Steve Hockensmith's blog

The REAL No Spin Zone

I'm guessing you didn't come to my site today for political news and views. In fact, given that it's an election year, you might have come to my site to get away from political news and views. If so: Welcome! You will be safe here. 

Like you, I'm sure, I know what I think is right. I know what I think is wrong. I know what I think is smart. I know what I think is dumb. I know what I think is vile and outrageous. I know what I think is annoyingly repetitive. (This paragraph.) And I know the proper place to discuss all that. 

Not here, that's where. For one reason why, you can read this essay I wrote for the supercalifragilistic Elizabeth A. White and her expialidocious website. It led to some great discussion both there and here. 

The main point of my essay was this: I'm not successful enough to piss people off. What do George R.R. Martin or Orson Scott Card care if they alienate a few thousand readers? They've got billions! (Well, hundreds of thousands, anyway. And that's plenty.) 

But there's another reason I shy away from politics in public. (By "in public," of course, I mean online. Ask me to talk politics when you bump into me at the grocery store and I might be happy to oblige...assuming you agree with me and won't start chucking vine-ripened tomatoes at my head.) I know what I am. I'm not a policy analyst or a crusader or (god forbid!) a politician.

I'm an entertainer. I want to make life a little more fun for folks. I want to brighten their days. I want to turn frowns upside down. I want to turn scowls sideways and mush them around with my thumbs until they look like this.

Which isn't to say my books are all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns picnicking with puppies under the Big Giggle Tree. There's darkness in all of them. They are mostly about murder or zombies, you know. My newest, Cadaver in Chief, is about murder and zombies. And politics! Yet still, first and foremost, it's supposed to be fun. Fun for me and fun for my friends.

Because you know what? My readers are my friends. And do you stomp into a party for your best buds and start ranting and raving about how "Conservatives are all blah nasty blah!" or "Liberals are nothing but yada hateful yada!" when you know you'll be insulting half the people there?

Answer: No, you don't. Not unless you have Tourette's or were raised by Klingons or you're Orson Scott Card. If one of those conditions applies to you, have at it, I guess. You just can't help yourself. But me, I'll leave politics to the politicians and the pundits and the spittle-spewing zealots.

Well, unless I can work zombies into it, obviously....

Cover Story

I've always been lucky enough to have publishers who consult with me on the covers of my books. Unfortunately, sometimes the consultation looked like this:

Editor: Hey! Here's your cover!

Me: Uhhhh...yeah. It's really...something. Could you maybe have the designer tweak X, Y and Z? And could we possibly try something other than A, B and C? Please?

Editor: I'll look into it.

[Six months pass. UPS leaves a box the size of a small coffin on the front porch.]

Wife: Hey! Here's your book!

[We open the box and find ourselves looking down at the cover that was really...something, exactly as I first saw it.]

Me: Shit.

Fortunately, that hasn't happened in a while. One reason for that: I've been the editor on my last few books, and when it came to the covers I've agreed with the writer -- myself -- 100 percent. In addition, the designer wasn't some mysterious, shadow-shrouded figure I wasn't allowed to communicate with directly (or indirectly). It was a guy I hired: Rick Forgus of Atomic Werewolf Studio. I decided to try Rick because he's talented and I kept using him because he listens and responds and ultimately gives me exactly what I want -- only better! That's how I got this new cover for Naughty recently. I mean, just look at that thing, would you? It's a thing of frakkin' beauty!

And now the cover approval process isn't "Like it? No? Too bad." Instead, it goes like this:

Step 1

I tell Rick the basic concept of my next project -- All the President's Men meets Shaun of the Dead -- and he sends me this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2

"It's a start," I say, "but I'm picturing something that screams 'Politics!' even louder. Something that looks very 'I LIKE IKE' or 'HOPE.' You know -- like a campaign poster." And Rick sends me this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3

"Right on!" I say. "Just slap in the title and my name and make the politican guy look more zombie-y. Cock his head at a weird angle and maybe lop off some of his fingers so the ones that are left do a kind of Nixon-style V-for-Victory." And Rick sends me this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4

"Damn, we're getting close!" I say. "Only I don't think we need so much going on. How about a neater, tidier look? With bigger stars, maybe?" And Rick sends me this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 5

"Hmmm," I say. "Yeah. I dig it, but...I don't know. Have we drifted from the original concept? Are we losing that classic, streamlined campaign poster look?" And Rick sends me this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 6

"That's what I'm talkin' about!" I say. "Go, man, go!" And Rick sends me this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 7

At this point, there's only one thing left to do: Let Rick know he's created my favorite cover ever. And I do. Because he has.

A New Book!!! By Me!!! That You Can Buy!!!

Note: I think I usually get too cutesy-clever for my own good with the headlines for my posts, so I decided to be as blunt as possible today. Slowly but surely I think I'm getting the hang of this crazy "marketing" thing....

A few months ago, I did some hinting around about various irons in my writer-fire. Well, one's finally nice and hot and ready to burn my name into the hogtied, bellowing heifer known as the book world. (Gosh, it's easy to take this "irons in the fire" metaphor too far.) It's called Cadaver in Chief and it's a horror-mystery-satire that's jam-packed with political shenanigans and flesh-munching maniacs and other zeitgeisty whatnot. To misquote Jimi Hendrix -- 'scuse me while I pitch this guy.

The dead have risen from their graves, and society hangs by a thread. But America's political parties aren't going to let a little thing like the zombie apocalypse get in the way of a presidential election. There are nasty whispers about the incumbent, though, and they have nothing to do with where he was born.

The rumor: He's dead.

Could a zombie be running for President? It's up to ace Washington Tribune reporter Jan Woods to find out. Cadaver in Chief follows Woods on her search for the truth...a search that puts her up against the most dangerous ghouls in Washington. Oh, and zombies, too.

End of pitch.

Some of you are probably saying, "Sounds like fun!" Some of you are probably saying, "But I want historical mysteries about Sherlock Holmes-loving cowboys!" And some of you are probably saying, "Honey, where's the mustard?" because you got bored with all this and wandered off to make yourself a sandwich. Allow me to address the second "some of you" for a moment.

Be patient, my friends. Big Red and Old Red will ride again. And do you know what'll get them back in the saddle faster? If Cadaver in Chief does very, very well. Should that happen, I'll have the freedom to write whatever I want. And you know and I know what the next iron I pull from the fire ought to be, right...?

Cadaver in Chief is available from Amazon in both ebook and print editions.

Short Stuff

Novels novels novels. It's all about novels, isn't it? Somehow or other, we've been trained to expect our stories (the written ones, anyway) in big 50,000- to 200,000-word chunks. (We're currently being trained to expect our non-written stories to be a bladder-punishing 150 minutes long, half of which is devoted to CGI cartoons fighting other CGI cartoons. But that's a blog post for another day.)

Let's pause for a moment, though, and resist our conditioning and appreciate the lowly short story. Where would we be without it?

Surprise! That's not a rhetorical question! Cue ominous Movie Trailer Announcer Guy voice:

In a world where the mystery genre doesn't exist.... [Camera pans over the smoking ruins of a major city, its dazed occupants hunting through the rubble for something to read other than singed copies of 50 Shades of Grey.]

Edgar Allan Poe single-handedly invented the mystery in the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." (He invented the locked-room mystery with a laughably ludicrous resolution, too, but that's not why there's an award named after him.) Nearly half a century later, Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the fledgling genre's greatest ambassador, Sherlock Holmes, who became a worldwide phenomenon via magazine short stories. And then (because -- pay attention, kids -- you always need to back up your assertions with at least three illustrative examples) there were, like, lots more magazine mystery stories that were, you know, super-popular and stuff. (Try to save your weakest point for last.)

I bring all this up because I've neglected the short story myself the last few years, but now I'm making amends. After a holy-guacamole-has-it-really-been-that-long? five-year absence, I've returned to the launchpad of my fiction-writing career: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. You can read a preview of my story here. I like it, partially for the reason some of you might not: It's very different from my novels. In my mind, short stories are the place to experiment and explore. But novels? You want me to explore for 100,000 freakin' words? What if I get lost? It's cold out there! Nah. A novel you write with a map, a compass, a GPS and a tracking collar like the kind Jim Fowler used to wrestle onto thrashing alligators. (At least that's how I try to write novels.)

So I hope you enjoy my latest little ramble through the fiction wilds. I think it took me to an interesting place. If you disagree, no sweat. Hopefully, the next outing will be more to your liking. Now that I've got my hiking boots back on, I don't plan to take them off again....

UPDATE: Exciting news, gang! The last paragraph of this blog post has been nominated for the prestigious Richard S. Prather Strained Metaphor Award. Wish me luck!