Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all

     Just thought I'd take out a brief moment to wish my readers a Happy Turkey Day with this priceless blast from the past. Later today, I'll be posting the annual pic of our holiday spread. But first, we have to cook it.
     So, happy Turkey Day to you and yours.

So, Here's What Happened This Time...

     I was in the process of accessing Paypal to make a transfer to my bank account and the entire browser, and laptop, froze. So I got tired of waiting for what I thought was a routine disobedient script and shut the laptop down to reboot. It always works, right?
     Not this time.
     When I rebooted, that's when I began to get the neverending Black Screen of Death. Not even a fucking C prompt in DOS.
     Then an hour or so later, I started getting these stupid error messages, blaming me for unplugging an external storage device while it was still in use. Either that or my hard drive was fucked.
     Then I was given two options: To either start a repaid process or start the computer normally. But both give me the runaround by pretending to load files, then giving me the same stupid error message.
     So I called an expert and he told me to remove the battery, wait 5 minutes then try to reboot the laptop with just the electric power.
     Same thing. I have a glorified paperweight on my kitchen table.
     Any other time, this would be a disaster since, like everyone else in the 21st century, I do everything on my laptop.
     These days, it's a catastrophe. Why?
     Because I finally got a literary agent interested in reading one of my novels, namely the one I'm working on, Gods of Our Fathers. Since I didn't back up the novel (I know, I know, the expert I called already excoriated me for it), I can't send it to him since the only up-to-date version I have is on my laptop (See paperweight, Glorified). So, essentially, I'm fucked. Right now I'm using an old hand-me-down laptop I gave to Mrs. JP when I got my Acer last February.
     If anyone has any theories how this could've happened (DOS is unhelpfully telling me it's an I/O error, although I don't see how Input Output could play any role in this), I'd appreciate hearing some theories. My email, if you don't already know, is Crawman2@yahoo.com. I desperately need help and this book could mean the difference between us keeping a roof over our heads in the near future or living out of our car (See Catastrophe).

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/23/15

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/21/15

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/20/15

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/19/15

The Shortest Distance Between Reader and Character is a Punchline

     As a writer, I've always felt that the fastest way to achieve depth and dimension while delineating a fictional character is by giving them a good sense of humor. Not only that but giving them one all their own. As a reader, this is what I look for when I read a new book by a new author and most of the time I'm disappointed, Granted, humor in a work of dramatic or thrilling fiction isn't exactly a prerequisite per se but it certainly helps give a protagonist a dimensional heft that's often conspicuously missing. Which is unfortunate because reader preferences over the last two decades or so have moved from event-driven to character-driven fiction.
     Giving a specific character good punchlines offers immediate and invaluable access to their mind even when described in third person. Whether their style of humor is vitriolic, dry or just flat-out funny, listening to them while advancing or at least not detracting from the plot offers the reader unguarded moments into that character's world view and perhaps even a hint about their past.
     To cite an example from one of my own books, I think perhaps the best punchline in Tatterdemalion came right after the protagonist Scott Carson has a public spat in front of the whole team with Buffalo Bill Cody. Carson, at first reluctant to go on Bill's grand adventure chasing Jack the Ripper, is chafing under the bit and is frustrated about being left in the dark. He calls Bill a fraud for presenting the Wild West in his show as it never really was. Cut to the quick, Cody stalks upstairs.
     Carson immediately runs up to apologize to him but also to find out why he's doing his level-headed best to keep the much younger man from the center of the action. Bill relates a story in which his old Civil War colleague, Wild Bill Hickok, shot a man dead right in front of him when the gunfighter was three years younger than Carson (18). Bill then concludes by saying he doesn't wish for Scott to turn into a stone cold killer (which alone not only helps to define Bill's depth and mode of thinking but also is an adroit piece of foreshadowing considering the harrowing ending).
     But to put a fillip to the exchange, Carson finally gets around to telling him, "I'm sorry I called you a fraud, Bill." Then he replies, "Apology accepted. And I'm sorry you're right."
     It's an unguarded, organic moment that doesn't necessarily detract from the plot as much as it helps delineate Buffalo Bill's character even more. Not only does it display his often laconic wit, it also shows in this vulnerable moment that he's capable of self-effacement if approached the proper way.
     In Lyndsay Faye's Timothy Wilde trilogy, the narrator and main protagonist, a charter member of the 1840's NYPD, has a mordant and trenchant sense of humor that's always aimed at his dissolute older brother and police superior Valentine and his old nemesis, the brothel madam Silky Marsh. In chapter two of the second book, Seven For a Secret, Wilde starts out by telling us,

I am that rarest of deviants in New York City: one who feels about politics the way most men feel about scraping pig dung off their boots. My antipathy stems from the fact that I spent most of my life thinking my brother, who is an enormous cog in the Democratic engine, one hundred per cent despicable. I'd been mistaken--- Val is only three quarters despicable.

      In 66 simple but beautifully-crafted words, Faye tells us with complete, ruthless honesty Timothy's loathing for the Tammany Democratic machine that brought the NYPD into existence, for politics in general as well as for his brother and why. She also gives us a bit of descriptive imagery as to what it was like to live in 1840s's Manhattan (pig shit on one's boots and nearly unanimous political engagement brilliantly synonymized in one simple simile).
     Despite the trilogy's troubling failings, Timothy Wilde's humor is almost invariably something of a marvel. Much of the complex and often stormy relationship with his older brother stems from the fact that when they were both boys, Valentine accidentally set fire to the family home and killed their parents. Then in 1845, the bar Timothy worked in was burned down, leaving him scarred for life. This is a man that has lost much in his life. Yet in Faye's universe, he not only retains his sense of humor, he also perseveres and becomes the NYPD's first detective.
     To cite another extremely worthy example of humor fleshing out a character, one could do much worse than look to Charlie Parker. Irish author John Connolly introduced Parker to us 15 years ago in one of the most spectacular debuts in recent commercial fiction with Every Dead Thing. The Parker series is a latter-day interpretation of the pulp fiction thrillers mastered by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Always told with a quasi-supernatural twist, if one were to imagine the wise-cracking Sam Spade in the woods of Maine or the streets of New Orleans, you'd begin to get a handle on Parker's psyche.
     What makes Parker virtually unique in modern day crime/horror fiction, aside from the freakishly high quality of his barbs that rival anything by the best TV and movie scriptwriters, is the sheer stubbornness and enduring nature of his sense of humor. In Every Dead Thing, Charlie Parker's entire family is slaughtered by an ingenious serial killer named The Traveling Man. Early in this debut, Parker is seen years after his wife's and daughter's murder and he says this:

     That's funny and is something right out of Sam Spade. Parker's humor is sharp, insightful, self deprecating but, at its core, is also a defense mechanism for a man who has no other defenses. And when one considers what this character has lost, it's a miracle he has a mind at all, let alone a rapier-like wit that's almost as dangerous as his gun.
     No one reasonably expects you or your characters to be Bob Hope or Rodney Dangerfield. But humor in your protagonist's psyche ought not be underestimated. Humor is something most readers appreciate and, if treated properly, can offer instant access to their minds whether you're writing about them in first or third person. As the canard goes, "Many a true word is spoken in jest." And we and our characters are never truer to our natures than when we're either scared or cracking wise.
     Which is often simultaneous.

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/18/15

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/17/15

 

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/15/15

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/12/15

Virtual Book Sale

     At the risk of this sounding like whining, there's nothing more disspiriting than spending upwards of two and a half years on a single book then seeing it sell less than two dozen copies, hardly any of them to strangers, over a period of six months despite my ruthlessly pimping it on social media. Add to that a troll who constantly chimes in with one star reviews on Amazon and skewing the rating because it can't seem to attract more than four legitimate reviews. Then add to that it being ignored and disrespected by virtually every single fiction-repping literary agency in the English-speaking world.
     And Tatterdemalion, despite those dismal numbers and facts, is a success story even if only by dint of conspicuous relief. My previous four titles have sold in single digits even when I discounted the prices for the Kindle titles to as little as .99¢. And writers being the way they are on social media, they scream past each other and refuse to publicize anyone else's book while only paying services pimp their own.
     It's a sad situation, that democratic self-publication also entails we become Fuller Brush salesmen and that the constant push for sales for apathetic twats who'd literally rather die than actually click on the retweet button leaves us little time for actually interacting with our disinterested followers.
     But it is what it is. "The only true failure is giving up," say industry professionals sotto voce as they count what should be our money, considering we're the ones who make a publishing industry possible. So, in illustration of Einstein's definition of insanity, I'm plugging away on another pair of novels and hope they get me an agent and/or a publishing contract.
     However, money's getting scarce and we're going to be losing our only income as of this April. And I'm getting tired of begging money of random strangers and online friends sick and tired of our constant financial problems. So I'm having an online book sale to try to get some revenue in this house the old fashioned way- by earning it.
     And I think it would be a good idea to remind you of the previous titles I've self-published over the years and to put out the links from years past.

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     In the nearly three years since it's been out, American Zen (Kindle title), written by my alter ago Mike Flannigan, has attracted just five reviews and a handful of sales. But the average rating is five stars. It remains, IMHO, as my best sustained effort and is a must-read novel for anyone that enjoys politically-oriented fiction by a liberal with a wicked sense of humor. Here's a sample paragraph from the prologue:

"As with water, failure, tragedy and loss seek the path of least resistance. And it’s perhaps no coincidence that the words “trailer” and “failure” are almost perfect rhymes. In the American mind, the two are synonymous. That’s because we tend not to look beyond end results and aftermaths. We see trailer parks, tent cities, people living under bridges and think not “refugees” or “victims” but 'failure.' Assumptions are dangerous but those of us who are more fortunate can live with that kind of danger."

     The Createspace paperback edition can be found here for $7.99, not a bad price for a 150,000 word epic taking place in the first days after Barack Obama was elected President.

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     The Toy Cop (Kindle) is an odd bird in that it took me the longest to write. While solidly within my usual thriller/suspense genre, I'd begun it in November 1998 before social media was even a reality (requiring some fast updates to reflect this reality).

     Next to Tatterdemalion, it's my longest novel at nearly 175,000 words. Here's the product description:

      Four years ago 10 canisters of VX were stolen near the Dugway Proving Grounds, leading to the most disastrous hostage scenario in FBI history. Special Agent Michael Brodie, head of the elite FBI crisis negotiating corps, had lost his chance to get IRA terrorist Seamus Hannigan, the man who killed his FBI daughter, destroying Brodie ‘s credibility when he blew up himself and three others.
      During a freak nor’easter in Eastbridge, Massachusetts four years later, former Navy Seal Jack Gallagher and three accomplices take a US Senator and 12 others hostage, holing them up in an armory. The 13 were to witness the federal execution of Edd Corn, the most notorious child killer in US history. Three years ago, Corn nearly killed Gallagher’s daughter Deirdre. Determined to mete out justice personally, he’s determined to end his life to that end while his ex wife, rookie patrol officer Penny Gallagher, helplessly watches outside.
      Seeing she’s out of her depth, and remembering his slain FBI daughter Leighann, Brodie calls in every favor to get involved in the negotiations while trying to avoid the resistance put up by his skeptical superiors, Gallagher and Ray Cardoza, the first FBI agent onscene and his one-time future son in law.
      Then Brodie hears Hannigan’s voice from the grave. Is the hostage scenario a mere coverup? Is Gallagher involved with the IRA plot to appropriate and use ten canisters of VX? Or has Jack unwittingly invited one of the world’s most lethal terrorists in his midst?

     Since I'd begun reworking it earlier this year after finishing Tatterdemalion,  the paperback's been pulled from the market. But the Kindle version is available for just $4.99.

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     The Misanthrope's Manual (paperback) may seem like a departure for me but it isn't. Along with poetry, satire is one of my literary roots. I'd begun writing this more liberal version of Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary all during the 90's while I was still in my 30's. The Kindle version can be found here for just 2.99¢. Here's a sample:

Doom, n- The infinitely patient beneficiary of all human endeavor.

Success, n- Material gain without material witnesses.

Harmless, adj- Dead.

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     The Kid (paperback edition), you may remember, is a short story followup to Tatterdemalion, with Scott Carson telling the tale of his first adventure in 1873 when he was but a lad of six and a half. It's more than just a short story. Originally a promotion I was giving away free earlier in the year to anyone who bought the larger Carson story, The Kid (Kindle) also offers valuable context and background that goes a ways toward explaining Carson's character and one of the most important relationships in his life.
     As expected, it's only sold a handful of copies and has not inspired even one person to write a review. If you buy it, please consider doing so so it'll have something approximating a rating.

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     Finally, there's Tatterdemalion (Kindle version), which, as previously stated, took me almost two and a half years to research, draft and revise. This has the distinction of having the best sales of my other titles (but only in a very relative sense) while being rejected and/or ignored by literally over 320 different literary agents. I have a major acquisitions editor at Penguin/Random House who'd requested the full ms a couple of months ago.
     Originally weighing in at over 250,000 words, at a much trimmer and tighter 193,000, it's still the largest novel I've ever written. It was inspired by Caleb Carr's Alienist duology and is the next best thing, I think, to a third Alienist book. In many ways, I'm proudest of this literary achievement because it's the culmination of my lifelong ambition to write a truly epic historical thriller. Tatterdemalion can also be bought here in paperback. Don't let the $15.50 cover price scare you. Remember, it's nearly 200,000 words long and is a good, solid and, I think, very thrilling read.
     If you actually buy any of these titles, again, please be considerate enough to write a review. It takes but a few minutes and makes all the difference to a struggling, self published novelist.

Good Times at Pottersville, 11/7/15