Con Survival Tips by Josh Stallings

 Q: With Covid restrictions starting to ease, many of us are thinking of conferences and festivals. What are you planning? Any fond memories of past events you’d like to share?

A: I went to Bouchercon XXXVI with a messy early draft of my first novel and a dream that I’d sit in the lobby and a publisher would discover me like Lana Turner in Schwab’s and sign me up. That isn’t how it happened for me or Ms. Turner. The problem with this kind of magical thinking is it gets in the way of seeing the real magic. I didn’t sell my book for a bag of gold, instead I got to know fellow writers and readers. I discovered that regardless of how brutal some of our writing can be, members of the crime fiction community are some of the most generous, funny, caring people in the world. These people are the magic.

Many years later I’ve learned a thing or two, here is my guide to surviving crime fiction cons.

Managing my expectations. 

Early on I treated cons like they were legitimate business expenses. I paid X amount for travel and registration and that would boost my sales by X+. As a small press and self published writer I poured most of the profit from my early books into going to cons. I was lucky enough to get two of my books nominated for both Lefty and Anthony Awards. 

Nominated... Lou Berney won

I took out ads in programs, gave away merch… and none of that changed my sales. There are multiple reasons for this, one is that the sample group of readers at any convention is small, from a business lens. And in my case as a writer struggling towards the mid-list, I never found myself on a panel in Ballroom A talking with best sellers to a packed house. That might move the needle, don’t know, it’s never happened. But I suspect the group even in the “big room” still isn’t large enough to push me to “sack of gold” sales numbers. 

If I go to a con expecting that damn bag of gold, I am setting myself up for a resentment. Instead I go looking for joy and encouragement. To be reminded why I write. I love hearing smart people talking about the craft of writing. It fires my engine, I always come home exhausted but with my creative battery charged up. 

Stop comparing my career to other writer’s careers.

This applies to social-media as well as cons. In sobriety I learned “don’t compare your insides to other’s outsides.” Translation, “Just because they look like they have the world by its tail, doesn’t mean they aren’t wracked with the same fears and insecurities as you.” Maybe they just hide it better or, and this is the real truth - you haven’t gotten to know them well enough to find out how they really feel. 

My mind was blown when I discovered writers I considered monsters of the craft, also suffered from imposter syndrome. Not only did they, we spent time together helping each other get over it, or at least quiet its screaming in our heads. 

By not comparing my “chart standing” against others I’m able to see we are all fighting battles to put the best words on a page that we can. We are in this together. I am not alone.

Be here now.  

Wherever I am in my career is where I am now. Early in my film editing career I won some awards, garnered the respect of my peers, made a good living, and through most of it, when I wasn’t actually editing, I was busy planning my next move, or looking backwards hoping not to make past mistakes twice. I was looking anywhere but where I was standing. The actual process of film editing and writing force me to be present. They suck me into the world I am creating and block all else out. As I type these very words, it is me and the keys flying beyond time and space. It is my happy place, okay that was too much, sometimes it’s a happy place, sometimes it hurts, sometimes it’s fucking sad, sometimes it’s ecstatic. BUT, when typing I am present to all of it. I am only here now.

When sitting in the audience for a con panel, I have to be there, fully listening if I’m going to hear what I need to hear. When I’m on a panel, I have to be fully there, listening. If I’m on the dais planning something cute or cool to say, instead of listening, my comment won’t be cute or cool, it will be annoying and again I’ll miss what I need to hear.

This also applies to the lauded con bars. This is a real opportunity to get to know some amazing folks. I don’t want to blow it by putting on the “Josh Show.” My only defense against this defense mechanism, is to truly be present. 

Be grateful. 

The strongest tool against “they stole my success” syndrome is a gratitude list.

1) Today I’m grateful I get to spend my day solving creative problems.

2) Today I’m grateful for the support and respect of writers I really admire.

3) Today I’m grateful for readers. And getting a message from someone who thanks me for telling their story. 

4) Today I’m grateful for writers. Reading is the greatest and cheapest vacation, education, and cure for alienation that I know. Thanks writers.

5) Today I’m grateful for the special ed teacher who came up to me at Left Coast Crime after a panel. She had me sign TRICKY, and said, “I wanted to write about the people I’d met but couldn’t see how until that panel.” Something I said helped her see we don’t write about a monolithic intellectually disabled person, we write about specific people.

6) Today I’m grateful for writers who said nuggets of truth that have helped me get out of my own way as I write.

7) Today I’m grateful for Erika who will be editing these messy words as soon as I finish typing. She creates a safety-net that allows me to type with wild abandon.

8) Today I’m grateful for my sons and dogs and the woods and all the creatures in my world who show me how rich life is.

I have found that I can’t hold gratitude and envy in my heart at the same time. When I start to feel envy, I know it’s time to write a gratitude list. 

As for cons in the age of COVID, it is a case by case deal. We each need to evaluate our own risk vs reward ratio. I have people I care for who are immunocompromised, we don’t have unlimited funds, air travel is both expensive and scary, all of these are part of my personal equation. All of us have complicated lists of pros and cons so I don’t judge any of my crime family for their choices. And that is the bigger point, we are a family. We take care of each other. If some can’t make it this year, I know we will save a seat for them when things change and they can come back.  

If big gatherings are still too much, look around for smaller events. See what your local chapter of Sisters In Crime, or MWA are doing. Seek out local readings. Noir Bar readings aren’t just noir, they’re a great way to hang with writers. Find branches of our collective family tree that fit where you’re at right now.

I look forward to seeing you all, when ever and where ever we meet on this collective journey.

Guest Post: Stephanie Gayle, Vice-President Sisters in Crime

I was asked to write a piece about Sisters in Crime (SinC) because, in part, March is Women’s History Month and SinC was founded to address the disparity in opportunities and book reviews women crime authors received in comparison to their male peers. I could’ve written a piece about how much our organization has done, and changed, and grown, and what great initiatives we have planned. We’re doing good work, work I’m very proud of, but I can’t write about it now. Because I’m too angry. My hands keep clenching into fists.

Last week’s murders of eight people in Atlanta, six of whom were women of Asian descent, is still on my mind. The brutal shooting of Breonna Taylor is something I think of, often. These are real crimes committed in the real world against real women. Weaponized misogyny. And the responses to them by the police and the media beggar reason at times. The extension of sympathy to the killers, the “othering” of the victims, the rush to provide excuses for these terrible actions: it is too much to bear. And it keeps happening.

Reading fiction transports you to the interior of another person’s mind, feelings, and world. The reader ‘feels’ what the character feels. This creation of empathy is fascinating, and one of fiction’s most magical powers.

I often see calls to read fiction by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) creators in the wake of events such as the Atlanta murders. There is usually an associated uptick in calls for queries from BIPOC creators. I don’t how that strikes BIPOC writers. It seems like the world’s worst consolation prize, to me. Here, for your suffering, a chance at scaling the very white walls of publishing, for a limited time only.

Women’s History Month, like Black History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and Native American Heritage Month, is a time to celebrate the rich cultural history of a group of people who have been disregarded, excluded, and forgotten. I understand why some folks do not embrace the idea of relegating such a celebration to one month (especially one that happens to be the shortest of the year). I think, this year, my real trouble is that history involves looking backward. Lately, the rearview mirror is affording me few treasures.

So, I am setting my gaze ahead. And I am trying to figure out how best to uplift those demeaned, degraded, and devalued in our lives and in our fiction. And it is hard when those people are my friends. Because I know they are suffering, reliving past traumas with each fresh racist and sexist incident. If I feel paralyzed to write a jaunty blog post, what must they be feeling? They are expected to endure and to create in a hostile world that routinely silences them.

When we reckon what we have lost it is simple, but not easy, to count lives, to calculate families harmed. What is more complicated is to calculate the works that might have been, the rich stories that might have existed, if the world had been a place where all people could create and be heard and valued at the same rate.

I hope Sisters in Crime can help more writers tell their stories, can welcome people of all identities into our community, to share their visions of what justice means. But I’ll be honest. Hope is hard to nurture when your hands are clenched into fists.

Bio: Stephanie Gayle is the Vice President of the national board of Sisters in Crime. She wrote the Thomas Lynch mystery series, which starts with Idyll Threats. She co-created the Boston reading series Craft on Draft. A graduate of Smith College, Stephanie works at MIT doing finance stuff for "people too smart to do basic math."

If you'd like to find out more about Sisters in Crime: click here to connect to Sisters in Crime website

Connie di Marco: In a Stew About Promotion ;-)

Paul here. Today I’d like to welcome Connie di Marco, author, actress and super souper. As Connie di Marco she writes the Zodiac Mysteries from Midnight Ink, featuring San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti. Writing as Connie Archer, she’s also the author of the national bestselling Soup Lover’s Mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime. Her excerpts and recipes are featured in The Cozy Cookbook and The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook. She has appeared in numerous television and film roles under her professional name and lives in Los Angeles with her family and a constantly talking cat. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. You can visit her at www.ConniediMarco.com or www.ConnieArcherMysteries.com.

And now I have to worry that she’ll get even with me (see her post below) and slip a Mickey into my soup. So before that can happen, take it away, Connie:

With thousands of new titles being published every day, what do you do to try to raise your new book above the fray and catch the eye of readers?  

Oh, why do you have to ask this question??? I wish I could answer and offer some brilliant ideas! I have my friend Paul Marks to blame thank for inviting me over today, and for that I’ll get even with him. I will. 

See, I never even thought about being a writer, much less a marketer. I was busy doing all kinds of other things in life, but after years of being a devotée of mysteries and thrillers, and out of sheer creative frustration, I decided I would try to write a mystery and hopefully be traditionally published . . . someday . . . maybe. It wasn’t a burning obsession. Not really. 

Little did I realize that actually getting published would be like falling into the front seat of a roller coaster just as it was about to take off. I had barely enough time to get a website up and running when my agent called and said, “Well, you know you’ll have to blog and do giveaways and maybe write some magazine articles . . .” I freaked. 

I thought, I wrote a book! What else could I possibly have to say? 

Luckily for me, my very first book, A Spoonful of Murder, was a blessed little thing and when a senior editor at my publishing house two months after its release said, “Your book is in its third printing!” wine glass in hand, I was smart enough to shut my mouth for once and just nod. I was about to ask, “Is that good?” (I guess it was. That editor seemed impressed.) That’s how little I knew about the business of selling books. 

At the same time, everyone was warning me about the dreaded “sophomore effect,” so as time went on I figured I better get off my lazy (computer chair) and do something to keep sales up. That’s when I discovered I wasn’t too bad at running off at the mouth, er, blogging. So I did all the things that writers do – blog tours, interviews, library panels, book events, conferences, giveaways, you name it. But did I have a clue as to what was actually working, i.e., getting attention, selling books? Nope. And I still don’t know. 

At least with my first series, the Soup Lover’s Mysteries, I had a brand – soup! On blog tours I gifted crockpots and soup bowls to lucky winners. I gave out bookmarks at polling tables on voting days, and . . . I thought this was truly inspired (maybe a little embarrassing), I went to Costco and Target and Walgreens, any place that sold books, and inserted my bookmarks into every mystery, cozy, thriller and cookbook I could find. I thought, Why not? I’m not stealing anything. It’s a gift. Right? 

I haven’t as yet come up with any really unique ideas for my new series, the Zodiac Mysteries. Not

yet, but I hope inspiration will strike. I could offer a giveaway of an all-expense-paid trip to San Francisco where my astrologer protagonist solves city crimes, but it’s a wee bit out of my marketing budget. Maybe I could limit it to people who live between Oakland and Yountville? 

The deeper question here is how do we catch and harness that lightning bolt of . . . What? Success? Fame? Where publishers are beating on our front door and offering more and more bucks? 

When Anne Cleeves’ publisher released her first Vera book, pre-internet, it was overlooked and not even listed in the publisher’s catalogue. The series went nowhere. She kept writing. Fifteen years later, a producer in the UK found a Vera book in a charity shop and fell in love with Cleeves’ creation. 

Harrison Ford was once asked how he had achieved success in his career. He replied that he must have had ‘cultural utility.’ That answer gave me pause for thought. Is it that simple? Is there a face, a book, an idea whose time has finally arrived? Something that sparks notice or notoriety? As writers, how do we catch that pipeline wave (I’m mixing metaphors here) or even recognize that it’s on its way? Or more importantly, do we even want to be concerned with such things? Because then we’re writing for the marketplace, not from our hearts. 

We work in isolation, often oblivious to current trends. And everyone, even publishers are taken by surprise when a zeitgeist appears. Should we worry about that? Try to catch that wave? Or just write the best book we can and pour our heart and soul into it?

Five years later, I still ruminate over all those questions. But to be perfectly honest, after eight books, I’m a little tuckered out. I’m sick of marketing. I realize I hate Facebook. I don’t even know how to find the ‘pokes.’ 

Help Leslie Scaggs and Joy Meier celebrate their birthdays.

I don’t know them! Go away!!! 

And Twitter. 

Do you know Harriet Walker, Ellen Gillis and LynDee Stephens? 

Hell, no!

Yes, I do tweet. Or as Stephen Colbert once famously said, “I have twotted.” 

I hate LinkedIn even more, it nags you mercilessly.

Connie, people are looking at your LinkedIn profile.

Tell them to f&*$% . . . 

So – do I have any bright ideas? Something that will sell tons of books? Nope. I wish I did because if there were some magic bullet, believe me I would use it. I’m back to square one. I guess the best and only thing we can all do is write the next book, and continue to Tweet, blog, post on FB, get to conferences, be interviewed and dust off our psyches and just keep on keepin’ on. 

But the most important thing is to write the next book and make sure it’s a really good one! And who knows? Maybe that next one will get zapped by the lightning bolt of great success. 

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Thanks, Connie and good luck!

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And now for the usual BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is coming out in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magaine, on sale at newsstands starting April 25th. Or click here to buy online starting 4/25.

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Anthony Nominations close in about 2 weeks. Which is 2 weeks in which you can still read my story “Ghosts of Bunker Hill,” from the 12/16 Ellery Queen. And which was voted #1 in Ellery Queen’s Readers Poll for 2016. It’s available FREE on my website along with “Nature of the Beast,” published on David Cranmer’s Beat to a Pulp, and “Deserted Cities of the Heart,” published in Akashic’s St. Louis Noir. All from 2016 and all eligible. Click here to read them for free.

www.PaulDMarks.com

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Thankful and Grateful

Thanksgiving Week in the USA, and a good time for all of us - wherever we might be from, or live now - to take stock. What are you most thankful for in your writing career?

by Paul D. Marks

I’m glad this said what are you most thankful for in your writing career. ’Cause I’m grateful for a lot of things in my career. And, for the most part, I don’t mind talking about them. But if this had been a more personal question I might have begged off since I like to keep those things close to the vest. Especially as, at the moment, I’ve had some issues that are pissing me off mightily. The whole last week/ten days has been one lousy thing after another, though none related to writing. And you tend not to feel real grateful when that happens. So this is a good exercise in helping to put things in perspective.

And I blew it, reading the question wrong, thinking it said what are you “grateful” for instead of what are you “thankful” for. But I’ll just leave it as is even though I could make a global change. It amounts to the same thing and I do feel a little foolish since it is, after all, Thanks-giving, not Grateful-giving.

As Cathy mentioned earlier in the week, it takes a village to raise a writer. It’s a rough road for most of us and unlikely that you just wake up one day with your finished book/story and everything goes well. It happens. It happened to a friend of mine at USC, who was walking through the cinema department one day when he got a call on the loudspeaker. He went to the office. They told him that Steven Spielberg was on the phone. Yeah, right, he thought, someone’s pulling my leg. But the only person pulling on him was Steven Spielberg, who’d seen his student film and wanted to produce my friend’s first feature. And the rest, as they say, is history. But that is the exception to the rule. Most of us work and struggle and play starving artist at least for a time. And when we do make it it’s often because there were people along the way who helped us and kept us from falling or making the mistakes they did.

So, what am I grateful for:

I’m grateful that I have/had the perseverance that it takes and that I didn’t give up.

I’m grateful for all the people along the way who took a chance on me and/or helped one way or another.

By Vojtech Sazel (Own work (Original text: self-made))
 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I’m grateful for computers, even as I curse them and Microsoft and Dell and the rest. I still love the technology, at least when it works. My long-ago writing partner was the first person I knew who got a personal computer, ancient technology by today’s standards. I went to his house one day, saw him move a paragraph from page 10 of a script to page 65. Wow! Coming from the world of IBM Selectrics and literally cutting and pasting pages or parts of them when we wanted to move them and then xeroxing the Scotch-taped page, that was a miracle. After that, I was the second person I knew to have a PC. Yup, high tech, 2 floppy drives and no hard drive… A Leading Edge, similar to the one in the pic here since that’s not my pic.

I’m grateful for Facebook. I’ve met a lot friends there, some of whom I’ve met in person, others I haven’t yet but hope to. And a lot of them have been very helpful in various ways and I hope I’ve returned the favors.

I’m grateful for my first paid writing gig, which just happened to be about John Lennon for one of the LA  newspapers. If you know me, you know how much I love the Beatles. So it was an honor of sorts to have my first paid writing be for something about one of them. But that was the silver lining to the dark cloud, because the article was on the one year anniversary of John’s death.

I’m grateful to have won the Shamus Award (and some others) and to have been nominated and short-listed for the Anthony and Macavity and to have come in #7 in the Ellery Queen Readers Poll one year. Wow! That’s enough to make your head spin.

I’m grateful people actually read and liked White Heat and Vortex and my short stories.

I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made.

I’m grateful for Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, where I’ve also made friends and learned a hell of a lot.

I’m grateful for my writers’ assistants, Egg and Little Egg. Bogey and Audie. Curley and Moe. And now Pepper and Buster. See the pic of Super Assistant Curley. He used to help me write, tapping away at the keyboard. Sometimes I liked what he wrote better than what I was doing.

I’m grateful to have grown up in the film noir country of L.A. and to have been exposed to all kinds of movies and writing and art in my life that I could then use in my writing to give it more life (I hope). And I’m grateful for the highs and lows and in-betweens of my life, which also have given me things to write about and draw on. I’m grateful for the adventures of one kind or another that I’ve had, some good, some not so good, but all good fodder for writing.

I’m grateful for my friend Nancy, who I’ve not seen in decades, but who taught me that grateful is spelled like that and not like this: greatful. And who, when she worked at MGM, gave me a secret insider’s history of the studio that’s never been published to my knowledge and that impressed the hell out of the authors of MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot when I showed it to them, as they’d heard of it but had never seen it.

I’m grateful for this place, Criminal Minds, where I can answer questions and spout opinions, express my weird sense of humor and even do some BSP. And grateful for my fellow Minds. I’m grateful to have been asked to join by Sue Ann Jaffarian and the other folks here at the time. And grateful to still be here. Grateful also to have been asked to blog at SleuthSayers by Rob Lopresti and Leigh Lundin. Another place for me to spout off ;) .

I’m grateful for rain in L.A. – now send more!

And last but not least, I’m grateful, not greatful, for my wife, Amy, who’s stood by me through thick and thin, ups and downs, both professional and personal. And certainly we’ve had our own ups and downs but we’ve always stuck together and stuck by each other. She’s my biggest fan and my best friend.

And I could go on even though when I first saw this question I wondered what the hell I would say, but it turns out when you—when I—stop and think about it I have a lot to be grateful for.

What are you grateful for in your writing life?

So, as this is the day after Thanksgiving, I hope you all had a good one!

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And now for something not quite completely different: My story “Ghosts of Bunker Hill” is in the brand new, hot off the presses December 2016 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Get ’em while you can. And if you like the story, maybe you’ll remember it for the Ellery Queen Readers Award (the ballot for which is at the end of this issue), and others. Thanks.

Oh, and that is, of course, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, not that “other” one on the East Coast. And more on this in a future blog.

www.PaulDMarks.com

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SinC Blog Hop: Blog the Night Away!

by Paul D. Marks

Well, it’s my turn to hop on the Sisters in Crime blog hop. Art Taylor passed the baton to me last week, so now it’s my turn to hijack our weekly question. (And I’m tagging Susan Shea, you’re up next.)

To participate, I have to:

(a) ignore our regularly scheduled weekly question

(b) choose a question from the list below & answer it here today

(b) tag another Criminal Mind to take the next turn

The Question Choices:

1. Which authors have inspired you?

2. Which male authors write great women characters?

3. If someone said, "Nothing against women writers, but all of my favorite crime fiction authors happen to be men," how would you respond?

4. What's the best part of the writing process for you? What's the most challenging?

5. Do you listen to music while writing? What's on your playlist?

6. What books are on your nightstand right now?

7. If you were to mentor a new writer, what would you tell her about the writing business?

I’m going with #6. I know Robin did this a few weeks back, but there’s only a limited number of questions so I figured I’d give it a shot too. At least for the “short list” of nightstand books.  I’m also including digital books here, that might not be on the physical nightstand. And I’m purposely leaving off any books by people I know personally in case I might accidentally leave someone out, so they don’t come after me with a blackjack in the middle of the night.

Right now, I’m in the middle of reading Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons and Keith Richards’ autobiography, Life. The former because I like to mix things up and read different kinds of books, even though I mostly write mystery-suspense and the latter because, like Joan Jett, well, I love rock ‘n’ roll. I love the Stones and Keith—the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll outlaw. I also enjoy reading about writers, artists, musicians in general. I feel their pain, to quote another rock star...

In the on-deck circle are several books. But they can change. Things go in and out of the pile, often before I might get to them. So, in no particular order.

Viveza: The Secret to Creating Breathtaking Photography by Robin Whalley; and Plug In with Nik by John Batdorff: I bought the Nik suite of photographic tools/programs some time ago, but haven’t really had a chance to play around with it/them and learn by doing, so I figured if I bought a book or two I could read about it and at least feel like I was getting something out of the programs.

Goodis: A Life in Black and White by Phillipe Garnier—a biography of David Goodis, the “poet of

the losers,” a phrase coined by Geoffrey O’Brien. Goodis wrote the books on which the Bogie-Bacall movie Dark Passage and Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player (book title Down There), among several other films, are based. I’m a huge Goodis fan and have been waiting years (decades?) for this book to be translated into English—the only full-length bio on Goodis, to my knowledge. Got it as soon as it came out.  I started to read it, but was disappointed that it had no index or table of contents, things I really appreciate in non-fiction books, so I sort of set it aside, though I’m sure I will get back to it.

The Poet by Michael Connelly—I’ve read this one before and I think it’s Connelly’s best book. And just have the urge to read it again.  ‘Cause I like spending time with the scum of the earth.

It Happens in the Dark by Carol O’Connell—Well, just because I love Carol O’Connell and her tough as nails (and I do mean nails) NYPD detective Kathy Mallory, but don’t ever call her Kathy. Mallory only. But this shows how far behind I am, as this book is about a year old and I still haven’t gotten to it.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein—This has been on my “to read” shelf for a long time and I just can’t bring myself to read it.  I like animals too much, especially my own, and I think it might be too much of a downer.

Await Your Reply by Dan Chabon—I read a review of this when it first came out and thought it sounded like an interesting and intriguing story.  And still do.  I will get to it, soon, I hope.

Perfidia by James Ellroy—Well, this one’s complicated.  I used to be an Ellroy fanatic. Would go to all of his LA signings, including one time when he even had a band with him.  And these signings are events in themselves. You either love ‘em or hate ‘em, Ellroy too.  Now here’s the complicated part: I don’t have the book yet.  In the “olden” days I would have bought it the day it came out (about two weeks ago), and there’s still part of me that wants to read it, but I’ve been disappointed by Ellroy lately. He’s adopted that staccato style, but has gone way too far in that direction to the point where some of his work is unreadable, at least to me.  So, while I still have an affinity for him, I haven’t been able to get through his last couple of books.  And, while Perfidia sounds interesting and like something I would like subject-wise, I’m also gun-shy about getting it and then not being able to get into it.  So, while normally it would shoot to the top of my pile, right now it’s on the phantom night stand. And maybe one day it will make to the solid, real-world nightstand. Maybe...

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And, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’d also like to respond briefly to this week’s regular 7 Criminal Minds question:

Is there a novel that you're afraid to write, that you're waiting to attempt until you're older/your mother dies/your skill level matches your ambition?

There’s nothing that I’m afraid to write—I guess I’m either fearless or stupid or both. But there is a Big Book that I’ve been wanting to write for years.  It spans most of the twentieth century, with several storylines that ultimately intertwine.  I’ve made notes on it, even a chart, so long ago it’s handwritten on a huge piece of paper, BC: Before Computers.  That’s how long I’ve had this idea.

And, while some ideas come and go, and some seem great at the time, but not so much later, this one has stuck with me.  And one of these days I will do it. No, I’m not going to go into details here.  But it’s one of those backpocket stories that you just carry around until it has to come out.

Many years ago an agent asked me if I had a “Big Book,” ‘cause that’s what he was looking for.  I told him I did, but it wasn’t written. It’s still not written...but it will be one day.

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And a little BSP: I just launched my Facebook author page this week. So why not check it out and if you’re so inclined give it a ‘like’. Thanks. 

http://www.facebook.com/PaulDMarks.Author