentic.

Maybe there are other cities less well traveled that would be ripe for exploration in movies and books. Maybe L.A. is overworked and overdone. But Los Angeles is part of me. Part of who I am. So it’s not only a recurring locale in my writing, it’s a recurring theme. And I’ve only just touched the surface here of Los Angeles, the city, its various landmarks and neighborhoods and my relationship to it.

So that’s part of what shaped me and makes me who I am. And some of my L.A. story. You can take the boy out of L.A., but you can’t take L.A. out of the boy. Oh, and here’s an L.A. story for you (a true one): I’m one of the few people to pull a gun on the LAPD and live to tell about. But that’s for another time. Or you can see the story on my website at: http://pauldmarks.com/he-pulled-a-gun-on-the-lapd-and-lived-to-tell-about-it/

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So, thank you all. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and will have a good rest of the weekend!

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Down and Out Books is putting a whole bunch of great books on sale for 99¢ for the next two weeks, including Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea, with mystery stories from such luminaries as 4 Time Edgar Winner and Co-Creator of “Columbo,” William Link • Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini • Scribner Crime Novel Winner William G. Tapply • Shamus Winner Paul D. Marks • EQMM Readers Award Winner Bob Levinson • Al Blanchard Award Winner James Shannon • Derringer Award Winner Stephen D. Rogers • Sherlock Holmes Bowl Winner Andrew McAleer and other poisoned-pen professionals like Judy Travis Copek • Sheila Lowe • Gayle Bartos-Pool • Thomas Donahue
 

Click here to go to the Down & Out Amazon sale: http://amzn.to/1HiabZG

And my new noir-thriller Vortex is also on sale in e-form for 99¢.

“…a nonstop staccato action noir… Vortex lives up to its name, quickly creating a maelstrom of action and purpose to draw readers into a whirlpool of intrigue and mystery… but be forewarned: once picked up, it's nearly impossible to put down before the end.”

—D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

And now for the usual BSP stuff:

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To Choose or Not to Choose

Do you prefer reading “classic” mysteries or contemporary mysteries? Why?

by Paul D. Marks

There’s something to be said for both. And sometimes it just depends on my mood. I probably go through periods where I read more classics than contemporary and then vice versa. But overall I probably read more new mysteries these days. And every once in a while I get a strong urge to reread something, particularly by Chandler or Ross MacDonald.


I once heard James Ellroy at a signing, I believe, say he didn’t read his contemporaries in the mystery-crime field because he wanted to do his own thing and not be influenced by them. And also because of the time involved in reading them.

I don’t feel that way. I think it’s good to see what’s going on, what the competition, so to speak, is doing. What they’re talking about, what the trends are, what’s in, etc. But that doesn’t mean I have to, or should, follow those trends or be influenced by them. I like to do my own thing and I guess if there was a report card for this the teacher would check off the box that says “not good at taking direction or following trends.” I’d hope so anyway. I spent many years “taking direction” when doing script rewrites. And one of the reasons I wanted to write fiction is to be my own boss. I understand there are editors and such, but still there’s more freedom here, if not total freedom.

Of my top 3 favorite mystery-crime novelists, two are classics, one is current. Number one with a bullet is Raymond Chandler (big surprise, huh?). Nobody can touch him. It’s like the Beatles for me. As many other rock bands that I love, they are in a class by themselves. Sui generis. I feel that way about Chandler.

My two other faves are Ross MacDonald and James Ellroy. Though I’m not as hot on Ellroy as I was at one time for a variety of reasons. And though he’s not a crime writer, I’m going to include John Fante here because I think his style and tone fit in well with Chandler and Hammett and Cain.

Other current faves are Carol O’Connell, Michael Connelly, Kem Nunn. And other classic faves are David Goodis, James M. Cain, Hammett and Dorothy B. Hughes.

When I read those classics I’m transported to a different time and it satisfies my sense of saudade for times and things that I may not even have experienced. I’ve always had a fantasy of being born in 1920, which would make me old enough for that “film noir” era after the war, as well as the war, of course. The war influenced film noir in many ways, but that’s for another post or maybe a book. And I do remember LA as a kid, when it was still the city that Chandler describes and pieces of which can still be found here and there. So, when I want to visit that time and place I either read books by these classic authors or watch movies set in that era, some filmed then, some filmed today, like LA Confidential.

So why limit yourself to one era or genre? There’s a whole world of great crime fiction out there. More than we’ll ever have time to get to, unfortunately.

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And now for the usual BSP:

Vortex is on sale in e-form at all the usual places.

And there’s Goodreads Giveaway for Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea running for a few more days. Maybe win a FREE copy. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/161413-coast-to-coast-murder-from-sea-to-shining-sea

“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”

What's your favorite movie adaptation of a crime novel?

by Paul D. Marks

It’s hard to pick just one. Off the top of my head a whole list pops up. And rather than go into specific plot details I’m just going to give my general impressions. Plots can be looked up on the web or, even better, seen when watching the flicks. So, in no particular order:

Double Indemnity: My favorite film noir. If I had to show a Martian an example of film noir this would be it. Sticks close to Cain’s book but deviates where it has to, while staying true to his vision. And I think the ending is better than his. But why not, it was written by Billy Wilder and that novice screenwriter Raymond Chandler who, it’s said, makes a cameo appearance. I’m not sure one can say this movie singlehandedly established the noir genre and look, but it sure did a lot to get it off the ground.

The Grifters: Every time I see this adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel I love it more. And that’s saying a lot because I liked it a lot the first time I saw it. Everything just works. And comes together.

LA Confidential: James Ellroy is—or was—one of my favorite mystery writers. Right up there with Raymond Chandler (well, he’s in a class by himself) and Ross MacDonald. But Ellroy fell a notch or two for me when his writing became so stylized and clipped that it was hard to read. He’s sort of moved up a rung again with Perfidia. But now to the point at hand: LA Confidential, the third book in Ellroy’s LA Quartet (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Conf., White Jazz). If I recall correctly it’s in LA Confidential that Ellroy begins the more clipped style that he would explore and expand further, but not necessarily to the better in later books. But LA Confidential is a terrific book and, in some ways, maybe even a better movie. I’m sure it was very difficult to condense down all the plots and characters of the novel into a cohesive movie that kept the mood, tone and spirit of the book. But screenwriters Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson, who also directed, did a terrific job. I went back and reread the novel after seeing the movie for about the 90^th time (I’m hardly exaggerating) and had (and still do have) a hard time deciding which I like better. But I think at this point the movie has become the story for me for better or for worse.

The Postman Always Rings Twice: Another movie based on a James M. Cain novel. Imho, another great adaptation of a terrific crime novel. And no matter how much one loves the novel can it beat Lana Turner’s entrance in the movie?

Out of the Past: Another of my all-time favorite film noirs. Adapted by Geoffrey Homes from a novel by Daniel Mainwaring, who is Geoffrey Homes, so it’s sort of like the song Constantinople and Istanbul (“Istanbul was Constantinople, Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople...”). The novel’s title is Build My Gallows High and in the movie Jane Greer, one of the deadliest femme fatales, says: “Don't you see you've only me to make deals with now?” To which Robert Mitchum replies, “Build my gallows high, baby.” Another great adaptation of a great noir book.

Dark Passage: based on the novel of the same name by David Goodis. I actually think this adaptation is better than the book. I liked this movie so much that many years ago, after having seen it a couple times, I wanted to see who wrote the book it was based on. From there I read the novel and went on to read all of Goodis’ novels. He’s become one of my favorite noir writers, the “poet of the losers,” as Geoffrey O'Brien calls him. But speaking of good and bad adaptations, my favorite Goodis book is Down There, made into the movie Shoot the Piano Player by Francois Truffaut. Love the book, the movie, in which the characters are transposed to France, not so much....

The Maltese Falcon: What can you say? A great book by Hammett. A terrific movie by John Huston. One of the best in both categories.

In a Lonely Place: The screen version is written by Andrew Solt and Edmund H. North, directed by Nicholas Ray. I’ve mentioned this here and elsewhere, to me the movie version is hands and fists better than the novel. Why? Because it’s more ambiguous and ambivalent. Spoiler: In the novel, by Dorothy B. Hughes, we know that Dix (the Bogart character in the film) is a stone cold bad guy from the get-go. In the movie, we’re just not sure. That makes all the difference for me, especially in his relationship with Gloria Grahame. This is one of my favorite movies of all time of any genre, actually tied for second place with Ghost World, and just behind my fave, Casablanca. This is a terrific noir and a great movie. And, of course, every time I mention it I have to mention the Smithereens song of the same name, which “borrows” and paraphrases these lines from the film: “I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.” And, as a sidenote, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, though if I have sorry to repeat, I bought a one sheet poster of the movie from Pat DiNizio (lead singer and songwriter of the Smithereens), so every time I look at the poster I think about him sitting under it, writing that song. Doubt he’d remember me, but for me that’s a cool memory.

Click here to see a YouTube video

Raymond Chandler: Oh, you say, he’s not a movie or a book. But he wrote both and many of his works were adapted to the big screen and he’s just plain in a class by himself. Too many to discuss here, but here’s a sampling. The Big Sleep: Even though nobody, including Chandler, could totally follow the plot, it’s still a great movie, a pretty good adaptation and it has Bogie and Bacall...and Elisha Cook, Jr. Who could ask for more? Murder, My Sweet, based on Farewell, My Lovely. Dick Powell wanted to reinvent himself and his career, from youthful singing idol to tough guy. He did it here and he did it well. To be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the book, but I love the movie version. Can’t beat Mike Mazurki as Moose Malloy and Claire Trevor is always terrific. Lady in the Lake: Interesting experiment by director-star Robert Montgomery, using the subjective camera technique. I’ve grown to like this more over time. And on the flipside, The Long Goodbye, one of my favorite Chandler books, but hey that’s like saying one of my favorite Beatle albums. I love them all! But I hate this movie with a passion. I don’t think Elliot Gould’s portrayal is what Chandler had in mind. I know some people love it. You’re entitled to your opinion...even if you’re wrong ☺. The only thing I like about this movie is the Hightower Apartments in Hollywood, where Gould/Marlowe lives and where I once looked for an apartment. Sorry I didn’t take it.

On the opposite side of the tracks, a couple movies that were horrible adaptations:

Shoot the Piano Player: As mentioned above, adapted by the great Francois Truffaut from a book I love. Unfortunately, I don’t think it really works and I’d love to see another version that sticks closer to the book.

Bonfire of the Vanities: I put this here because it does involve crime. It was a great book that examined a lot of pertinent issues. But the filmmakers didn’t have the courage of their convictions and didn’t make the book at all. They tried to turn it into a silly farce or satire, but all they got was a mosh pit cesspool of crap. Why they bought it in the first place I’ll never know. If they wanted to make another movie they should just have commissioned a screenplay. But let this be a warning to anyone selling to Hollywood: once you do, they can do whatever they want with your property and once it goes through the Hollywood Grinder you might not even recognize it.

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And now for some delightful BSP – remember, there’s a P at the end of the BS!


Vortex: My new Mystery-Thriller novella coming September 1^st.

...a nonstop staccato action noir... Vortex lives up to its name, quickly creating a maelstrom of action and purpose to draw readers into a whirlpool of intrigue and mystery... but be forewarned: once picked up, it's nearly impossible to put down before the end.
—D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

Fade Out: flash fiction story – set at the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine – coming on Akashic’s Mondays Are Murder, Monday (big surprise, huh?), August 17^th. Here’s the link, but my story won’t be live till 8/17: http://www.akashicbooks.com/tag/mondays-are-murder/


Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and Twitter: @PaulDMarks

And check out my updated website www.PaulDMarks.com

Click here to subscribe to my Newsletter: Subscribe to my Newsletter

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Sex, Lies and Character Traits

by Paul D. Marks

Those in the writing know often suggest that writers prepare character profiles for each of their major characters. If you follow this approach, what do you tend to highlight? And if not, how do you keep track of your characters as the story progresses?

Before I respond to the question, from the Official Department of BSP:



This blog post was done a couple days ago, ready to be scheduled. So I’m happy I waited on that since I have to add something additional to it: Macavity Award finalists were announced yesterday. I’m thrilled and honored that my short story, “Howling at the Moon,” from Ellery Queen, is one of the nominees in the short story category. And honored to be in the company of Craig Faustus Buck, Barb Goffman, Travis Richardson and our own Art Taylor. Yea, Art!  But the good news doesn’t stop there, fellow Criminal Mind Catriona McPherson’s novel “A Deadly Measure of Brimstone” is nominated in the Best Historical Novel category and she’s also nominated in the Best Mystery Novel category for “The Day She Died”. Yea, Catriona!

I want to thank Janet Rudolph and everyone who voted. I hope you’ll all read all the nominated stories and books. I believe most of the short stories are online. Here’s a link to the Anthony Award short story nominees, of which four, Art, Craig, Barb and I are also nominated. So if you scroll down to the short story awards, there will be links to our four stories that are also Macavity finalists: http://bouchercon2015.org/anthony-awards/  And you can find Travis’ story in ThugLit issue #13.

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And now to the question at hand:

Mostly I just try to keep it in my head these days. So, of course, my head is about ready to explode.

When I first started writing, I often made a character profile chart. It had all the usual stuff, background, eye color, favorite foods, cars, etc. And I would diligently fill it out. But these days I really do keep most of it in my head. I might make a few notes about the various characters, either in a computer file or on a piece of paper, but I don’t fill out any forms anymore.

By the time I sit down to write, I’ve usually been thinking about the characters and major plot points in my head for some time. And since many of my characters are, at least in part (composites), based on people I know or know of, it’s sort of easy to keep it together. The problem is when you’re working on more than one thing at a time they can all run together.

The main concern with characters is to be consistent. What’s important is to keep track of what you’ve actually said in a work or series so the characters remain true to themselves/consistent. On a very simplistic level if a character likes chocolate at the beginning and hates it at the end, people will be taken out of the moment, out of the “reality” of your story. Unless that’s your character arc, how and why he comes to hate chocolate by the end.

Remember, too, that you don’t have to use every bit of background in your character profile. It’s good for the writer to know all these things, because these traits will make the character act or react in various situations. But maybe it’s not necessary for the reader to know everything – just enough to buy any actions on the part of the character.

That said, when I occasionally teach a writing seminar or class, I do tell the students about character profiles and even hand one out. I think it’s a good thing for people who are starting out because it does make you think about these things.

Another good tool is Proust’s Questionnaire. Change ‘you’ in the questions to your character’s name and it will really get you thinking about who your character is.

Proust’s Questionnaire:
1.    What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2.    What is your greatest fear?
3.    What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
4.    What is the trait you most deplore in others?
5.    Which living person do you most admire?
6.    What is your greatest extravagance?
7.    What is your current state of mind?
8.    What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9.    On what occasion do you lie?
10.    What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11.    Which living person do you most despise?
12.    What is the quality you most like in a man?
13.    What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14.    Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15.    What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16.    When and where were you happiest?
17.    Which talent would you most like to have?
18.    If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19.    What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20.    If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21.    Where would you most like to live?
22.    What is your most treasured possession?
23.    What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24.    What is your favorite occupation?
25.    What is your most marked characteristic?
26.    What do you most value in your friends?
27.    Who are your favorite writers?
28.    Who is your hero of fiction?
29.    Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30.    Who are your heroes in real life?
31.    What are your favorite names?
32.    What is it that you most dislike?
33.    What is your greatest regret?
34.    How would you like to die?
35.    What is your motto?

Some of these questions hit on a deeper level than what’s your character’s favorite food which, no doubt, you can find on Facebook, as they post one pic after another of their daily cuisine.

For those who are interested, there are many variations of character profile forms online. Just search “character profile”.

There are more things one can ask about their character or put in their character’s “profile”, but I think this is a good start.

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More great news:

My story “Ghosts of Bunker Hill” was just picked up by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Not sure when it will be published yet. Set on today’s Bunker Hill in Los Angeles, not that other one back East. But the ghosts of Chandler, Fante and Cain are there in force.

And my noir mystery-thriller novella, Vortex, will be out soon. Advance Reader Copies are available if anyone’s interested. Hardcopy. E-version, stone tablets, hieroglyphics, Cuneiform, written on sand, any format. Choose your poison. Contact me at Paul@PaulDMarks.com if you’re interested.

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And please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my updated website www.PaulDMarks.com  

Subscribe to my Newsletter: http://pauldmarks.com/subscribe-to-my-newsletter/

Pick Your Poison: Short Stories, Series Novel or Standalone

Which do you prefer writing; short stories, standalone novels or series? Why?

by Paul D. Marks

Each form comes with its own set of challenges. But with each there’s the thrill of starting something new. And then with each you reach a point where you just wish it was done and you were on to the next thing.  It’s sort of like starting a project around the house. At first you’re all eager and pumped. You can’t wait to see the results. But about halfway through you wish you’d never started it and just want to be on the couch watching an old black and white movie like Double Indemnity or Out of the Past, eating pizza and wishing you could write something like that.

Short stories have the challenge of doing it all in a short time.  You have to weave everything together in a small amount of space.  And in some ways this is the most challenging thing to do. As a “pantster,” I find myself writing way too much and then spending most of my time editing and cutting out the fat. Short stories have to be pithy and get to the point without a lot of extraneous details. But at the same time you need to make the little details pack an extra punch, so you have to be meticulous in picking the right words, actions and characters.

Series novels present their own challenges. What comes to mind first is the task of keeping the series character/s interesting and growing.  In the first book you’re setting everything up and intro’ing everyone so everything is new and fresh to you, the writer, as well as the reader. But by book nine what do you do? Check out some of your favorite series where the plots and characters seem to have grown tired.  Or is it just the author who’s grown tired? And though I only have one novel published, I do have the sequel written (the reason that it hasn’t been published yet is a long, winding and torturous road, best left for another time).  But in the sequel it was a challenge to be consistent with what had taken place in the first novel. Sort of like being the continuity person on a movie set and having to make sure the vase of flowers is in the same position as before when you change camera angles in a scene. Plus you have to backfill a little on the plot and characters in the previous novel/s for people who missed earlier entries in the series. And there is an art to doing that without it reading like a laundry list or boring the reader with exposition.

Standalone novels can be fun because, unlike a short story, you have the freedom to develop plot and characters, the way you did with the first book in your series.  You’re inventing a new world from the ground up and that’s always exciting. Whereas in a series you sort of already have some things worked out for you – you know the character and the setting and you have a starting point (usually the end of the previous book) so you have something to work with.

As to which I prefer, basically whatever I’m working on at the moment...until I get tired of it and then I prefer what’s next at bat and start working it up in my head, and go after that one with all my enthusiasm...until...

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And for a little BSP. I’ll be at Bouchercon next week. Here’s my sked:

Thursday: 4pm, Regency D. “Short But Mighty––The Power and Freedom of the Short Story.” With fellow Criminal Mind Art Taylor.  And Travis Richardson (M), Craig Faustus Buck, Barb Goffman, Robert Lopresti.

Friday: 6:30pm: The Shamus Awards banquet, where I’ll be a presenter.

Saturday: 2:30-3:30, signing books for Down and Out Books in the book room.

Come by and say hello.

The Good, The Bad and The Bookly!

Is it true that bad books make good movies and good books make bad ones?

There's no hard and fast rule about whether good books make bad movies or bad books make good ones. There's only about a million factors involved, from the screenwriters to the director, the producer, cast and probably even down to the crafts services personnel. And let's not forget the source material.

Books and movies by their natures are very different beasts and require different aesthetics and elements. Movies have to convey a lot of information in a small amount of time, so overly complicated story lines can drag a movie down. Books can handle information in a more leisurely manner, description of places and people are more important, and you can get more into the heads of the characters, examine their thoughts and feelings. A book has to wrap you up inside itself because it can’t rely on a visual picture to get across the look and feel of the characters and settings. And a movie should grab the essence of the book, without necessarily being true to every detail of it (see LA Confidential below). These changes can – on occasion – make the movie better than the book.

So, some good books make good movies and some good books make bad movies. And some bad books make good movies and some make bad movies. Well, of course, nothing is true all the time. And I wouldn't venture a generality, but it works both ways.

It's hard to narrow it down to a few examples as there's so many choices of each combination. And it's also hard to distill down the essence of why this worked and that didn’t, as each one that I've chosen could stand an entire essay on that subject. Here's a sampling, though I'm sure not everyone will agree with my assessments. And I'm sure I'll offend somebody with each one, but here goes (in no particular order):

Spoilers ahead:

In a Lonely Place (Dorothy B. Hughes): Good book, great movie. This is tied for my second favorite movie after Casablanca. I like it for a lot of reasons, but especially the story of the angry and alienated screenwriter. And I know I may offend some people here, Dorothy B. Hughes fans in particular, but for me the movie version is a huge improvement over the book, and I liked the book, but I didn't love it. The book, as I recall it, is a pretty straight-forward serial killer story. The movie takes the basics of the book and adds an ambiguity that leads to a much more bittersweet and poignant story and ending than in the book. So this is a case where the filmmakers did change a certain essence of the story, but it works out for the better. And if you want to hear a really good song based on this movie check out the Smithereens' "In a Lonely Place," which even cops a couple of the film’s most famous lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro6mucYQeN4

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown): Bad book, bad movie. Sometimes bad books make bad movies. I know a lot of people like this, but in my maybe not so humble opinion, the book was very poorly written. It's a prime example of a great idea poorly executed. And the movie didn’t try to break out of the cardboard characters created in the book. It concentrated on remaining relatively faithful to the plot and didn’t stray so the movie remained as weak as the book.

Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe): Great book, horrendously horrible, piece of garbage movie: Why? Because, if I recall, as it's been a long time since I've seen it and I won't punish myself with wasting two hours of my life again, the producers didn't have the courage to do the book. The book is filled with various sensitive and controversial elements that deal with race and our perceptions of justice in society and the producers didn't have the courage to do that on the screen, so they turned it into a lame parody of what the book was trying to convey. And the movie was bad on every possible level.

The Godfather (Mario Puzo): Okay book, a fun and quick read, great movie. In fact, one of the greatest American movies of all time. The movie, through great acting, directing, cinematography, a haunting sound track and a terrific screenplay, took a pulpy story about gangsters and made it a saga about family honor, tradition, a way of life and the struggle for the American Dream.  

LA Confidential (James Ellroy): Good book, great movie: Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland took Ellroy's sprawling novel, condensed it, pureed it and simplified it, making a tight, cohesive and powerful movie out of it, while still keeping the essence of the novel intact.

Mildred Pierce (James M. Cain): Good, maybe just okay book, good movie (the 1946 version w/ J. Crawford). Here the screenwriters and director took a major liberty with the book. SPOILER AHEAD: In the book the Monte character (Mildred's second husband) does not get murdered. In the movie he does. And this brings more tension, drama and mystery to the movie, without, IMO, messing with the basic integrity of the story line. And while the Kate Winslett mini-series follows the book more closely, to me it was more plodding and in a word, boring. Though I guess I'm in the minority here as on IMDB the Winslett version gets 7.7 out of 10 stars, and the Crawford version 8. So almost a neck and neck tie. Oh well.

The Long Goodbye (Raymond Chandler) – Great book, wretched movie. Okay, I know a lot of people love this movie, think it's some kind of cult classic, etc. To me the only really good thing about it is the location of Marlowe's apartment, the Hightower Apartments in Hollywood, where I once looked into renting a place. Really cool building. But Elliot Gould's Marlowe, despite what some say is a Marlowe for the times (the 1970s), is not Chandler's Marlowe by a long shot. And Chandler was, and probably still is, rolling over in his grave at this one. And now that I've pissed off a bunch of people, I've got the Kevlar helmet and flak jacket ready to take the incoming.

 
And now for a little BSP: in addition to my novel WHITE HEAT, just out is LA LATE @ NIGHT, a collection of noir and mystery short stories. So far available on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback. And other venues shortly too.

  

A Moveable Inspiration

Who do you count as your early-on writing inspirations when you were getting started. Has that changed over time? How? Why? 

by Paul D. Marks

My writing inspirations are all over the place. Initially, I aspired to be a latter-day Hemingway, sitting on the Left Bank, sipping absinthe, chatting with my literary buddies. I wanted to live the romantic, adventurous life that Hemingway describes in A Moveable Feast. Yes, I liked his clipped and concise writing style, and his philosophy of the clean, well-lighted place, as well as the eponymous story, but I also loved the idea of that writer's life and lifestyle – so his influence is, or was, as much about the writer's lifestyle as his writing style. But when I tried it, drinking and writing, I just wanted to play – got no work done. Along with Hemingway comes Fitzgerald. Stylistically different, the two just naturally fit together, at least in my mind. One of my favorites stories is still Hemingway's short story, Soldier's Home, which I read every year or two.

But my writing influences don't only come from books and authors. I've always loved movies, uh, films, since before I could walk. And a lot of my writing has been influenced by them. I saw anything and everything I could, especially on the big screen. And though there's been a lot of influence from the movies in my work, from Frank Capra and screwball comedies to Alfred Hitchcock's suspense tales, and more modern directors like Martin Scorsese and even John Dahl, the thing that's stuck with me the most is film noir. I think I'm addicted, intervention needed.
I'm also one of those people who, while everyone else is leaving the theatre, is standing there, craning my neck around them, to see the credits. I've always been interested in who wrote a movie and, if it was based on a book, who wrote that.

So from this jumping off point, I began reading James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and other writers whose works were turned into noir or mystery movies. One of my favorites is  David Goodis (right), whose novel Dark Passage, was made into a movie with Bogie and Bacall. Having watched and liked that movie, I began reading Goodis, starting with the book that that movie was based on. But my favorite Goodis is Down There, made into the movie Shoot the Piano Player by Francois Truffaut. I have to say, though, that I'm not a fan of the movie, but the original book is terrific if you like down and dirty noir stories. Goodis has been called the "poet of the losers" by Geoffrey O'Brien, and his stories deal with failed lives and people who are definitely on the skids. They're often people who weren't always in this position though and the interesting part is seeing how they deal with their downfall – not always so well.

Along with film noir, the early hardboiled writers (though there is some crossover) have influenced my mystery-noir sensibility: Chandler, Cain, Hammett, Dorothy B. Hughes, etc. Along with these writers comes John Fante, although I'm not sure Fante would fit either the noir or hardboiled categories. Nonetheless his thinly disguised autobiographical tales of a struggling writer's life in early 20^th century L.A. made enough of an impression on me that I wrote to him shortly before he died.
Later on I was drawn to Ross MacDonald with his psychological insights and James Ellroy with his corrupt and sultry grittiness. But for me Chandler, with his elegant descriptions, metaphors, characters, depiction of the mean streets and his ville fatale relationship with Los Angeles, will always be on top, as high above everyone else in his field as the Beatles are in theirs. They are sui generis, in classes by themselves.

What draws me to these writers and the noir and mystery genre in books and films is that they're about the other side of the American Dream. There's an inner core of darkness and corruption in society, a feeling of fear and paranoia. There's a moral ambiguity in the writings of most of these writers and in these films. They are the equivalent of an Edward Hopper painting (another major influence on my writing) with its cold light and shadows, filled with a sense of alienation and angst.
In much of noir and some hardboiled writing (and there is often, though not always a difference between the two) there's no sense of redemption, but much betrayal. No good guys, just bad guys and worse guys. The hero is flawed. People's own flaws and weaknesses create their fallibility and ultimately lead to their downfall. I think this appeals to me in the sense that it's a realistic, though often pessimistic and cynical, view of society. And in my own writing, both in my novel White Heat and many of my short stories, the characters are flawed, the situations ambiguous.

And now to throw a monkey wrench into the works, my two favorite books of all time are not hardboiled or noir, but both have influenced me in many ways. They are The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham and The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. The former because I relate to the character of Larry Darrell on a lot of levels, his disillusionment after the war (WWI), and his search for peace and meaning in life. And the latter because it's the ultimate revenge story and revenge is so satisfying, served cold or otherwise.

As to whether or not my inspirations have changed over time, the answer is not really. The old ones are still there, but new ones get added to the list all the time, everyone and everything from Walter Mosely, Carol O'Connell and Michael Connelly, to movies like Ghost World and Pulp Fiction.
And finally, the other early – and continuing – inspiration for my writing, as much as any writers or movies, is the City of Angels itself. I remember it well enough from when I was a kid that it still resembled Chandler's L.A. And later, my friend Linda and I would drive around the city, heading out in all directions, searching out the old buildings and the ghosts of old L.A.

L.A. is my own ville fatale. She is my mistress and a harsh mistress, indeed. But she is also my muse. But that's a whole 'nother story for the sequel.