Sex, drugs, and writing with teens in the house

This week, Deryn Collier asked me to guest blog at her site where she's running a series about parents who write. I fessed up to the added pressure I feel with my productivity continually assessed by a pair of teenage mouths who demand to be fed.

There are no shortcuts in writing. Its a road so littered with potholes, sometimes it feels like that old wooden labyrinth game...but with all those little wooden walls ripped out.

And when you've got teenaged children banging the door open at 4:00 asking, "Sooooo, whatcha do today?"... Well, there's only so many times you can talk about writer's block.

Back to the salt mines. Here's my post chez Deryn Collier: "Writing with teens in the house".

And by the by, Deryn's debut, CONFINED SPACE, has been shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award. Check it out.

Rooting for bad guys

Noir takes many forms. Crime, sex, passion, and hurt are part of the canon. So are endings that aren't predictably rosy. But mostly it's the flawed characters that draw me in. No surprise, then, that I plumb that vein in my own writing.

My stories typically track the POV of a criminal, often a petty one. Getting readers to root for him can be a challenge. Your average thick-as-a-brick backwoods illiterate may not share your understanding of right and wrong. His is a line not so much etched in stone as scrawled in charcoal on a rock by the fire pit. It moves. It's arbitrary. And it ain't often straight.

But people are human. All of us. None are truly evil. Or always good. We tend to land somewhere in the middle. A lot of folk are kind, gentle, easy-going. Others are nasty and prone to violence. But no one's pure. Shine the light at the right angle and you'll find the cracks in pretty much everyone.

That's why a career criminal with multiple prison escapes like Roger Caron could write books that found a soft spot for readers and won him literary awards. He told his story from his own perspective. He knew what drove him, was honest about it, and made people care.

Another book from the seventies that marked me was called "The Fire Eater" or something close to that. It was about a teenager who runs away with the circus, and learns the art of fire breathing. A classic ruse, but the book dug into carny life, exposed a lot of grit, and showed that even the most wayward life held meaning and value. (By the way, if anyone can tell me the real name and author, I'd love a chance to read it again.)

Like any pursuit, there are purists when it comes to defining noir, and there are genre-benders. For me, as long as a story tracks the underbelly and doesn't hew to a perfect line between good and evil, it's close enough.

I guess what interests me the most, whether reading or writing, is the opportunity to strip off a few layers and get at the real story. It keeps life interesting. And writing worthwhile.

What stories have you read that gave you a chance to see inside the heart of someone you're unlikely to meet on the straight and narrow?

Getting paid

Today's mail brought my first royalty cheque for writing crime fiction. Here is what it looks like to get paid.

Earning a living with words isn't new to me. What is new is getting paid for writing fiction. Someone, Todd Robinson, editor of Thuglit, decided to part with money so he could share my story with people who like to read crime fiction. That's not just cool. It matters.

As the universe would have it, today is also the day Chuck Wendig got some rant going in his Twitter feed about whether or not writers should care about money.

This one does. I care about getting published, about supporting my writing habit organically, and about finding readers who get enough of a kick out of the words I lay down to pay a couple bucks for the pleasure. (Even more importantly, to spend their time reading me.)

Mostly, I care about some kind of signal that all these hours cooped up in the smallest office I've ever occupied are not for naught. For that, here's the best thank you I can offer to Todd. Check out his new novel, THE HARD BOUNCE. And keep reading good noir.

Criminal Exuberance

It's getting harder to write crime fiction of the comic noir variety what with all the gonzo headlines we get these days.

Crime, like many pursuits, can be broken down into three main parts: planning, execution, and escape.

Of the three, one might reasonably argue escape is the most important. After all, if your plan is drawn in crayon and your execution is, let's say, amateurish, all you really need to do is get away. There's always tomorrow to take another shot at the big time. 

This past week, a band of five All Star bank burglars were branded "Sophisticated" by the national press. Perhaps. Give them full points for planning. They identified a target branch, moved their gear into vacant office space upstairs, and worked through the night—several nights, apparently—without getting caught.

Using acetylene oxygen blowtorches, sledge hammers, and concrete saws, they cut through two feet of reinforced floor and into the bank's vault. They even disabled electronic security systems. Brilliant work. Worthy of Hollywood. Execution? Top notch. 

But Act Three was rather like a Guy Ritchie flick.

The cops arrived in the middle of the night, scratched their heads, and wondered why a secondary alarm was sounding. The building was secure. No broken glass or movement inside.

The Sophisticates were nowhere to be found. Vanished. Disappeared into the wind.

Enter the dog. The sniffer. The K9 Unit, in cop-speak. Let's call him "Storm".

Storm wanders around the property and...WOOF. Our criminal masterminds? Hiding in the trees nearby.

Picture it: five sterling examples of the best burglars dirty money can buy, hanging in the branches like the Beagle Boys of Scrooge McDuck fame. Trapped by a dog, like so much skunk weed in a carry-on. 

Great plan. Superior execution. Caught red handed outside the bank, near a railroad track, waiting.

Let's try that again.

Near a railroad track.

Waiting.

Sorry boys, 2 out of 3 scores, let's see, ZERO. You forgot "Escape".

This all went down just one day after two serious bad guys managed to escape from a jail north of Montreal.

In this case, it's the escape that was film-worthy. Two prisoners swinging from a rope slung from a hijacked helicopter forced to land on the prison roof. Sounds like something Bruce Willis might star in. He could play the escapee who later told a radio station, "They put me in prison for nothing."

Execution? Solid. Escape? Full points. Then what?

“What, what?” you ask.

What next?

Well, guys, we brought you some beers and, heck, we're in cottage country. How hard can it be to invade a chalet, tell the owners to get lost, pop a brewskie or two, and come up with a plan? 

I mean, who FLIES out of prison without a clue what they're going to do after they land? 

C'mon guys. Exactly how long were you in jail dreaming that one up?

This week in crime land? Two stunning examples of criminal exuberance. Let's just say there's room for improvement.

THE BITCH by Les Edgerton

THE BITCH in Les Edgerton’s novel is not who or what you might expect from the title, but it’s a serious bitch nonetheless. It hounds Jake, Edgerton’s matter-of-fact narrator, from chapter one to the very last page. And along the way, Edgerton makes sure we get to know the bitch real well.

For the most part, the story takes place outside of prison, on the bricks, but the joint casts its shadow large from the moment Jake’s former cellmate calls him out of the blue. Walker Joy is a cruel oxymoronic name for a guy who brings a shit storm into Jake’s life—a good life he’ll do anything to protect.

In a jocular passionate voice, Jake leads the reader step by rational step into dark corners completely foreign to your average "civilian". The horrific decisions Jake has to make would be much less believable if it weren't for Edgerton's masterful hand. Given what’s at stake, there’s hardly a moment when you can argue with the path Jake takes—even as the grotesque results pile deeper by the page.

This is the kind of book you're going to reach for at 3:30 in the morning because whatever crap is disturbing your sleep won't stand a chance against the terror looming in the next chapter.

THE BITCH doesn't rely on bad luck or cheap device to create drama. Nothing pops out of the closet when it oughn't. Jake plays the cards he's dealt. It's a lousy hand and he does all he can to make it better. He's got optimism, criminal skill, and solid execution. He even gets a couple good breaks. But the deeper he goes, the more the bitch laughs in his face.

And where THE BITCH takes him ain't funny at all. Even if it makes tragic good sense.