Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

We're Really Not Kidding. Help!

Josh Getzler

I'm away from my desk today, so I asked Jeff to put up again his post looking for support for our fellow Dead Guy, Erin Mitchell. It's plenty important enough that you can wait a week to hear about why you shouldn't write in the passive voice or curse in middle grade books, or whatever else I was coming up with today. Back next week. Go Mets (Yes, I said that--maybe my next post will be defending my right to say that after having worked with the Yankees for 9 years--or maybe it's obvious from that!)

We here at DEAD GUY are taking today to urge you to donate to what we believe is the worthiest cause on the planet.

Our very own Erin Mitchell.

As she has documented quite eloquently, Erin's been having some pretty serious health issues, and as anyone in the United States knows about such things, it has not been inexpensive. She is self-insured, so the bills are mounting pretty staggeringly. We believe Erin should not have to shoulder the burden alone while she's dealing with so much at the same time.

So there is a grassroots (that is to say, crowdsourcing) movement to try and help, which was set up by Ellen Clair Lamb. Many have contributed (including some on this blog), and if you are able to do so, we'd urge you to send what you can.

Anyone who has read Erin's posts here or encountered her elsewhere know she is an amazing woman, one whose wit and general good humor coexist with strong views and a sense of right and justice. She is being dealt a hand she doesn't deserve, and the overwhelming cost of health care in America should not be something she has to contend with when she's fighting a much more important fight. 

If you can spare a few bucks, we'd appreciate it if you would take a look. If you can't, why not comment below and let Erin know how much you like reading her here on DEAD GUY or elsewhere. In fact, why not do both?

She's already overwhelmed with a situation. Let's overwhelm her with how much people care.

We do. You get well soon, Erin. We want you back here on Fridays.

Watch What You Say. I'm Reading.

Jeff Cohen

I believe every review ever written about my work. Each and every one. No exceptions.

Wait! I hear you scream. Some of those are raves that absolutely adored your story and others are one-star masterpieces that took you down in a flying tackle, kicked you in the head a couple of times, spat on you and left you for dead. How can you possibly agree with both of those?

It's easy. I'm a writer. 

In each of us, I believe, there exists both a raging, surging, voracious ego and a slinking, whimpering, cowering introvert who lives in dread of being discovered a complete hack whose lack of talent is matched only by his audacity in trying to get people to spend money on his worthless words. I think my books are funny, engaging and entertaining. I also believe they are obvious, clumsy and poorly considered.

I'm right, of course, assuming that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My own attitude will vary based on what day it is and which review I read last. If it's someone who seems to have actually had a thought before expressing it (something other than, "It arrived on time and undamaged") I respect the reviewer's opinion and assume s/he is correct. That cuts both ways. A positive review feeds the ego and a negative one provides nourishment to my inner Renfield.

This doesn't have a huge effect on my actual writing, as I am never foolish enough to read reviews right around the time I'm going to start on the day's 1,000 words. A pan at that moment would probably paralyze me for an hour at least or make the work that day unreadable on the next. 

Many authors (and actors, artists, directors, etc.) claim they don't read reviews of their work. I tend to disbelieve them, but I definitely admire the sentiment. I wish I didn't read them, but believe they are in fact necessary to the process.

Writing is a form of communication. It exists to take the thoughts in one's head and make them available to others. If you don't want anyone to hear your thoughts, it's probably best not to write them down, say them aloud, record them, film them or post them on Twitter at three in the morning. Just ask a few presidential candidates how that's going.

So given that idea, the intent is to essentially ask people to read one's work. We write to express ourselves, but that doesn't really happen much unless someone is paying attention. You can express yourself all you want in a room alone, and if that makes you feel better, do it. But for those of us who desire an audience of some kind, the idea is to attract readers.

Reviewers are readers with a platform and an opinion about the work. How can you not read those? And if you really don't--which I still believe is a lie in most cases--how do you know what people think about what you've written?

Sure, you can make the argument that an artist should not tailor the work to an audience. Giving the people want that want, especially when they have the capacity to actually ask for it, is not a really healthy way to flourish as a storyteller. It's better to have the Steve Jobs philosophy and give the people what they want before they know they want it.

But if you finish the work, send it out shuddering and hopeful to its readers, and then don't check in to see what they thought of it, are you really doing yourself and your writing a service? I read the reviews. I'm not sorry to say that. I read each and every one and actually seek them out in order to do so every now and again.

I'm lucky in that the majority of the reviews that I've read have been kind to the work. But there have been some head-kickers and I've read those too, deciding if (after an obligatory time to cool down and reflect) I believe the reviewer might have a point and if so, whether I should take note of that for future writings.

One reviewer (and I forget which one) noted that in one of the Double Feature books I had "used up his allotment of commas by Chapter 3" and when I looked back I saw that was true. Which is why I cut out two unnecessary commas from the sentence you just read.

Others simply have issues with things I either see as virtues or as necessary, and after the reflective moment I ignore those. I do want to please readers but as Abraham Lincoln (or Billy Wilder) once paraphrased, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Hell, you can't even please all the people on the same Tuesday.

Yes. I read reviews and I take them to heart when I think it's appropriate. The raves I tend to think are from people who set the bar low. The pans I think actually hit the nail on the head and I go and hide for a while before deciding what to use and what to throw away. Then it's back at the 1,000 words again. 

So if you're considering reviewing The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband or any other of my books, please feel free to say exactly what you think. But know that I'll be reading and so might my mother, so watch your language. For my mother.

Otherwise, have at me. You can't say anything I haven't already thought.

Mystery Author Revealed!

Jeff Cohen

Since 2010 there has been some intrigue surrounding the crime fiction author E.J. Copperman, whose Haunted Guesthouse series began that year with Night of the Living Deed. A tight-lipped figure, Copperman blends paranormal elements with some humor (although not as much as I would like) in the mystery, but does not reveal personal details except under extreme duress. But now, after much coercion, I have managed to procure an interview with the elusive Copperman as our second collaboration, The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband, was published earlier this month. I won't promise much in the way of personal revelation, but the information on process might be helpful.

Jeff Cohen: You're a very difficult person to track down. Is your mysterious persona just that, a character you play to deflect personal questions?

E.J. Copperman: Nah.

JC: Can you elaborate?

EJC: I can. Are you asking me to?

JC: I believe I am, yes.

EJC: I don't consciously try to keep people from knowing who I am. It's a delicate balance. Some readers want to know all about you; others couldn't care less and just want more books. I try to walk the line down the middle.

JC: Wow. That sounded sincere while divulging no real information at all.

EJC: Thank you.

JC: Because we've worked together, I get asked about you quite a bit, and the question most often asked is: Is E.J. Copperman a man or a woman?

EJC: Yes.

JC: Yes, what?

EJC: Yes. I am a man or a woman.

JC: Thanks for that.

EJC: No problem.

JC: You're more comfortable talking about your work, which I've observed fairly close up.

EJC: Hard to get closer.

JC: I'm not going to ask where you get your ideas, because I'm afraid too many of them would have come from me.

EJC: I don't have to sit here and be insulted.

JC: Oh, sit down. I said I wasn't going to ask that question. Instead, let's talk process. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

EJC: You'll be hearing from my attorney, sir.

JC: Stop being a wiseass; you know exactly what I mean. Do you plot out far ahead, or are you writing by the seat of your pants?

EJC: I'm writing while ON the seat of my pants; that's for sure. Writing while standing would be tough on the legs. Maybe I'm a plotzer. 

JC: I'm supposed to be the corny one, remember?

EJC: Sorry. What was the question?

JC: Plotter or pantser. You. Which one?

EJC: Well, you and I have very similar processes. We both have an idea of a beginning and an end with something in the middle that throws a monkey wrench into the plot. So which would that make me?

JC: You're a pantser, my friend.

EJC: I wish there was a more dignified term.

JC: Deal with it. You're working on four different series right now, only one of which has a co-author to do all the work... um, collaborate with you on. And they're all written in first person narratives. How do you keep all the characters' voices straight in your head?

EJC: I'll forego the joke about voices in my head because you are indeed the corny one.

JC: The world thanks you.

EJC: It's not a difficult process for me. I plunge into the story and the character will dictate how the incidents will be seen. It's his or her perspective that's important, because they'll see things in a certain way and report them to the reader through the prism of the character's perception. If Samuel Hoenig walks into a room with a dead body in it, he's going to have a much different reaction than Alison Kerby will because his mind works differently. He'll be more analytical and Alison will be more emotional, and worry about who else might be seeing this. Samuel will record the details for later analysis.

JC: Wow. That was something approaching a direct answer to the question.

EJC: Have to throw one in every now and again to keep you on your toes. And don't think I missed that crack about you doing all the work. You know that's not true.

JC: Of course I do. For legal reasons. Now, what about plot? Four series? Eight books (including the one in progress) in the Guesthouse series, three (so far, including one written for next year) in the Asperger's series, and you're going to start writing the second in both the Mysterious Detective series and the Agent to the Paws series. Is it hard to come up with a plot you haven't done before?

EJC: Plot comes from character. The idea is to throw something at the character that will be more difficult for them to deal with than the last time, and so on. A reader doesn't want the same thing every time. They're more invested in the characters than the intricacies of the plot, I believe. So if I give the character an escalation in difficulty every time--and that doesn't necessarily mean a harder mystery to solve as much as something that will affect the character personally--the reader will find out new things about the person they've become attached to. So if I come up with something that will reveal more about Alison or Samuel, I'll build a story around that. Different things will affect each one, so the plots hopefully don't repeat themselves.

JC: Do you always have the reader in mind?

EJC: Always. The reader is the reason for the book. If nobody wants to read your work, you're not communicating, and if you're not communicating, why are you writing?

JC: I have often asked myself that question. People often mistake me for you. Do we look alike? 

EJC: That's a good place to stop, I think.

Seriously, This is Touching as Hell

Jeff Cohen

It's the emails from Aspies that I probably cherish the most. 

When you write a series about a man who has Asperger's syndrome (there is NO "b" in it--this is not a sandwich!), you expect to hear from people who share those traits. Mostly, you expect to be told precisely when and where you have been inaccurate in your depiction of that end of the autism spectrum.

(Yes, I'm writing this with the full knowledge that the second Asperger's mystery THE QUESTION OF THE UNFAMILIAR HUSBAND will be available in bookstores and elsewhere this coming Thursday if it isn't already. If you consider this a cheap bow to commercialism, so be it. The electric bill isn't paying itself.)

And to be honest, there has been the occasional piece of negative feedback from someone who identifies as an "Aspie." Not much, and never really bruising, but it happens once in a while. The worst part is that they're usually right and I have made an error somewhere along the line. It's a reminder to be more diligent next time. They keep me honest.

But then you get the others. (And this is where I'll say I am not going to quote from anyone's email because I have not obtained their permission.) The ones that talk about finally seeing a work of fiction that understands what it's like to have the rest of the world misunderstand you. The ones that say your work has given them courage to go on after a setback. The ones that, frankly, make you tear up a little bit.

There are times on the 1000-word-a-day diet when the words aren't flowing quite as easily as others. Times when I honestly don't know what the next plot turn is going to be, or when it should come. For a writer like me who likes to paint himself into a corner, there are days when the paint is a little wetter and the corner a little tighter. It's not always easy to get out.

But--and this might sound corny, but it's true--those are the times when one of those Aspie emails makes me plod on. And plot on, too. Knowing that there's somebody out there who really does care about what happens next and can make a personal connection from the story that came out of my head to his/her own life is an amazing feeling. It's a huge implied responsibility, too--to get it right and not let the community down. I don't want to be known as the guy who wrote that stupid book about an Aspie and got it all wrong. That's important.

Just a couple of days ago I got a very thrilling, touching email from an Aspie which, again, I will not quote here. But I did forward it to Terri because she is the editor on these books and she has some inside information on the spectrum herself. And when she replied she summed up perfectly how I felt when I read the email this person took time out to send to an author who'd never done anything but write a story that seemed cool to him.

"Reviews are great," Terri wrote to me. "Awards are fantastic. But this... this is why I love what we do."

You can't do better than that. So I'm going to keep trying.

Thank you, Aspies.

Susan McBride interviews Ann Myers

Jessy Randall

Dead Bread, Killer Debutantes, and Peanut Butter Cups: Dishing with Debut Mystery Author Ann Myers

by Susan McBride

Susan: It’s funny to look back and realize I’ve been writing mysteries of one kind or another for 16 years, so I’m the grizzled veteran in this conversation. It definitely doesn’t feel like 11 years has gone by since Blue Blood came out, introducing my nutty mother-daughter duo of Andy and Cissy Kendricks to mystery readers. But it’s fun to be back with these characters after a brief (um, seven-year) hiatus, and it’s even more fun to get to chat with fellow HC/Avon author and true newbie Ann Myers about Bread of the Dead, the first of her new Santa Fe Café Mystery series. Not only do Ann and I share a publishing house, but we share a literary agent, and a pub date. Both Bread of the Dead and Say Yes to the Death have the same release date (September 29, 2015). I think we’re publishing twins separated at birth.

Susan: Okay, Ann, why mysteries? Did you feel the urge to kill somebody?

Ann: I’ve been driving around doing errands and pondering whether I want to kill. Almost definite answer: No, although I have wished for a blameless act of nature to take care of an obscenity-shouting former neighbor. My mother always says that she’d like to discover a body. Maybe I take after her in that. My main character stumbles on a lot of bodies, and I wouldn’t mind finding obscenity guy…. And you? You must have killed a lot of people in your books by now. What inspired the first one?  

Susan: Ha! Yeah, I guess “a lot” is probably accurate, although committing fictional crime is very neat and clean. Heck, I scream when I see a spider (isn’t that what husbands are for?). In the beginning, there was Blue Blood, the first of my Deb Dropout series, in which I killed the owner of a restaurant called Jugs. I guess I’d gotten a little tired of hearing that guys went to places like that just for the chicken wings. (Um, not!) I find writing very cathartic! It’s my version of therapy.

Ann: I love that you killed off the owner of Jugs. Great therapy! As you say, clean and neat on paper and a lot less scary than spiders.

Susan: I’ll say! Tell me about Bread of the Dead and the inspiration behind your mystery debut?

Ann: Mmm…the inspiration behind Bread of the Dead… I knew I wanted to set a culinary mystery in Santa Fe, which I love and visit a lot for my husband’s work. I also love to bake, especially breads and holiday recipes. Pan de muerto (bread of the dead) has such a great name and is made for Day of the Dead—a perfect holiday for a mystery. It’s also really tasty, like a brioche you can shape in the form of a skull and coat in sugar.

I see there’s a baker in Say Yes to the Death (fabulous title!) and a dead wedding planner. I’m sure you don’t want to name names, but are there any real-life wedding stories behind this book?

Susan: Not sure about real-life stories—at least none that happened to me at my wedding, and I did all the planning so I’m glad no wedding planners were in jeopardy—but I had heard various tales about awful MOBs (mothers of the bride) from a good friend who is a wedding planner and also from watching reality shows about weddings (including “Say Yes to the Dress”—I love that one!). One I just had to use involved a bride getting stuck in a bathroom wearing a Scarlett O’Hara-inspired gown with hoops. Needless to say, I will not be acting that scene out at any book conventions.

So, who’s the protagonist of your new series? And is she anything like you?

Ann: Rita Lafitte is a Midwest transplant to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She’s a single mom to a teenager daughter, a chef at Tres Amigas Café, and a reluctant sleuth. I’m afraid we share some traits, like weaknesses for Frito pie and cookies, and neither of us can dance or stay on a diet. I, however, would never dare chase after killers.

Susan: I hear ya!

Ann: How did you come up with Andy Kendricks, the Debutante Dropout? Is she based on anyone in particular?

Susan: Andy was inspired by my time as a sorority pledge at UT-Austin. I was in the company of a lot of privileged young women from Texas who were debutantes-in-training. They would practice their Texas Dips—the nose-to-the-floor curtsy that Texas debs must learn to do—and I would feel like the “one of these things is not like the other” in the old Sesame Street song. I wanted to write about a girl who grew up with a silver spoon, but felt much more comfortable with stainless steel. Andy is the anti-debutante who refused to debut when she was eighteen, much to her mother’s dismay. Oh, yes, I gave her a dyed-in-the-wool Chanel-wearing blue blood mother just to balance things out. They are a fun pair to write about, and I think anyone with a daughter or a mother will relate.  ;-)

What’s next for you, Ann? More of Rita? 

Ann: I hope to continue with the Santa Fe Café Mysteries. I just finished book three of the series, Feliz Navidead, and have lots of mysteries (and recipes!) I’d love for Rita and her friends to tackle. And then there’s Rita’s developing relationship with hunky lawyer Jake Strong. She started off as a reluctant dater, but how can she resist a man with shiny cowboy boots?

Ann: I see you’re writing another River Road Mystery—yay! Is another Debutante Dropout in the works too?

Susan: I’m working on the fourth “Helen” book now (well, I’ve started it anyway!). It’s called Come Helen High Water and should be out next year. I haven’t thought about another Debutante Dropout book, but you never know. I’m just amazed still that Andy and Cissy are back in Say Yes to the Death after a seven-year vacation. This is one crazy business, full of twists and turns, kind of like the mysteries we like to write and read. Speaking of reading, what’s on the top of your TBR pile? Something scary?

Ann: Hamish Macbeth mysteries and a lot of them. I’m binge painting almost all the walls in our house and listening to Hamish audiobooks while I work. I’ve gotten so caught up with the series that I’m reading them on my Kindle too. It’s hot, sunny, and dry in Colorado right now and lovely to imagine Scottish fog and cold, bleak moors.

Susan: Cold and bleak makes me think of Halloween! So let’s jump to a very important question: Snickers bars or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? Then I'll know whether or not to ring your doorbell and say, “Trick or treat!”

Ann: Ah, easy one: Peanut Butter Cups! Hands down. How about you?

Susan: I’m torn between two candies and feelin’ like a fool. (Seriously, I’m a Libra. I like to keep it balanced.) I always buy more than we’ll need of both to give away just so I can keep the leftovers. Are you dressing up to answer the door? Or do you turn off the porch light and hide until it's all over?

Ann: I shouldn’t admit this, having written a Halloween book: I hide! There are all sorts of rationales, like the years I’ve been home alone and worried about opening the door to potential ax murderers, or apartments with coded entries, but excuses aside, I’ll probably still hide. However, I might reconsider if it means I could stock up on those Peanut Butter Cups you mentioned…

***

Susan McBride is the USA Today bestselling, Lefty Award winning, Anthony Award nominated author of Blue Blood and the Debutante Dropout Mysteries from HarperCollins. Say Yes to the Death is the sixth in the series. Susan also writes the bestselling River Road Mysteries for HC/Avon, including To Helen Back, Mad as Helen, and Not A Chance in Helen. A fourth in that series, Come Helen High Water, will be out in 2016. Visit Susan's web site at susanmcbride.com or facebook.com/susanmcbridebooks for more scoop on Susan and her books.

Ann Myers lives in Colorado but, like her main character Rita, feels most at home in Santa Fe. Bread of the Dead is the first in her Santa Fe Café Mystery series, to be followed by more holiday murders in Cinco de Mayhem (spring 2016) and Feliz Navidead (fall 2016). Follow Ann’s Southwestern cooking and writing adventures at www.facebook.com/AnnMyers.writer and www.annmyersbooks.com/.

 

Writing Laughs, A Get Well Wish, and a Book Plug

Jeff Cohen

First and most important: Our very own Erin Mitchell is under the weather (as opposed to the rest of us, who apparently are over the weather, but doesn't that mean we're outside the atmosphere?) and we all at DEAD GUY are wishing her the speediest and most complete recovery in history! You can read Erin's own chronology of her travails here, but our message is simple: GET BETTER NOW!!!

 

Worst advice ever given: “When people say, 'Don't worry, John, you'll make it funny.”

--John Cleese

It always worries me when someone asks me to write something funny. I don't get angry, not ever, but I do get nervous. Suppose I can't think of anything funny? What if I'm in a serious mood (hey, it could happen)? What if I write something I think is funny but the person who asked doesn't?

Those of us who traffic in humor do so because we want to; don't misunderstand. We see enough misery, hypocrisy, injustice and horror in the world without feeling the need to contribute. Maybe we want to provide distraction or in some way illuminate the problem without making it seem hopeless. But when put on the spot--be funny now--any confidence in the talent within retreats to its hiding place and sits this one out.

So yes, I like to write things that are funny, and I try to do that for 1,000 words every day. But I know I'm going to do that, and I can hang the humor on a story, which gives you something to riff on. Just stare me down with "say something funny," and I might even come up with something that works, but I'll be sweating to get it done.

Comedy is a talent. Some are great at it. Some have no capacity for it at all and they should never attempt it under any circumstances, like tightrope walking without a net. Others, like me, have some capacity for the art but aren't going to play the big room, and that's okay. We can still contribute.

It was said of Groucho Marx (who many believe was the most complete and perfected comedian to date) that he was at his funniest when he absolutely should not have been trying to be amuse. When prevailed upon to be hilarious on the spot, he would speak seriously or refuse to participate at all. He could be funny at will, and often was, but it was his choice, not yours, when he'd find it worth his while.

Lucille Ball, on the other hand, was said to have no sense of humor at all. She could perform comedy with anybody (and did). She could take what others created for her and take it to another level of hilarity with her capacity to bring reality to an absurd situation. Off-screen, Lucy was a serious and sometimes brusque presence, never the life of the party.

"No, I'm not going to be your monkey."

--Jon Stewart, when asked to say something funny on "Crossfire," which was subsequently cancelled

The key to writing is not necessarily to stay in your comfort zone--there's a lot to be said for walking the border between comfort and danger. In other cases, it's best to stay within the area that brings you most confidence because then you can break your own rules, sure in the knowledge that you've done it before and the world didn't end.

But the one absolute rule of writing comedy is that if you're not a person who understands how to make something funny, or can't tell what is or is not funny, you should never try to create it from scratch. It'll be painful and frustrating for you, and a serious drag for any audience you manage to reach.

I can write funny. I can talk funny. I'm not bragging; that's just something I can do. Maybe you can dunk a basketball, dance with grace, play the saxophone or solve complex problems with calculus. I couldn't do any of those things on the best day I ever had. People have different talents; it's what makes us interesting.

But walk up and tell me to say something funny, and I'm here to tell you, I have no idea what you're going to get. It would be a good time, however, to buy stock in GlaxoSmithKline.

They make Tums. And I'll be taking some.

P.S. Just a quick reminder (or a first notice if you hadn't heard before) that THE QUESTION OF THE UNFAMILIAR HUSBAND, the second in the Asperger's Mystery series by E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen (whatever that means) will be available starting October 1, which is... THIS THURSDAY! So, you know, get one. Read it. Say nice things. If you don't like it, keep your mouth shut. But remember--Thursday.

The Final Out of Michael Kay

Jeff Cohen

Just to follow up on some of the ideas I was discussing last week: I'm a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees. (You may despise me all you like, but I'm not changing my affiliation. Deal with it.) And, since I am not nearly wealthy enough to buy season tickets (and uninterested in making the two-hour hike to and from the Bronx 81 times a year), I watch almost every game on television, as the gods intended.

Hang on, writing fans. I'm getting there.

Seeing that number of games broadcast--and for us die-hards it's actually seven days a week for some stretches of the season--naturally we get to hear the announcers very frequently and pick up some of their verbal patterns. Each one has his own style (except Meredith Marakovitz, who has her own style). Some of the ex-players speak in such arcane detail about the swing of a bat or the release point of a pitch that I can feel I've never actually seen this sport before and must be watching it with the SAP button pressed on my TV because it's in a foreign language.

Others, the professional announcers who have not played the game themselves, are there to remind us there's a game going on sometimes (the ex-players tend to reminisce or explain a point for the next six plays). They usually provide play-by-play, telling you what you're seeing on the screen, rather than "color commentary," which is the inside story of the game, these days so overloaded with statistics it helps to be a mathematician to watch the Yankees play the Baltimore Orioles.

But the point to those of us who pay inordinate attention to words is that there are recurring patterns to the way people talk, particularly when they are required to do so for at least three hours at a stretch. Some of them are endearing (the genial and knowledgeable Ken Singleton shouting "Look out!" whenever a pitch gets a little too close to the batter), some are simply noteworthy (John Flaherty never says, "Joe Girardi should be pleased"; he says "If you're Joe Girardi, you're pleased." That would be fine, but I'm definitely not Joe Girardi). Some grate on the ear to the point of distraction.

And that brings me to Michael Kay.

The "TV voice of the New York Yankees," Kay possesses the voice we fans most often hear. Some adore him. Others want to run him out of town on a rail. The former must outnumber the latter, because he also has a radio show in New York talking about all sports, and he is certainly not in danger of dismissal from his TV job. I assume the same is true of the radio gig.

But he repeats certain words and phrases without mercy, and if you're listening closely, it can set your teeth on edge.

I understand the concept of signature phrases. Phil Rizzuto had "Holy cow!" (which was widely assumed to have been stolen from a previous sportscaster), and that never bothered me. Rizzuto was also the most idiosyncratic sportscaster in history and could be entertaining even --or perhaps especially--when he forgot there was a game going on. Which was not infrequent.

I get that every announcer is expected to have a home run call, although that seems odd to me. Why not just respond to the game as it happens? But okay, that's an industry standard.

The problem is, virtually every inning has a Kay trope. As the first pitch is being thrown, you can expect, "(Name of pitcher) is ready. (Name of batter) is ready. Let's do it!" Which is uncomfortable in and of itself. This is immediately followed by "and we are underway," in case you didn't know the game had started.

(Again, keep in mind that it's the repetition of the phrase, night after night, that grates. Doing it once would not be a problem.)

Each home run will be greeted with, "That's hit DEEEEEEP to (direction) field! Track! Wall! See ya!" Some of the wall scrapers, particularly in Yankee Stadium's right field, are not hit all that DEEEEEEP, but okay.  The reuse of the same phrase every single time makes the moment less special instead of more. It's like each home run is the same as all the others because they will all be described the same way.

The whole "see ya" thing is I guess a trademark. Every announcer likes to have a signature call for home runs. John Sterling, the radio voice of the Yankees, is famous--not necessarily in a good way--for his home run calls, tailored to each Yankee batter. (But then, John Sterling's description of a baseball game is a surreal affair from beginning to end, leaving the listener with the unshakable impression that he has somehow crossed the space time continuum and is now listening to a present-day baseball game being described by a fan of odd commercial segues and musical comedy from 1948. That's another issue entirely.)

Even in the obligatory statement of copyright (repeated each night so people can't pirate the broadcast of the game), Kay sometimes feels it necessary to insert himself into the announcement. He can't tell us not to use anything in the broadcast "without the written consent of the New York Yankees" and just read the words. He adds the word "aforementioned," as in "the aforementioned New York Yankees," presumably to alert the viewer to the face that he knows a four-syllable word. The one area where the words SHOULD be the same every night, and he wants us to remember who's reading the boilerplate.

When the team behind in the score has two outs in the ninth inning, Kay will say--without variation--"the (Yankees or other team) are down to their final out." Followed, when the batter has a two-strike count, with "the (Yankees or other team) are down to their final strike." It's the word "final" that grates here, because it's never anything else. There is no word "last" in Kay's vocabulary. There is just "final."

The repetition of words has an effect on the listener. It's not soothing and it's not congenial. It irritates. In writing (you knew I'd get to it, right?) quite often an editor will suggest a change in the manuscript when the writer uses a word too often, or uses it more than once in a short sequence. That's because reading is in many ways something we do with our mental ear--we hear the words as we read them--and that repeated word quickly becomes abrasive to the reader.

When that repetition--and the lack of spontaneity it represents--continues over 162 games in six months, it compounds itself. Too many final outs, too many tracks, too many walls, too many aforementioneds, too many let's do it-s. It becomes an illustration of why the mute button was invented.

For a writer, that's something to keep in mind. Don't irritate your audience. Use all the words you can without becoming a walking thesaurus. Mix it up. Reread your work and see if you might add more variety. Talking for three hours a night isn't the same as taking your time to write. Michael Kay can't go back and edit himself, and he has to keep an audience entertained for long stretches when not much is going on (and no, baseball is not a slow sport if you actually understand the game). 

But he still drives me crazy. "Last," Michael. It's a word. You can use it. Who knows; maybe you'll like it.

WANTED: suspense novellas by women writers

Jessy Randall

Spider Road Press seeks submissions to their 2016 suspense anthology, Approaching Footsteps: Four Novellas by Women. From https://spiderroadpress.submittable.com/submit (deadline is November 1):

Beginning on 9/1/15, we will again be considering submissions of unpublished suspense novellas by women writers. Novellas must be 9,000- 13,000 words long (40-60 pages). We seek suspenseful, well-crafted fiction in which the plot strengthens the characterization and tension is maintained throughout the narrative. Novellas featuring protagonists from traditionally under-represented communities (people of color, people with disabilities, etc.) are particularly encouraged. Novellas should be quality literature yet able to conform to the general themes of the suspense, mystery and thriller genres. One submission per writer allowed. We have a small staff, so it could take us until February to contact authors regarding acceptances and rejections. Payment upon publication: $150, three free copies of the collection, and a full-page bio and author profile on our website.
Specific submissions criteria:
· Submissions reopened from 9/1/15-11/1/15.
· No science fiction or urban fantasy this time. Sorry. No traditional horror or gore. No young adult fiction, traditional fantasy, erotica, traditional romance or fan fiction will be considered. Sorry.
· No gratuitous sex, violence, or profanity. If you include a crime or subtle sex scene in your novella, it must be integral to the story.
· No graphic rape, torture, or child molestation scenes.
· Simultaneous submissions must be clearly labeled as such and writers are expected to withdraw their submissions promptly if they are published by another party.
· All submissions should be prepared in accordance with standard formatting outlined in the style guide for novellas and short stories found at http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html.

Things Not To Say. Ever. To a Writer.

Jeff Cohen

I use words for a living.

I tell that to people all the time, and they seem to think I'm joking. Only a little over a week ago, I was talking to a friend--who might have had a beer or two--and she asked the ever-grating question I've mentioned here before: "So, are you still writing?" And I went off on her, and have regretted it since. But I listen to the words people say to me, and I tend to respond to them as spoken, perhaps overlooking the intent behind them.

"Words," George Carlin said, "are my work, they're my play, they're my passion." They're the tools we use to try to express thoughts, sometimes more successfully than others. But when we fall into patterns and simply use the words we have used thousands of times before, when we choose to ignore the words in favor of the convention, we are being lazy and inexact. 

I've said here before that I think writing, particularly writing dialogue, is a product of the writer listening, perhaps more attentively, to words than most other people. Maybe that's true and maybe not, but I do tend to notice when people are speaking by rote rather than responding to the words I've said to them.

You can tell when someone's talking on autopilot. They'll betray it by answering "fine," when you say good morning and don't ask how they're feeling. When you sell them a movie ticket and tell them to enjoy the show and they say, "You too!" When you answer in an unexpected way and they stare at you, stupefied that you've broken the unwritten law indicating we will speak in accepted patterns.

So here are a few hints. Words and phrases that have driven me nuts over the years and I'm hoping I can help abolish:

• Stay-at-home dad. (This might be the place to mention that any of these phrases can apply to either gender. I'm using the male because that's what people say to me.) What you mean is "WORK-at-home dad." Most dads stay at home. Some leave the family, and I suppose a few live at the YMCA, but mostly you can find us at home. We stay there.
• Man up. There is no excuse for that phrase. It lives with "grow a pair" and "big-boy pants." If that's the best you can do, don't talk to me and save us both the aggravation.
• The famous author. Usually said when approaching, as in, "So! The famous author!" I have no idea why people say that when they talk to a writer (unless it's Stephen King), but there's an air of condescension to it that, frankly, I can live without.
• Still writing? No, I've decided after all these years to buy a Dairy Queen franchise and study for a degree in neurosurgery in my spare time. Are you still a dentist?
• You should put this in your next book. Do I come to your office and suggest ways to do your job?
• How's the book doing? How's it doing WHAT? Mostly it just sits there. If you mean, "how many copies has the book sold so far," the answer is simple: That's none of your business and besides, the overwhelming odds are that I don't know.
• Where do you get your ideas? Macy's. Turns out the "Notions" department is named literally.
• Racial (or religious, or LGBT) tolerance. Nothing a minority group enjoys more than being tolerated. How about "acceptance," or better yet, "celebration"?
• He left his feet to make that catch. I hope he went back and got them afterward. (There are a million of these sports announcers use.)
• How are you? Good? If you're going to answer all your own questions, this is going to be a short conversation. Easy, but short.

That's just scratching the surface, but I have enough of a curmudgeonly reputation as it is, so we'll leave it at that. 

Suffice it to say if you walk up to me at Bouchercon in a mere 25 (or 26) days and say any of those things, I'll still be very happy you stopped to say hello. 

To our Jewish visitors: Shana Tovah! Not to mention, have a lovely year!

Back to the Modifier Zone

Josh Getzler

 

So my back is so bad that I can't sit for any length of time. As a result, I'm reprinting one of my favorite Dead Guy posts, which four years later remains quite relevant. I take you back...to the Modifier Zone.

 

“Josh stretched his tired arms and wearily dragged his calloused, tapered fingers through his curly, tangled hair as he struggled to rouse his overworked body out of his comfortable bed, the tinny chirps of the chrome iHome alarm clock mocking him…chirpily. He staggered blearily past the cluttered wood desk and opened the white door to the beige bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his scruffy cheeks and shook himself awake as the minty toothpaste shocked his sleepy tastebuds into awareness. He trudged heavily into the book-lined family room, past the herringbone sofa and the orange chairs, stopping at his dark brown Jack Spade messenger bag to take out his red Dell laptop. It is 5:15, and you have entered…The Modifier Zone.”

One of the more common flaws I’ve found in the queries I read is the Modifier Dump, when an author—whether in looking to be absolutely sure that the reader knows precisely what the room looks like or the character feels, goes adjective and adverb crazy. A tree is not a tree—it’s a green, leafy tree. A person doesn’t walk down the street—he walks down the wide, car-filled, green-leafy-tree-lined, newly-paved highway.  At times it’s an excuse to show off SAT words: “The perspicacious toddler lugubriously imbibed the apple juice, perspiration trickling over his bloated digits.”

Regardless, it’s the sure way to make me stop reading. When I am looking at the beginning of a book, I want to be hooked. That’s not a revelation—everyone wants to be hooked at the start of a book. It either needs to have action that draws the reader in, or a description of a place or character that makes you want to continue because that character or place is going to do something or be the site of something interesting. And you don’t need a lot of words to make that happen. (And you sure don’t need to describe the weather. Weather, unless we’re talking about, say, the moors or the desert or the ski slopes or the Islands, is rarely relevant; and when it is, it’s often self-evident.)

Rather, in a short space, you (typically) need to place the reader in time and location, and indicate something about the person or people involved, and what they are doing.

I was talking to my assistant, Maddie, yesterday, about an exciting query which had come in through the weekend. It had many of the elements I salivate over—foreign, historical setting, crime, class issues, badass proto-feminist protagonist, and author with a great background and the chops to pull off an ambitious novel of this ilk.

“How’s the writing?” Maddie asked.

“Marvelous,” I said, and read the first sentence to her. “On the night I delivered Mercy Harris of a bastard child, the King’s soldiers burned the city’s suburbs and fell back within its walls to await the rebel assault.”

There is so much good about this—in 29 words, the author managed to convey so many things—let’s see how many:

1)      The narrator delivers babies. So the protagonist is a doctor or a midwife. Not an amateur, or it would have been “The night I helped Mercy Harris deliver her baby.”

2)      More than that, the narrator delivers bastard babies, which means that the story takes place during a time where that is important.

3)      It’s set in a city.

4)      With a wall.

5)      It’s set during a time and place where there is

1. A king
2. A rebellion

So the reader immediately knows that there are big things going on—a civil war of some kind—and also local dramas of childbirth. We don’t know where it’s going, exactly, but we want to continue. And in these 29 words, there is one modifier—bastard—and it’s vital, and evocative. It would say something very different about the book if the adjective were “illegitimate,” right? And it wasn’t necessary to say that the night was dark or rainy or dangerous, because the details given are more than sufficient to pique our interest. I don’t know if the author will be able to sustain the prose or the story, but I do know that I want to read on, and I’m inclined to like it.

So the takeaway on this I suppose is that for me the best writing is careful writing, where the pyrotechnics can be subtle, the adjectives minimal and always germane, and the weather implied. Many agents and editors talk about wanting to be transported to a different or unfamiliar time and place, with unique characters and gripping plots. That’s an incredibly tall order, and one whose difficulty is only magnified when it is burdened with unnecessary modifiers.

It's Not Just Backyard Grilling

Jeff Cohen

For those reading in the United States: Today is Labor Day. And before you start lighting the grill or emptying the pool (because it's the "official end of summer," which is the opposite of true), consider the meaning of the holiday.

Labor Day is not just about the value of hard work or the reward one gets from doing one's job well. Labor Day is about organized labor, something that has been under attack here for some time. And if you're offended by political discussions of any kind, this might be the time to stop reading this post. Because although writing books is my labor, that's not what I'm posting about this week.

We Americans like to believe that we value a day's work. But a look back into history from not all that long ago will indicate that perhaps that isn't always the case. We are happy to have the fruits of labor, ours and others', but until labor started to organize itself it was possible to undervalue a day's work in any number of horrifying ways.

Children could be made to work in factories. Workers could be required to labor under dangerous conditions for absurd numbers of hours without a break. Weekends were not sacrosanct. Neither were lunch hours, coffee breaks or safety regulations that kept going to work from being a hazard to your health or a serious threat to your life.

Let's not even discuss wages. Because you really couldn't then.

Organized labor (that is--brace yourself for the word--unions) made it possible to work hard and still have a life outside work. Negotiation with management made work something that produced the desired effect without destroying the people who created it. Labor unions are to thank for the five-day work week. The nine-hour work day. The lunch break. The illegality of sweatshop conditions.

Are there some labor unions whose leadership has become corrupt? Of course there are. But the idea that the abolition of unions will lead to the market regulating itself is absurd. If the past 100 years have taught us anything, it is that greed is a drug, and once given access to it, users will go to any lengths to increase their supply. The product of such conditions is a battered work force and decreased productivity.

So yes, say thank you to workers you know. Say thank you to yourself if you're working. Have respect for people who do their jobs every day, not just on Labor Day. 

And remember that this day is also meant as a reminder: Protect the rights of laborers, because without them we are vastly diminished.

Happy Labor Day, everybody.

grants for unpublished authors of traditional mysteries

Jessy Randall

The William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program for Unpublished Writers awards one grant per year to an unpublished writer of traditional, Agatha-Christie-style mysteries. It's a grant of $2,500 and includes registration and lodging for the 2016 Malice Domestic Convention in Bethesda, Maryland.

There's no fee to apply (!!) and the deadline is November 1.

More information here. And if you want to get a firsthand report on what the convention's like, you could ask Jeff Cohen, who attended last year.

 

What's in a Name?

Josh Getzler

Several weeks ago, Catherine Nichols wrote an essay for Jezebel describing her experience submitting a novel with a male vs female name (you can read the essay here: http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-novel-out-und-1720637627). It was fascinating to me, and a bit baffling. Her Male nomme de plume, George, received 8 ½ times more responses than the same book did under her own name.

I was surprised at the results reported in Ms. Nichols’s essay because, for the life of me, I could not recall looking at an author’s sex as a help or a hindrance, except in certain very specific circumstances—some cozy mysteries, some parenting nonfiction, erotica from a woman’s perspective—but in each of these cases I would have been more leery of a man’s name on the query than a woman’s. (And to be sure, I’ve had a devil of a time selling some rights to a mystery, written by a man, in the first person perspective of a woman.) I currently have 47 clients, 26 of whom are women and 21 of whom are men. I represent books encompassing many genres, both fiction and nonfiction (though 75 % fiction), and with a bit of a bias toward adult books vs children’s (30 out of 47 are adult book authors). I looked through my list for trends, tendencies…and found none. Not at all. I look at background, certainly, particularly for historical fiction and all nonfiction. But I have twice as many female Ph.Ds (4) as male (2), and the same number of women writing thrillers as men.

So what is it? I mean, I realize I am particularly interested in signing, for example, female thriller and mystery writers because the editors I talk to tell me they are interested in the next big female-driven thriller or police procedural. But I just. Don’t. Think. About. It. (At least not much.)

I decided to speak to some folks in the industry and had several conversations about this after I read the essay. The two most notable were with one male editor from a major publisher, the other with my colleague Danielle, who is the first reader on many of the submissions that come to me.

The editor said that the thing that the article did for him was to make him assess the books he’d taken on, and what he found was that some of his “project” books, which he’d really had to fight for and which at times were books he’d spent quite a bit of time nurturing, were in fact predominantly by men. He said as well that there were many times he felt (purely anecdotally, and speaking only for himself and not making generalizations!) that it was easier to squeak a book through Ed Board if it weren’t obvious, if it were by a guy. He wasn’t sure why, and the idea disturbed him tremendously. And he said that it made him want to think carefully about whether this is true the next time he brought something up.

My conversation with Danielle really dug through a lot of layers. Because ultimately, I think what the author of the essay was doing, and indeed what so much analysis of books and authors is ultimately about, is dismissing genre fiction—and indeed “commercial” fiction—which is ALL predominantly read by women, and lonely thinking about “literary fiction”—in other words the kinds of books that men read too. Of course I have more female clients than male, and don’t think about the author’s sex, she said; you represent mostly genre fiction. Crime, YA, women’s commercial fiction, parenting nonfiction. (To be fair to myself, in the literary fiction I represent, I have an equal number of male and female clients, but the point is well-taken since it’s only a few books.)

So really, Danielle pointed out, the sexism that Nichols encountered had as much to do with her audience as with her name. And there are certainly all kinds of statistics to back up these findings, when you think of the percentage of Booker nominees or National Book Award long-listers any given year that are male vs female (and it’s not a question of who wins; just how many are nominated); or books on the Times year-end lists of best books, or are reviewed in any given year. All overwhelmingly male (and white, for that matter).

But why is THAT? Is it that any smart novel written by a woman is automatically placed as “commercial women’s fiction” while a smart novel by a man is considered “literary?” Is it that women who write about domestic dramas are taken less seriously than men who write about Tortured Men?

I realize these are lots of questions that get to the very core of literature and generations of reading and writing and publishing habits (I’d be interested in hearing what a female editor of literary fiction thinks, and whether she has thought this way before. Has the ascendance of women to higher levels within publishing houses caused any change? Nichols would say not.) . It left the male editor rather depressed and surprised.

Unfortunately to Danielle, it was obvious.

To me, it might explain a bit why some of my books failed to Pass Ed Board (sometimes multiple times). It won’t make me change who I take and why I take it. I go to work each day looking for the best possible book, regardless of genre, regardless of who the author may be. The bar is high regardless.

It seems, though, in our industry, that if you are a woman you have to jump that much higher.

Know Your Characters (Updated)

Jeff Cohen

Just as an aside: My first starred review from Publishers Weekly came out this week. They really seem to like The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband ("captivating"). So that's nice. But that was just an aside.

This is my last day of "vacation," as I'll start a new draft on a new book tomorrow (which, against my wishes, will be Sept. 1). So it's time to ruminate on process.

On my new schedule (short breaks between books, which is what I've always wanted), the shift from one style to another, one series to another, one character to another, is quicker. Not as much time to think about whether Alison Kerby would say that or Samuel Hoenig would find a particular situation uncomfortable. Just finding my way with Rachel Goldman and Kay Powell as I head into their second adventures.

You'd think that would be a daunting task. Frankly, I don't find it all that hard to do. Although I did just have to look up Kay's last name. Haven't written her in a while.

The key to my kind of writing (that is, where plot may not necessarily be the primary draw although it is hardly neglected) is voice. All four (!) series I write are done in first person. The character is telling you the story from her/his perspective. So when the incidents I cook up occur, the key is to know how each character will react and how s/he will choose to relate it to you, the reader.

This is where my natural tendency as a "pantser" comes into play. I've never really been very good at planning the nuances of the story. I have an idea of a premise, a general midpoint and a very vague notion of an ending. This goes back to my decades as an unsuccessful screenwriter writing in three acts. Some people who write screenplays chart out each scene with 3x5" file cards and pin them to a cork board. 

I don't.

For me, if each scene is plotted before I begin, I've told the story. Writing the book would be a waste of time and a joyless experience. That feeling would no doubt bleed into the writing and readers would sense it. Not a recipe for success.

There have been times in the past few years when I was working on more than one novel at a time. For example, the first Rachel Goldman/Duffy Madison book Written Off (once called Deadlier Than the Sword) was written at the same time as the most recently published Haunted Guesthouse book Inspector Specter. It just worked out that way.

When that happens, I have to switch from one narrator to another in the time it takes me to close one Word file and open the next. Then I dive in and start typing away in the other character's voice.

It's not a mystical process; it's not magic. It's just being able to know the characters well enough that I can let them speak for themselves. And that is key for any kind of fiction writing; it's something I try to impress upon my students (get those final drafts in today by noon!) every week--if you know your characters well, can let them be people and not concepts, they'll lead you to where you want to go. 

You have to trust them. It's not hard to do. Just write people you find interesting. 

For me, it starts with Alison Kerby, the narrator of the Haunted Guesthouse series. A single mom trying to run an accommodation business, she's going to be more polite than some of the others. She's got to be more politic. She is sensitive to the needs of her daughter and sometimes takes out her frustration on the people she finds most inconvenient, like the ghost Maxie Malone, who usually deserves it.

Rachel Goldman in the Mysterious Detective series is in a little more over her head. She writes mystery novels, a business I know fairly well, so she'll face situations that aren't completely alien to me, but she'll deal with them differently. She's sarcastic but befuddled often, and she's coping with the presence of a man who claims to be the living incarnation of her fictional character, Duffy Madison. So she's not always sure what to believe. Rachel will not ooze confidence.

Kay Powell, who will start narrating the Agent to the Paws series in 2017, is from a showbiz family and doesn't want to admit how deeply that runs in her. She rejects the idea of performing and becomes an agent representing actors who are furrier than most and no, I don't mean the cast of Duck Dynasty unless you count the ducks. She works with animal actors. She's not as crazy about most people she knows, is wary of show business types and is probably the most sarcastic of the current bunch (although Aaron Tucker probably hit my personal best in that area).

And then there's Samuel Hoenig, the proprietor of Questions Answered. Samuel's Asperger's syndrome makes his narration very specific and probably requires most conscious thought to write well. He's not going to talk like me (he speaks more formally for fear of being misunderstood and because he likes rules) and he usually doesn't think like me, so he's more of a challenge. Switching from someone else to Samuel can sometimes clear my head. Other times it's like Michael Jordan trying to play baseball--you'd think it would be a fit, but it needs a different set of skills.

But all that is analysis after the fact. I didn't sit down with the first Guesthouse book Night of the Living Deed ahead of me and say, "Okay, she's going to be running a public accommodation...". No. Alison's circumstances gave her a personality for me and I just wrote that. Same with the other three (and anyone else I've ever written).

The trick to writing characters is that there's no trick to writing characters. You have to be the characters, let them roam around in your head and see where they go, listen to what they say, watch what they do. If that sounds like a sign of mental illness, I urge you to remember one essential fact about today's blogger.

I'm a writer.

Quick Shots

Jeff Cohen

For reasons that defy explanation I spent some time going back over my own Facebook and Twitter posts last week. Don't worry; I haven't been hacked and nobody's suing me (as far as I know). But it did lead to a few short pieces I sort of liked that didn't show up anywhere else and didn't have another forum until now.

In other words, I didn't have a post for this week.

So here are a few highlights in case you're not connected with me on Twitter or Facebook. (If you'd like to be, click here or here!):

• It weirds me out when people post Happy Birthday wishes to dead celebrities. How happy is it going to be for them, really?
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie opens next week. As a fan of the original series, I'm going to start not seeing it now.
• Bruce Springsteen: "I'm sick of sittin' 'round here, tryin' to write this book." 
  Me: "I'm sick of sittin' 'round here, tryin' to sing this song."
• After decades of careful observation and deep thought, I have come to an irrefutable conclusion: People are crazy.
• In keeping with current trends I'm releasing a new Aaron Tucker novel, Go Set Your Watch, in which it is revealed that Aaron is really a six-foot-tall Protestant with no sense of humor.
• What bothers me is more people seem to believe in a zombie apocalypse than in a climate change crisis.
• I have never considered Mickey Mouse an interesting character. Give me Bugs Bunny every time.
• This Wednesday will be my 30th anniversary as a freelancer. I wonder what I'm getting me as a gift.
• I have as much self-discipline as the next guy, assuming the next guy is Bart Simpson.
• I don't care how many years it's been, Ferris Bueller was a smug spoiled rich entitled brat who deserved comeuppance, not lionization.
• You're making a western about a guy and his three sons on a ranch called the Ponderosa. So where does BONANZA come from?
• I don't drink whiskey. Anything that tastes that bad should at least make you stop coughing.
• I have determined after exhaustive research that "Sunrise Sunset" is the most depressing song ever written.
• The only way you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps is if you're hanging by your feet.
• I mean, who names their kid "Opie," anyway? "Opie Taylor for the defense, your honor." Just not a good idea.
• Today I attended a faculty retreat. I wanted to make it a faculty advance, but apparently there weren't any other colleges we wanted to invade.
• The movie I'm REALLY waiting desperately to see? ISRAELI SNIPER: The Dr. Ruth Story.
• I get emails from the chief of the Rutgers police department every now and again. His name is Kenneth B. Cop. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.
• Most baffling movie title ever: Beach Blanket Bingo. What does that even MEAN?
• After the shark eats Robert Shaw in JAWS, he doesn't get the guy stuffed and mounted on a piece of driftwood to hang on his wall. All I'm sayin'.
• I'll listen to an audiobook of the Bible, but only if it's read by the author.
• Whatever happened to Centigrade?
• I don't believe in dumplings. I've never seen anyone dumple.
• Why aren't they called "bakies"?
• Yes, you said that out loud. Can we retire that joke now?
• I don't get a wax museum. I've always wanted there to be a wick coming out of each of the statues' heads.
• I'm not good at living in the moment. I can live in the epoch.
• You can't become a writer. You either are or you're not. You can become a GOOD writer.
• Can we have a list of Republicans NOT running for president? It would be so much quicker.
• Cheap horror movie idea: VILLAGE OF THE DARNED. It stars sock puppets.
• We should acknowledge that anyone who thinks s/he is qualified to be President of the U.S. must be crazy and is therefore ineligible.
• Has it never occurred to anyone else that Santa Claus is Jewish? Who else works Christmas Eve?
• It's hard for me to respect any man who voluntarily wears a tie every day to work.
• If there's anything older than yesterday's news, it's yesterday's sports news.
• Do you think anyone ever called Vincent Price "Vinnie"?
• Radical idea: How about we commemorate Memorial Day by considering the idea that maybe there's a better way to solve our problems than war?
• After the war on terror, can we go after melancholy? I hate that emotion.
• I had this great tweet I was going to use last night. But I've forgotten it. Trust me, it was hilarious.
• Quite frankly, anyone who can't believe it's not butter needs to try butter.
• He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. I think there's a case to be made that Santa Claus works for the NSA.
• People have to stop saying, "Merry Christmas Eve." I'm sure my daughter Eve is flattered, but we're Jewish.
• The analysis just came back. As it turns out, Soylent Green is actually made from kelp. Sorry.
• Stop trying to change the world. The world is fine. Change the people. They're the ones messing everything up.
• Nobody has a normal life.

true crime writer on truth vs. fiction

Jessy Randall

True crime author Harold Schechter recently sent me a copy of his new book, Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal. (He'd done some of his research on Alfred/Alferd Packer at Colorado College Special Collections, where I'm curator.) I asked him if I could do a one-multipart-question interview with him for the blog, and he said yes. Enjoy!

Q: Do you read detective fiction? What do you think differentiates the crimes in detective fiction from the real-life crimes in your many books? In other words, what are mystery writers getting wrong, and what are they getting right?

A: I'm not a particularly big reader of detective fiction. Of course, I've read many of the standards, going back to Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin stories--and in fact, I've written a series of historical mysteries myself: NEVERMORE, THE HUM BUG, THE MASK OF RED DEATH, and TELL-TALE CORPSE, all featuring Poe as the detective/narrator. I've read all of Conan Doyle's Holmes stories, many of Agatha Christie's Poirots, the hard-boiled classics of Chandler and Hammett, and a smattering of Ellery Queens, John Dickson Carrs, Nero Wolfes--the usual suspects.  But I can't say that I'm a devoted or even regular reader of detective fiction. 

There are a number of major differences between detective fiction and the actual historical crimes I write about, the most obvious being that the latter are not typically mysteries in the traditional narrative sense: mind-teasing puzzles that can only be solved by the extraordinary mental abilities of a great detective--the "ratiocinative" brilliance of a Dupin or amazing "little gray cells" of a Poirot. The atrocities of Edward Gein, for example--the "real-life Norman Bates" who was the subject of my first true crime book, DEVIANT--were uncovered when he walked into the local hardware store, shot the proprietor in the head, and dragged her corpse outside to his waiting pickup truck, leaving behind a trail of blood and the empty shell casing. The local sheriffs figured out that Gein was the killer before the day was out. Robert Irwin, subject of my 2015 (and, I'm proud to say, Edgar-nominated) book, THE MAD SCULPTOR, was identified when police found his name in the diary of one of his victims. I'm sure I'm telling your readers nothing new when I say that most real-life cases are solved through seat-of-the-pants, often plodding detective work as opposed to the incandescent insights of a Sherlock Holmes-like mastermind. Though some of my books feature particularly heroic detectives, what often distinguishes them is not their extraordinary forensic brilliance but their relentless, often years-long pursuit of an elusive criminal. 

If mystery writers create larger-than-life heroes, they also tend to create wildly implausible villains.  The classic case, of course, is Hannibal Lecter. While I bow to no one in my admiration for Thomas Harris, Lecter is a purely mythic monster, who bears as much relation to a real serial killer as, say, Professor Moriarity does to the average mobster. Even contemporary detective stories that rely on a great deal of verisimilitude--Patricia Cornwell's books, for example--transform bleak, often sordid reality into heightened fantasy. That's exactly why we read it! (Whenever someone I know sees a movie and complains that he or she didn't like it because it wasn't "real," my answer is: "If you want reality, why go to the movies?" I guess I feel the same about popular detective fiction.) 

 

You Can Write a Book. Yes. You Have the Time. Yes.

Jeff Cohen

Lately my mystery writing has become the focus of my professional life. This was not always the case. But since Josh has helped me become a (pretty much) full-time novelist my days have largely been shuffled toward writing. I still do some teaching and the occasional article elsewhere, but the proportions have changed, and I'm very grateful to everybody buying the books for that.

But when I tell people that I will have four book deadlines between now and this time in 2016, they look at me as if I were saying I was going to lift the Empire State Building and carry it to Ogden, Utah. Trust me, the task(s) I have before me is (are) hard, but not anything most mystery writers couldn't do given the circumstances. 

The fact is, deadlines are my friend. They motivate me to get the book done by a certain date, and I have the mindset borne of decades of freelance writing: Never disappoint the customer. Those books will be done on time, and they'll be the best possible books I could write at that moment in time.

Honestly, given the deadlines coming up, I don't have time to not be writing a book.

I'm still on the 1,000-word-a-day diet, but instead of having a few months between bouts, I now have a week or two. And that's exactly the way I've always wanted it. But I've learned something:

If I have an hour a day to write the 1,000 words, I'll write them in an hour. If I have all day with nothing to do but write the 1,000 words, it's going to take me all day.

That has some connection to the people one meets in the course of generally living the writer's life who say they'd do the same but they don't have the time.

Now, I don't for a second think these people aren't busy. On the contrary, I'm positive they are. I don't think they're not dedicated to the idea of writing a novel, short story, stage play, screenplay, treatise, monograph or laundry list. I have no doubt that's true as well. 

But if you want to write, you can write. You have 10 minutes? That's when. So it takes longer to finish something. You've still written it. 

When I was young (and the Earth was still cooling) I wrote screenplays. I was also a newspaper reporter or a public relations writer or a trade magazine editor or a full-time freelancer at the time. And I wrote screenplays. When I could shoehorn them in between telephone calls, pediatrician appointments (for my children--I wasn't THAT young!), commuting, making the occasional dinner, walking the occasional dog or getting the oil changed in the occasional car. I wrote then. And those screenplays (I could show them to you--some are actually good) led to my being a crime fiction writer, which led to me being a full-time novelist, which led to me not complaining to you about that on this blog.

These days, I write when I'm not working through the red tape for my mother's assisted living facility and various government agencies which (hopefully) will pay to help her stay there. I write when I'm not driving to Philadelphia to teach or driving home from Philadelphia after teaching. I'm dead tired when I get home from that commute (it's about an hour and a half each way, and I'm not as young as you used to be), but if the 1,000 words aren't in the bank, I stay up after the baseball game to ensure they will be before I go to bed. 

I grade papers, I do telephone calls for newspaper articles, I harass my agent (right, Josh?), check up on my daughter the teacher and my son the tech guy, very occasionally exercise, prepare lectures, write the newspaper articles, email students and my agent (right, Josh?), sometimes interact with readers who are kind enough to get in touch, and walk the not-so-occasional dog.

And the 1,000 words get written. Every day. Including weekends and holidays. Except that week or two between books. During that week or two I wonder what the heck I should do with myself.

Thanks, no. I don't need suggestions.

Life in the Blurbs

Jeff Cohen

This past February my family and I took part of a vacation at a theme park in Orlando Florida that for legal reasons does not have a mouse for its mascot.

Let's just say that one of the rides my daughter and I decided to take (which for legal reasons does not play "Zip A Dee Doo Dah" 600 times in 10 minutes) got itself stuck just when we were about to get our somewhat soggy bodies (a flume was not involved, for legal reasons) out of our floating vehicle.

So we sat there. For a long time. What seemed like a very long time. And everyone was fairly polite about the mess because this was (not, for legal reasons) the Happiest Place on Earth and we were all doing what we could to keep it (not) that way. 

Finally, in a triumph of comic timing, a boy of about nine behind us announced in no uncertain terms (and you have to imagine this in a fantastic Australian accent): "Best. Ride. Ever."

That sort of sounded to me like a book blurb.

While I have posted here before about blurbs for my own books, I confess that I've probably read more blurbs for other people's books than I've read the books themselves. There is an art to writing a blurb that I have never mastered, and expect I never will (I won't be asked nearly enough, for excellent reasons).

Most book blurbs are fairly generic: "If you're a fan of [extremely popular author], you'll love [completely pedestrian and/or possibly unknown author]"; "The characters jump off the page" (which would probably make the news); "A promising new series that crackles with plot twists and surprises!" (Crackles?)

But the really good ones reflect the style of the book on which they appear. They might come from a very well-known or only fairly well-known author, a celebrity (less frequent) or some figure related to the subject matter (a famous chef for a food-related book; a sports figure for a sports mystery and so on). They will either be specific to the book itself, reflect on the author by extension or have some hint at a value that will make the story inside less resistible to a savvy reader, which every reader wants to be.

The best blurbs will have some entertainment value of their own. This not only reflects well on the tome in question but on the blurb-er, which is not a requirement or even a goal of most blurbs, but doesn't hurt.

The bad ones will have puns.

"A hole in one!"--Golf mystery

"Four stars!"--Hotel mystery

"Sews up a fascinating plot!"--Needlepoint mystery

Like that.

Does anyone get anything out of those? There's no actual information in them. They're not fun to read. They don't tell you anything about the book, the author or the person writing the blurb. They tell you: This is a [fill in the blank] mystery, which lets' face it, you should know if you've even casually taken the thing off the shelf. If the cover image doesn't tell you that much, this book is already in some trouble.

As an author, the blurbs on my books have sentimental value in some cases. The person contributing is doing me a personal favor, after all, and hopefully would not say nice things about my book if s/he did not think they were true. One has a reputation to maintain, after all. In such cases, to the author (that's me) the blurb is sort of a nice note from someone I respect.

So when Larry Gelbart said my first novel was "wise, wicked and witty," I basked in that for some time. When Linda Ellerbee said As Dog Is My Witness "bit me with the first paragraph and never let go," my wife was actually impressed with me for the first time in some years. When Lee Child sent in a blurb that began, "Funny? Of course," well, that was more than enough.

But I'm not including those simply because I like to name drop (although that is certainly part of it). Read each one, or at least the portion I gave you. Each is well written, has some relevance to the book and gives the potential reader some information he/she/it might not have had. Those are nicely crafted blurbs. Doesn't hurt that they were contributed by very good writers.

I will not cite bad blurbs from my books (or anyone else's) because I don't think there were any on mine, and I have no desire to smear someone who went out of the way to praise another author's work. That is noble, it is generous, it is selfless and it is above all nice. The worst blurb ever written was a very lovely gesture. None should be denigrated.

My personal favorite blurb of all time that was not on a book of my own comes from a volume of essays by the "humorist" (which is Pretentious for "funny writer") S. J. Perelman, and it came from an idol of Perelman's, Groucho Marx. Perelman would later write for Groucho and his brothers in the movies and report that "anybody who ever worked on any picture for the Marx Brothers said he would rather be chained to a galley oar and lashed at ten-minute intervals until the blood spurted from his frame than ever work for those sons of bitches again."

That wasn't the blurb.

Before he worked for Groucho, Perelman saw to it that his book was sent to the great comedian in search of a jacket blurb. And he got one.

It read, "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."

Beat that.

Why I Don't Read That Much

Jeff Cohen

When I was small--no, wait. I'm still small. When I was young, like seven or eight years old, my grandmother, who lived next door, would walk me, my brother and our cousin (who also lived next door) to the local candy store some three blocks away, on Chancellor Avenue in Irvington, NJ.

The lure was not candy, although we had no particular prejudice against it. No, the trip was initiated to obtain for each one of us a comic book of our own choosing. There was a well-stocked rack of them at one end of the store--I can picture it to this day--and we'd troop over to make our selections because Grandma was not clued in on the comics scene and couldn't do that for us.

My brother and my cousin would walk up to the rack, take down a title (I honestly don't remember what books they were into) and be back asking for the dime or in rare cases (for a special issue or double issue) quarter to purchase their choices.

I'd stand there for a half an hour trying to decide.

It wasn't that there were so many titles I was desperate to read that I couldn't possibly choose among them. I'm not that kind of a reader. No, the problem here was that I was looking for exactly the right comic book, and would not settle for anything less. Run-of-the-mill issues just weren't worth my time and my grandmother's money, in my opinion. If it wasn't something that was going to engage my imagination and stir some feeling, what was the point?

Usually, I'd light on one title or another (it would be a couple of years before I'd take out subscriptions to Baseball America and Mad Magazine) and dutifully bring it over for approval. But there would be times when nothing would hit the spot and I'd choose to go home empty-handed. My brother and cousin were, at least the first couple of times, astonished and I believe a little bit appalled. A free comic book was offered and I was leaving with nothing? How was that even possible?

But my grandmother understood. I can hear her Yiddish accent to this day: "If you don't see something you want, you don't have to get something." And it was not saving a dime that made her feel that way.

The thing is, that's still how I operate. A few weeks ago I wanted an audiobook to listen to in the car on long drives to Philadelphia every week. So I accessed my wife's Audible account (with her permission) to use a credit. I searched for at least an hour and was unable to find anything new I really wanted to read (hear). I ended up settling for the audio version of a favorite I've read a number of times and am about halfway through it now.

The same thing is true with movies and television. My wife says I "don't want to see anything," but the fact is that I don't want to see something I'm unlikely to find interesting. The older I get, the more I realize our time here is limited. I don't have enough to waste.

I'm not trying to be difficult and I don't think people who read, see and watch everything they can get their hands on are wrong. I'd like to be more like that, but then I'd like to be taller, too. Genes will out.

I don't read much in the way of mysteries or crime fiction. I sometimes tell people that's because I don't want to even subconsciously pick up a plot point or voice, and that's true. But I'm also not all that interested in most of what I see.

To some extent, that's why I write books. It's not because nobody else is writing anything good; many people are doing that and much more. But sometimes I feel like nobody's writing precisely the books I want to read, so I have to do it myself. 

Maybe there's someone out there staring at a shelf in a bookstore right now trying to find exactly the right mystery novel. And maybe that person will take a look at one of mine or E.J.'s. And maybe--just maybe--it will be just the book that person wants to read.

My grandmother would be very happy if that were the case.

got any short cat mysteries?

Jessy Randall

Fire Star Press wants your short stories for an anthology entitled Nine Deadly Lives: An Anthology of Feline Felonies. 

Theme: Cats and Mystery
Length: 6,000 to 8,000 words
Deadline: August 15, 2015

From Fire Star: "Cats...charming, lovable creatures or deadly, razor-clawed predators? This mixture of the sweet and the dangerous is one of the things that makes cats endlessly fascinating and appealing. If you have a cozy mystery story featuring one or more of our feline friends, Fire Star Press wants to hear from you. Nine Deadly Lives, an anthology of cozy cat mysteries, is now open for submissions. Stories should be 6000 to 8000 words, with no graphic violence, sex, or language. Submissions must be emailed as an attached Word document to Livia Reasoner, livia@flash.net. Please put NINE DEADLY LIVES SUBMISSION in the subject line. We look forward to reading your submissions!"

 

 

 

Tempus fugit

First of all, before I forget (when you get to my advanced age your memory starts to fail, of course; everyone knows that), huge thanks to Chris Nickson for holding the fort last week while I headed off to visit my sister at the seaside for a couple of days. I strongly recommend the new book Chris is currently promoting. I know I have a vested interest, partly because he’s a good friend and also because I edited it, but neither of those factors detracts in any way from the quality of the work.

Chris was a late starter in the world of published novelists, which makes him a good lead-in to something rather annoying which I encountered on the net last week, and which started me thinking about the priorities some publishers seem to have, and left me in dire need of a good rant. And since I haven’t ranted in this space for a while, you get volunteered, Dead Guy followers.

When I was in the business, provided a book met the fundamental criteria laid out in the guidelines we offered (not many of those – just the right subject matter and length, and the author had to be a first-timer in crime fiction when s/he came to us), the questions I asked were simple:
do I really, really like this manuscript?
does the author understand the basics of good writing?
do I think I can persuade enough people to buy it to make it worth everyone’s while?
It never once occurred to me ask if the author was sufficiently famous or glamorous to make headlines. And absolutely never did I take into account the author’s age. In retrospect, it appears that nine out of the thirteen debut authors whose work I published were over fifty; in fact, several have subsequently reached the next big -0 birthday. The other four, too, were all close enough to have passed the first milestone some time ago.

And they were all excellent at what they did. The absence of my little publishing house from the bestseller lists had far more to do with my non-existent marketing budget than with the quality of their work – and yeah, OK, I’m biased, but you only have to read the books to see I’m right. They’re still out there somewhere, and at least eight of the thirteen are still going strong.

So why did I find an article on the internet which mentioned a group of writers who feel the need to band together against publishers’ resistance to any would-be debut novelist who is over, wait for it, forty? Yes, I did say forty. Four-zero. That magic watershed age at which some say life begins, but most seem to think youth ends. The group is called the Primewriters, and every one of them had passed that watershed – though maybe I should call it a stumbling block – when his/her first novel was published.

There are those of us who wonder if even forty is old enough for a first novel. Imagination only takes you so far; experience is what enriches the narrative and gives it some depth. For goodness sake, what have all these youthful debut novelists done with their lives to generate material for full-length fiction? Do publishers really not know what they’re missing when they look at a ‘new’ author’s date of birth and dismiss anyone born before 1975? And on the practical side, those of us born quite a lot before that apparently significant date would save them a small fortune in copy-editors’ fees – we went to school at a time when spelling, punctuation and basic sentence structure were timetabled into English lessons, and didn’t have to be picked up ad hoc. (Yes, some of us learned Latin as well, and if that didn’t teach you something about grammar you weren’t paying attention.)

I could rant at length about other kinds of prejudice, but let’s take all that as read; it’s been said many times, and it still applies, so you can fill the gaps without my tub-thumping. I expect some of the reason behind this apparent bias against those of us who have lived a little is the average age of the people who make the decisions. It’s a fact of life, unpalatable to those of us it applies to but a fact nonetheless, that to the young, older people hardly exist. Well, let me say here and now that those views are not shared by something like 80% of the reading and bookbuying population! The oft-quoted statistic that that 80% consists of women between 45 and 70 is borne out every time I walk into a bookshop, encounter a reading group or visit my local library. And yes, OK, a lot of books are sold online these days, but hey, you rookies in the ways of life, what makes you think the internet is the sole preserve of the young? So the mature reader would seem to be keeping the publishing industry afloat. Go figure.

Yes, I have to declare an interest here. Yes, I’ve been trying to breach the near-impregnable walls of publishing for far more years than I’m willing to admit to (I never used to be unwilling; it’s just that I prefer not to see eyes glaze over and attention wander when my age comes into the conversation), and though I have no intention of giving up hope I do realize that success is becoming less likely with every birthday I clock up. And I've clocked up a few more than forty.

But why is that? What is wrong with these people?

Things Are Going Well. What Do I Do About That?

Jeff Cohen

At the moment--and even just typing this down I get nervous about it--things are going quite well. Josh has been doing his job remarkably well. Professionally, things are going better than I could have hoped for when I was starting this odd merry-go-round ride. I can't complain.

For someone like me, that's a huge problem.

I'm a kvetch. (Gentiles, that's someone who complains a lot.) Most of the grousing is faux; that is, a lot of the time it's for effect rather than sincere despair over one's lot in life. I know I'm lucky overall. I have an amazing wife, two terrific children who are no longer children, a home that's comfortable without actually being, you know, neat. I'm in decent enough health for someone who exercises once every other month and eats like food is the enemy that needs to be vanquished.

But there's always something that's a little off, whatever it is. I worry, and worry becomes anxiety, and anxiety becomes Electra, or something, so I end up complaining, or at the very least, being snarky about things. Part of that comes from my learning the art of conversation at the feet (celluloid is measured in feet) of Groucho Marx, who did not come by his nickname by accident.

Every Independence Day my family and I like to watch the musical 1776, for reasons that hopefully are obvious. We like our Founding Fathers witty and tuneful. 

This year was no exception. Near the end of the film (which sticks very close to the stage play), John Adams is talking (writing) to his wife Abigail. Turns out the dialogue is taken from an actual letter Adams sent during the time at the Continental Congress while independence was being debated:

"I've always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and if floods my brain. And sometimes I fear there is no longer a dream, but only the discontentment."

Luckily I've never gotten to quite that point, but then I've never been stuck trying to create a country when some people wanted to keep reconciling with England. It's hard to really understand the pressure the man was under. Luckily he foisted off the writing to his (at that time) pal Jefferson, or who knows how snarky the Declaration of Independence would be?

The problem for people like John and me (I have an affinity for Adams and he's not around to insist I refer to him as "Mr. President") is that when things are going well, we're at a loss for a reaction. We don't know how to respond to compliments. We have egos--his I will dare say considerably better developed than mine--but we can't acknowledge them for fear of seeming too pleased with ourselves.

So we suffer (we always suffer) through these good periods, secure in our knowledge that the next hideous crisis is just around the corner and then we'll once again have something real to complain about.

I won't say I can't wait. I can wait.

Complex, Please; Not Just Strong

Guest Post by Danielle Burby

(Note from Josh: After Thrillerfest last week, Danielle and I were sitting in my office discussing the pitches she received in the 3 1/2 hours of Pitchfest. As she was describing her frustration with the trope of "strong women" protags in fiction these days, vs "complex women" I realized her differentiation was both interesting and very instructive for authors looking to write female characters effectively. I asked her to put it out on the blog--Enjoy! JG)

I have represented HSG at Pitchfest for a couple of years now and it is always a whirlwind. There’s something energizing about looking authors in the eye while they pitch, especially because you can ask questions and engage them in conversation. It’s a nice change of pace from reading queries on a computer screen. It’s also a really good chance to see what the upcoming trends will be. This year brought a rise in the number of medical thrillers and, surprisingly, vampire books. There is another theme that emerged, however, both this year and last, that I find particularly interesting. And it likely isn’t what you’d expect.

For the past two years, I’ve had author after author sit down, look me in the eye, and confidently inform me that they chose to approach me because I’m looking for Strong Female Protagonists. Without exception, when a writer pitched a novel helmed by a woman, the character’s gender was paired with the word strong. Let me say that again. Every single time I heard about a female protagonist, the writer rushed to assure me that she was strong. Authors were so assertive about what I was looking for that I found myself actually turning around during a break to double check the description of my tastes taped to the wall behind me. I was relieved to see that my wish list reflected what I actually wanted to see—complex female characters. It was a word I had chosen intentionally.

On the surface, this may seem like a silly little thing to harp on, but, from where I’m sitting, the strong female character trope is flooding my query folder and I’m ready for it to slow to more of a trickle. I don’t want strong—I want nuanced. I want your female characters to have the same depth and dimensions as your male characters. I want them to be people.

I understand where the strong female character came from. She came from a good place. The idea was to give female characters more space to maneuver, to give them the chance to move past love interest and damsel in distress. The strong female character was allowed to be hard and powerful. She was allowed to do more than love and be loved. She had her own adventures instead of being a prize in someone else’s. But she is just as limiting, in her own way, as every other female archetype. She is still the product of a society that values masculinity above femininity and allows very little room for complexity when it comes to women.

It’s the same feeling that I have about Lean In, which tells women, ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’ Don’t be soft, be hard. Don’t be sweet, be assertive. Femininity is bad. Masculinity is good. It’s a simplistic approach that paints the world as flat instead of round. We are more than that. We, as an industry can—and do—accommodate more than that. For example (since we’re focusing on thrillers at the moment), there are a lot of different opinions out there about The Girl on the Train, but, personally, I adored it. Rachel is pathetic and repulsive and unreliable and I loved her for it. She was a person not a trope. And, clearly, she thrived in the marketplace. 

But the authors at Pitchfest and, beyond that, the ones who query me, don’t seem to trust that. One author at Pitchfest had written what sounded like a wonderful novel, but she rushed to assure me that her protagonist was strong. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she said, “She isn’t girly and feminine and silly; I can promise you that.” I wanted to reach across the table, place my hands on her arms, and say, “Feminine is not synonymous with silly. There is nothing wrong with femininity. Your character can be both girly and strong.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love a badass lady at the helm of a novel as much as the next person, but I want more from her than just that. I think we are in a growing place in fiction right now. We are in a place where we can push ourselves harder to give all of our characters more depth. So don’t give me strong—give me real. Give me complex.

I'll Keep My Atticus Finch, Thanks

Jeff Cohen

I'm not going to read the "new" Harper Lee novel, "Go Set A Watchman," and it's not simply because I have no idea what that title means.

For those who have been living in solitary confinement the last six months, "Watchman" is the second Harper Lee (everyone likes to say how she prefers to be called "Nelle" by her friends, perhaps to prove they belong in that category) novel, published a mere 55 years after the first one, "To Kill A Mockingbird," which you might have heard about.

I had some interest in the newly published (tomorrow, actually) book, but not the same as some very dedicated Lee fans. I came to "Mockingbird" very recently, having tried a number of times to read it and not pushing myself past the family genealogy offered in the first couple of chapters. (I finally got through it all as an audiobook read by Sissy Spacek, who did a lovely job as one would expect.) I was familiar with the film version, starring Gregory Peck in perhaps his most well-suited performance as the narrator's father, Atticus Finch, a man of incredible moral integrity at a time when it was easy to have none.

And that's why I won't be reading "Watchman."

According to the reviews and news articles about the publication of "Watchman," the story here is an alternate version of the "Mockingbird" characters and some of its events. In this version, Atticus, who had stood up for African-Americans in the beloved original novel, is a bigoted, closed-minded man who actually once attended a Klan rally and believes wholeheartedly in segregation.

Well, Ms. Lee is more than entitled to her versions of Atticus in any way she wants to write him, but I want my Atticus Finch from "Mockingbird" and no other. 

The backstory here--truncated for brevity and because I don't actually know what really happened--is that "Watchman" was an early draft of "Mockingbird," written around 1955, or as I call it, "the time that didn't exist because I wasn't born yet." It deals with Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, a woman in her 20s, coming home to the South from her current place in New York City and dealing with her aged father Atticus, who "has his good days and his bad days."

And that's all I know about the plot. From what I've read about the "new" Atticus, that's all I need to know.

As an artist, Ms. Lee has the right--no, the obligation--to portray her characters as accurately and truthfully as she sees fit. Whether this version is being published with her wholehearted approval might be questionable and then again it might not. Whether or not it should be published is not my call; it was hers, and she decided by signing the contract to go ahead. Once again, no author would want to be told he or she could not have full expression simply because the readers disapprove. 

But as a reader, I have rights, too. That clearly includes the right not to sully my own personal image of a character who had a serious impact not only on American fiction but perhaps on American policy. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed not long after Peck portrayed Atticus on screen. It would be a huge leap to consider that cause and effect, but to deny there was any impact would be equally inaccurate.

My view is that in the South--and everywhere else--at that time (and always) there were far too many "Watchman" Atticus Finches and not nearly enough "Mockingbird" Atticus Finches. I choose to celebrate a fictional hero who actually deserves that distinction. I choose not to change my view of him in a draft the author's original editor felt was not ready for publication. 

That's my choice, not Harper Lee's. Both her books will continue to exist. But I will have read only one.

Since You (Sort Of) Asked...

Jeff Cohen

In response to Terri's post last week, I thought it was just too much fun not to play along, so here are my answers (and we hope you're feeling much better very soon, Terri!). Your mileage may vary:

1. What time did you get up this morning? About 7. Don’t sleep like I used to. 

2. How do you like your steak? Medium well.

3. What was the last movie you saw? The Wrecking Crew (documentary).

4. What is your favorite TV show? The Daily Show with (for the next few weeks) Jon Stewart.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Maybe the San Diego area. Maybe Oregon. But I love New Jersey except the winters.

6. What did you have for breakfast today? I never eat breakfast.

7. What is your favorite cuisine? Italian. I’m from Jersey.

8. What foods do you dislike? Fish. All fish. Yes, even that one.

9. Favorite Place to Eat? The kitchen. Or Brother Jimmy’s in New Brunswick.

10. Favorite dressing? Isn't that covered under #12, below?

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Prius c. Yes, I’m that smug. (51 mpg!)

12. What are your favorite clothes? Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers.

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Paris, Australia, Florence, maybe Japan. I'd drive cross country if I had the time and the money.

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? No. If it's full I'll drink it and if it's empty I'll fill it up.

15. Where would you want to retire? Retire? Writers don’t retire. We keel over at our keyboards.

16. Favorite time of day? When my wife gets home.

17. Where were you born? Newark, NJ.

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? Baseball. Only. 

19. Bird watcher? No. I don't watch anteaters, either. Animals deserve their privacy.

20. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night. It's when I usually write.

21. Do you have any pets? Yes, a beagle named Gizmo.

22. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? More books coming!

23. What did you want to be when you were little? Taller. I still do.

24. What is your best childhood memory? Playing at the swim club with Dad.

25. Are you a cat or dog person? Dog.

26. Are you married? Only for 28 years. So far.

27. Always wear your seat belt? Yes.

28. Been in a car accident? Yes, but not a serious one. Never anyone hurt.

29. Any pet peeves? The dog is a brat.

30. Favorite Pizza Toppings? Peppers, onions, meatballs, garlic.

31. Favorite Flower? The ones on birthday cakes.

32. Favorite ice cream? Chocolate chip cookie from Thomas Sweets in New Brunswick, NJ.

33. Favorite fast food restaurant? Closest I get to fast food is Tastee Sub in Edison, NJ.

34. How many times did you fail your driver's test? Never.

35. From whom did you get your last email? That I actually read? I think Josh.

36. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Ticketmaster.

37. Do anything spontaneous lately? Answered these questions.

38. Like your job? Love my job. Want to keep my job. Buy some books.

39. Broccoli? If with cheese.

40. What was your favorite vacation? Rome.

41. Last person you went out to dinner with? My wife, son, daughter and daughter’s friend.

42. What are you listening to right now? Mr. Dieingly Sad by the Critters (iTunes is on shuffle).

43. What is your favorite color? Blue.

44. How many tattoos do you have? None. I don’t get it.

45. What time did you finish this quiz? 11:10 pm.

46. Coffee Drinker? Decaf iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Never hot coffee.

Would Magic Mary XXL Be Okay?

Jeff Cohen

I must very respectfully--VERY respectfully--disagree with my colleague and friend Cynthia Chow. If you don't know what I'm talking about, scroll down and read Cindy's post from yesterday. I'll wait. 

Back now? Good. While there are many points brought up on which we are in complete harmony (the gross objectification of women's bodies in almost every Hollywood film ever; the need for society to lighten up a bit; the therapeutic power of bonding with friends of either or any gender), I do not buy her argument that the film (as in "a thin layer or coating," according to the Random House College Dictionary) Magic Mike XXL is a harmless excuse for grown women to behave like teenagers. Well, wait. Yes, I agree with that. It's the marketing for the film that I find distressing.

After all, that same argument could be made for grown men regarding such cinematic classics as Showgirls or Striptease, but I also believe in the idea of equal treatment. Does that mean I think the movie industry should turn out more movies about hot guys parading around in as little as possible to even the balance? Um... no.

If this movie had been made with the genders reversed, about a group of female strippers who do so out of the sheer joy of the act, and because it helps them to fund their art or their pizzeria or their Ph.D. ambitions and the marketing campaign was exactly the same, women would be lining up in front of every theater showing this film.

To protest. And they'd be right.

Consider the print ads. A shirtless guy with abs that can probably stop a scud missile spreads his legs and points at his crotch (whereupon is emblazoned the word "coming,"). Subtle, huh? To find a poster from a mainstream studio film that offered that kind of exploitation of a woman (by which I mean a poster that screams "Hot babe! And that's all we have to talk about in this movie!) you'd probably have to go back to the days of Raquel Welch. (What? Cavewomen DIDN'T shave their legs and armpits and wear eyeshadow?)

Now, again, let me be clear: I am not for one second suggesting that women haven't been exploited far more often and far more severely than men in this area. That's not even up for debate; it's a fact.

What I am saying is that if it's wrong for women, it's wrong for men, too. You can't look me in the face and say, "Hey, look what damage is being done to the body images and general world view of girls by all this sexism," and that look at Magic Mike XXL--come on, even the title!--and tell me, "Aw, it's just a little fun; what's wrong with that?"

What's wrong with that is it creates yet another in a miles-long series of double standards, which leads to confusion. It communicates the idea that we'll get mad if you reduce women to body types, but it's okay if you do that to a man. If men were to be judged strictly on appearance--keep in mind the idea of tall, dark and handsome--I would be living in a broom closet somewhere shunned by society.

As a writer, I quite often speak through the voice of a female character, and I'm going to start doing that a lot more in the coming months. I like to think that I treat those characters as fairly as possible. Nobody's perfect, and I'm probably less close to perfect than most, but I try. Kind emails and reviews have occasionally reinforced that belief. And it sure doesn't hurt that I've had female editors work with me on those books. (See last week, please.)

Saying you have to be respectful of women but not of men--or the other way around--is the wrong message to send. I do not by any means think that's what Cindy was saying; she was arguing in the name of fun, and I'm all for fun. I agree with her that this one film is not a trend; it's an anomaly. In the vast majority of cases the sexist exploitation is pointed firmly in the other direction. And I'm not offended by the ads or the existence of Magic Mike XXL. I'm a little disgusted, but that's not the same thing.

None of the offensive stereotypes of women--the dumb blonde, the cold professional, the scheming temptress--have been completely banished. Maybe they shouldn't be, depending on the story being told. But there are offensive stereotypes of men--the stoner dude, the ineffective "girly man" who dares to have feelings, the "ladies' man" who needs taming, the "bad boy" who can be saved by the right woman--that aren't even being addressed. My daughter tells me that's because men are in power and are therefore the class that doesn't need protection. She's a lot smarter than I am, and her argument makes sense, but that doesn't stop me from being pissed off over the double standard. 

I don't believe in censorship; I believe in being discerning in my choices. I did not see, read or otherwise engage with 50 Shades of Gray because, frankly, life is short and I don't have that kind of time. The same is true of Magic Mike and its apparently XXL sequel.

So I'm not suggesting a boycott or a ban. That's stupid; the market will bear what it wants to bear and that's the way it should be.

I'm saying instead, enjoy what you enjoy. But don't for a second pretend that it's right sometimes and not others. Unfair is unfair.

Princess Spike and the Idiot Plot

Guest Post by Joe Newman-Getzler

Note from Josh:

One day last week, I was sitting calmly at home when Joe, my 16 year old son familiar to readers of this blog as my periodic stand-in (and current HSG intern), came in, outraged. “I can’t believe what happened!” I thought perhaps the Supreme Court had ruled on something. But it was better. “My Little Pony just used the Idiot Plot,” he said, sputtering, and then gave me a 10 minute explanation. It was fascinating and cogent. He has agreed to summarize it below, and I thought it has somewhat surprisingly strong relevance to our readership. JG

Before I begin, I should warn you: this is an essay about the significance of a writing trope found in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Yes, the show about cartoon ponies with names like Princess Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie going on adventures where they learn about friendship and being nice to each other. If thinking about this undermines the overall message of the essay for you, bear with me. I actually have something to say here. If it’s too distracting, turn back now. It’s only getting more ridiculous from here.

Of all the writing tropes and clichés that can be commonly found in media, the one I can’t stand the most is one called “The Idiot Plot.” The Idiot Plot, a name coined by the late film critic Roger Ebert, is the kind of plot where a misunderstanding arises that could be solved in minutes if the characters weren’t idiots. Say, in a romantic comedy, a girl spots her boyfriend from afar huddled up with another girl, making her believe he is having an affair. In actuality, he was just showing this other girl a video, and when he gets home, he is bewildered to see his girlfriend so mad. In the world of regular humans, a situation such as this would be resolved by him explaining the situation to her, with the other girl backing him up. It might be hard to believe at first, but if he’s sincere enough, they can hook up again and live happily ever after. But, being the Idiot Plot, he now has to jump through hoops to regain her love (ideally through several misunderstandings that make him look like a clod).

The biggest problem with The Idiot Plot is that it is so completely out of touch with how humans actually act. It can work in the right hands, but most of the time it’s just a frustrating cliché.  You feel as though the writer is shutting his brain off to prevent himself from thinking of a logical solution. Following The Idiot Plot’s logic in the real world would be, well, idiotic. If you accidentally send someone a text where autocorrect has made it say “Someone took my whale” instead of “Someone took my wallet,” you wouldn’t need to beg their forgiveness and stand outside their window playing Peter Gabriel. It can be dismissed with a “WALLET, not WHALE. LOL. Damn autocorrect” and forgotten.

That being said, let’s talk about Friendship is Magic…I kinda like it. Not just on a guilty pleasure level, either; I find this a genuinely well-crafted show with interesting situations and characters. I’ve been following the show for about 5 years now, and while it’s not the next The Wire or anything, it’s still perfectly harmless, and quite enjoyable if you allow yourself to be sucked into the world of Equestria and overlook the silliness for a while. That being said, I’m not treating this as anything more significant than what it is. But I hold it to a pretty high standard because of its solid craftsmanship, but I’m not trying to make it out to be the animation event of the century. Just a good show.

Part of those high standards stems from the writing. Despite having to deal with some pretty silly stuff (if I ever tried to write anything that contained a sentence like “Twilight Sparkle and her friends use their Elements of Harmony to destroy the evil Nightmare Moon and release the banished Princess Luna,” I’d probably lose my mind), the writers of the show make it all sound natural and interesting, building the world of Equestria and coming up with creative adventures to send the gang on, as the show is very inspired by Greek mythology and pop culture. The morals can sometimes be stupid (one episode says that you should blindly accept things if they satisfy a friend who believes the same thing) but they never talk down to the viewer, which might be why the show has such a large fanbase of adults. I often like examining the episodes for how the writers develop the plots and keep the characters developing, and it just makes the skill with which the writers balance out kid-friendliness with emotion and adventure all the more impressive, as it shows they have respect for the audience.

Of course, there have been missteps. The last episode I saw was particularly flawed. It’s called “Princess Spike,” and I must warn you that it has an unbelievably silly-sounding plot.

In the episode, the four princesses – Celestia, Luna, Candence, and our heroine Twilight – are holding a royal summit in Canterlot, where delegates from all areas of Equestria are gathered to discuss the important issues of the day. Spike, a little purple dragon and Twilight’s assistant, needs to make sure she gets her beauty sleep, as she has been preparing for the summit all night and is exhausted. When the delegates start bringing up problems they want Twilight to resolve, Spike tries to take things into his own claws so as not to wake her. Shenanigans ensue.  

While I was watching the episode, I slowly began to realize that it was an ideal example of The Idiot Plot. Kids’ shows in general thrive on The Idiot Plot, and “Princess Spike” has it in full force. Imagine you are in Spike’s place, and two delegates have just arrived to have a dispute settled over which one gets to have space for a conference. They demand to see Twilight and won’t take no for an answer. If it were me, I’d remember that there are three other princesses in Canterlot who are currently awake and perfectly fine at resolving conflicts, and I’d tell the delegates to see one of them because Twilight is asleep. Being reasonable adults, they’d accept these terms. Problem solved. It’d take about a minute. Any further issues could also be brought up to the princesses, such as the leaky water main whose fixing is prevented due to being too loud for Twilight to sleep.

This isn’t cool with The Idiot Plot. After all, there are 22 minutes to fill. So, rather than seeing the princesses, Spike has to make orders in Twilight’s place without conferring with anyone beforehand, which leads to disaster that can only be resolved with a heartfelt speech and a lesson about not getting carried away with responsibility. Is it worth all the mess? Who cares, problem solved. It pains me to have to use a show I enjoy as an example of a writing trope I really hate, but I feel it’s important to get this across: using The Idiot Plot is a bad idea. Unless it is a last resort, a story’s conflict should stem from an actual, legitimate problem. Hinging a conflict on something as light and easily-resolvable as a simple misunderstanding is silly. If we, the reader/viewer, are supposed to sympathize with the main characters, they should generally be intelligent. If your audience pities your character’s intelligence level rather than envies it, you’ve done something wrong.

That’s why it’s so odd that Friendship is Magic used it. These are smart writers! They’ve made great episodes that had smarter plots. I mean, what about “Pinkie Pride”? That was a great episode! Or how about “Sonic Rainboom” or “Sisterhooves Social,” those were very deep, interesting –

            Hey, where’d everybody go?

The Haunted Guesthouse Will Miss You, Ms. JV

Jeff Cohen

I have been "orphaned." 

At least that's the word people are using. Last week as part of the consolidation of two large publishing companies, in which employees considered "redundant" were being let go (a polite term for an impolite act), the Haunted Guesthouse series (written, for the terminally naïve among you, by E.J. Copperman) lost its editor, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez who, if there is any justice, will be running a whole publishing company by the end of this week.

I have extolled Shannon's enormous contributions to the Guesthouse series and the Double Feature series which preceded it, more than once before. But since we will not be working together on Guesthouse #8, which I'll start toiling away at this autumn, this seems the time to offer some valedictory thanks.

Shannon bought the first Double Feature novel Some Like It Hot-Buttered when I was almost universally unknown even by some members of my own family. She reminded me--assuming I actually had known this before--last week that it was the first book she bought after joining Berkley Publishing. I can't speak for her reasoning, but from the author's point of view, she just responded to it, knew it wasn't going to be an easy sell (male protagonist in a "cozy", movie theater setting, more comedy than murder) and recommended it to the editorial board anyway.

We got three books out of that, which is three more than I would have expected. And if I were brave enough to look over the original draft versus the finished book today (which I'm not by any measure) I would undoubtedly be appalled at the version she had purchased. But by the time we got done working on it together, it was something that I remain proud of to this day.

She's that good.

Shannon doesn't pass over the material, look for bad grammar or obvious mistakes and simply assume the author must know his/her business and let everything else go. Some editors might, and some authors might very well want them to--it makes the process easier and is arguably truer to the author's original intention. What I can tell you is that her attention to story structure and logic issues made each and every book we worked on together at least 30 percent better than what I emailed to her thinking it was ready for publication. Shannon knows when I'm having an off day and just mailing it in (writing is a fine profession but it can also be a grind) and she doesn't let me get away with it (one note in the margin of a manuscript read, "Jeff is in a bad mood"), which is worth every dime of salary she made at the company in the time she edited my work.

When Elliot Freed and his pals had run their course, I wasn't sure I had another workable idea for a series in me. Elliot was, after all, a permutation of my original protagonist Aaron Tucker and now he had been told to go shuffle off to the Crime Fiction Discarded Character's Home. I didn't really know what I'd be doing next, and thought maybe this whole book thing had played out and I'd go back to not selling the screenplays I wrote.

But my agent of the time and Shannon had a couple of conversations and there was the germ of an idea: A woman raising a daughter who was fixing up houses and selling them. It wasn't much (and thank goodness it didn't proceed because the housing crash of 2008 pretty much put an end to "flipping" houses) but it was something, so Shannon and I met for dinner at Bouchercon in Baltimore that year.

By the time we probably skipped dessert (I was doing the weight loss thing then too, except more successfully), the woman had stopped flipping houses and was running a guesthouse, and it had gained itself a couple of resident dead people who were going to gum up the works sometimes and come to the rescue others.

The Haunted Guesthouse series was born, and I honestly can't tell you which parts of the idea are mine and which ones are Shannon's.

Oddly, once my name was replaced on the cover of the novel and ghosts in a Jersey Shore inn were introduced, people started liking my writing a whole lot more. Within the past couple of weeks Shannon and I got through the heavy lifting on Guesthouse #7, GHOST IN THE WIND, due in a bookstore or handheld device near you this December. If you include the two Guesthouse novellas we did for e-books and audiobooks alone, Shannon and I will have worked on an even dozen 12 stories together (Yes, Shannon, I know "even dozen 12" is redundant).

I can tell you that she had much more of a hand in the creation of those books than the casual observer might believe, and her touch was never anything but beneficial to the stories. She let me be myself (even when I was being someone else) and didn't try to stomp on the jokes. When she would raise a question about one (there was a comment about Judge Reinhold she was concerned might be too obscure, for example) and I replied that the joke was needed, it stayed. When she brought up a story point that made no sense and it meant I'd have to do a good deal of rewriting I didn't want to do, I trusted her judgment because she's always--ALWAYS--right about that stuff, and I did the revisions. I have never regretted doing them, as soon as I was finished. 

Thank you, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez. You unleashed me on an unsuspecting world and made me look good. Okay, you made my work look good--even you can't perform miracles. You were never once unappreciated by this author and you'll be missed by the writer and readers of the Haunted Guesthouse mysteries.

I really do hope we'll be working together again--on something--soon.

How I Know I'm a Good Father

Jeff Cohen

Someday, I swear I'm going to do it. I'll read the bumper sticker, then I will get up next to that car, honk my horn, get the attention of the driver next to me and point to the shoulder. I'll wait until he or she has pulled over and I will stop my car in front so they can't easily pull away. Then I'll get out of my car and walk to the driver's side. I'll gesture for that person to lower the window. And when he or she does, I swear on all that I hold true, I will ask them about their grandchildren.

I don't believe in Father's Day. Or Mother's Day, for that matter. Or Grandparents Day or Sibling Day or National Pie Day. I do believe in Ben & Jerry's Day because they give you a free ice cream cone so you'd have to be a maniac not to believe in that.

The so-called "Hallmark Holidays," dreamed up to generate gift, flower and greeting card sales, have always seemed a little hollow to me. My wife, who lost her father at the age of three, resented the days in school when all the kids would make a construction paper necktie to bring home. I see the point.

I believe that fathers, mothers, cousins, and any other assorted relatives or acquaintances should be given respect--when they deserve it. I don't think setting aside one day so Home Depot can email me gift suggestions "for Dad," as if Home Depot were my sibling and my father hadn't died in 1995, makes a ton of sense. If you father was a good man who did his best to raise you the way he believed was right, you shouldn't need Home Depot to remind you to appreciate him.

That said, yesterday was Father's Day. So let me tell you about my children, because they are the measure of how good a father I have been since roughly 1989.

On Saturday evening, my luminous friend Linda Ellerbee held a party for the staff and families of Nick News, the program she had produced, often written and always hosted for the past 25 years. Because my son Josh was an intern at Linda's Lucky Duck Productions for two summers when he was in high school, we were invited.

And while the food was wonderful, the company genial, the setting trendy and the drinks free (always a plus), the highlight for me was hearing from Lucky Duck staffers who hadn't spent much time with Josh in seven years tell me what a great guy he is.

At a party where people were saying good bye to a program and in many cases a job they have known for a quarter of a century, they took time out to mention my son's talent, his affability, his honesty and his creativity. It was an emotionally charged evening for many. The chief editor of the program made a point of coming to me and saying, "I love your son" a time or two when he could have focused his attention on people he's seen every day since the first Bush was president.

And the thing was, I agreed with everything they said. Josh is a stand-up guy. He hasn't let his challenges (well chronicled here and elsewhere) stop him. He isn't completely where he wants to be yet professionally but he's certainly on his way. And he's done it without compromising his values or losing his sense of humor. He's not always easy, but he's always good. 

Later that evening we were visited by Josh's younger sister Eve, who usually lives in New York City for now but was passing through on her way back from Philadelphia. Now finishing her first year working with a program that tries to help high school students in less-well-funded New York high schools have a better chance at college, she bought me a Dunkin Donuts iced decaf (it was Father's Day) and then went back to finish up her last week with some students she's really grown to love. No matter what she says after a rough day.

She has become a remarkable young woman. Always paying attention, a very good listener, a funny and insightful conversationalist, committed to her ideals and dedicated to helping others, she is all the good things her mother has always been. And she has my hair. (Not the hair I'm using, but you know.)

At a gathering of her program to celebrate the end of the school year, certain first-year participants were called upon to create slam poems about their supervisors. Guess who was one of them. And her work (which was nothing but kind and appreciative, never snarky) got the kind of laughs and applause her father can only dream about.

Eve will be back in the Bronx teaching young people geometry next year. She'll do all she can to get through to each one, will use her humor and her creativity and her considerable intelligence. With some students she'll make a huge difference. With others she won't, but not for lack of trying. And when she finishes that program she'll go make a difference somewhere else. We don't know where or what she'll be doing, but trust me, she'll be great at it.

So that is the measure of a father, I think. And a mother. And an uncle, an aunt, cousins, a grandmother and each other and all the others they've known who have added and shaped. They have become really good people. And while the job of being a parent (I refuse to accept the idea of "parenting" as a verb) is never done, at some point you're no longer raising someone; you're watching someone continue to grow.

That's what Father's Day really is. It's about who your children are. So they are exactly what kind of father I am.

In Which I Relive My Worst Work Ever

Jeff Cohen

Every writer, every actor, every director, every poet--in short, everyone who has ever tried to do anything creatively--has a dirty little secret. It's something the "artist" did, probably in his/her youth, that is without question the worst piece of writing/acting/directing/poeting that has ever existed on the planet. It is a source of embarrassment to the point of humiliation, something so execrable it must never be seen by the public lest the creative type be banished from doing anything other than working at a Goodyear Tire store for all eternity.

Mine is called "Marriage Contract."

The most amateur of all possible amateur films, this was a movie (on Super 8 film--remember that?) made by my best friend Jeff Pollitzer and I (and a whole bunch of "volunteers" we recruited) just as Jimmy Carter was giving way to Ronald Reagan, for you history buffs. It was, truth be known, our fourth film, following the classics "The Yeoman", which was made about 20 minutes after "The Omen" was released and had nothing to do with that film, "Lust in the Dust" (which contained a film-within-a-film called "Unseen Enemy" because we didn't have enough people to show an enemy) and "House of Halvah" (the first--we believe--detective-horror-musical-comedy).

We made these things for the sheer joy of it, although in retrospect the process was rarely joyful. I did the writing, if you want to call it that and Pollitzer, who actually understood mechanical stuff, ran the camera, the lights, the sound equipment and did the editing (with a pair of dull scissors and a light bulb). We shared director credits, although there is no evidence from the finished films that there was any direction going on at all.

"Marriage Contract" was going to be our next step up. It would be an original story and not a series of skits based around a theme. I wrote an actual screenplay (arguably my first of many unsuccessful ones) and was told by Pollitzer that this time, I would be the director. I tried to protest, but was outvoted by Pollitzer, who is twice my size and therefore gets two votes to my one.

The premise is terrible, but not incredibly terrible. A woman breaks off a relationship with her boyfriend because he's too timid and conventional. He decides to show her how dashing he is by hiring a hitman to ALMOST kill her, so he can rescue her and be seen as a hero. That doesn't work out so well and pretty soon an actual assassin and the police are involved.

Hilarity, theoretically, ensues.

We cajoled and begged pretty much everyone we knew into playing the characters involved or helping out in some other way. The budget was a hefty $1000, most of which went into buying a sound projector and processing sound Super 8 film. The stakes were high.

And the film was, objectively, awful.

It would be easy to blame the cast, none of whom even wanted to be an actor. But they are so ineptly directed that Dame Judi Dench, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks would have ended up looking downright foolish in these roles. It didn't help that the screenplay was pretty horrible as well, so even with a good director, there would have been little for the actors to do.

That's right. I wrote and directed, and did both very badly. Just be glad I didn't decide to act in it as well (as I had in the previous three movies) because I would have been much, much worse than anyone who was brave enough to stand in front of cameras and recite this drivel.

Don't even start. You haven't seen this thing. I'm being easy on myself.

We "premiered" the film at my "Cousin" Ken Cohen's (Kenny was the "star" of the film) house sometime in 1980, I think. We invited virtually everyone any of us had ever met, and many of them, alas, showed up. The film unspooled and I began to realize--despite the crowd whooping and hollering, mostly at seeing people they knew on screen--exactly how hideous a thing I had made. 

I still wake up screaming thinking about "Marriage Contract" (for which I had also written and performed the title song, a source of sufficient mortification all by itself). But over the years, I had managed to mostly forget about it. I wrote many, many more screenplays that weren't produced, all of which were better than that one. Pollitzer and I stopped making movies even as our next epic, "Far Trek," was in pre-production, because he had the audacity to get married and actually wanted to spend time with his wife and new daughter.

Unfortunately, I had not burned the only existing print of "Marriage Contract" when I had the chance. For 35 years. Because Ken called me up a number of months ago asking if I knew where it was--and since it was about three feet from where I was sitting, I told him I did.

He wanted to have the film converted to DVD, he said. My stomach dropped into my shoes, and I argued vehemently, against doing so, asserting that humans have done enough to foul the environment and there was no way seeing that thing again was going to help. But he called Pollitzer, they had the temerity to recruit my wife to the cause, and by then it was a done deal. I had only one unbreakable provision: They could have the film and do with it as they pleased as long as I never, EVER, had to see it again.

They agreed and I, idiot that I am, believed them.

A couple of months ago, we all got together for dinner--Pollitzer and his girlfriend (following divorce), Ken and his (see previous parenthetical expression) and my wife and me. And the looks being passed around the table by anyone who wasn't a small bearded Jewish man alerted me to the danger. Ken had received the DVD of "Marriage Contract" and they wanted to go back to Pollitzer's house after the check came to watch it.

I refused. Unconditionally. This was a violation of our agreement, I was not in any way prepared to be absolutely disgusted with myself, and besides, our dog needed to be walked. I was out. Definitely.

So later, back at Pollitzer's house, we all sat down to watch "Marriage Contract." And I want to tell you, the terror I felt was absolutely unfounded. The script had some laughs, the direction didn't get in its own way, and the performances were at least adequate.

That's what I want to tell you.

The truth is, it was every bit as horrifyingly bad as I remembered it, and that was almost exclusively my fault. But we--or at least I--found a blessing in one thing: The sound transfer was not very good at all, so much of the film was inaudible. It added to the experience tremendously, in my opinion.

My point here is: Everybody who has ever had a creative impulse has done something just godawful. Everybody. The Marx Brothers made "Love Happy." The Beatles let "Revolution 9" appear on an album bearing their name. Alfred Hitchcock made "Jamaica Inn." Bugs Bunny made "Space Jam." Probably Picasso had a day where he put eyes on either side of the subject's head.

What you do is twofold: You try to learn from the experience, and then you do your level best never to see that horrid piece of humiliation ever again.

I wish you better luck than I had.

Khaaaaaaan!

Jeff Cohen

In for Josh, whose back is making it difficult for him to sit up and type (feel better soon!).

I will spare you the epic tale of selling my mom's house this week because I respect my readership and wouldn't subject you to such tedium, pain and raw human emotion (everybody's done being pissed off now). But instead, let me tell you about a trip to the movies on Sunday.

The beautiful Loew's Jersey City, a once-magnificent movie palace that's been in a state of restoration for the past 28 years, shows classic films one weekend a month except during the summer (air conditioning has not been among the upgrades). Over the years we've seen a lot of my favorites on the big screen, from Horse Feathers (1932) to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) with stops at Jaws and North By Northwest, among others.

But this past Sunday, on short notice because the non-profit that runs the place was busy in court trying to keep the right to do so, the Loew's ran a special, guilty pleasure favorite.  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Now, I have been a fan of the original (and to many, only) version of Star Trek since I was roughly nine years old. The positive vision of the future, the relationships of the core characters, the multiracial, sexually integrated crew, the idea that anything was possible--these all fed the fire. As a teenager I would watch the syndicated reruns daily. As a young adult, I wasn't so much obsessed as sincerely interested. I wanted to know how it was done, as I want to know how Beatles music or Marx Brothers comedy was made. If I find special value in a work, I am interested in its origins and its creation.

So when the huge (in every way) disappointment of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was followed with Wrath of Khan in 1982, there was jubilation in the streets. At last, the movie people had gotten it right.

I saw that movie more times than I care to divulge (and I honestly don't know). But seeing it in what wasn't the best print but with an audience again after at least 30 years, it was something of a revelation.

Yes, there is silliness. But director (and uncredited screenwriter) Nicholas Meyer, who also contributed to the other "good" even-numbered Star Trek movies, knew exactly what he was doing and he made the emotions real. 

There were laughs among the audience when some of the more ludicrous lines of dialogue ("Jim! This is incredible! Have you ever seen the like?") were uttered. When Ricardo Montalban took off his shirt, there was applause. 

When William Shatner, at the height of his scenery chewing, held his communicator like he wanted to squeeze the semiconductors out of it and bellowed, "Khaaaaaaan!" I worried about the structure of the theater standing up to the cheers.

There are certainly better films in history than The Wrath of Khan (but the awful mistake semi-remake Star Trek Into Darkness is unquestionably not one of them). There are better scripts (although this one holds up pretty well), better actors (hit or miss), and perhaps even better science fiction. But is there another movie that can kill off (at least for a couple of years) a beloved iconic character and still send you out of the theater with a smile on your face? Not sure there is.

It's a movie that has action, it has comedy, it has sadness, and it's actually even about the acceptance of aging and dying, and yet it pleases its intended audience and might even have created a few new believers. The audience in Jersey City included a good number of people younger than that movie. Is that a bad thing?

And there's nothing like seeing a real crowdpleaser when you're in a real crowd. At one critical juncture the Loew's somewhat slapdash projection equipment lost the sound on the film for a few moments, right before the screen went black. A few awkward moments passed in the dark, and then a shout came out of a section a few rows behind us:

"Khaaaaaaan!"

Supporting Characters Need Love, Too

Jeff Cohen

Sorry, no announcements of more series this week. I think we'll have a moratorium on those for a while. I might need time to breathe occasionally.

Instead, let's consider the secondary character.

There is much talk--and rightly so--about the protagonist of a mystery novel. The character people will follow throughout is very important. I would argue that you can write a brilliant mystery plot with incredible twists and an airtight, astonishing conclusion, but if the character we spend the most time watching is not interesting, your story will be, let's say, less than it can be.

But that's a given. You need a strong main character to even begin writing a novel. What I'm discussing today are the secondary characters, the ones who populate the rest of the story and serve to illuminate your main focus or to provide obstacles to his/her discovering who did in poor Aunt Sylvia with the butter knife in the attic (I'm focusing on the attic today for reasons that have nothing to do with crime fiction writing at all).

What some writers unfortunately miss is that a story's secondary characters--and even the ones who come on for one scene, just to bring the soup or to explain the angle of the knife wound--are vitally important to your story. If they are cardboard figures, you lose your reader's attention for a moment, and that is awfully difficult to regain.

Characters provide flavor to the stew that is a novel. When I speak to a group about writing in general or my books in particular, I'll often ask who's read (or seen) The Thin Man. Many hands will go up, although not as many as did 10 years ago. Then I'll ask the tough question: "Who remembers who the killer was in The Thin Man"? On a good day, you get two hands raised.

But when I ask, "Who remembers Nick and Nora Charles?", the hands go back up and there are big grins on many of the faces in the audience. Yes, they remember Nick and Nora, and they care about Nick and Nora (and their dog Asta). The plot? Yeah, it was good they had one. The characters? Like old friends we can visit whenever we like.

I think of it this way: Each character in a story needs a reason to exist. If you're introducing a character to your audience (your readers), you have decided that person is interesting enough to bother spending the time in your busy day when you type out fiction for people to (hopefully) read. And if the character matters enough for you to do that, s/he matters enough for you to imbue him/her with an honest-to-goodness personality.

Consider: Your characters don't know they're in a novel. They think they're living their lives and something really weird is going on. Cop #6, who wanders in during the last scene to put the zip strips on the Attic Killer (you thought I forgot?), is going to go home tonight and tell his/her wife, "Guess what happened to me today." Each one thinks s/he is the central part of the story. 

So write characters who deserve our attention. Give each one a quirk of some kind. Give each one an attitude. Make sure that even readers who forget what happened in that attic will remember Artie the slightly agoraphobic house painter or Jane the overly helpful librarian.

Writing is about creation, but it's also a form of entertainment. Entertain with people. Do you need to work hard on your plot? Of course you do. But that's a given--you can't write a story without one (although I believe I have on occasion read the work of authors who have tried). 

Characters will happen naturally; sometimes you just need one to move the story forward. That's fine. Make sure that even that plot-driven character has a personality your reader should find interesting.

Because you never know. Sometimes Cop #6 is so memorable s/he will become the central figure in your next series. Or four.

Just don't go up in the attic.

Working Harder to Serve You Better

Jeff Cohen

E.J. Copperman

There was a time when the soul singer James Brown was known (mostly because he insisted) as "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business." And that was a title Brown earned every night onstage, working up a sweat almost immediately and regularly being leg off the stage, seemingly too weak to go on, only to shed the cape he'd conveniently brought with him to rally and work the crowd up into an even higher state of frenzy.

He worked hard, is what I'm saying.

Well, I wouldn't dare suggest for a moment to challenge the late Mr. Brown to the title, but thanks to the fact that Josh is a really good agent, I'm in line to vie for The Hardest Working Man in Crime Fiction (midlist division).

Now it can be told: In addition to continuing the Haunted Guesthouse series for Berkley Prime Crime (GHOST IN THE WIND is coming in December!) and the Asperger's Mystery series for our own Terri Bischoff at Midnight Ink (THE QUESTION OF THE UNFAMILIAR HUSBAND, coming in October!), we've been able to announce that two (yes, 2) new series will begin soon, depending on your definition of "soon."

DOG DISH OF DOOM, the first in the Agent to the Paws series, will be coming to you from Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's Press) sometime in 2016. These books (written by E.J. Copperman) will center on Kay Powell, a showbiz kid who grew up on stages in the Catskill Mountains, performing with her parents Jay and Ellie (Jay, Kay and El) until she realized she didn't care much for performing and applied to law school. Now Kay is a theatrical agent who takes only non-human clients. That's right, she represents animals, and not the kind who usually populate film and theater casts. 

In DOG DISH OF DOOM, Kay is trying hard to get her client Bruno, a big hairy mutt (he's a dog) a part in the latest Broadway revival of Annie. But just when it looks like she'll easily get Bruno the job, his human owner Trent Barclay is found with a knife in his back and his nose in Bruno's water dish. Things go steadily downhill from there.

But wait--that's not all!

Also coming sometime in 2016 (I think) will be WRITTEN OUT, the first book in what we're calling the Mysterious Detective Mysteries from Crooked Lane Books. In this series, Rachel Goldman is a midlist mystery author whose character Duffy Madison is a gifted consultant for the county prosecutor's investigation team. Duffy specializes in missing persons cases.

But one day as Rachel is putting the finishing touches on the latest Duffy Madison book, a man approaches her claiming to be a consultant for the Bergen County (did you think it would be anywhere but New Jersey?) Prosecutor's office, specializing in missing persons cases, one of which he insists he needs Rachel's help to solve.

And he tells her his name is Duffy Madison, and it is his belief that she created him.

Things go steadily downhill from there.

So with four (!) series publishing from four (!!) different publishers, my work (and of course E.J.'s) will be represented in mass market paperback, trade paperback and hardcover, as well as ebooks and audiobooks. In short, get prepared to be sick to death of me.

It's a lot of writing to do, and I'm absolutely fine with that. This is the job I spent years trying to get, so I'm going to do it as much as I can until someone tells me to stop. I'm hoping you'll follow me along on these many journeys and get some escape, some entertainment, some laughs and maybe a character or two you'll take to your heart. Expect to be hearing a lot from me as each publication date approaches, because I want to keep this gig. Readers ultimately decide which books continue to be published and don't think I ever forget that. Your voice is important to me; get in touch.

But if you think that's all... well, you weren't reading Josh's post last week.

Yes, I'm the writer he was referencing in relation to the auction that led to a very nice sale of two books to the German publisher whose name I won't attempt for fear of making myself sound foolish (as if not being able to type the name of a publisher doesn't make me look foolish enough). In fact, I'm both of the writers involved.

The first two Samuel Hoenig Asperger's Mysteries (by Jeff Cohen/E.J. Copperman), edited as I noted above by our very own Terri Bischoff, became the object of a bidding skirmish ("war" would be just too much to think about) last week, resulting in a very enjoyable phone call among Josh, Danielle Burby of HSG Agency, and me. I'm still a little dizzy from that day. Suffice it to say we'll be saying nice things about the Germans (and as it turns out, the Czechs) for some time.

So while James Brown may still hold the title of Hardest Working Man in Show Business (despite his being somewhat unable to work these days), I think I'll be toiling away pretty hard in the mystery biz for a while. It's the benefit of having a very good agent and a little luck.

Sorry, I have to go write now.

Some thoughts on the state of Foreign Rights for books

Josh Getzler

First, please allow me to apologize for my odd and not always timely posts the past few weeks. I’ve managed to go from Passover to the London Book Fair to having my back go out to a death in the family, so the juggling of life and work and writing and generally being efficient has been…challenging. The fact is, this particular post has been percolating since I was in London, in the middle of April.

Three years ago, I went to the London Book Fair for the first time. HSG had just begun, we wanted to announce our presence (with Authority—kind of like Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham). And while I met with lots of fascinating people, the overwhelming feeling I had when I returned was that there had been an atmosphere of great apprehension around Earl’s Court. European publishers were unsure how stable American publishers were; how the emergence of digital media was going to cut into international sales (if they were); and with growing economic instability in some of the larger European countries (Spain, Italy, Greece), whether folks who were having trouble putting food on the table would be overly interested in a paranormal romance.

So I was curious as to what the atmosphere was going to be this year, in a new venue (with its rights center tucked away in a corner approximately ten miles from the entrance to the Olympia) with continued economic unrest in Europe but the publishing world somewhat more stable. E-books have begun to be more predictable; the latest mergers and squabbles have been completed and resolved. I know our business at HSG has improved in the past two years, with more sales and a sense that business was rebounding. The issue on everyone’s minds has more to do with marketing and discoverability than whether publishers would survive to next year.

And while I certainly heard some difficult news from a number of territories—Spain wanted only books that already came with enormous buzz and preferably a film deal attached, for example—it was heartening to hear from the Japanese market, many of my British colleagues, and even the French. A little. Between espressos. And only reluctantly.

And then there were the Germans. First of all, I’m incredibly fortunate to work with one of the great people in publishing, Tilo Eckardt at Mohrbooks (whose name we at HSG have, almost inevitably, shortened to the less accurate but hipper T-Lo.). And it appears that my clients’ writing has dovetailed with the German market’s needs. Or perhaps, the German economy is simply strong enough that their publishers are willing to take greater risks than many other places. Regardless, in the past six months I think we have sold eight or nine projects there, far more than in any other territory. And this week, we were the beneficiaries of an auction between two houses on a book by one of our Dead Guy bloggers that had been bought by another of our bloggers…but I’ll let our writer make that announcement…very early next week.

Spandex Fatigue

Jeff Cohen

I am so bloody tired of superhero movies.

Since Superman in 1978, every few years some corporate rights-holder wakes up in the morning with the notion of taking another spandex-clad lunatic or another and making the most epic (which is not a real term) action film ever. This is a function of movies being made by corporations, which grudgingly hire filmmakers because the suits don't actually want to spend the time writing, producing and directing if they can instead crunch some numbers. Let the "artists" do the grunt work.

The problem is that every last one of these products is exactly the same in its storytelling. Is there some variation in tone, in nuance, during the occasional scene? Sure. Are some better executed than others? No question. But find me one that doesn't follow the same freakin' formula and I'll be surprised.

There are essentially two kinds of superhero movies: Origin stories and mission stories. Origin stories, in which we find out how the person becomes Moose Man or Awesome Woman or whatever, follow the formula in which an underdog of some kind is kicked around enough to want to destroy evil, which tends to happen at the same time he/she/it is exposed to radiation (it's almost always radiation) and reaps the benefits thereof. Of course, there's always a price to pay for these new abilities, because we don't want the audience to envy our hero/ine so much admiration becomes resentment.

Oddly, there are no villains with amazing powers in the universe until our main character gains the ability to fly, swim, blast or otherwise match up. As soon as that happens, the place is lousy with them. And the inevitable battle ensues, testing our hero's mettle and forcing said character to face the truth about him/her/itself. Then there's a truly ridiculous amount of destruction while these two titans take each other on and our pal prevails while absolutely nobody concerns themselves with the rebuilding of entire cities and thousands of lives lost. Everybody goes home happy.

In the mission story, Amazing (Wo)man is already endowed with some nutty asset and is learning to deal with fame or power or just being able to have a girlfriend when some other mad scientist (how come they're never mad vinyl siding salesmen?) trying to save mankind instead experiments on himself (you'd think someone with a Ph.D from Harvard would know better) and not only goes nuts but also gains fists that contain rocket fuel and a digestive system that produces nuclear waste. And the inevitable battle ensues, testing our hero's mettle and forcing said character to face the truth about him/her/itself. Then there's a truly ridiculous amount of destruction while these two titans take each other on and our pal prevails while absolutely nobody concerns themselves with the rebuilding of entire cities and thousands of lives lost. Everybody goes home happy.

There are variations, of course. There's the superhero team movie, usually crammed with so many comic book characters that it's almost painful to watch the screenwriter jump through hoops trying to give everyone something to do. There's the superhero "comedy," in which all the same stuff as above happens, but the character is self-aware enough to realize s/he is in a silly plot and winks at the camera every once in a while.

And I am left sitting in my theater seat (which I sometimes occupy because the hype is impressive, because reviews have convinced me this one is different or because others want to go and I'm tired of being the wet blanket) wondering why the formula can't ever once be broken in a creative way.

Maybe it's aiming too high. When movies are made by those interested only in making money, the goal is to please unbelievably large numbers of people. Perhaps that many (because the movie costs so damn much to make that a group close to the population of the planet has to attend in order to make a profit) prefer not to see anything the least bit different. 

Or maybe it's just that this has been working long enough that the bean counters see no reason to mess with success. You can't argue with that. The argument can be made that these massive tales of broken glass pay for some challenging independent films. Maybe they do. 

But I used to love popcorn movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future. Those were made with an eye toward the box office, sure, but also because someone came up with a really good idea and wanted to see it executed in the best way possible. I'd like to be engaged by a summer movie again, one that would actually appeal to my imagination. One that doesn't require the destruction of entire cities to make its point.

Is that too much to ask?

He's the Cure

Jeff Cohen

A number of my students last week were late with homework and explained they had problem with the assignment because they had Writer's Block.

No, they didn't. There's no such thing as Writer's Block. We've been over this before.

Whenever writers tell me they're blocked on a project, I can't help but think of Chuck Jackson.

Chuck was assistant city editor at the Passaic Herald-News when a young, inexperienced, let's face it bad reporter started there straight out of college in a year during which there were not yet VCRs, forget smartphones. He was smart, understanding and best of all sardonic, which was exactly what you wanted out of an editor on a daily newspaper if you were a reporter wannabe in those days. He would have fit in well with the editors and reporters we saw in classic movies, except he'd be nicer about it.

When I was a reporter at the H-N, the emphasis was very heavily weighted on local news, and each of us was given a number of towns to cover in the Passaic/Clifton/Southern Bergen County area. Which meant a great deal of scrambling, trying desperately to find news "on the street," (something at which I was especially bad) during the day while attending countless mind-numbing municipal meetings well into the night.

The average day saw each of us writing four articles at least, one for each of our towns and anything else that had cropped up during the day. The paper was putting out a lot of local sections, and that news hole had to be filled.

Luckily, the one thing I could do after four years on the Rutgers Daily Targum (five issues a week) was write fast. I might not have been able to find groundbreaking stories, but I could sure as hell write them well and turn out copy at the speed the insatiable machine required.

Since then, I have worked at a number of jobs, all of which required me to write. I was in public relations for a couple of minutes, and if all that business required was writing press releases, I might have made a tidy living at it. Alas, there was client contact and I sucked at that. Then I worked for a number of years in trade magazines, writing articles about the burgeoning electronics industry that did eventually include such products as VCRs, CD players, camcorders, car electronics (the area in which I worked most of the time) and many others. I wrote a lot of articles for those magazines in the five years I was in that industry.

The pace picked up to some extent when I decided to "take a summer off before I look for the next job" and go freelance. I still had contacts among editors in the trades and I got work immediately. I still haven't looked for that next job. In another seven weeks, it will be 30 years since I decided to take it easy that summer.

Somewhere along the way I picked up this odd habit of writing mystery novels. And no matter what the quality of my work might be to your mind, every editor with whom I've worked will tell you there was never a time my work came in late.

My idea of Chuck Jackson, whom I haven't seen in many years, wouldn't allow it.

So today when a student (or, to be honest, another writer) tells me it was impossible to write this week because "I was blocked," I think of Chuck. I picture the look he'd have given me if I'd been stupid enough to try to use that excuse on him: "Sorry, man, but the muse just wasn't with me today." I'd have been out on the street in a nanosecond, with the memory of an original cutting remark to go with it.

Blocked? There's a cure for that: Just write something. Then you can fix it. You can't fix nothing.

If it helps you, think of Chuck Jackson. Works for me.

What's Your Fantasy Set List?

Jeff Cohen

Every writer struggles like a mad person to be read. We start without any connections at all, and hopefully our work reaches an editor with some sympathy, then an editorial staff that agrees, and with luck, some readers who see what the writer saw and respond to it (I met a few this weekend at Malice Domestic, and they are lovely).

And then the writer will do anything--anything--to avoid writing again. We procrastinate. We perform tasks we truly hate doing. We do laundry. We go to the drug store. Some writers, I'm told, actually clean the house. I've never been that desperate.

Instead, I have my guitar.

I play, and not very well. But that thing keeps me sane, and that's a fact. When I'm stuck on a story point or simply can't motivate myself to the file of the latest novel, I reach for it. It's on a stand right next to my desk, never more than a few feet away. I am, my family will tell you, much easier to live with when I play regularly.

And I have my imaginary play list, for the performance I'll never give because, well, I'm really not that good. But I play it for me, especially when the weather is warm and I can sit out on the front steps and take in the day. 

I don't write songs, you should know. The whole set list is comprised of covers, songs written and performed by people much better than me in their previous incarnations. It's not about the astonishing quality of the performance (and you can interpret "astonishing quality" any way you like, but I know what I mean). It's heavy into the oldies because I'm getting pretty old myself. And it's very heavily weighted to songs that don't have a lot of difficult chords because see previous references to me not being that good.

The point, after all, is to clear my mind of writing problems, have some fun, and imagine that I sound much better than I do.

The Set List (Order will vary)

1. You Can Close Your Eyes (James Taylor, despite his appalling taste in baseball teams)
2. Here Comes the Sun (Beatles
3. Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
4. Time Between Trains (Susan Werner)
5. Guy Fawkes Day (Paul Melancon)
6. Stuck in the Middle (Stealer's Wheel)
7. Mother Nature's Son (Beatles)
8. Up Around the Bend (Creedence Clearwater Revival, and yes, I do it acoustic)
9. Mexico (James Taylor)
10. Recently (Jim Croce)
11. Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel)
12. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)
13. Revolution 1 (the slower acoustic version--Beatles)
14. Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy--Jim Croce)
15. Fly Like A Bird (Boz Scaggs)
16. Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills)
17. Jeff Lynne (Paul Melancon)
18. Walking To You (Everything But the Girl)
19. Blackbird (Beatles)
20. Country Road (James Taylor)

Good night! Thank you! Make sure you tip your waitress!

Hey. A man can dream.

A New Kind of Book Launch?

Chris Nickson

Lynne’s off on holiday this week, so she asked if I’d cover for her. Gladly, I agreed.

‘Don’t be afraid of a little self-promotion,’ she advised.

Right then, I won’t.

As it happens, today is the UK publication day for my new book, Two Bronze Pennies (Severn House, out August 1 in the US). It’s the second in my series of mysteries set in Victorian Leeds – my hometown – and featuring Detective Inspector Tom Harper.

Most of my book are set in Leeds, in different eras (1730s, 1950s). It’s what I know best, it’s where I live. Because of that, my book launches have been here; after all, that makes sense, right?

Well yes, after a fashion. My books actually seem to sell better in the US than in Britain. No idea why, but it’s just one of those quirks (I should add that I lived in the US for 30 years, but we can safely say that’s not a factor. I wasn’t that popular there!).

My publisher can’t afford to send me on a book tour there, and I certainly can’t fund one myself. But for the launch of this book I’d like to look outside this city. Hmmm…

MY paid gig is writing press releases for a music PR company based in the US. I’ve been a music journalist for over 20 years, I know the field, and they want something more interesting than the bog-standard press release. On top of that, they pay very quickly, a win-win situation. Working with them led me to a site called Concert Window, which allows musicians to stream gigs via their laptops. The can play at home, in a club, anywhere, and interact with the online audience through a chat room.

And that gave me an idea…

To my knowledge, no one’s ever done a streamed book launch. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. So why not try it? It’s simply a case of picking the time that would catch as many people around the world as possible. 6pm UK time, Sunday May 24. Five hours ahead of the US East Coast, eight hours ahead of the West. Evening in Europe. Early morning in Australia and NZ, but there have to be compromises.
A couple of special guests – in this case a very, very good storyteller and (hopefully) a historian who’s written about the life of the Jewish refugees who came to Leeds at the end of the 19th century, since the book takes place in the Leylands, effectively the Jewish ghetto of Leeds in that period. It breaks up the monotony of just me.

But this is promotion today. The excellent publicist at the publisher does a great job, but with no real budget, there are very strict limits. It’s down to the author to be creative and to do it on a shoestring. Necessity is the mother etc.

Will it work? Ask me on May 25. I’ve made it as easy as possible. No one has to register on the site. Just click on the URL and you’re there. I’ll have a link to buy copies of the book (in case you’d forgotten it’s called Two Bronze Pennies), but largely I’ll be winging it. It’s new territory for me, and maybe it will become the future of book launches.
So yes, that’s got in the idea of promotion, and self-promotion. And since you’re all thinking, wait a minute, I want to see this, here’s the URL:

https://www.concertwindow.com/89118-chris-nickson

Fingers crossed, eh?

Coming to Malice Domestic?

Jeff Cohen

There's nothing quite like getting that first actual printed copy of your book in your hand. It's a truly transcendent moment, one that can't be adequately described. But hey, let me try. 

It's been a long road, even when it's your 16th book. From idea to draft, through cover concepts and rewrites, copy edits and at least a year from delivery to book in hand. That's a lot to think about, and it takes you back to your childhood, when a book from the library or the bookstore had surely come from some magical entity who could create stories that came from the top of a mountain, or something. You, joining that rarified company? It doesn't seem possible.

But there's that physical proof in your hand. So it must be true.

Some time after that magical first copy appears, a box of books for promotional purposes shows up on your doorstep, and now you have a shelfful of your work. And that looks even cooler, if such a thing is possible. 

That's amazing, but--and please don't take this as a complaint--after a few books, you have, let's say, an overabundance of stock. Those suckers that you don't send to reviewers or sell to people at book signings not in bookstores (which of course you don't do because they're promotional copies) tend to sort of pile up a little. Or a lot (See above, which represents only some of what's currently living in my house).

No, I'm not going to give them all away, although the occasional contest is a possibility. And I'm not going to pack them all up and put them in my leaky garage, where a family of raccoons has just taken up residence and won't be movable for months (the pest control guy tells me they can't separate a mother from her litter; I feel taking all of them would be just fine but he doesn't see it that way). So displaying the titles is something of a challenge, particularly in my space-deprived house. I had to clean off that table for 15 minutes before taking the picture.

But that's not why I called you here today.

This coming Friday, after a very long wait, will be May 1, and that can mean only one thing. Okay, two things. The second is that I'll be driving to Bethesda, MD for this year's Malice Domestic conference. I'm looking forward to some of the usual Malice highlights, not the least of which will be dinner with my fabulous editor Shannon Jamieson Vazquez and the rest of the Berkley bunch Friday night, meeting wonderful readers, other authors (friends and to-be friends) and attending some panels to find out what I don't know about writing crime fiction, which is quite a bit.

If you're traveling to lovely Bethesda as well this weekend, please drop on by and say hello. Assume I want you to stop me in the hallway or pretty much anywhere but the men's room and strike up a conversation. Both E.J. and I will be there, so feel free if you see either of us. 

And if you like, drop by the panel on Sunday at 10 a.m. (I know, the death slot but hey, it's a mystery conference so "death slot" is sort of a compliment) called Challenges, Challenges: Protagonists on the Edge, at which E.J. and I will be mostly listening to Greg Lilly, the moderator, John Betancourt, David Burnsworth and KM Rockwood speaking on something about characters with challenges, which all characters should have. So there you are. For the whole schedule go here.

And on a personal note: It was 28 years ago yesterday that an unbelievably understanding and wonderful woman stood to my left and, when asked a long and convoluted question, said, "Yes." And my life has been better in every way since.

Happy anniversary, honey.

I'm No Ringo. And Neither Are You. (Unless Ringo is reading this which would be awesome!)

Jeff Cohen

In 1968, when I was a wee lad, Mickey Mantle decided not to play baseball anymore. Since I was indeed a wee lad, and Mantle was my idol of the moment, this was a huge thing. 

Less than two years later, it was announced that the Beatles were disbanding, and would no longer record or perform as a group. And if you thought the Mantle thing was big, this was universe-sized. We were stunned. No Beatles? How was that even possible?

Immediately, in both cases, the speculation began: Who would be the next Mickey Mantle? Who would be the next Beatles? I recall reading an interview with Ringo Starr in Rolling Stone (back when you could trust what they said) where he was asked the question: Who's going to be the next Beatles?

Ringo was diplomatic about it, as ever, and even suggested a few people (I think Elton John was among the names mentioned), but he knew the truth, and pretty much said so:

There is no Next Beatles. There is no Next Mantle.

What there will be is someone who is who they are. Is that too oblique? There's no point in trying to duplicate something that moves you. It can't happen the same way twice. 

There never was a Casablanca II but there was Star Wars. There never was Back With the Wind but there was To Kill a Mockingbird. No new Peanuts but Doonesbury and Calvin and Hobbes. Nobody ever managed to recreate I Love Lucy, but instead we got The Dick Van Dyke Show. Which, I'm sorry, was better.

So when writers try to emulate or piggyback on the enormous success of some phenomenon, when they try to be the next Harry Potter or the next James Patterson or the next Gone Girl, they're asking for trouble. Is is possible to achieve some popular success based on something that has been immensely lucrative before? Certainly. Remember that 50 Shades of Grey allegedly began as Twilight fan fiction.

But can a writer really take something that preceded his/her work and create a new phenomenon? Particularly, one that has the same emotional and societal impact as what came before? It's unlikely, because writing something that isn't what you chose to write, what moved you enough to sit in that chair and type all those words, is a losing proposition.

Instead of a new Mantle, there came (only 30 years later) Derek Jeter. A totally different type of player, but a wonderful one in his own way. 

Instead of the Next Beatles, we got Elton John and Michael Jackson and Carole King and Fleetwood Mac and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Adele. Depending on your taste, you got NWO or Eminem or Wu Tang Clan or Josh Groban or Justin Bieber, if he's your thing. There is no Next Beatles, but there are people expressing themselves whose work you might take to your heart.

If you're writing, write for yourself first but keep an audience in mind. Don't write something because that's what publishers are looking for now or because some great big huge phenomenon just hit and you think you can change a few details around and make it something new. Write what you would write even if nobody was going to read it. ESPECIALLY write what you'd write if nobody was going to read it.

Writing is an art form, a craft and a job. But before anything else, it's a form of expression. What's the point of expressing someone else's thought, particularly when they've done that already?

There is no Next Beatles. Be you.

(Tired) Thoughts from the London Book Fair

Josh Getzler

I got into London at 9:30 this morning and had my first meeting at 12. Yep, it’s London Book Fair time again, when everyone says to me “Oh you lucky man, you get to spend the better part of a week in London.”

I, on the other hand, say “Oh, you mean I get to have 28 meetings in 48 hours in a crowded zoo of a Rights Center, trying to remember if my next meeting is with Spain or Germany, whether I’ve met with this person or not, and am I ever going to eat?

Yes, it’s fun, and I love it. I mean, I’m beat—I have slept two out of the past 36 hours and my first meeting stood me up. But I started my day with a lunch with my wonderful client Elaine Powell, ended my workday at a cocktail party for a publisher, and am writing this at a pub with a pint of Trinity Pale Ale. So, I mean, life doesn’t exactly suck.

And I got to spend my day talking to people who spend their days the way I do—thinking about the best books they’ve read recently and how they can convince the most people to buy those books. They just do it in Portugal or the Netherlands or Israel, which is the point of the London Book Fair—it’s a gathering of book folks from around the world who want to figure out what’s Out There.

Publishers advertise their lists in Trade Show booths, sure. But everywhere you look people are sitting across from each other with notebooks or tablets, talking about their books—how certain markets can’t sell paranormal romance while others are dying for dark domestic dramas; which countries need a hardcover publication to show you are serious, while other countries have basically frozen their market until their fiscal situation improves.

There is an abundance of air-kissing and cardboard espresso cups, of eye-rolling and shrugging and tweeting. When I worked in baseball, my wife always said that I enjoyed the Winter Meetings trade show more than I had any right to; I believe the same is true of the London Book Fair. It’s part class reunion and part convention, with elements of speed dating and fraternity rush. But with books. In London. Where you can end your day with a pint of Trinity.  

 

My Crime Fiction Lineup

Jeff Cohen

Editor's note: This is NOT a post about baseball. Trust me.

As I noted last week, baseball season is back, and that means many things to me. One of the things sports fans love more than normal people is a good argument. What player is better than another. What would a player from the 1950s do against a player now. That sort of thing.

One of the favorites is to combine a Starting Nine in baseball. Name a player (from your team, from all teams; the rules vary) for each position and then argue about why you chose one over another. Fans are essentially crazy (it is short for "fanatic," after all), so you can get a whole evening out of a Starting Nine.

Well, I think I'll start an argument. The following is my personal Crime Fiction Starting Nine. Each position on the ball field is manned (or womanned) by a writer working today or some other day. And I've chosen mine carefully, based solely on personal preference and in some cases, who's a friend of mine. I get to choose any way I want. Feel free to post your Starting Nine below.

Crime Fiction Starting Nine

1. Leadoff hitter/center fielder (a player who is quick and agile, usually--not one of your big power people, but someone who can get on base so the sluggers coming up can drive him in): Ellery Adams.(Nobody quicker, more nimble.Will tickle you to death.)

2. Second base (a second hitter should have a little more raw power, but still get on base a lot, field well and understand his role): Chris Grabenstein. (Very high average, can always get the story going in a hurry.)

3. First base (usually the best hitter in your lineup all around--can hit for average, hit home runs and hopefully field the position): Dashiell Hammett. (Find someone better. I dare you.)

4. Third base (power hitter, good fielder, the person you want up in the pressure situation): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.(Invented Sherlock Holmes and had the good sense to invent Doctor Watson to buffer him from the reader.)

5. Right field (definitely some power in case #4 doesn't get the homer; strong throwing arm, drives in runs): Robert B. Parker. (A heavy hitter, not lots of finesse but plenty of power.)

6. Left fielder (run producer, but probably higher average, less power than 3-4-5 hitters; should be able to catch the ball): Donald J. Sobol. (Funny, brilliant, wrote more stories than everybody, inspired every crime writer since including me.)

7. Designated Hitter (I'm doing an American League lineup because I don't have a strong starting pitcher analogy--this hitter should do as much of it all as possible because, well, he's just hitting): Julia Spencer-Fleming.(Can do anything, but mostly does one thing very, very well.)

8. Catcher (someone who has to handle the pitching staff, know all the opposing hitters, and also hit pretty well while taking all the physical punishment of a prizefighter): Raymond Chandler.(Always thinking, and you can see it.)

9. Shortstop (not usually a huge power hitter, often someone who hits a lot of singles and can field the position): Let's say E.J. Copperman. (It had "Short" in the title.)

So. Who's on your Starting Nine?

Who's Funnier Than Me?

Jeff Cohen

Let me lay a little groundwork here: I am not, by nature, a competitive person. I don't need to be Number One at everything. I didn't have to be valedictorian of my high school class (which was good, since I came in 54th). When I used to play racquetball with friends, I was okay getting in a few good shots that left everyone stunned, and probably losing to someone with longer legs and arms than I have. 

As a baseball player, I was a good--not great--second baseman who couldn't hit because no pitcher my age (very young) understood a batter with such a small strike zone. I walked a lot, struck out a lot, and made contact every once in a while. Mostly foul.

I don't have the driving need to distance myself from peers. I feel that if I'm happy with how I'm doing, someone else doing as well or better isn't a threat. I applaud fellow authors who hit the bestseller lists. Yes, it would be nice to do so myself, but their accomplishment doesn't belittle whatever ones I've managed.

However: Yesterday morning my wife, as is her custom/obsession, was listening to the NPR morning show and being interviewed was a writer whom the announcer said someone or other had declared "the funniest writer in America."

And my blood started racing through my veins a little faster. My eyes, I'm sure, narrowed to slits. My teeth clenched. What I'm saying is, I didn't deal with it well.

Nobody can be a funnier writer than I am. This is not open to discussion.

Just to clarify: I do not claim to be the funniest writer in America. I don't claim to be the funniest writer in central New Jersey. I don't think of myself in superlatives. 

I just don't believe anyone is funnier than I am, and I will take that conviction to my grave. Hopefully not for quite some time.

My drive, since I can recall, has been to be funny. To this day, my mother recalls winning $5 by reporting some hilarious (she says) quip I'd made to a radio station. I was four. It was my first time getting paid for being funny, and I never saw a dime of it.

Humor is how I define myself. Once when we were having some minor argument, I said something to my wife that, on reflection, I felt had been unfair (I would tell you what I'd said but I have honestly forgotten). So I apologized to her and she shook her head. "Don't worry," she said. "I understand that you're incapable of not going for the joke."

So when I hear that someone else is funnier, I bristle. Nobody is allowed to be funnier than me. Except Mel Brooks, but he's a force of nature.

The point of this week's diatribe is simply a look into my personal psychology. Humor is the most subjective form of entertainment. It hits everyone differently and can't be predicted. So what you find hilarious in print might register a shrug from me. That's okay, and it's natural.

Just don't tell me someone else is the funniest. I don't acknowledge the possibility.

Okay, maybe I'm a little competitive.

 

P.S. The good part of the year starts today at just about 1 p.m. when the New York Yankees will face the Toronto Blue Jays in the first actual game of the 2015 season. I don't expect it to be a great year for my team, but any season in which baseball is played beats any season in which it is not. Hands down. I will not be answering my phone after 1 p.m. today.

Mostly Done

Josh Getzler

 

I’ve been working with a client for most of the past year on a thriller he’s writing. He’s a multiply-published author looking to start a new series, and the work he is doing is exciting and fresh.

 

A few months ago, he was well past halfway done, when we realized that if he pushed on, we might be able to submit his book and make a new deal—and a splash—if we were able to submit the book before the London Book Fair in mid-April. We worked backward and assigned, well, yesterday as the drop-dead date for him to finish if we wanted any shot of making the deal we were looking for.

 

So for the past six weeks or so, sleeping very little and subsisting, it seems, largely on bourbon, he soldiered on. Finally, on Thursday night, he sent me the manuscript, albeit without the last 20 or so pages, which he was planning to complete over the weekend and give me after I read the first 90% of the book. Which I did, with him sitting by the computer as I sent along notes as I went through the second half.

 

The next morning, when we were getting dressed, my wife asked “so, you ready to send it over?”

 

And I paused. I’d been up much of the night. Because I realized that, in fact, I wasn’t ready to send it in. Not because the book isn’t good—it is, very much so. It’s interesting and scary and moves like crazy. There’s a strong protagonist and a terrific, almost equivalent, antagonist. I think we could make a deal right now.

 

But it wouldn’t be the right deal. Because the book is only mostly done, to paraphrase from Miracle Max. That means it’s partly not-done. There’s some layering of backstory that needs to happen; a couple of explanations, some description, a little tweaking of language. Maybe seven notes, all told, which might take three days of reasonable work. Not a huge deal. Except that then we would miss our window for London.

 

Part of an agent’s job is to know when to be aggressive, know when to push even when you know something isn’t perfect. And this was a tough one because the difference, in my mind, is in degree, not in absolute value. So I went to the office, spoke to the author, explained my issues, and discussed his options. Ultimately we decided to talk to the most likely editor and be frank—ask whether he’d rather crash-read the mostly-done version and potentially have the opportunity to sell foreign rights at the London Fair; or whether he’d rather wait a few weeks until after the fair to see and evaluate the more well-scrubbed version, and possibly sell it at BEA at the end of May. In the end it was somewhat academic. The editor had a serious conflict that would have likely made him need to read this very long book almost overnight (which is hardly ideal and, I’ve found, makes editors cranky even if it’s kind of exciting); so weighing the options we decided to let the author make the changes.

 

I emailed him: “Go take a nap.” The response was priceless: “I am about to cry. My liver and I thank you.”

 

I don’t know whether we are giving up a sale or two overseas by delaying until after the London Book Fair. But I know this: The editor will have the chance to evaluate the very best this author will have to give, and not need to do it under duress. I suspect that if we are able to make a deal, it will be the right one, and it will all work out. Sometimes the best course of action is to slow down, even when everything in you wants to step on the gas.

That's a Bad Word!

Jeff Cohen

Terri and Erin quite eloquently posted last week about Clean Reader, an app which apparently "cleans up" any work of literature--that is, anything that contains words--to best appease the sensibility of those who feel some parts of our language should not be employed. I do not intend to address that subject directly, mostly because I think everything Terri and Erin said was so dead-on I don't need to add to it.

But.

I do think we've regressed somewhat in our use of language. In fact, we've regressed a number of decades, to the point that simply using certain words can be considered scandalous or politically inappropriate. I grew up on the idea that words were tools, that they could express any thought if used properly. I grew up on George Carlin, and to tell the truth, I thought we were over this stuff.

People remember the classic Carlin discussion of Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, but they miss the point for all the cursing. Yes, he goes out of his way to use all seven title words. But he doesn't do that just for the joy--which must have been palpable at the time--of saying them in a public forum. He's talking about the use of words, and why some have been segregated from the others.

It's a question of sensibility, and that's fair. The problem is when one sensibility decides to impose itself upon all others, which is what everybody thinks "the other side" is doing to them.

I believe in all words. I think each one has a use, and a specific one. Writers have been known to spend hours agonizing over a particular usage. To set aside some because they might offend others seems to me to be a poor use of resources. Some words are meant to offend. It's not the word's fault you're insulted. It's the thought behind it.

For the past 15 or so years I have been writing mystery novels and many of those fall into the "cozy" sub genre. The parameters of the "cozy" have been fairly well debated and I will not attempt to redefine the term here. But it is pretty universally understood that "bad language" is something that should be avoided in such works.

I don't have a problem with the idea of language fitting the form. I knew what I was signing when those contracts crossed my desk. I'm writing for a particular audience and that audience prefers not to see certain words. If I felt--as I did in my first published novel--that one of those words (often referred as a "bomb," which is sort of bizarre--does the word lay waste to entire city blocks?) was necessary to the story, I'd use it. Otherwise, I could find other ways to express the idea. I'm a writer. That's what I do.

(This is where I should say that I don't consider what I do to be "self-censorship." It's not like I'm dying to curse my brains out but rein it in for the sake of commerce. And my editors have never once asked me to change a word in order to appease anyone's sensibility. The changes we've made have been to make the book better. Period.)

But in some cases the whole breadth of the English language is necessary to the work. What has happened, particularly in comedy but certainly not limited to it, is that the giddy freedom Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and others helped create led to overindulgence. People swear without making a point just because they could. That's lazy. I'm not offended, except as a fan of comedy. Work harder. If the joke needs the word, use it. If it's just to show off how daring you are, I'm bored. It's 2015. We've all heard that before.

I don't believe in "bad words." As Carlin said, "There are bad thoughts. Bad intentions. But words?" He had a point. And that's the point.

Je Suis Cartoonist--Guest Post

Joe Newman-Getzler

 

(Note: A rational, thoughtful take on the Charlie Hebdo shootings, from the perspective of a 15 year old artist who sometimes likes to be a bit edgy. It brings you up short, doesn't it...? JG)

On January 7, 2015, two masked men attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine famous for its cartoons, killing 11 people and injuring 11 more.  This news shocked the world, as many were surprised that a magazine intended to make people laugh could lead to so much bloodshed. Certainly, the news surprised me. Seeing as I am a cartoonist myself, it definitely made me both worried and fascinated by how simple drawings on paper could lead to something like this.

For those who don’t know, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons are generally designed to provoke. Many of their cartoons depict taboo subjects, such as the sex slaves taken by Boco Haram militants; a threeway between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and several covers depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad (“100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter!” he says on one of them).

Of course, there have been many cartoonists in the past whose cartoons have been designed to provoke strong emotions. As far back as 1831, Honore Daumier drew a portrait of the French King Louis-Philippe entitled “Gargantua,” which showed the king as a Goliath-like beast swallowing sacks of money fed to him by his subjects. The cartoon was prevented from being printed, and both Daumier and his editor Charles Philipon were sentenced to jail time and had to pay a fine. But by then, word had already gotten around about the drawing, and its notoriety led to Daumier and Philipon finding work again[1]

Another notable cartoonist to rebel against the system was Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi was an animator for the animation studio Terrytoons in the 1960s before moving on to make independent feature films. His first, Fritz the Cat, based on the underground comic by R. Crumb, became the first animated feature to earn an X rating. Bakshi’s films tended to be about New York City and the goings-on of its seedier denizens. One of his most notable films was Coonskin, a modern-day take on Song of the South that depicted three black main characters leaving the South and coming to Harlem, only to be confronted by oppression and discrimination. The film was wildly controversial upon its release, with the Congress of Racial Equality protesting its release and the film’s original distributor pulling out, despite the fact that the film was meant to satirize ethnic stereotypes, not reinforce them.

So, why do I bring up Daumier and Bakshi? Because their cartoons may have provoked many people, but they still had an overall point. Daumier was making a point about how the king was getting wealthy off of his citizens’ hard-earned money, and Bakshi was showing the life of the lower-class and the injustice of racism. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons to the untrained eye, seem to do little but provoke for the sake of provoking, and maybe a laugh now and then. Is there any underlying message in this cartoons? Or are they just there to provoke?

Luz, a cartoonist who survived the attacks, stated that “Since the ‘60s, [it] has always sought to break taboos and shatter symbols and every possible type of fanaticism.”[i] In that sense, there’s nothing wrong with what the Hebdo cartoonists do. Certainly, fanaticism of any type could be taken down a peg, and cartoons have forever been a way to take the high and mighty and bring them down to the level of the common man (although it is ironic that a magazine intended to attack fanatics was then attacked by fanatics). It puts a face behind the cartoons, and, to some, it stops the cartoons from being completely mean-spirited attacks on religious and social beliefs.

Frankly, I think everyone has a right to speak their mind about certain subjects. That’s what freedom of speech is all about, right? So, in that sense, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have every right to continue making their cartoons. But the question is, should they? You see, a cartoon depicting Mohammed isn’t just offensive to the Islamic radicals who burst into the offices. They’re offensive to anyone in the Muslim faith, as their law strictly dictates that none can create depictions of their prophet (not to mention anyone who has respect for other peoples’ customs). By not just drawing the Prophet, but also drawing him in very degrading positions, they don’t seem to be doing much more than pointing and laughing, like schoolyard bullies. They have a right to do it under free speech, but it still feels pretty insensitive toward an entire religion.

Does this mean that the shooters were justified? Absolutely not. Whether or not the cartoons were offensive, violence is never the answer, and killing people just for their art is an example of stifling freedom of speech. Though the cartoons can be considered offensive, they still had the right to make them. But, like I said before, it does get you to thinking when simple strokes of pencil or pen on paper can lead to reactions like these.

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[1] Cartoon Brew

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[i] VICE News

 

It's Been a Pleasure... Not Really

Jeff Cohen

I was talking to my cousin, who is an actual professional artist (she exhibits paintings and also teaches art at the college level) last week and she asked about my writing. I gave her the usual rundown of what I was up to and when things would be published and what I was hoping would happen, and then she asked me a question that really stopped me in my tracks.

"Do you get pleasure out of writing?"

Well, that was a stumper. Pleasure? I'd never actually thought about it before. Writing is something I do; it's something I've always done since I understood language. It's what I do for a living. It's what I do here once a week. I pay my mortgage with writing; I use it to buy food and other necessities and maybe the occasional indulgence, but never a large one. Writing is what I do and in some ways it's what I am.

But pleasure?

Writing is not easy work, no matter what steam pipe fitters tell you. It's not always physically taxing, I'll grant you, but it can make your brain hurt pretty seriously. The author and screenwriter Gene Fowler once said, "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." It's sort of like that, except not that messy. For me, it's nothing Aleve can't handle. But then, perhaps I'm not as good a writer as Mr. Fowler was.

I am the walking embodiment of yet another aphorism regarding the creative process: I hate writing; I love having written. It's sort of like exercise in my case--I'll do anything I can to put off the activity for as long as possible, suffer through it, and then feel good about myself because I managed to survive, maybe even well.

Now, don't get me wrong: I don't want people to think I'm suffering horribly while creating stories for the reader's enjoyment. But not suffering horribly is a far cry from getting pleasure out of the deal.

Let me put it this way: I get pleasure out of eating Raisinets. I'm not crazy about the result of eating Raisinets. But I do love looking at the shelf of books I've written, and I absolutely exalt in getting feedback from readers who have read and liked my work. Writers have egos; we're just so used to getting them stepped on that we often keep them hidden in a secret drawer until everyone is out of the house.

So an honest answer would be yes, I do get pleasure from writing. Just not while I'm doing it.

 

P.S. Congratulations to the winners of the QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD audiobook contest, Melissa Andrews, Larry W. Chavis, Kayla Jackson, Gayle Trent and Katie Zwilling! 

It's Why I Hate St. Patrick's Day

Jeff Cohen

In the course of each year, all of us have holidays we celebrate and holidays we ignore completely. There are shades of difference in between, many of which will be on display early in April when my family observes Passover with the 45-minute PowerPoint seder (now in HD!). 

For the first 37 years of my life, St. Patrick's Day was a holiday of which I took almost no notice. That's not terribly surprising, as a total of 0% of my family is Irish and we were distracted from it by ignoring most of the holidays that were indeed part of our heritage.

But now I hate St. Patrick's Day, and each year my stomach clenches just a bit as it approaches. Before anyone assumes this is an anti-Irish rant, I assure you it is nothing of the sort. This is personal.

My father died on St. Patrick's Day.

Growing up, my dad was not the ominous figure of authority some other people's fathers seemed to be ("just wait until your father gets home!). He was as easygoing and amiable a man as I have met, and his delight in his sons was unlimited. He thought we were just about the most interesting people he'd ever met.

"My kids make more sense than the adults I know," he'd tell his friends. And he meant it--he liked to be with us, to play with us (my mother was not the playing-with-the-kids type although she exhibited her affection in numerous other ways). He had a unique view of life with with which I occasionally disagreed as I hit the dreaded teenage years, but also a strong sense of morals, a way of ingratiating people that bordered on the amazing, and a delight in life that infused me pretty much from the moment I was totally conscious.

He was the parent whose presence meant we were relaxing, and that was largely because he wasn't around for most of the day, most of the week. Dad ran a paint store, first in Newark NJ and then in our home town of Irvington, and he was on the job from 6 in the morning until 6 in the evening every day but Sunday. That meant he had to get to sleep early on weeknights, so we saw him for only a few hours a day. And when he was around, it was vacation--Sundays we'd go on car trips. Very rarely, he'd leave the store in the hands of his own father, who had founded it, and we'd go on long weekends. If Dad was there, the mindset was that we were having fun.

His demeanor added to that impression. Dad was the kindest man I've ever known, and his smile was unforced and frequent. He liked to come to the swim club after work when we were there during the summer, and he'd jump into the pool and play games with us after a 12-hour day of carrying paint cans around. In the winter we'd help him shovel snow (an activity that has not retained its allure) and he'd make a game of it.

I have, in many ways, modeled my style of parenting on my father's. This is not to say I didn't inherit a temper from my mother, nor that I didn't show it off with some frequency when the kids were little, but Dad's delight in his children (which, to be fair, was a trait of my mom as well) has carried over. I made up stories with them and played games with them and I had long talks with them as they grew up. I still do, and I can say with no hesitation that my children are among my best friends. Yes, they made more sense than most adults, and they continue to do so. 

Alas, their grandfather didn't get to see too much of that.

Not long after Jessica and I were married, my parents went on vacation to Los Angeles at a time when there was stress in my father's life. His mother was ill and would die later that year. His work was giving him some problems; he had sold the store and was working for someone else now. So when they got to their hotel, the first order of business was to soak in the hot tub at the hotel pool.

But Dad had not been taking his blood pressure meds, the hot tub wreaked havoc with him, and he had a massive heart attack. It was touch and go while my brother and I rode a plane to L.A., but he pulled through.

He was never the robust, strong guy I knew again. 

Dad did live to see his grandchildren, both of them, but he was in and out of the hospital for the next few years. He tired easily and had to take breaks. He didn't participate as much at family gatherings, but he still took delight in seeing everyone and was well enough to play with his grandson and granddaughter for a while.

But when my son was five and my daughter was two, he again went into the hospital, fading. He was a shadow of his former self physically but still all there mentally. I taped some conversations with him about his life. His voice is faint but his words are still all Dad.

He managed to get himself discharged from the hospital, albeit with a dire prognosis. His heart and his kidneys were disagreeing over which one would fail first. Coming home that day, he said all he wanted was to have someone come to the house and give him a shave and a haircut. Then he'd feel like himself.

It wasn't to be. The very night he came home, with the appointment for a shave and haircut the next day, Dad woke in the wee hours, complained of feeling weak, and was taken, unconscious, to the hospital. Mom called, and my brother and I got into my car and headed for the hospital.

Dad died shortly after 12 a.m. on March 17. And this year on St. Pat's Day, it will be 20 years since then.

So I begrudge you nothing in your St. Patrick's Day celebration. Drink what you will. Stuff a cabbage. Watch John Wayne in that Irish movie TCM likes to show every year. Please, enjoy yourself. But don't expect me to be in a good mood.

It's only 20 years. I'm not over it yet. 

 

P.S.: Last post I'll have before it's time, so just let me remind you that you can win an audiobook download from Audible of THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD, the first Asperger's mystery from E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen. Just post a comment below here or at E.J.'s blog with the words "Audiobook Head" in it, and you're entered! Five winners will be drawn this coming Friday, April 20th, the first day of spring (and not a moment too soon!)! So get your entry in now!

Plus... A Chance at a Free Audiobook!

Jeff Cohen

Our parents were, by and large, very nice people who did what they could to help us through this grand pageant that is life. But I've reached an age now where I've discovered the things that they never bothered--or simply chose not--to tell us, and that leads to the inevitable conclusion that our parents were either cowards or liars.

Things Our Parents Didn't Tell Us

1. You'll be tired all the time. It doesn't matter how much you sleep. And that leads to:
2. You won't be able to sleep like you used to. You'll wake up early for no reason even if you don't have to go to work.
3. You'll have to go to work. Probably forever. The economy is stacked against you.
4. No, you actually can't eat whatever you want all the time. I'm living--so far--proof.
5. Your eyes will eventually begin to get their revenge for all that ogling you did when you were young. You'll need 17 pairs of glasses to get through an average day, even if you wear contact lenses.
6. Enjoy roller coasters and horror movies when you're young. After 40, they will be the most unpleasant experiences you can imagine.
7. Hair will grow where you don't want it and not grow where you do. 
8. You'll look in the mirror and wonder who that is.
9. Your hands will age at approximately 1.5 times the rate that the rest of you ages. This is because you can always see your hands.
10. The entertainment industry will stop making anything--music, movies, TV, political pamphlets--aimed at you. You will be invisible.
11. Your mind will not change, which is a curse. You'll think exactly the same way you did at 35, forgetting that your body looks like its expiration date has passed. 
12. You will forget what color your hair really was.
13. Looking at pictures of food will give you gas.
14. You have to stop getting large pets because the vet always wants you to pick up (fill in name of beloved pet) and put him/her on the examining table.
15. Exercise becomes more necessary the more you don't want to do it.
16. Something will hurt. All the time. Whether you do something to strain it or not.
17. You should have started saving for retirement at the age of 2.
18. You will actually find yourself getting annoyed because things aren't like they used to be.
19. You'll get ear worms of songs you didn't like in 1974.
20. You'll read the obituaries and note that more of those people than ever were younger than you.

I will credit my mother for telling me this:

1. The only thing worse than getting older is not getting older.

One thing your parents probably didn't tell you that you should know:

You can still win an audiobook download of THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD by E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen. Just comment right here with the words "Audiobook Head" or do the same here. Five entrants will receive download codes for the unabridged audiobook! Good luck!

Win a Free Audiobook, and RIP, Mr. Nimoy

Jeff Cohen

It was difficult this past week to hear of the death of Leonard Nimoy. Like so many others, I was a pretty serious fan of Star Trek from its first airings (yeah, I'm old), and Spock always appealed more than the other characters to me. 

He had that conflict between his natural tendency to see everything in terms of cold, objective logic and the need to understand his human side, which would react to things more emotionally than the character might want to admit. He was a beautifully conceived character, but he wouldn't have worked half as well if he'd been played by another actor (as we've seen in recent years).

The need to keep raging emotions in check while understanding their importance was what kept the character interesting. And Nimoy, who must have understood him on a basic level, once told director Nicholas Meyer (Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country, among others) that he never played Spock as a character with no emotions.

Instead, he played the alien as a man trying to keep his emotions in check. That makes all the difference.

Yes, some of the plots were downright silly and the special effects on a TV budget and schedule in the 1960s could be laughable. But Spock was never anything but dignified and in the parlance of the time, cool. He could outperform humans on almost every level, but was content to live among them and observe. 

Leonard Nimoy brought that to the role. Did he bristle at being thought of as Spock and nothing else? On occasion, he did; it's true. But he did not disparage the role or the people who had embraced it, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. 

Hey. I was nine years old and it was Star Trek. Cut me some slack.

Many years later when I was going through my unsuccessful screenwriter phase, I wrote a screenplay that had some connections to Star Trek, although it took place in contemporary America and didn't use any of the original characters because I wasn't stupid. I'd probably shudder to look at that piece of work today, but at the time I thought it was pretty good and I was hoping to get it noticed somewhere in Hollywood.

So I sent a letter to Leonard Nimoy asking if he'd like to consider directing the script.

To my astonishment, I received a letter (this was back when there were letters) from Mr. Nimoy's company saying he'd very much like to read the script. And you can believe that a copy was in the mail that very day.

I don't remember how long it took to receive a response, but I'm sure at the time I thought it was an eternity and I did my best not to pester anyone at Nimoy's company about it (I'm sure Josh can picture me waiting by the phone, only younger). But eventually another letter did arrive.

It's probably not a huge surprise that Nimoy passed on the script, since when you scan my IMDb page, you'll see I don't have one. But he did send a personal note.

He wrote, "I read your script with great interest, and your fondness for the material is evident. Although I am not going to proceed with it, I'd advise you to keep writing." I quoted that from memory.

It was a time when I needed any little bit of encouragement, and getting Mr. Spock to tell me I should keep writing did the trick. It was something he didn't have to do--most other Hollywood types would have sent a form letter or gotten an assistant to write the note--but he clearly saw that the script meant a lot to me, and wanted to connect personally. 

I never forgot that, obviously. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Nimoy. You were a good actor who had one iconic role, which is more than most get. You were a talented director, a good writer and I don't know much about photography, but I'm willing to bet you had some talent there too. You were kind to me at a time I needed it, and even though I tried to explain that the one time we met for about a half a minute, I don't think I sufficiently communicated that thought. Thank you. You will be missed.

 

P.S. There's a new contest going on! Win a free download of the audio version of  The Question of the Missing Head by E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen! See details here or here.