August Words of Wisdom

 My life will be a continual voyage on an uncertain sea. (Nicolas de Stael)

 

At the beach - time you enjoyed wasting, is not wasted. (T.S. Eliot)

 

For me the novel is character creation. Style is nice, plot is nice, structure is OK, social significance is OK, symbolism worms its way in, timeliness is OK too, but unless the characters convince and live, the book's got no chance. (Larry McMurtry)

 

A book is a gift you can open again and again. (Garrison Keillor) 

 

Find out who you are and do it on purpose. (Dolly Parton) 

 

 

December Words of Wisdom

I am still under the impression that there is nothing alive quite so beautiful as a horse. (John Galsworthy) 

 

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. (Oscar Wilde)

 

Don't waste time on anything that doesn't thrill you or bring you love. (Gil Gerard, RIP) 

 

I still remember the days of sitting at book signings, playing with my pen when no one would come, and still I even then thought I was living the dream, because I had a book out. (Harlan Coben) 

 

The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest imaginable thing, and you work off the resonance. (Richard Price) 

 

 

Recent reading: "Hollywood Hustle"

Hollywood Hustle: A Thriller by Jon Lindstrom

 

Actor (General Hospital, Bosch, True Detective) turned novelist Jon Lindstrom was the guest at our December Sisters in Crime LA meeting and not only was he a fantastic speaker, his first novel, Hollywood Hustle, turned out to be a fantastic read.

 

Lindstrom's acting career began in the early 1980's and he's worked steadily ever since (he's also done some screenwriting and directing) so he knows how Hollywood really works and how tough and unforgiving it can be, and at the meeting he mentioned how many people he'd seen give up over the years. Winston Greene, the protagonist of Hollywood Hustle, is one of the survivors. Once considered the next Kevin Costner, Greene's career was negatively affected by alcoholism and the tragic death of his wife in a car accident, but later in life he's sober and his career has settled into low-budget but steady work. The current dark spot in his life is his poor relationship with his grown daughter Clare, who shares not only a drug and alcohol fueled slovenly life with her loser husband, but also a six-year-old daughter Amy, who Win adores.

 

Hollywood Hustle starts off with a bang. Winston awakes to find Amy at his bedside. She leads him outside to the man who brought her there, and that guy informs Win that they have kidnapped Clare and will let him know about the ransom. In spite of not becoming the next Kevin Costner, Win is still famous enough to be recognized by the public and also famous enough that the kidnapping crew believes him to be movie-star wealthy. He's not, and that fact drives a lot of the drama as he desperately attempts to round up sufficient funds to save Clare. 

 

Lindstrom writes short, snappy chapters that help move the chaotic action along as it ricochets around Los Angeles, from Winston's home in Wrightwood, to Sylmar, Venice and various freeways, all introduced by their proximity to Hollywood. Lindstrom also does an absolutely amazing job of getting right into the action, then unfolding the story, doling out the colorful cast of characters, their backgrounds, and how they all reached the point where we meet them. As a writer who has struggled with this, I found it to be a master class in launching directly into the action while unspooling the backstory bit by bit as needed. The last time I was this impressed with this ability was Devil in a Blue Dress. Like the Walter Mosley novel, I'll be revisiting this one for both the story and for writing advice.

 

Lindstrom's next book, Hollywood Payback, will be released in April. I'm looking forward to it.

 

From the book:

 

Teddy took in a long breath and let it out. "This is a crew, Win. They've done it before. Maybe that's all they do, and they're usin' this car to let you know how far they'll take it. On a regular ol' sunny day I'd recommend callin' in the cavalry, but this time...I don't know." Faint sounds from the TV wafted through the floorboards. "What puzzles me is why they didn't just take her," he said, cocking his head downstairs toward Amy.

 

November Words of Wisdom

Traditions are answers that have been discovered to enduring questions. 

--Roger Scruton

 

Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves. 

--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

To the degree you approach the truth, your solitude will increase...Keep going. Don't be afraid. --Michel Houellebecq

 

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. --Albert Camus 

 

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. --William Wordsworth 

 

Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying? --Voltaire

 

How quickly we turn from damsel to dragon when we decide we've had enough of their shit. --Ann Marie Eleazer 

 

 

 

Punctuation humor

 

File this under Funny Cuz It's True.

 

H/T to The Heinlein Files on FB.

 

Recent reading: "Devil's Advocates: Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror"

Devil's Advocates: Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror 

by Cristina Massaccesi

 

Cristina Massacessi, a professor at University College London, takes an academic look at the creation of F.W. Murnau's horror classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, starting with the Expressionist movement during the Weimar Republic, through the film's production, release, and the suits brought by Florence Stoker, widow of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, Nosferatu's unauthorized source material. She then applies the Complex Discovery Plot template (from Noel Carroll's The Philosophy of Horror) to Nosferatu.

The book features a forward by E. Elias Merhige, director of Shadow of the Vampire, a fictional retelling of the making of Nosferatu that was inspired by the urban legend that Max Schreck's uncanny performance as Count Orlok (renamed from Dracula) was due to him being a real-life vampire. The book also ends with an interview with Merhige, who was apparently very helpful to Massaccesi, who had been a fan of Nosferatu since she first saw it as a teen.

 

As stated in the book, "The Devil's Advocates is a series devoted to exploring the classics of horror cinema." Other titles include Halloween, Let the Right One In, The Curse of Frankenstein, Saw, The Silence of the Lambs, The Thing, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Based on how much I learned from this volume, I've already added The Silence of the Lambs to my Amazon wish list.

June Words of Wisdom

Solitude is dangerous. It's very addictive. It becomes a habit after you realize how peaceful and calm it is. It's like you don't want to deal with people anymore because they drain your energy. (Jim Carrey)

The poison was never forced - it was offered gently, until you forgot it was poison at all. (Mark Twain)

 

And the wise Queens went on with their business, having no time for fools, fakes, and fuckery. (Ann Marie Eleazer)

 

If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders. (Walt Whitman)

 

So I therefore dedicate myself to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labours, my sufferances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being. (Jack Kerouac)

 

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written. (Robert Haas)

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. (Franz Kafka)

Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way to deal with the world is to laugh - because if you don't laugh you're going to cry and never stop crying - that's probably what's responsible for the Jews having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep, learned more than anyone else how to laugh. (Mel Brooks, who celebrated his 99th birthday on Saturday. What a gift to the world he has been.)

Want to take a writing class taught by Agatha Christie? Of course you do, and so do I.

BBC Maestro, which I would describe as a British version of MasterClass, has brought the Queen of Mystery back to life to share her writing secrets: Writing with Agatha Christie.

From the course description:

 

The course has been curated by leading Christie scholars Dr Mark Aldridge, Michelle Kazmer, Gray Robert Brown, and Jamie Bernthal-Hooker, who have painstakingly reconstructed Agatha’s philosophy on writing, using her own words.

 

For the first time, audiences will hear Agatha Christie impart her insights on story structure, cast creation, plot twists, red herrings, and the art of suspense, drawn directly from her own writings and archival interviews.

According to this Deadline article, the BBC used a combination of AI and actress Vivien Keene to bring Christie to life. The course consists of 11 lessons and 12 exercises, and runs 2-1/2 hours. You can purchase the course as a stand-alone for $89, or subscribe to BBC Maestro for $120 for all-access for a year, which also provides courses from live people including Lee Child, Ken Follett, Harlan Coben, Bill Lawrence, Brian Cox, Sir Tim Rice, Mark Ronson, and that's just in the creative arts. They also offer courses in Food & Drink, Business, Wellness, and Art & Design.

I have two college classes (complete with live professors) going on right now, but I'm thinking once the semester is completed this will be my next course.

I also think it will be interesting to see how people react to the idea of someone like Christie being recreated by AI. AI itself is an extremely touchy issue with a lot of people, especially writers. Given the people behind it and the apparent care put into it, I'm willing to at least give this a shot. I guess I'll find out how I feel about it this summer.

The end of NaNoWriMo

I'm a bit late to the party on this, but National Novel Writing Month is no more.

 

 

There are a lot of YouTube videos that can explain what happened in more informed detail than I can since I haven't participated in NaNo for a few years, but in a nutshell NaNo basically imploded due to a couple of bad decisions. First, and worst of all, they were apparently not terribly responsive when stories of predatory behavior toward minors in their forums surfaced. Eventually their solution was to simply shut down forums, which were a huge part of the NaNoWriMo experience because it was a way for participants to interact as a writing community. Their forums were expansive, and shutting them down instead of dealing with problem participants didn't help foster the community or make them look like they were addressing the actual problem people in that everyone suffered when the forums were shut down.

Then, they decided to promote the use of AI in writing. This is a serious sore spot in the writing community, and NaNoWriMo's response was typical of what you'd come to expect from the current ownership (which is a big part of the story, since these weren't the originals), and that was that NaNo touted the use of AI to, get this, level the playing field for non-typing participants. That was their pro-AI stance, and they weren't backing down from it. This may have also been a response to the drop in funding after their bungle of the predatory problem turned off a lot of people, and AI companies stepped in to "sponsor". NaNo wasn't about to bite the hand that funded them. 

National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short) began in the early 2000's and for years was a catalyst for aspiring writers who just couldn't figure out how to discipline themselves to power through their writing. The idea was to simply crank out 50,000 words in the month of November - no editing, no hesitation, just write. Get words on the page. This worked out to 1,667 words per day, and keep in mind in the US we have a four day holiday (for Thanksgiving) in November, plus it's the month before Christmas, so a lot of people are focusing and looking forward to that. 

The really sad things about this, besides the loss of community, is how much NaNoWriMo changed the lives and careers of so many writers. I've read and heard countless interviews with published authors who mentioned that their book started life out as a NaNo project.

After 20+ years of inspiration, this is what you see today when you go to nanowrimo.com:

It really is gone.

RIP National Novel Writing Month.

Story fodder?

Hmmm...

 What could possibly go wrong? I can think of a lot of things, actually.

Launched at Vroman's

We had our official launch event for Angel City Beat at Vroman's in Pasadena Monday and we had a blast. I'm already struggling to stay current with my three classes this semester in only the second week, so I'm just getting around to posting this. Local author and all-around rock star Naomi Hirahara did an amazing job of moderating and we got a pretty good crowd. Fun was had by all. Pics by The Brother.

 

January Words of Wisdom

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. 

--Frederick Buechner

 

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. --Brene Brown

 

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be  waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. --William Jennings Bryan

 

If we encountered a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he read. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. --David Lynch

Public Domain Day strikes again

January 1 has become a double holiday for creatives. In addition to welcoming a new year, it is also now recognized as the day copyrighted works are welcomed into the public domain. That's right - January 1 is Public Domain Day. 

Several classic animated characters and shorts have just hit the public domain. Post-Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse (now talking and clad in his familiar white gloves), Popeye, and Tintin are now fair game, as are the first Silly Symphonies, including the classic The Skeleton Dance. 

 

Some major novels are now in the public domain: The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner), A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway), The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett), A Room of One's Own (Virginia Woolf), Seven Dials Mystery (Agatha Christie), The Roman Hat Mystery (Ellery Queen's debut), and the first English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque).

 

Among the films now in the public domain are The Marx Brothers' debut The Cocoanuts, Best Picture Winner The Broadway Melody, Pandora's Box (directed by G.W. Pabst, starring Louise Brooks), Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie), The Wild Party (Clara Bow's first talkie), and Hallelujah, one of the first major studio films with an all-black cast (directed by King Vidor).

Some classic songs and musical compositions hit the public domain yesterday: Singin' in the Rain, Ain't Misbehavin', Happy Days are Here Again, Tiptoe Through the Tulips, An American in Paris, and Bolero. Actual recordings now up for grabs are California Here I Come (Al Jolson), Rhapsody in Blue (George Gershwin), and Shreveport Stomp (Jelly Roll Morton).

In addition to the above, there are also poetry and artwork losing their copyrights. A comprehensive list can be found at Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and be sure to scroll down to the section where they discuss the importance of the public domain. You may or may not agree with their point of view, but they still make some compelling arguments for the release of works to anyone who wants to use them.

Me: YES

 

Credit to Screenwriters Utopia on IG.

Words of Wisdom

Slow month.

You, too, can make gut-wrenching magic out of your fiction by driving your tale to a conclusion further than you ever thought it could go. --Elizabeth Sims

You can't be precious about writing. You have to write it, get it down, and then you fix it. --Aaron Sorkin

The creative adult is the child that survived. --Ursula K. LeGuin

Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life. --Pablo Picasso 

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. 

--Albert Einstein

 

Cover reveal!

We have an official cover reveal for Angel City Beat, the upcoming Sisters in Crime Los Angeles anthology that includes my story "Unbeatable", which involves an undefeated racehorse, a dead jockey, and a pet psychic.

 

 

 

We still don't have an exact release date, but it looks like officially it will be sometime in December.

Writer stuff

Almost every time, although I have gotten a couple of stories out of really vivid dreams.

 

 

This also works for "Idea in My Head" versus "Idea When I Write It Out".

I feel a low-budget horror film coming on

Headlines!

Police hunt 42 monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility.

All together now: What could possibly go wrong?

As a writer, this is my answer: Everything and more!

Let's dissect this article writer-style, shall we? Bold mine.

A police search is underway after 43 monkeys escaped from a research facility in South Carolina on Wednesday night.

Police in Yemassee, Beaufort County, said the Rhesus macaque primates escaped from Alpha Genesis, a business that provides "nonhuman primate products and bio-research services," according to its website. 

 

Uh-huh. So, research animals. Check!

The monkeys were a group of "very young females" that have never been used for testing. An Alpha Genesis spokesperson confirmed to police that the animals "are too young to carry disease," according to police statement.

 

So they do primate "research services", aka testing, but 43 animals are living there rent-free without having been subject to any testing. And as far as being "too young to carry disease", we vaccinate infants. 

 

But denial of danger to the public is typical of the people in charge of the danger, and this will definitely come back to bite the spokesperson in the ass as anyone who's ever seen a movie like this knows, so...check!

"Alpha Genesis currently have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food," police said Thursday afternoon.

 

In other words, we got nothing. We don't control them and are hoping they get hungry enough to be dumb enough to be captured. Great plan right there. The comedic breather before the upcoming carnage. Check.

Traps have also been set up and officers are using thermal imaging cameras in an attempt to recapture the animals, police said.

 

Cue the scene where an officer is scoping out a monkey via thermal imaging, only to have another killer monkey sneak up on him and attack, dispatching him in a most gory fashion. AKA, The "Clever girl!" scene. Check!

“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” Yemassee Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. 

 

Primates are smart in real life, and they're even smarter in movies. Either way you know they'll find the one point of entry you forgot to secure. Check!

 

Anyone who finds a monkey should not interact with it but instead call 911, it said. 

 

No shit, Sherlock! But for the sake of playing along, we'll have the idiot character who doesn't know the difference between domesticated pets and wild animals, only to learn the hard way he's wrong. Or it could be some chick from PETA who is just so sure she can communicate with her sister primates, who stupidly thinks that they'll understand her and bond with her, giving her the opportunity to save the day....only to learn the hard way she's wrong. But we know what happens to both of these characters - they get ripped to shreds. Lots of screaming and blood. Check!

Alpha Genesis did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment from NBC News.

 

Evil, mad scientists stonewalling the noble media. Check!

The company secured a federal contract to run a colony of 3,500 monkeys on Morgan Island off the coast of South Carolina, also known as Monkey Island. 

 

And there's your title: Monkey Island. Also, THREE THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED MONKEYS??? Who thought this was a good idea. Damn, you couldn't pay me enough to work on that island.

The Post and Courier newspaper in Beaufort County reported that primate escapes have happened several times before in the area, including in May this year, and in 2016 when 19 evaded security at Alpha Genesis before they were recaptured six hours later.

In 2022, three monkeys escaped following a traffic accident in rural Pennsylvania.

 

So it's happened before? Have you learned nothing from the previous escapes? Of course not. They never do.

 

Outbreak, anyone?

The curse of procrastination: A writer's lament

I am a world-class procrastinator. If there was an Olympics for procrastination, I would be showered in gold medals. I would be on the cover of Wheaties boxes. I am an expert on wasting time on frivolous crap like social media and online games like Scrabble and Solitaire when I should be writing.

I'm not saying any of this to brag. I'm not proud of it, in fact I hate it. I hate that's how my mind works.

 

I don't want to be a world-class procrastinator, but hey, we can't always have what we want.

To explain what brought on this rant:

A couple months ago I decided I wanted to submit a story for next year's Bouchercon anthology. Getting into a Bouchercon anthology has been on my short story bucket list for years. The 2025 conference is in New Orleans and not only am I eager to return to the French Quarter, I'd love to be in that particular collection. And since the deadline wasn't until November 1, I had plenty of time.

The theme for Bouchercon anthologies (besides crime) is usually tied to that year's location, and of course, the theme for Blood on the Bayou: Case Closed is NOLA based or inspired crime stories.

 

 

Because I am very much a Southern Californian and not a Southern Lousianian (is that the word?) and I've only been to NOLA once (for the 2016 Bouchercon) I decided I would approach the story from a tourist aspect. What tourist think they know about NOLA and its culture, as opposed to what little they actually know and/or understand. And eventually I settled on voodoo and a gift shop.

One of the things I read for research is New Orleans Voodoo: A Cultural History, and from page one it's a real eye-opener about the reality of New Orleans voodoo and how the practice is portrayed in film and television. It's so much different than I realized, so I decided to work that into the story. I also read the 2016 Bouchercon anthology Blood on the Bayou to see what kind of stories they published. It was a terrific read, highly recommended, and I really hope to be part of the next one.

But first, I had to write an actual story.

By mid-September I had a pretty good idea of the kind of story I wanted to write. It was inspired by my personal experiences involving a greedy, problematic family member in the aftermath of my Dad's death in 2011 (there was money involved and that almost always causes trouble) and familial betrayal in general. And that's what I've been mulling over for weeks now.

 

Part of the problem was that I couldn't figure out the actual story. An idea is one thing. For me that's the easy part. Taking the idea and turning it into a full-fledged story is where the work comes in. 

 

But as September and then October went by, I couldn't figure out what to do with my idea.

The deadline for this anthology finally arrived yesterday. At the beginning of the week the story was still nothing but bits and pieces and notes. I planned on dedicating the week to finishing the it because I really, really wanted to submit to this anthology, my lack of progress notwithstanding. And for the first few days of the week, nothing was happening.

Then, for some reason, I woke up Thursday morning and the story was there. I don't know how or why, it just was, in fact so much so that a large portion of it was written by noon. I finished and polished it on Friday and sent it in around 5:30pm. And I was thrilled - mission accomplished! I even finally figured out how to do em dashes!

Usually two days isn't enough to get a story polished to the point of submission, but this one was shorter than usual, plus the whole story takes place in one location and in real time so I didn't have to worry about moving the action around. And I'm genuinely happy with it. I really, really hope it gets selected but if it doesn't, I've got a great little story for future submissions.

That brings us back to procrastination. My usual MO is at first I take the approach that I have plenty of time before the deadline. Until I don't and that's when things get ugly, and frequently the result is that I don't finish the story in time to submit it, or it's so badly written that it doesn't get accepted, or I don't have a story at all. Again, I don't know why my mind works that way and it drives me nuts, but I guess there's something in my creative subconscious that just doesn't kick into gear until the deadline is looming.

 

Hopefully, at least in this case, the journey goes from the frustration of procrastination to laissez les bons temps rouler! And for good luck, here's some lovely pictures from when I was in New Orleans for Bouchercon in 2016. Amazing city.

Cafe du Monde. Beignets = Yummers.

Typical (and gorgeous) French Quarter architecture.

Mule-drawn carriages in the French Quarter.

Voodoo Blues.

Morning skies in NOLA from my hotel room.

Words of Wisdom on writing villains

I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy. (Elmore Leonard)

This reminds me of one of the pieces of advice that writers receive more than anything in crafting a compelling villain (as opposed to a moustache-twirling cartoon), and that is that the villain is the hero of his own story.

Now get back to your writing.