Malice Domestic—What a Hoot!

Malice is a conference for traditional mystery writers and their fans.  Think Agatha Christie and cozies, but it’s a big tent.  We had Laura Lippman and Harlan Coban, so many styles are represented. 

The big fun the first day was “Malice Go Round”—speed dating with authors.  We sat at about 20 round tables and every five minutes two authors moved to the next table and had two minutes each to “pitch” their books.  What an experience; what a strange world.  There were the “Orchard mysteries” (One Bad Apple, Rotten to the Core), Museum mysteries, Irish mysteries, “Book Club” mysteries—every month some member of the book club finds a body, Cheese shop mysteries (To Brie or not to Brie, Lost and Fondue), Cookbook mysteries—several authors include recipe cards, Yarn shop mysteries (Last Wool and Testament) , and so on.  Many amateur sleuths had pets.  Some of the cats solved the crimes—“he’s like Sam Spade with hairballs.”  Some of the dogs dug up the corpses.  The authors were quick to point out that there was murder, but no pets were harmed. 

Some of these ideas sounded pretty goofy to me.  But all the pitches were in earnest.  

Hildie Block Workshops

Writer friend Hildie Block has a new web site, officially opening Monday, March 25.  It’s a real sharp looking site, and she says she did it herself.  If you’re a writer (especially in the Washington, D.C. metro area) you should visit soon. 

 

One of the best things about a writing class from Hildie Block is that it comes with a lifetime personal service contract at no extra charge.  Anytime I have a question about agents, publishing or advancing my career, Hildie is always ready to respond with help.

A second thing, very important to a person of my sensibilities, is that Hildie is kind.  In this modern world, in the teaching and study of writing, I cannot overstate the importance of kindness.  A little bit makes a big difference.  Kindness helps Hildie make students into writers, and into friends.  

Finally, one of my big thrills about taking classes from Hildie was getting published.  I think it was the second prompt she put up in a class, “Ice.”  Just the one word.  I seized on it and wrote for 15 minutes.  I liked what I’d done and stuck with it.  And eventually, it became my second published short story (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2012). 

Be sure to visit:  www.hildieblockworkshop.com 

The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler

I decided to publish my first private eye short story, The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler, on Amazon for Kindle. This story was originally published in "Black Mask" in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Jan. 2011, so if I knew you back then, you may have already heard about it.  I'm trying to make my older work available as I build my author "brand."  If you like the story, please leave a review on Amazon or use your social media to help me spread the word.

This was my first short story about wino, pacifist, private eye Frank Swiver.  A blonde, somewhat the worse for wear, hires Frank to find her stolen car (hot boiler).  Frank doesn't know why she'd want to pay him big money for something the police could likely do better than he, for free, but he likes her money, and he likes the blonde, so he takes the case.  When he finds the car he also finds something in the trunk that makes him realize he's in to more than just grand theft auto.  

Amazon author page: 

 

Goldfish

I treated myself to a hard-bound copy of Everyman's Library's Collected Stories of Raymond Chandler late last year, and I've read the first ten in the collection—again.  Sure, I've read most of them before in Trouble Is My Business, (also a recent purchase), The Simple Art of Murder, and an obscure little paperback my wife found for me called Killer in the Rain.  Those three books contain twenty of Chandler's stories.  The P.I.s have various names, Mallory, John Dalmas, Carmady, Sam Delaguerra, et al.  They're mostly prototype Phillip Marlowes.  Some are first person narrators, but just as many stories are in third.  

There are some gems, but even the biggest Raymond Chandler fan (like me) would tell you there are some stinkers in there too.  For example, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," "Smart-Aleck Kill," and "Guns at Cyrano's" are vague, hard to understand, over-written, and have convoluted, specious plots.   

Other stories, such as "Killer in the Rain" are wonderful looks into how a writer developed his characters and plots over the years, from short stories into novels.  "Killer" features many of the basic characters of The Big Sleep, like the pornographer, H.H. Steiner, who became A.G. Geiger in the novel, the psycho-nymph Carmen Dravec, who became Carmen Sternwood, and Guy Slade who morphed into Eddie Mars.

Finally, there are stories like "Goldfish," some 15,000 words, like many of Chandler's stories, too long for today's mystery magazines, with great original scenes, hard-boiled bloodbaths, and a perfect noir finish.  If you haven't read it… do yourself a favor.        

Revisions

I finished the first draft of my second novel in Nov., and put it aside to ferment for a month.  Then I took it out and read through it as quickly as possible.  This is not so quick for me—I’m a slow reader, and besides, it was the holiday season.  But I read through it, doing no editing, only flagging pages that might need an edit.  This went well.  I’ve covered 177 pages so far, and I've only forgotten what I intended on one of the edit flags.  

The main purpose in reading the manuscript “in one sitting,” was to revise for structure changes.  I enjoy my own work, but I tried to be critical.  I found two things that I thought came under the category of structural edits.  One was a scene that needed to be moved.  It was good stuff, and provides the detective with clues or confirmation of something he suspected, but I had it in a spot where it slowed down the action.  I moved it to the right spot.

 

The other was challenging.  At the Bouchercon this fall in Cleveland, I attended a panel of folks who set their fiction in the good old noir days—the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s--and one of the panelists, Sally Wright, straddles the ‘60s and ‘40s with WWII memories in her Ben Reese novels.  She said something to the effect of “War memories come in nightmares.”   

Well, I had a long flashback sequence of my heroes, Frank, the P.I., Max, his one-eyed attorney, and Amanda, their mutual love interest, during the Spanish Civil War.  I decided to re-write the first half of it as one of Frank’s recurring Spanish Civil War nightmares. 

 

I didn’t change too much to accomplish this.  I wondered if I needed a special dream voice, or weird colors, or something ethereal to make it a dream, but it was a nightmare based on Frank's real memory, and I told it straight.  

Of course, I’ll probably have to wait until the next read through to know for sure if this worked.  But I like it. 

A Baker's Dozen Favorite Books

Ack!  I forgot to list The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, which now makes this a Baker's Dozen.

In no particular order:

For Whom the Bell Tolls—Ernest Hemingway

To Kill a Mockingbird—Harper Lee

The Big Sleep—Raymond Chandler

The Long Goodbye—Raymond Chandler

The Maltese Falcon—Dashiell Hammett

Mildred Pierce—James M. Cain

The Postman Always Rings Twice—James M. Cain

The Stranger—Albert Camus

Dubliners—James Joyce

The Great Gatsby—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Bright Lights, Big City—Jay McInernay

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—Hunter S. Thompson