SLEEPLESS reviewed by Alan Cheuse on NPR’s All Things Considered right HERE.

Rick Kleffel’s Agony Column review of SLEEPLESS at bookotron.com is HERE.

The second half of my interview with Keith Rawson at BSC is HERE.

HHere’s the Q&A on how and what I write.
I’m afraid I haven’t credited the inquisitors, as that would have taken a bit of time.
But you know who you are, and I thank you for playing.
If you don’t see your specific question answered, I probably thought it overlapped with another.
I did not proof anyone’s spelling or grammar, including my own.
So an even playing field there.

-c

Q: Really wanted to get some color as to your process. How much you know about a story before you start, how clear a picture you have about point-of-view, timeline, secondary characters, etc. When you get going, do you find yourself having to revisit things a lot, to accommodate and new idea presented later in the story? Start to finish, how long will it take for you to research and write a book, and do you research as you go, or get it all lined up beforehand?

A: I definitely have a character point of view when I start. That is, I know who is telling the story. Sometimes I may use more than one POV, but I usually have an idea of who they are and when they’ll start to have a voice.
Beyond that is gets kind of sketchy. Depending on how long a book has been gestating, I may have quite few supporting characters and scenes that I know I want to use. I almost always have an ending. Maybe not the exact scene, but I know where I want the protagonist to end up. That target point may shift as I go.
Plotting is largely flexible for me. I get a story rolling and make adjustments as I go. I’ll frequently be surprised by an opportunity to try something I hadn’t planned, and find myself backtracking to make what’s come before match up with the change.

Q: Also, do you have, for lack of a better phrase, a mission statement for each book? Is there something specific you try to accomplish, aside from write something worth reading? For instance, with Sleepless (finished it), did you start out wanting to write a story about a heroic character actions in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, or did you think the illness would be a cool idea, and built Park and went from there?

A: I’d say no mission statement. With SLEEPLESS the world came first. Once I started thinking about the kind of story I wanted to tell inside that world Park began to take on shape. But there’s a lot of chicken and egg involved. Hard to say which aspects leads and which follow.

Q: How extensively did you to craft the world for the Joe Pitt series before you could finish drafting the first book?

A: I didn’t make any plans for the world before starting. It just built itself up as I moved the story forward. That got me through 100 pages. At that point I spent several years working on other things. When I returned to Joe it was in an effort to sell the series. At that point I needed to put together a series bible. Essentially a guidebook that indicated I knew what the fuck I was doing and that I had a plan. I didn’t really have a plan, but I made it sound like I did. Check out the Joe Pitt category here and you’ll find most of the series bible in an old post somewhere.

Q: What kind of whiskey(whisky) do you generally drink while writing? Scotch? Single Malt? Bourbon? American Boutique? Favorite?

A: I don’t generally drink when I write. But I do sometimes imbibe when I’m reading drafts. I’m a bourbon guy. Mostly Wild Turkey. Mostly 101.

Q: Do you still happen to have the microwave, that without fail, would always burn microwave popcorn?

A: Dude, I blamed the microwave back then, but now I think it was mostly that I was stoned 90% of the time.

Q: Any possibility of any of your works on the silver screen?

A: Currently there are options out on the Joe Pitt series and the Henry Thompson trilogy. Phoenix Films has Joe, and, while I know they have a script, I don’t know where they are in the development process. The production company that has the Thompson books has yet to announce the option and I’m not at liberty to say more.
The odds of either of these projects making it to film are very slim to none. That’s just the Hollywood equation.

Q: Anyway, you said people could email you and ask about your writing process, so one thing I’ve always wondered about with the mystery element of your writing is just how much you have plotted out before you sit down to write a book. For example, in the Joe Pitt books he’s basically a detective of sorts, and by the end of the book you learn about the complex series of events that have taken place behind the scenes throughout the novel. As a reader it seems like you (the author) knew the minute details all along, because the trail Joe’s been following since the first page has been riddled with clues as to what’s happened, and by the big payoff scene in the last ten pages it all makes sense in retrospect. Lots of “A-ha!” moments and all that. So my question is whether you plan the “secret plot” in advance or whether you figure it out as you go along and maybe go back to previous sections of the book once you’re done and riddle it with clues. I know some writers subscribe to the “I just sit down and don’t plan and let the characters write the book” theory, but that seems difficult in books where mysteries and an intricate plot play a significant role.

A: I sometimes know the secret behind the scenes, but it usually evolves along with everything else. I always knew the Coalition had a secret blood farm, but I didn’t know how I’d handle the reveal and exactly the consequences until I got there.

Q: I have to ask, your characters are always so multi-layered and their stories on the fringe of society, where do your ideas and backstories come from? Are characters like Hank Thompson and Web Goodhue based on people you know, or do you literally develop them from “thin air”? Just curious, but I always wind up asking myself the same question after finishing each book, “how the heck did he come up with that?”

A: Well no one works entirely from thin air. We all absorb information and experience. Otherwise we wouldn’t have any raw material to turn into fiction. Some of my characters have been based fairly explicitly on people I’ve known. In SIX BAD THINGS the character T is loosely modeled on a close friend. Likewise, there are locations that are drawn specifically from my life. The bar where Hank works in CAUGHT STEALING was very much like one where I worked for many years. BUt it’s all larded with fiction. None of my books are thinly veiled memoir. I think that should be obvious, but I though I’d point it out in case anyone is wondering if I’m a vampire.

Q: So - in Sleepless so far - what the fuck, man? Quotation marks????? What’s up with that?

A: So OK, me and the lack of quotation marks. I’ve written and talked about this more that the topic warrants, but let’s do it again for context. I’m a miserable typist. And When I was writing CAUGHT STEALING I was a truly miserable typist. I was, and am, also a huge Cormac McCarthy fan. So two things went into the dashes: First, I was trying to reduce the number of key strokes needed to write a fucking novel. Second, I was trying to find a way to make the dialogue flow down the page like McCarthy does, but also give a reader a visual cue so that they knew I was skipping from prose to dialogue. As I was writing entirely for myself, I didn’t really have to worry about how it might be off-putting to an editor or publisher. In fact, many years later when I unexpectedly ended up with a publisher, I assumed that I’d be asked to put in quotation marks. A request that I’d have happily complied with. But that wasn’t the case. Over the years using the dashes became a habit. It’s not meant as a creative declaration, it’s just how I write. Now, as for SLEEPLESS, the reason I used quotation marks there is because the book is written with the conceit that someone other than myself has written it. It is quite specifically one of the written account of one of the characters in the book. That being the case, it seemed more appropriate that the book have more traditional punctuation and storytelling. A style that is consistent with the character.

Q: How do you go about creating your characters? Is the the characters first and personality first? Or do you create a world then the people?

A: I think I usually have a sense of character before anything else. That was certainly the case with Hank Thompson, Joe Pitt, the SHOTGUN RULE boys, and Web Goodhue. With SLEEPLESS, the world and the characters evolved hand in hand.

Q: My second would be how do you decide on the point of view to write the book? Sleepless (and I’m not done yet with it about halfway) was interesting because you had two different point of views in your writing, both first and third. I thought that was neat. Why did you decide to do that?

A: With the Hank and Joe books, that first person present tense style was what came naturally. By the time I got to THE SHOTGUN RULE I felt that I needed to try a different voice just to avoid becoming stale, so I went to third person present. In MYSTIC ARTS, I wanted room for more humor, for Web to be able to comment on the action and indulge his voice. That meant I needed to go first person past. SLEEPLESS was tricky because I wanted the story to be told by someone within the book, but I also wanted Park (the protagonist) to be heard in his own voice. Eventually I decided on using Park’s journal entries, a second character’s first person accounts, and that same character’s third person interpretation of Park’s story. As with MYSTIC ARTS, I really wanted more room that present tense allows to fill in a lot more detail than I usually use. Inner life stuff as well as the world itself.

Q: But I’m really interested in the character creation. From what I’ve read on the internet on what writers enjoy doing it’s the character creation. So I’d love your method on that because you have such great characters. They’re never completely lovable or completely despised. That reminds me of reality.

A: I’m sure every writer has a different aspect of the process that they love best, but I do enjoy building characters. It’s a cliche to say that you “meet” the characters as you write them, but I do find that often to be the case. I start with one pretty clear idea of who they will be and find them reshaping as I put them on the page. I initially though that Hank would be a tough guy. A neighborhood fixer who people came to with their problems. But when I put him on the page he became more of an innocent, and not very tough at all. Or at least not in the traditional detective mold.

Q: On a more curious level was the Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death release as positive as the front cover seems to suggest? The publisher really does seem to pushing you as a, forgive the term, “general fiction” writer. The cover is understated and virtually colorless. I apologize if that sounds condescending in anyway, but the evolution of the covers (to mention nothing of content) struck me as odd and wondered if you had any words that suggested something more than me seeing Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich.

A: Actually the MYSTIC ARTS cover was part of a very conscious strategy on the part of my publisher. And yes, an element in that strategy was to reach out to a more general readership. The intention wasn’t so much an effort to create a “literary” appearance as it was to veer away from a distinctly pup image. They wanted to imply something, forgive me, hip or cutting edge, while also suggesting that there was good writing inside as well as a entertaining plot. Cover design is a kind of alchemy. There tends to be a level of consensus when a striking cover is created, but that doesn’t mean there is agreement as to what we al think that striking cover is signaling, I love the MYSIC ARTS cover, by the way. I think it’s my favorite of all the American covers.

Q: Is your recent change in writing style going to be a more prominent throughout the rest of your books, or will you, perhaps, be going back to the Thompson Trilogy/Pitt Casebooks Narrative style of kick-you-in-fucking-nuts? (The best descriptor I could come up with in three seconds)

A: I don’t think this is a going to be a lasting shift for me. So far I’ve tended to hop around a bit in terms of voice and tone. Even Hank and Joe, both speaking in first person present tense, had very different attitudes that made writing them seem like very different tasks. I think there is a good chance that my next novel will be a kind of companion piece to SLEEPLESS. The story I’ve been thinking about would probably require a similar style. But after that I see myself either returning to Web Goodhue in a MYSTIC ARTS sequel, or writing an entirely new hardboiled story. Although I still have a fantasy novel in the back of my mind that I’d like to squeeze in somewhere.

Q: Hell damn, how did you get that perspective, how did you, as a young writer, absorb the pulp/noir thing and, then == then, having absorbed it, how did you manage to turn it into a truly new and interesting trope?

A: You know, I’m not sure how anyone can explain where their perspective comes from. I mean, for all intents and purposes, that’s like trying to explain why I am who I am. All I can really say is that I read a lot of genre fiction as a kid, loved it, really, really loved it, and then tried to tell genre stories that I’d want to read if someone else wrote them. Not terribly helpful, I know, but that’s what I got.

Q: As far as questions theres one more i’d ask and it’s not that important really. But i am curious on your particular method of research. For sleepless you obviously had to learn the slang of the net world, and for The Shotgun rule you had to learn oldschool punk rock (ok that seems easy). For Pitt you had to learn the New York area (which i know knowthing of, but in contrast you wrote a book in L.A. with sleepless). The way i figure it you just do regular research. Read about it and visit the areas? You do a great job making the characters really seem like they know and are a part of those worlds.

A: The most truly active research I’ve engaged in has been for SLEEPLESS and the Joe Pitt book. In SLEEPLESS I needed to have at least a casual familiarity with fatal familial insomnia so that I could fictionalize it as SLP in the book. Similarly, in the Pitt books, I needed to know a little something about blood and viruses. But in my books all the research results in is pseudo science, at best. The other stuff you mention, old school punk, NYC street geography, gaming slang, that’s just scattered around my brain from life. Mostly I don’t do hardcore research on a specific project. I just get interested in things and learn about them and sometimes they pop up in my books.

Q: What do you do when you hit a wall creativly? I find I work very well for a week or two but they I lose focus. Any sugestions?

A: Short answer: I keep working. Even when I don’t like what I’m writing, I just keep writing. But that’s what my job is. It’s also important to note that until my mid-thirties I never suspected that I might write one novel, let alone eleven. Something I learned along the way is that self-discipline is a skill that can be cultivated. The more you force yourself to just to the work regardless of how hard or easy it may be on a given day, the more you force yourself to keep to a schedule, the easier it becomes to do it the next day. The only way I know to maintain focus is to eliminate as many distractions as possible. After that it’s all a matter of how important it is to you to get the job done.

Q: How do you ballance being a Husband, Father, and working class writer?

A: Again, it’s my job, All of those are my job, as well as my great pleasures. but for perspective, I did write my first novel while I was a single man. And while I had to do it while working a day job, there were no other real distractions. I was married by the time I wrote any other novels, but I was able to live off advance money while I wrote them, and still no kids. By the time I became a father, I had a lot of practice doing this. I knew I could do it. So it was more a matter of learning how to become a dad and fitting in my work where I could. Also, by the time I became a dad I could support my family with my writing. So, while the work had to get done to keep food on the table, no one else in the house had to work. Balancing a day job with family life and writing is no mean trick. Remember to cut yourself some slack. It’s not supposed to be easy. Any of it.

Q: Here’s what I wonder about your writing style — do you use a pencil, pen and paper to write first draft, or a computer? Do you think your writing differs depending upon the writing tool?

A: Other than notes, I write on a computer. I do so much editing as I write each draft, it’s almost inconceivable to me how I would write without a computer. Which speaks to the second half of your question. Yes, I do thing your tools change your writing. If it wasn’t so easy for me to edit, I might spend more time on contemplation of the perfect phrase, or I might be more willing to let a questionable plot choice stand. I’m also inclined to use fewer words when writing my hand with a pen or pencil. But I love all writing tools. I’m constantly trying to find the perfect pen, I own two manual typewriters, and I tinker with new word processing programs on a fairly regular basis. Just now I’m a fan of Scribner. A very good tool for organizing multiple documents and text sources. But nothing beats the feeling of a good pen and a notebook.

Edward Champion’s review of SLEEPLESS on B&N.com can be found HERE.

A review of SLEEPLESS at chrisfarnsworth.com can be found HERE.

An interview with Joy Tipping of The Dallas Morning News HERE.

Me interviewed by Keith Rawson at BSCreview can be found HERE.

Came to the computer this morning to discover that THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH has been nominated by the MWA for their 2009 best novel Edgar Award.

Which almost compensated for the hour my daughter spend screaming after she woke up.

Life and art, never in sync.

Anyway, very cool news and very happy.

List of all the 2009 Edgar nominees HERE.

-c

Look at the calendar.

I am.

When a new book of mine comes out, I generally take a peek at the calendar.

It’s a good time to reassess work and/or money that’s in the pipeline. Get a broad view of what the following twelve months are likely to look like in terms of the ebb and flow of both labor and lucre.

The two are linked in the writing game because there is no such thing as a paycheck. I get paid when I submit work or when that work publishes or, from time to time, when that work earns royalties.

Looking at the calendar I can get a general idea of where I am in my current work in progress, when I might finish various drafts, when I’ll be starting the next one, when the previous one will publish, and get an idea of when I’m going to be flush or broke, when I might squeeze in some extra work, when I’ll be insanely busy, when not, etc.

generally the publishing cycle for a novel takes about a year. So when one of my books hits the shelves, that’s about when I’m getting the next one finished. Because I’ve mostly worked ahead of deadline, “finished” for me means a final draft.

There is no final draft this year.

There is no first draft.

There is no draft.

There is no work in progress.

Put simply, that means I will not have a new novel publishing at this time next year.

That’s no the end of the world. In fact, it’s probably for the best. After blasting out 11 books in 6 years, 10 of them written in that span, I’m not the only one who needs a break.

It’s fair to say I’ve saturated the market. Modest though that market may be, it is quite soaked through.

Time to wring it out and put it on a line to dry a bit.

This is what I’m getting at: back up a bit I mentioned that there is “no work in progress.” That means that even if I started a new novel today, this instant, I would not realistically turn in a draft for a minimum of 6 months. And that would be crap. I would not turn in a draft that wasn’t crap for at least 10 months. Safer to say, if I started writing a new novel today, it would not be properly done for a year.

I can write one in much less time that that, a good one, but not either of the ones I want to write next. They will both need some months to develop and be written properly.

So look at the calendar.

I am.

And I am realizing that even if I start writing today, I will not publish a new novel for at least two years.

And I am not starting to write a new novel today.

Folks, my friends, and generous and kind people who read my stories and pay my bills, it is going to be a few years before we do this again.

I didn’t plan it this way.

Less than a year ago, as I contemplated the end of the Joe Pitt series, I was wondering how I was going to fill that gap in my work calendar. You don’t just write any old two books a year. You need the proper combination. There has to be a market for two books a year. And you have to have two big stories a year to tell. It’s not like a carry series concepts in my ass.

As I was contemplating the void and wondering how is might be filled, I was also thinking about my future as a crime writer. How I wanted to proceed. In what direction. This created a natural lull in my writing. A step back to see the landscape.

It was also about this same time that I had a chance to start taking seriously the TV development opportunities that had come my way.

As it was, I’d banked some hard work the last couple years and had the flexibility to take working holiday from novels and speculate a little on some other stuff. By the time the fall rolled around and those speculations both paid off, I was nowhere near ready to start a novel, and suddenly over my head in pilot-writing duties.

Having just now come up for air, I’m looking at the calendar.

Over two years, it tells me, you will not publish a novel for over two years.

Here are the scenarios as I’ve read them:

Quite soon I will know if the secret cop pilot I’m involved in will be picked up. That’s a network gig so they still run on a fairly conventional schedule. If it goes, I’ll work on the pilot and it will be at least several more months before I start a new novel. If it were to be struck by lightning and series episodes were produced, my level of involvement is TBD and I might start on a novel at that point, or whore out in TV land for awhile.

At the same time, the Mystic Arts pilot is being reviewed by HBO. As their development schedule is dictated by the project itself, I may know quite soon, or several months from now if a pilot will be shot. My involvement in a pilot would delay work on a novel, as would any series episodes produced.

The most likely of these scenarios is that neither show will go to pilot and that in a few short weeks I will be working on a novel. Which will not publish for, at the very least, two years.

This seems an enormous amount of time to me. It seems both very right and terribly wrong.

Already a long shot bet, SLEEPLESS is giving no indication that it will be breaking from the rear of the pack and making a hard run to the finish. Yes, we’ve yet to hit the first turn, but you can sometimes see it in a horse’s stride that today is not the day.

I love the damn book. But it wore me out. And that was before I had to sit right back down and write MY DEAD BODY.

At first the breather was just a breather. Then it was an opportunity. Now it feels like the right thing to do for the books.

Two years plus will maybe give some folks a chance to find the books, give some folks a chance to catch up. It will certainly give me a chance to catch up. Catch my breath. Already the experience of working in TV is reminding me of how good life is as a novelist. Making me miss terribly the feeling of being alone with my story with no one to answer to but myself. When I turn back to the work in a few months or a year, I think it will show in the writing. In a good way. I hope.

And hey, you readers who pick up every book the day it comes out, thank you. I can’t say more than that without crying. I can’t. I’m sorry I won’t be there for a couple years. You’ve been there for me and it feels like a dirty trick to slip on the arrangement. Hope you’ll be there when I get back.

In there meantime I’ll be here a little more often the next few weeks while things sort themselves out.

I’ve recently received some emails asking about my writing. How I work kind of stuff. I generally discourage “How to do it” questions about writing because I have so little to say on the subject, but I can certainly answer questions about my own process. So if you have any questions, email over the next few days and I’ll handle them all in one post.

till later,
-c

Interview with Jeff Salmon of The American-Statesman HERE.

While at the Poison Pen in Scottsdale last week I did a quick interview with Ken Fergason of Neth Space.

Interview HERE

SLEEPLESS review HERE

The AP review of SLEEPLESS as run on SF Gate is HERE.

Good, bad, or in the middle, I try to stick em up here.

-c

And then I got very busy.

And that means there’s a lot backed up here.

So I’m just gonna spray it.

My new book, SLEEPLESS, is coming out tomorrow. In the manner typical of significant personal events, this has both taken for-fucking-ever, and totally snuck up on me out or fucking nowhere.

Writing SLEEPLESS was a tough sonofabitch. I am deeply invested in it.

Many of my readers are going to flat out hate this fucking book.

Period.

Fucking period.

Some people who want nothing to do with anything else I have ever written are going to like this book.

Fucking period again.

And that’s a little intimidating and scary. I don’t have a plan to change forever the kind of books I write, but this one is different enough to just not work for some of my regulars.

Sorry.

Anyway, it comes out tomorrow. I’m gonna try and get back here and do some whoring. But I’m still very busy with other stuff. So you may be spared the whore.

Not unrelated to SLEEPLESS, I’m going on a little tour.

Here are the places and dates:

Tuesday, January 12
7:00pm
The Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd. Suite 101
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(with T. Jefferson Parker)

Wednesday, January 20
7:00pm
BookPeople
603 North Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703

Thursday, January 21
7:00pm
Legacy Books
7300 Dallas Pkwy Ste A120
Dallas, TX 75024

Friday, January 22
6:30pm
Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet St.
Houston, TX  77005

Saturday, January 23
2:00 PM
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111

Saturday, January 30
2:00pm
Mysteries to Die For
2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

4:00pm
Mystery Bookstore
1035 Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Sunday, January 31
Dark Delicacies
4213 West Burbank Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91505

Hope to see you.

Oh, and THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH came out in trade paperback last week.

It’s still a book you have to pay for, but it’s cheaper than a hardback.
The library is good, too.

Marilyn Stasio at the NY Times put it on her notable books of 2009 list HERE.
And then it got a little more love from the NY Times Paperback Row feature HERE.

One of the projects that’s been keeping me so busy is the development of a TV show based on MYSTIC ARTS for HBO.
What happened was that I was lucky enough to make an acquaintance with Alan Ball a couple years back and we’d spoken about doing a film or TV project about.
More recently I asked him if he was interested in the idea of a MYSTIC ARTS TV show and he volunteered to executive produce and guru for my first foray into TV.
Hint to the TV newbie: having Alan Ball as your guru helps.
Sometimes, you just get unreasonable lucky.
Anyway, I’m writing the pilot. If it clears the many many hurdles in between script and TV show, the first season will loosely follow the plot of the book.
And then who the fuck knows what.

My DEATHLOK miniseries for Marvel has been running for a couple months now. I think issue three is due this month. It’s pretty wild and over the top. Crazy SF adventure noir. Skull faced cyborg warrior takes on the world.

The last Joe Pitt book, MY DEAD BODY, has seemed to please a few people. And I’d like to thank the people who thought is sucked for not emailing me. It’s nice to keep that bubble unburst.

There is some pending movie news regarding CAUGHT STEALING, but the producers have yet to announce the deal so I need to keep it under my hat for now.

I’m still not working on my next novel, which seems more than weird. There’s this idea that’s still building for me, and it’s nice to have other work that’s kind of subsidizing the development of the idea. But I’m getting antsy. Also, most of my work over the last several months has had at least some socially interactive component, and I’m eager to be a selfish motherfucker again and god of my own world.

For the last few weeks I’ve been neck deep in a second TV project with a writing partner. This is another deal where the powers that by have yet to spill the beans, so I can’t share details as yet. About all I can say is that it’s my partner’s idea, it’s a cop show, and we’ll know soon if the pilot will be made.

I finished all the scripts for my 12 issue run on one of Marvel’s cadillac titles, but (wait for it) they haven’t announced the details yet so…
I do know it should start running in fall of this year.

I’m not sure when the smoke is going to clear so that I can compose some actual thoughts about writing, but it is what it is what it is.
With SLEEPLESS coming out you can be pretty sure that I’ll at least be running news in that quarter.

Speaking of which, here’s the starred review that ran in KIRKUS a few weeks back (A few SPOILERS in here):

“Thirty million Americans are sleepless, and it’s killing them.
What began modestly and unobtrusively is now a pandemic—ten percent of the world’s population can’t sleep. Ever. Zombie-like, the sleepless roam nocturnal streets, desperate to fill endless hours, while their bodies—and minds—disintegrate. This disease is a death sentence, usually within a year. While there’s no known cure, symptoms can be alleviated, but only by an increasingly hard-to-get drug named Dreamer. Parker Haas, a young police officer, seems immune to the disease, but his wife Rose is dying of it. Months ago, she passed the stage where she could care for their child in the loving way she used to. Instead, she spends her diminishing time obsessively immersed in Chasm Tide, a complex doomsday video game. On the street one day, Park learns of a possible source for Dreamer, which has become central to a flourishing black market. Then he discovers a conspiracy to artificially control the Dreamer supply in order to protect an exorbitant profit margin. The world may in fact be coming to an end as so many around him insist, but Park keeps it simple. He has never seen any path but the one straight ahead, and the imperative remains what it always was. If there’s a conspiracy, his job is to investigate it. If a perpetrator, no matter how powerful, can be identified, his job is to jail the guy. A good cop does what a good cop has to do. For Park, the rest is abstraction.
A writer as skilled as Huston (The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, 2009, etc.) can make an apocalyptic story terrifyingly plausible. Readers prone to depression should approach with care.”

See you out there.

-c

When you don’t visit for a long time, it’s nice to bring a gift upon return.

Case in point: Random House is offering the first Joe Pitt casebook, ALREADY DEAD, for free in multiple ebook formats.

The free offer is going to last for about two months.  But that’s just the download window. Once you have the book, you get to keep it. It won’t be disappearing from your device two months down the road.

Most of these require that you already have or create a free account at the host site.  For Amazon and B&N that exposes you to a certain amount of emarketing. You can read online at Scribd without an account, but you’ll need one to download the PDF. My own Scribd account has never resulted in any spam that I know of. Suvudu is new to me, but it looks like you can download the PDF file there with a click and nothing else.  The Stanza version is for their free iPhone app only, and comes preloaded in the Random House free library. I knocked the desktop Stanza in the past, but the IPhone app is slick as hell.

As with the Hank Thompson trilogy, I’m going to try and get Random House to leave ALREADY DEAD available as a PDF after the  other offers expire.

So here’s where you can find free ALREADY DEAD ebooks:

Amazon’s Kindle edition

Barnes & Noble eBook edition 

Scribd PDF edition 

Suvudu PDF edition 

Stanza  (Just the iPhone app download, the book comes in the preloaded library.)

Want more?

The Henry Thompson trilogy at Scribd

CAUGHT STEALING

SIX BAD THINGS

A DANGEROUS MAN

You decide…

“…the joe pit books are like lord of the rings for people who like seriously fucked up shit.”

Thanks, Brian G.

Despite not fitting in my ass, this website is still deeply embedded there.

And I don’t have too many ideas about how to get it out.

When you get a lightbulb stuck in your ass and you go to the emergency room, legend has it they insert a suction cup dart from a kid’s gun into your ass, stick it to the (hopefully) intact lightbulb, and gently withdraw. There may be muscle relaxants involved.

I wouldn’t know.

There may be a similar procedure for getting a website from your ass, but I can’t find it on Google.

I’m trying, folks, I’m really trying, but I’m having a very hard time getting over here on a regular basis. And the more I try, and fail, the more anxiety the place produces.

I’m sure there are a few people out there with blogs/websites who are nodding their heads right now, “Yep, say no more, we get it. Keeping one of these things regularly updated and relevant your life, let alone anyone else’s, is a pain in the ass.”

Website in the ass syndrome.

When I do get over here to write something, it feels like, you guessed it, taking a huge dump. Which is nice, but I’d prefer to avoid the constipation.

The initial concept of a place where I could stick my thoughts about writing and publishing has faded as I’ve become less of a newbie and more of a professional writer. My thoughts just don’t feel fresh anymore. They feel stale and repetitive and they create profound discomfort in my lower intestine when I think about writing them down.

I never really got in the habit of dumping my research files here. At one point I thought it would be useful to have them compiled in one searchable location, but my computer does that now. I also thought it would be interesting for some readers to be able to pick through that stuff and see how it manifests in the books, but I’m not sure that’s the case at all.

I tried the fiction thing for a while (sorry Book of All Future Names readers), but I lost the thread and I cannot promise I will ever get it back.

Posting/linking reviews and interviews and all things Charlie Huston from around the web just starts to feel like egoism after a while. If I give what I think is a particularly interesting interview I like to stick it here, but most of them are pretty redundant.

The place is loaded with dead links and unfinished thoughts. Good intentions without execution. It feels a mess.

I’m thinking very seriously about getting it out of my ass altogether.

Take a massive load of laxatives and just shot the whole thing out.

One or two things could take it’s place.

One thing would be a plain old blog. No pretensions of being a website. Just a blog. The occasional post about what’s coming up. Some links to people I like. A blaahhhooog.

(Something like this HERE)

The other is a Twitter feed. Random thoughts. Links to whatever. Updates about appearances and releases. So forth.

Or I could let this place continue to grow shabby with disuse. A rambling old house where the rooms are covered in dust and most of the light switches don’t work.

So for the time being, feel free to wander about, break a few windows, see if the TV is still hooked up, might be an old beer in the fridge. I’ll come around time to time and do something.

But don’t be surprised to see a wrecking ball outside the window.

-c

PS

Oh, Punisher MAX #75 and Deadpool #900 are anthology comic books that I have stories in. Both are out this week.

Oh, hey, I had a new book come out on Tuesday,

The fifth and final Joe Pitt casebook, MY DEAD BODY.

I can’t honestly say it slipped my mind, but it did fall down the priority list of things to think about. Which is just plain weird.

Spend about five years of your life writing a long story in five volumes and then kind of not have time to reflect on the publication of the last volume and you’ll feel how weird it is.

And I’m still not reflecting.

I expect this is going to be one of those delayed reaction things.

I’ll be doing something else, or just sitting and enjoying an odd and infrequent moment of doing nothing, and a huge load of emotion will drop on my head and I’ll say something along the lines of, “Jesus Fuck, I’m done with Joe fucking Pitt.” At which point I may sob or become giddy with insane laughter. Or both.

Someone did ask me the other day how I felt about finishing the series. All I could think to say was, “Bye, bye, Joe Pitt.”

Joe was six-three and over two-hundred pounds. That’s a load to carry for five years. Bye, bye, Joe Pitt.

I got lucky with Joe. He mostly spoke for himself. I didn’t have to think to hard about how he felt about things. Contrary. That pretty much covers Joe’s point of view on the world. Self-serving. Violent.

Sum up Joe Pitt in three words or less?

A real bastard.

I’ve read that Paul Newman was dismayed with Hud, the anti-hero he played in a movie of the same name, was embraced as a sympathetic character by many people. He was somewhat appalled by the idea of young men with Hud posters in their rooms. Hud as cultural icon.

Which I get.

Hud is a real bastard.

But he was played by Paul Newman. So, you know, how much can a viewer be expected to really dislike him? Newman inevitably injected some degree of humanity and pathos into his roles. Just part of his appeal.

So then there’s Joe.

And some readers really like Joe. They want him to have a happy ending. They feel for Joe.

Which is nice.

But Joe is a real bastard.

Really.

But, as much as he may have spoken for himself, I wrote Joe. And while the case can be made that I am myself a real bastard, I’m mostly a real softy. It’s part of the appeal of what I do. Injecting some of my own softness into hard noir characters. It’s not conscious, it’s just a reflection of who I am and how I see the world. I don’t understand people who are entirely hard, so I don’t have much luck writing them. On the other hand, I do understand how the average soft person can end up doing hard things. And what that does to most of us.

But Joe is not meant to be soft.

To that extent, I kind of blew the whole series. I’f I’d gotten him exactly as I wanted him, there might be about ten people reading the last book. Everyone else would just plain hate the bastard.

So I’m not complaining.

Just taking note of how hard it is to get this writing thing to go exactly where you want it to go.

No shock that Joe Pitt took the ride where he wanted it to go.

I mean, fuck me, I’m just the guy hitting the keyboard. What chance did I have?

Bye bye, Joe Pitt.

-c

Here’s what’s currently on deck.

October 18th.MY DEAD BODY
The release party.
We have a venue change from the last few release parties.
Dave and David of Secret Headquarters are mad bastards and have opened a record store. And when I say “record store,” I’m not just revealing myself as a fusty old man who refuses to say CD store. I mean they opened a fucking record store. So, in the spirit of selling dead media, we’re having the party there.
Vacation Vinyl
4679 Hollywood Boulevard
LA, CA 90027
323-666-2111

What Will Happen:
At 7:00pm I’ll read very fucking briefly from MY DEAD BODY, the last Joe Pitt
book.
You will drink beer and whiskey (or not, that’s up to you.)
I will challenge you with trivia, and reward you with prizes.
And After: Anyone who wants to can join us as we find our way to the
Good Luck Bar.
1514 Hillhurst Ave.
Hollywood, Ca 90027
http://www.myspace.com/good_luck_bar-666-3524

October 24th.
I will be at The Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles as part of their 1st anniversary party.
2-3pm, speaking and signing.
Now, here’s the important part:
When I’m done, James Ellroy will take the stage, and when he’s done, Michael Connelly will take the stage.
The reason you come and see me is that by the time those guys show, there will be no room for you in the fucking store.
Your only hope is to sit through my schtick.
Suck it up.
The Mystery Bookstore
1036-C Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
310/209-0415 or 800/821-9017

October 30th.
I’ll be signing at Dark Delicacies.
7:00pm
4213 W. Burbank
Burbank, CA 91505
John Connolly will also be signing.

October 31st.
I’ll be reading and signing at Mysteries to Die For.
12:00pm
2940 Thousand Oaks Boulevard
Thousand Oaks, California 91362
(805) 374-0084

November 7th.
In a Mystery Writers of America sponsored event, I’ll be having a lengthy conversation with someone I like.
For those of you keeping count, this is called the nice part of the job.
11:00am-2:00pm
(I know, un-fucking-godly, but I get my ass out of bed at 6am every fucking day, so stop whining.)

A Luncheon of Pulp Noir
Interview with Charlie Huston and Mystery Bookstore manager Bobby McCue.
Tom Bergin’s
840 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles
323-936-7151
www.tombergins.com
(Irish coffee!)

Choice of sandwiches/salad.
Open cash bar.
MWA members, $15. Guests/non-MWA members, $25.
Tom Bergin’s
840 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles
323-936-7151
www.tombergins.com

Choice of sandwiches/salad.
(Food!)
Open cash bar.
(A bar!!!)
MWA members, $15. Guests/non-MWA members, $25.
(Sorry about the money thing, the MWA gotta eat too.)

Getting stuck sucks.

I’m not talking writer’s block here.

When I imagine writer’s block, I have visions of a vast balloon inflated in the middle of my brain, squeezing all thoughts against the inner surface of my skull until they are flat, two dimensional and useless.

I’ve never been hit with anything like that.

(NOTE: yes, that is the sound of me knocking wood in the background.)

But getting stuck is another matter.

I get stuck on little things, tiny things, inconsequential things that I should not be stuck on, hook me and keep me frozen.

That whole dialogue thing I do:

He snaps his fingers.
-You know, using a character’s action to set off their line of dialogue.
She nods.
-Yeah, so it tips off who’s talking?
He males horizontal cuts in the air with the edge of his hand.
-It helps to balance the lack of quotation marks and the bits of narrative a smart writer would use.
She stirs her index finger next to her ear.
Yeah, you are crazy for making this any harder than it has to be.

So.

It’s those little gestures and movements that fuck me up. I use those not only to indicate who is speaking, but also to tip off emotion. My characters generally don’t spend much time expressing their feelings to each other, the reader or even to themselves. Sometimes all the person flipping the pages has to go in is the way a character kicks the ground before they speak.

And the thing is, I have a ton of those beats in every book. Because my characters may not talk about what they feel, but they are total fucking chatter boxes. And when I’m writing all that dialogue, I have to come up with god knows how many tiny actions and gestures to compliment the words.

fuck me.

And let me tell you , there are only so many times in one fucking book that Joe fucking Pitt can light a cigarette, take a drag off a cigarette, flick ashes from a cigarette, crush a cigarette butt under his heel, or stare at the floor, before it becomes utterly fucking repetitive and I want to fucking run screaming.

So I sit there.

Full of the knowledge of what the next line, is, knowing exactly where the story is going, fully prepared to write the next five fucking pages, I sit there, hung up on whether Joe should shrug or tug his ear lobe.

No fucking lie.

An hour or two can disappear as I work through one stanza of dialogue.

Ever seen the 1972 TALES FROM THE CRYPT?

It’s one of those British horror anthologies.

Best story is called “Blind Alleys.” In which the cruel new director of a home for the blind is taken captive by the residents. While he’s captive, he can hear them doing two things, building something large, and not feeding his viscous German Shepherd. After a few days, the door to his room opens and he finds himself at the mouth of a booby-trapped maze that zig-zags through the corridors. After negotiating the maze, he finds himself faced by closed door, behind which he can hear his growling dog. The door flies open, the dog comes after him, he runs back into the maze, and the lights go out on him. Actually, the lights go out on him when he’s in a very narrow run of the maze where the walls have been studded with razor blades.

So.

Here’s what it’s like writing dialogue some days.

It’s like edging down a narrow corridor of razor-studded wall and constantly snagging your hands, legs, elbows, cheeks and ears on the protruding corners of the blades.

And when it’s at it’s worse, and there’s a deadline behind you, the lights sometimes go out.

OK, yeah, that’s a little melodramatic.

But it does suck.

And it’s not just dialogue.

Deciding what kind of car a character is driving, what they’re eating, whether they have a limp, if the sky is overcast…

Fuck!

And don’t get me started on guns.

So.

Here I am today, this guy I’m writing about has on a frock coat, but what kind of shirt is he wearing under it?

Fucked if I know.

And he won’t just turn the fuck around and show me.

Razor blades.

-c