Steve Hockensmith's blog

More Talk, Less Hock: Wild West Bunch Special Edition

I've always had a soft spot for Westerns, but for a while there, they scared me. I hate to admit it, but when the Holmes on the Range series kicked off six years ago, I didn't want to be seen as a Western writer. I hate to admit it because (A) it was cowardly and (B) it was dumb.

Westerns haven't been hip or hot since the Johnson administration, yes. The genre's been declared dead more times than Jason Voorhees, yes. The Holmes on the Range books are mysteries first and foremost, yes. But most of them are Westerns, too, and it was silly -- and ultimately pointless -- to pretend otherwise.

(Essay for another day: I also didn't want to be seen as a writer of Sherlockian pastiches. Silly² x pointless³ = ridiculous unto infinity.)

I'm over it now. You can call my Holmes on the Range stories Westerns, call them pastiches, even call them Wild Wild West slash fanfic for all I care. Just don't call them late for dinner. By which I mean, please read the darned things.

(Actually, I take that back. Don't call them Wild Wild West slash fanfic. I shouldn't have even thrown it out there as a joke. Oy, the Google searches that are going to start bringing people to this blog post.)

It took me too long to stand tall when it came to Westerns, but fortunately not everyone's as lily-livered as I. Western writers are a brave bunch, I think, because they've proudly stuck by a genre New York publishing started turning its yellow-streaked back on decades ago. Will the dawn of epublishing bring a brighter day for the Western? We'll see. In the meantime, as part of my ongoing (and extremely sporadic) series of Q&As, I asked 10 Western writers one question: Why write about the Old West? You'll find their answers below.

Oh, and if you're wondering how I picked the participants: These are friends or friends of friends. But though I only cite a few titles for each, most of them have published more Westerns and won more awards than I could easily list. So I didn't try. If you're a writer of Westerns yourself, don't feel badly that I left you out. Just drop in a comment telling us why you keep returning to those thrilling days of yesteryear....

Bill Crider, author of A Time for Hanging and Galveston Gunman: I grew up before the Old West was nearly as old as it is now, and I heard a lot of stories about it as a kid. I grew up in Limestone County, Texas, about 10 miles from Fort Parker, where Cynthia Ann Parker was abducted by the Comanches. People still talked about that, and school kids went on field trips to the restored fort. My grandmother used to tell me stories about Bigfoot Wallace. John Wesley Hardin taught school at Pisgah, where my grandfather was born, and killed a couple of men in Limestone County. I lived later on in Brown County, where Hardin shot a sheriff's deputy, an event that led to the hanging of his brother and two cousins.  The big movies when I grew up were Shane, High Noon and The Searchers. How could I not want to write about the Old West?  It's a part of me in too many ways to ignore.

Judy Alter, author of Cherokee Rose and Mattie: I enjoy writing about women of the Old West  because they showed such spirit and courage and optimism. Their motto was "Come Spring...." They were always sure "come Spring" things would be better, and they had some great adventures along the way. And some of them were such fascinating characters -- Libbie Custer, Jessie Benton Fremont, Lucille Mulhall, Etta Place.

James Reasoner, author of Death Head Crossing, Longarm and the Pine Box Payoff (under the name Tabor Evans) and Trailsman: Seminole Showdown (under the name Jon Sharpe): I like to write about the Old West because the history of that era is so rich it will support any kind of story. Comedy, tragedy, romance, adventure, mystery...all of them are embodied in the Old West. Plus, for someone who grew up when I did, reading Westerns and watching them on TV and in the movies, the mythology of the genre is etched so deeply in my brain -- and in my heart -- that being able to contribute to it myself is very satisfying. Most of all, writing about the Old West is just plain fun for me, and I hope the readers enjoy it as well.

Richard Prosch, author of Devils Nest: It seems counterintuitive, but I think the West remains largely unexplored by Western genre fiction. For example, when I was growing up in Nebraska, less than a half hour from one of Jesse James' alleged hideaways and practically on top of the Ponca Trail of Tears, I never thought the characters in Westerns, on page or screen, acted like real people. Everybody was a type, and every scenario had been played out before. Eventually I found more verisimilitude in literary fiction or nonfiction, but in those venues you lose the sense of escape. Hey, if I want absolute authenticity, I'll visit my relatives. So there's got to be a balance, and I'm having fun exploring that,trying to find the authentic situations of my past in the history and challenges of the genre. Happily, I think fiction across the board is discovering that balance, maybe thanks to the demands of more sophisticated readers and writers, maybe thanks to more dedicated and vocal consumers period.

Ann Parker, author of the Silver Rush Mystery series: Why write about the West? The loooong answer is: As a young-un, I got hooked on TV westerns (Have Gun -- Will Travel, Rawhide, Bonanza, etc.), and, later on, The Wild Wild West (the TV show, not the movie) and spaghetti Westerns (think Man with No Name, Ennio Morricone music and lots of dusty scenery that definitely wasn't backlot Hollywood). However, even then it was clear to me that, no matter what the storyline, the guys had all the fun. What about the women? It just wasn't fair.

Fast forward any number of decades. I found out from my Denver-born-and-bred uncle that my grandmother had been raised in Leadville, Colo. My stunned response to this news: Leadville? What the heck is that? My uncle encouraged me to investigate this mining town's history, saying, "Ann, I know you've been thinking of writing a novel. I think you could write a novel set in Leadville."

Result: my historical mystery series set in 1880s Colorado, during the heyday of Leadville's Silver Rush, when folks came West to reinvent themselves and everyone was dying to get rich. (Hey! Just like today!) The books feature saloon owner Inez Stannert, a woman of uncertain moral compass. And yes, I make damn sure that Inez gets to have fun, just like the guys!

Larry D. Sweazy, author of The Coyote Tracker and The Scorpion Trail: The westward expansion is unique to America, and in my mind, that makes Westerns as unique a genre to our country as is jazz. Writing about the West offers the chance to explore stories about redemption, reinvention, justice and the pursuit of something larger than one's self. The landscape is dangerous, hostile and unwelcoming. And then there are the people, indigenous to the land, and the seekers, the pioneers, the settlers, that offer continual conflict to explore. As amazing as the West is, there are countless stories about betrayal, greed and shame that have yet to be told.

Loren D. Estleman once told me, "Genres don't die." I believe him. But like any genre there are a range of Western novels that fall below par. There are, however, other Western novels that are still being published (by living authors) that offer some of the best writing and storytelling to be found. 

The possibilities of the West are endless. The scope of human stories, from romance to revenge, is without borders. The wide open spaces and the opportunities, good and bad, are the allure. That's why I write about the Old West. 

Edward A. Grainger (a.k.a. David Cranmer), creator of the Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles Western noir series: When I was growing up, my dad watched all the old shows like Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, etc. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies were always on, and it became part of my upbringing. My dad's love for the genre was passed down to me and I do my best to make him proud.

John D. Nesbitt, author of West of Rock River and Coyote Trail: I write about the Old West because it is in my blood.

I like to reduce life to its essentials of human nature and the natural setting, so I don't do much with the technical details of firearms. Most of my stories are about a main character's experience, and my characters don't think much about make and caliber and the kind of bullet or cartridge. I put myself in the character's situation. If I am going to shoot at a deer or antelope, I have some awareness that I am using my .270, but I don't think about the brand of the rifle, the nature of its magazine, the brand of the scope and so forth.

The same goes for horses. I've had a few and have ridden a few. When I saddle a horse and climb on, I don't think about its gender. I perceive its color, so I have my character do that. He saddles a bay or a sorrel or a palomino, and he swings aboard. He doesn't think about it being a gelding.

So that's it. No phones, no computers, no helicopters, no explosions or train wrecks. No encyclopedic information. Just men and women, guns and horses, prairie flowers and wildlife, with what I hope is some thought-provoking interaction. The Old West allows me to do that.

Phil Dunlap, author of the Sheriff Cotton Burke Western series: I think it was ordained from the beginning. As a youth, I felt an overwhelming compulsion for two things: flying airplanes and writing Westerns. Can't say why, but these occupied my mind from when I was old enough to walk to the movies by myself. I'd always been fascinated by the old Westerns shot amongst huge boulders with narrow dusty trails winding through them. And who could deny the excitement of outlaws holed up in mountain hideouts? The way the good guys always won the shoot-out set my moral compass firmly. However, I didn't start writing about the West until I'd actually gone to Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota and Colorado. Once I saw, touched and smelled what the desert really was -- a world entirely different from where I grew up -- well, I was naturally hooked. Watching movies planted the seed, of course, but climbing the Superstitions, hiking the Sonoran desert, riding horseback through narrow canyons, coming face-to-face with a sleek coyote eyeing me amongst the cacti ultimately caused that seed to sprout and grow strong. And now I can't imagine doing anything else (with a special salute to Sky King, who tied it all together for me).

Elisabeth Grace Foley, author of The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories: It's such a rich, varied setting. You've got over half a century of time and thousands of miles of locations -- plains, mountains, forest, desert, remote towns and growing cities -- where you can put any kind of character and write any kind of story you like, with a wealth of historical incidents and details to provide inspiration. Beyond that, I think it has something to do with "romance" in the old-fashioned sense of the word -- to me there's always a flavor of novelty and adventure somewhere about the West, no matter what kind of story I'm writing.

Steve Hockensmith, author of On the Wrong Track and The Crack in the Lens: What they said.

More Talk, Less Hock #5: Ben H. Winters

I know I'm fascinating and all, but sometimes I wonder. A whole blog? About me? Really?

Yeah, yeah, I get it -- author blogs aren't supposed to be interesting. They just exist so we can say to our publicists and agents, "See? You told me to blog, so I'm blogging. And yes -- I'm on Twitter and Facebook, too. Now would you please shut up about Google+?" So I probably shouldn't sweat it.

But sweat it I do. And when I'm feeling particularly sweaty (metaphorically speaking), that's when I drag a colleague in to class the joint up a bit. This month's dragee: Ben H. Winters.

You might know Ben from his popular mash-up novels Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Android Karenina. You might know him from his charming Edgar-nominated middle grade novel The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman (or its recently released and wonderfully titled sequel The Mystery of the Missing Everything). You might know him from his new thriller Bedbugs or his plays or his columns for the Huffington Post. Or you might know him because you went to high school with him. How should I know?

All I know is this: Ben's a great writer and a great guy. How is he as an interview subject? Let's find out, shall we?

Me: Hey, man! How's it going?

B.H.W.: Hey, pretty good, thanks. I'm a little busy, as it happens, because we've got a new baby at home -- three weeks old yesterday -- and I'm working hard on a tight deadline for a brand new novel. How's by you?

Me: Oh, I'm O.K. A little behind on my sleep, but I have Netflix to blame for that, not a newborn. Speaking of which -- babies, that is, not Netflix -- congrats! How are you handling the deadline/sleep deprivation convergence?

B.H.W.: Lots of coffee. (With apologies for the cliche, but some things become cliche because they're true). I'm lucky, though: I have good kids, and I love my work. I do a lot of counting how many weeks I have left, how many hours there are in each day, how much I feel I will get done in each hour. Then someone gets a fever, or I have to do a bunch of laundry, and I recalculate. Somehow, I forge ahead.

Me: Man, does that sound familiar. It's easier for me now that my kids are a little older -- our household has been diaper-free for a couple years now -- but juggling full-time writing with family obligations has always been a challenge. I shouldn't even call it "full-time writing." It's more like "full-time trying to write." So how do you hit your deadlines? Do you set daily or weekly word count goals for yourself, so it's a steady progression toward "The End"? Or is there an insane, coke-fueled push right before the due date?

B.H.W.: I set both word counts and hour counts, focusing more on the latter -- like, I'll go, "Tomorrow I'm going to work from 8:45 (when the kids are dropped off at school) until 10:35, when I'll go get a second cup of coffee, and then I'll work from 11 to 1:30, and then have lunch, and then go do errands for an hour and a half, and etc etc." I've found it doesn't help to say "I'm going to write 2,000 words tomorrow" unless you've budgeted the time in which that might conceivably happen.

Me: O.K., last process question. How quickly do you write? When I see other writers talk about their hourly or daily word counts, I'm always astounded...and depressed. People are cranking out 5,000 words a day, which would be a decent week for me. How about you? Do you think of yourself as a fast writer or a slow one?

B.H.W.: I do think of myself as a fast writer -- probably too fast. For many years I made my living as a transcriptionist, so I type really, really fast, to the point that when I used to share a writing space, people would hear my fingers zinging over the keys and think I was kidding, or being a jerk. But the quality of the words is what matters, of course, not the quantity. I try to do a solid 1,000 words a day, and when I say solid, I mean that when I read them the next day, I'm still happy with 500 of them.

Me: Do you find that the writing moves more quickly when you're working on a particular kind of project? I mean, you're a guy who's produced a psychological horror novel, two middle-grade mystery/comedies, two science fiction-tinged "mash-ups" and a ton of things for the stage. That's quite a big palette you've got to play with. What comes most easily to you, and what's more of a struggle?

B.H.W.: Well, you know, I don't generally have a harder or easier time with any particular genre or style; once I've got a bite on it, what the motives of the characters are, where the big scenes need to land, I can just fire away. In conversations about working in different genres, or in different mediums, I like to say that there are really only two kinds of writing: the good kind and the other kind. Having said that, I am at present working on a detective novel, one with a slight science-fiction "twinge," and finding it to be massively tricky, harder than anything I've done before. Hopefully that bodes well for the power and interestingness of the final product!

Me: So now you're adding an SF-flavored detective novel to your resume? Yowza, what's next? I think you've worked in every genre except...I don't know. Porn, maybe? Does that even count as a "genre"? Wait -- don't answer that. Answer this: Where did the idea for your new psychological horror novel, Bedbugs, come from? Personal experience? (Quick aside: Bedbugs is Rosemary's Baby with disgusting little bugs instead of Satan. The bugs are scarier. Publishers Weekly called the book "compelling," Booklist "chilling" and Penthouse -- yes, Penthouse -- "gripping." To see the funny and yucky book trailer, click here.)

B.H.W.: Personal experience? Oh good lord no, and bite your tongue! Really the inspiration for Bedbugs was in my affection for that kind of contemporary haunted-house style tale of suspense, where the happy young couple moves into the perfect home, and then all sorts of awful, diabolical things begin to unfold. I also love the kind of story where you are unsure from moment to moment if the haunting (or whatever) is real or the product of one person's feverish imagination. Like The Yellow Wallpaper or The Turn of the Screw or (especially) Rosemary's Baby. It seemed like bedbugs, being such a subject of horror and fascination for so many people right now, were a perfect way to update those forms of horror story.

Me: I don't know if I could write a book like Bedbugs. I get freaked out enough by bugs as it is. Like, if I see a cockroach in a hotel room, forget it: I'm going to be swatting imaginary roaches out of the bed all night. (Oh, god. I just remembered the time I turned on the light and THERE REALLY WAS A CENTIPEDE IN BED WITH ME!!! ARRRRRGGGGHHH!!! Great. Now I'm not getting any sleep for the next week.) Anywho, how about you? Did you manage to creep yourself out?
 
B.H.W.: It's funny -- I find that whatever effect a scene is supposed to draw, whether it's visceral terror of the kind you describe, or a laugh, or even just your basic "what's-going-to-happen-next?" fiction tension, I feel it personally the first time I write it, but then feel it less and less every time I go back and rewrite it. So that by the time I'm on a final draft, I have very little reaction to it at all; I'm still fussing around and fixing it and experimenting on a technical level with making it better, but I no longer get the jolt of fear or humor or suspense that I'm intending my reader to get. At that point I'm like the chef with no sense of taste, just trusting my own abilities because I can't really test it myself anymore.

Me: I know exactly what you mean. I can really tell I've done something right if I'm going over copy edits and something I wrote makes me laugh. That'll probably be the tenth time I've read that particular line, so if I still find it funny it must be good. Given the process you describe -- "fussing and fixing and experimenting" -- it seems obvious that you'd tell aspiring writers revising is important. What other wisdom would you share?

B.H.W.: I don't know if anything I have really amounts to wisdom. Writing is, on the one hand, such a annoyingly unteachable thing, because so much of it is about intuition and imagination, learning to develop and trust these intangible, frustrating, elusive qualities. But on the other hand, I'm a strong believer in technique and craft, and in discipline and structure, and those are things that you can learn, things you can practice and develop, like muscles, over a lifetime. I don't necessarily think my imagination or my intuition have evolved all that much since I started writing -- though definitely my taste level is higher, and my interests have matured -- but I have learned, through hard work and necessity, to work harder, to stay on task, and to treat the products of my intuition and imagination with the seriousness I am arrogant enough to believe they deserve.

Me: I agree that it's almost impossible to teach writing, beyond pointing out technical or structural things a beginner might not know about. My advice to young writers is usually "Keep writing bad stuff until you're writing good stuff." Which sounds flippant, but hey -- it's what worked for me. Of course, another important bit of advice is to read read read. What books and writers influenced you?
 
B.H.W.: Answering this question always makes me feel like I'm in high school, trying to be into the hippest bands so other people think I'm cool. My all-time favorite author is Charles Dickens (very original, I know), who is pretty consistently delightful. And, here, I'll give you two big influences on my writing, neither of which come from the world of straight-up fiction: The graphic novel Watchmen, just in terms of the fully conceived, meticulously created alternate reality; and the songs of Tom Waits, where we learn over and over the biggest lesson of good writing, which is to use lots of detail. All the great Waits songs (and there are very few non-great) include a town name, or a color, or a kind of car, or someone's idiosyncratic nickname. He's an incredibly specific writer, and also so damn fun to listen to.

Me: Alright, last question. Who let the dogs out? Who? Who? Who?

B.H.W.: Great question. Also, who's zoomin' who? And who'll stop the rain? And, crucially, who's makin' love to your old woman, while you're out makin' love?

Ben H. Winters tackles these and other burning questions on his blog. He lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife and 27 children.

More Talk, Less Hock #4: Brett Battles

I'm kind of a shy person, but I don't mind schmoozing...because in my book schmoozing's not schmoozing unless a gin and tonic's involved. So bummer for me that I have to miss this week's Bouchercon mystery convention. It's usually the one and only time of the year I can fuel my schmoozing with complimentary booze. I tell you, friends -- you haven't lived till you've crashed a Berkley Prime Crime reception. Those cozy folks know how to PARTY!

Of course, it's not just the free cocktails I'll be missing. I'm also disappointed that I won't have the chance to browbeat strangers into buying my books. And how am I supposed to stock up on promotional postcards and bookmarks? I go through eight or nine of the things a week, and I'm almost out. 

Oh, and friends. It'll be sad not to see them, too. At least that one I can do something about. If I won't get the chance to chill at the con bar with a beer and buddies like Brett Battles, I'll just have to do it here. Without the beer. Or the bar. But a buddy like Brett Battles -- that I've got! In fact, I've got the real deal.

As part of my ongoing (and extremely random) series of Q&As, today I'm interviewing thriller writer extraordinaire Brett Battles. Author of the Jonathan Quinn series (which kicked off four years ago with The Cleaner), Brett is a master of "colorful locales and dizzying plot twists" with "an enviable gift for pacing and action" (Publishers Weekly). This year he's branched out with more series and a whole new approach to publishing.

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Mr. Brett Battles!

Me: Hard-hitting question #1: How ya doin', man?

B.B.: Doing fine. Well, except for my right knee. I tweaked it showing my daughter that I could still do a cartwheel. Evidently I still can, just not without consequences.

Me: I never could do cartwheels, though I've felt like trying a few times. Like when I found out I'd sold my first book. Speaking of which [WARNING: DANGEROUSLY CLUMSY TRANSITION AHEAD], how goes the publishing thing these days? It seems like you've been really busy lately.

B.B.: It has been an...well, let's just say eventful 2011. Bantam released The Silenced, my latest Quinn book, last May, and they will be bringing out the last book of our time together, called No Return, this coming January. In the meantime, I firmly jumped into the independent writer world. Since the end of spring, I've released three short stories, one novella and four novels. I'm hoping to have two more novels out by the end of the year. Can I revisit the "how am I doing" question? I think the technical term would be "tired."

Me: Yowza! That pace is astounding. So what do you think of the "indie writer" experience so far? Obviously, you've got to be loving the freedom to get material to readers more quickly.

B.B.: The freedom to get my stories out there as soon as they are ready is huge! Probably number one on my list of benefits for going indie. But that doesn't mean it's an easy road. Honestly, you have to look at it like you are running a small business, because, well, you are running a small business. You can't just throw stuff out there and expect people to buy it. I need to get the best covers I can made. I need to have my work proofread. I need to promote. I need to cultivate my fan base. But most of all, I need to write good books. It can be exhausting. If you run your own business, you're the first one in and the last one out. So I'm often putting in 14- or 15-hour days. Even when I'm not "working," I'm thinking about things. But I'll tell you what -- I'd much rather do this than anything else. I love to write and tell stories, so if this is what it takes to do that, I'm all in.

Me: Are you experimenting or pushing yourself in new directions in terms of your writing? Or is that hard to do when you have to pour so much energy into finding and building an audience?

B.B.: Jonathan Quinn, the hero from my previous books, works as a body removal specialist in the world of espionage. And while I'm still working on Quinn-related material -- I've released two shorts and a long novella Quinn origin story, plus a new novel will be out next spring -- I have been doing a bit of experimenting in other areas. I've released the first of a series of middle school/tween books called Here Comes Mr. Trouble. It's a little bit fantasy, a little bit reality and a whole lot of fun. I've released Sick, the first of my Project Eden thrillers, which may the most suspenseful book I've written. It is definitely a thriller but has a slight sci-fi edge (though nothing that should scare off non-sci-fi lovers). My standalone, The Pull of Gravity, isn't a thriller at all per se, though my buddy Tim Hallinan calls it a thriller of the heart. It's more a story of love, tragedy and the search for closure. (My parents think it's the best book I've written.) Finally there's the Logan Harper series. The first book is Little Girl Gone. The second -- title TBD -- will be out sometime in October. It's perhaps the closest book to my Quinn series. Though Logan is not a spy. He's a former soldier who now works in his 80-year-old father's auto garage. Harp, his dad, is one of the main characters, and they have an interesting relationship. There's investigating and action as Logan gets pulled into helping others, something which he can't stop himself from doing. I hope to continue pushing the envelope in the future while still keeping my core fan base happy.

Me: It's easy to see you're truly excited about all these books. But there's got to be some trepidation, too. How hard was it to leave behind traditional publishing and embrace the new self-e-pubbing model?

B.B.: It's an internal struggle that's still going on...though less than when I first started. Instinctively, I know this is the future (to whatever extent people want to argue), but it's also a lot like that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy's heading for the grail and comes to the end of the tunnel only to find a deep crevasse between where he is and where he wants to be. You take that first step into nothing and hope something is there to keep you from falling. Sometimes it seems like every day is like that. But, so far, my feet have been landing on the invisible path.

Me: So you're Living the Indiana Jones Way. Someone ought to turn that into a self-help book. I'm with you on the e-book thing, by the way. No one can pretend it's not the future anymore...but that doesn't make it any easier to know what to do in the meantime. At least you're taking bold action, which is admirable. As you say -- that's what Indy would do. How about other writers, though? Do you run into any who still look askance at going the independent route?

B.B.: Not as much as I used to. More it's bewilderment. They're having the same should-I-or-shouldn't-I thoughts raging through their heads, and I can see it on their faces. There are some out there, I've heard, who think it's just a fad, but the writers I talk to usually say something like, "I've been meaning to look into that" or "It's all so confusing -- I don't know what to do." But more and more are saying, "So how exactly do I go about getting my book online?" I've been having a lot of impromptu telephone seminars lately.

Me: If memory serves, you were a graphic designer at E! before turning to writing full-time. Is that right? If so, I assume that's made it easier for you to get a handle on the technical who-ha. You do all your own covers and formatting, right?

B.B.: While I did work in the on air design department (motion graphics) at E! for almost seven years, I was actually executive producer, not a designer/animator. Sadly, I don't have that skill. But after working in graphics for 20 years, I do have an understanding of what works and what doesn't. Covers are so important, and I think a lot of ebooks fail because their authors settle for bad or even mediocre design (which is as good as bad). I use a couple people for my book cover designs: Jeroen ten Berge, who's been doing a lot of great covers for several authors, and my friend Robert Browne, who does covers on the side (not as a business) and has a great eye for what works. On formatting, yep, I do my own. In fact, I also do formatting for others who don't have the time or desire to do it themselves.

Me: Alright, I think we've covered e-books pretty thoroughly. Only one more question comes to mind on the subject. What do you prefer: e-books, ebooks, eBooks, EbOoKs, eebooox or something else?

B.B.: eebooox! Nice. I'd choose that but I'm guessing it would face an impossible uphill battle to win wide acceptance. So until that unlikely event happens, I'll go with either ebooks or eBooks, but I'm flexible.

[Note: I prefer "e-books," which is why this Q&A isn't consistent. Just sayin'. Cuz I'm anal.]

Me: Alright, for our last question let's go Old School non-techno interview cliche: Who are your favorite authors and how have they influenced you?

B.B.: My list of favorite authors is a changing thing. It's not so much that authors fall off, but others move on. There are a few perennials: Graham Greene, Alistair MacLean, Robert Ludlum and Stephen King. Greene for his haunting stories told concisely and beautifully; MacLean for exposing me to thrillers and suspense when I was a teenager; Ludlum (during his golden age, the 1970s through mid-1980s or so) for creating these great international thrillers that completely took me wherever he wanted me to go; and King for the way he tells a story and can always suck me in with just a few sentences. More recently I would add Haruki Murakami. His writing is so effortless and mesmerizing even if I seldom understand the story at the end, I will read anything he writes. And Tim Hallinan's on the list, too. His stories are so well put together, and his prose so beautiful...I tell everyone I know to read him. His stories are amazing.

To learn more about the amazing (and amazingly prolific) Brett Battles, go here.

More Talk, Less Hock #3: S.G. Browne

The first time I met S.G. "Scott" Browne, at the ZomBcon wingding in Seattle last year, he told me my little pet theories about the popularity of zombies were wrong wrong wrong. Usually, of course, I wouldn't let myself be schooled on the walking dead...or anything else. Y'all know what a pugnacious hothead I am! [Irony alert for new visitors: I am, in fact, a big wimp.] Yet I had to figure this cat knew what he was talking about. Sure, I've dabbled in matters necrotic, but Scott had a genuine classic under his belt -- Breathers, which put a refreshingly zombie-positive spin on the whole flesh-craving ghouls thing. Plus, to be honest, I'd been beginning to doubt my own thinking. Maybe Generation X's half-buried memories of certain psyche-warping marketing campaigns had nothing to do with their soft spot for the undead. So I let Scott live.  

Many months later, Scott asked if he could interview me for his blog. How could I say no? I'd started giving fellow writers the Q&A third-degree myself. So back and forth we went -- and the results can be found here. It's good stuff. So good, in fact, that I expect Ron Howard to turn it into a movie any day now. 

And what does every good (or bad) movie deserve? Why, a sequel, of course! Which is why from Browne/Hockensmith we now turn to Hockensmith/Browne: This Time It's Personal. My questions are every bit as hard-hitting as Scott's. Exactly as hard-hitting, in fact. Let's see if he can take it as well as he dishes it out.

But first -- BIO!!!

S.G. Browne is the author of Breathers: A Zombie's Lament and Fated -- dark comedies and social satires with a supernatural edge. His writing has been inspired by Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut and the films of Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson, among others. When he's not making fun of humans, he enjoys taking long walks on the beach, drinking piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. He also occasionally blogs about books and movies and other random things.

Me: Where do you get your ideas?

S.G.: From the Idea Bin at my local Walgreens. Sometimes you can even get two-for-one deals. Really, I get my ideas everywhere. The Household Items aisle at Walgreens is as likely a place as any.

Me: What's your daily writing ritual?

S.G.: In an ideal world I'd wake up around 6:30 a.m., feed my cats, eat a light breakfast while watching an episode of South Park, Family Guy or Californication, meditate for 30 minutes, then write for three hours, break for some exercise and lunch, spend a couple of hours answering e-mails and posting to Facebook and Twitter, then write for another two to three hours until around 5 or 6 p.m. The rest of my night would be used for reading, watching a movie or enjoying the company of friends. In reality, I don't have a ritual. I'm all over the place. Right now I'm answering this interview when I'm supposed to be writing. I have no discipline. It amazes me that I've managed to write three novels.

Me: What's the first story you ever had published?

S.G.: I think I may have had something published in a junior high school journal, but the one I remember is "Wish You Were Here," which appeared in Redcat magazine in the Spring 2004 issue. The story was about a guy on a passenger flight who is doomed to repeat the crash of the airplane over and over. The title is both a reference to the Pink Floyd album he's listening to at the time and an ironic twist on the cliché message people send on postcards while on vacation: "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here." The story had been rejected previously by Deathrealm for being too sophomoric. They might have been right.

Me: What started you off on the path of being a writer?

S.G.: During my sophomore year in college I was reading The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. While not my favorite work by either author, and not among my favorite books of all time, I became so caught up in the adventure unfolding within the pages that the world outside of the novel ceased to exist. And I thought: "I want to make other people feel this way."

Me: Are you a plotter or a pantser?

S.G.: I'm a pantser, definitely. I write the same way Indiana Jones deals with Nazis and stolen artifacts: I make it up as I go. While I may have a general idea of where I'm going, usually I just start with an idea or a concept and I start writing. Sometimes I might know where I want the story to end but I have no idea how I'm going to get there. It makes discovering the story that much more fun.

Me: What's your favorite word?

S.G.: Dude. It's the only word in the English language that you can say with 10 different inflections and mean 10 different things. And just for the record, it was my favorite word before it was popularized in all of the Bud Light commercials. Some people think the word "fudge" has the same inflective diversity but it's not even close. Plus "dude" won't offend anyone. Except maybe the father of the woman you're dating. [Full disclosure: Scott did not say "fudge." As has been noted here recently, this website tries to keep its act Cosby-clean.]

Me: What's your biggest fear?

S.G.: That I'll go to Walgreens some day and the Idea Bin will be empty.

Me: Who's your favorite author?

S.G.: While Chuck Palahniuk's earlier novels have been of great inspiration to me, I'd have to say that Stephen King would probably still have to rank as my favorite author. He's the reason I wanted to become a writer, and his books were instrumental in pointing me down this path.

Me: What music inspires you?

S.G.: While I don't tend to listen to music while I'm writing, the bands and artists who inspire my writing with their music and lyrics include Green Day, Sublime, the Pixies, The Doors, and The Beatles. On those occasions when I do need to block out distractions, like on an airplane in front of two guys who are on their third Jack and Coke and who keep saying "dude," I'll listen to a mix of instrumental jazz, soul, R&B, rock and surf music by bands like Morphine, Pink Floyd, The Mighty Imperials, Sugarman Three, The Red Elvises and Booker T. & the MG's.

Me: If you were a comic book superhero, what would be your superpower?

S.G.: I would be Cell Phone Eradication Man and I would remove and destroy all cell phones being used by people in movie theaters. That includes people who are texting, checking e-mail or updating their status on Facebook. If you can't disconnect for two hours, then you should have stayed home and watched something on Netflix streaming.

Author S.G. Browne's website can be found here. His novel Breathers has an official web presence here. You can friend him on Facebook by going here. You can start following him on Twitter by going here. You can hear him call a series of exciting pig races here. His Social Security number is 987-65-4320. His primary bank accounts are with Wells Fargo. His usual ATM pin code and login password is OU812.

More Talk, Less Hock #2: Heywood Gould

A funny thing happened after I launched the new "More Talk, Less Hock" writer spotlight on my blog a few weeks back. Someone took me seriously. To be honest, I really didn't think there was going to be a "More Talk, Less Talk #2." #1 was going to pimp my buddy Russel D McLean, and that would be that. But then I got an e-mail from a publisher pitching an interview with another writer -- a non-buddy, someone I'd never met -- and I thought, "Why the hell not?" So I said yes.

I'm glad I did. Heywood Gould is one interesting dude. I mean, how many writers have you met who've not only met Michael Keaton, they've directed Michael Keaton movies? The guy wrote Cocktail, for chrissakes -- the movie and the book! (Yeah, I didn't know it was a book, either.) Heywood's newest novel is the wild chase-thriller The Serial Killer's Daughter. Here's what he and I had to say to one another.

Me: Back in the day, you wrote the screenplays for some pretty memorable movies. The Boys from Brazil. Fort Apache, the Bronx. Cocktail. So when I hear you've got a new thriller out, I get the sneaking suspicion it began life as a screenplay. How far am I off the mark? 

[Aside: Quite a bit, it turns out.]

Heywood: Writing a spec screenplay is like shoveling manure for three months and getting paid with a lottery ticket. I'll never do it. The book was inspired by a story I read about how a suspected serial killer was caught by matching the victims' DNA with his daughter's Pap test. I had always wondered what happened to the families of these monsters. How did they live in a town where Dad had wreaked havoc? There was never any follow-up on the families of the victims. How were they dealing with this sudden intrusion of evil into their lives? Also, a la Hitchcock, I wanted to take an ordinary guy, in this case a nerdy movie buff, who lands the one girl he never thought he could get, and then has to run for his life.

Me: Whoa. Seeing as I was so incredibly off with my first guess, there's only one thing to do -- make another one. Is it safe to assume you can relate to "nerdy movie buff" types? You had quite a run in Hollywood as a writer/director. I can only assume you had the gumption it takes to make that happen because of a deep love of film.

Heywood: Busted! I am the original nerdy film buff. Movies were a rainy Saturday diversion until I was 15 and discovered a little theater in my Brooklyn neighborhood whose crotchety owner showed old comedies (Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, Marx Bros., Stooges, etc.) and Warner Bros. antiques (Cagney, Bogie, Edward G.) I was hooked. Still am. I can see the same movies over and over. It's like reading the Bible -- you always find something new. Manhattan in the '60s had at least 10 theaters that showed old Hollywood or foreign films. It was the era of Fellini, Antonioni, De Sica, Bergman, Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Reed, the Boulting Bros., Kurosawa, etc. Every week brought another revelation. The Apollo in Times Square showed triple features. We'd get meatball sandwiches and spend the night. You could see great films, wash your socks and score a little cheap weed. The balcony smelled of garlic, dirty feet and stale tobacco. Suggestive moans and groans came from the last seats. We kept our eyes on the screen. I read Film Quarterly, Sight and Sound, Andrew Sarris in the Village Voice. It all seemed so far away and glamorous that I never thought I could ever be a part of it. I wanted to be a cynical reporter like Ben Hecht or a suffering novelist like Fitzgerald. Tragic artist was my pimp. I thought a little alcoholism plus a touch of T.B. a la Orwell was just the ticket for getting the girls. Boy, was I wrong.

Me: So how'd you go from being a Brooklyn film nerd to a published author and a Hollywood writer/director?

Heywood: That's War and Peace.

1947: A blizzard in Brooklyn. I'm 5. It's warm in the kitchen. My mom does freelance typing at the table. She leaves a page in the typewriter and gets up to make lunch. I move into her seat and start to bang on the keys. It's the first piece of clean commercial work I destroy.

1951: I'm 8 1/2. A big, fat 10-year-old slob is bullying me, taking me into the stairwell of our building and putting me in a choke hold until I promise to bring him a dime, which I steal from my mom's purse. Promises to kill me if I tell, and I believe him. I write a story about a machine that magically appears and helps a boxer win a big match. I disguise the characters so my parents won't recognize the bully.

1956: I'm graduating from Public School 154. I write an essay about what the future holds for our class. Make a few jokes about my friends getting arrested, me getting drunk and falling off the Ferris Wheel in Coney Island. All my friends think this is uproarious. The teachers don't agree. I don't win the English medal.

1959: The high school literary magazine snubs me because I'm on the basketball team. I win a fountain pen in a citywide contest for writing an essay about They Came To Cordura and Northwest Passage, both of which became pretty good movies. I get the pen, but no respect. My English teacher asks me one day, "Are your parents immigrants?" When I ask why, he says, "All immigrants use too many adjectives." He advises me to forget writing as a career. "The prize was an aberration," he says.

1960: The college literary magazine rejects me. "I don't have the time or the inclination to tell you all the ways that this is inferior," says the editor. I have violent sex dreams about her. Still do.

1962: A newspaper strike lasts for seven months. When it's over, the New York Post has no copyboys. I write a letter to the managing editor. I have just spent nine months in France trying to be Fitzgerald. I mention that I speak French. His wife is French. He has the personnel manager call me for an interview. "We'll put you on a tryout basis." My first day the managing editor yells at me across the tundra-like city room: "Apportez-moi un cafe et un bagelle avec fromage de creme." [Translation: "Get me a bagel with cream cheese."] Ever the wiseguy, I answer, "C'est une bagelle." [Translation: He corrected the managing editor's French.]  Thank God they like wise guys in the newspaper business. He laughs and I'm hired.

1963: Kennedy is assassinated. I work the whole weekend in the wire room. It's a national tragedy, the country will never be the same. I'm thrilled to be working on the biggest story of the year.

1963: I'm given a three-month tryout as a reporter. I cover Mafia hits, civil rights, cool burglaries, gory murders. I'm sent to a Spanish class for police officers. Thirty red-faced Irish cops squirm angrily while a nice Puerto Rican lady teaches them rudimentary phrases so "you can communicate with the community." All the six papers and three networks are covering this love fest. But I've been around cops for two years now. I know this is too good to be true. David Halberstam of the New York Times, back from being expelled from Vietnam by the U.S. Army, is covering, complete with clipboard and assistant. When he decides there is no story he leaves and is followed by the entire press corps. I make myself small in the back of the room. The cops reach critical mass. "Why do we have to learn Spanish? Why can't they learn English?" "These people are animals. See the way they throw their garbage on the street?" "When some junkie pulls a knife on you, you don't have time to pull out your dictionary." I take it all down. Next day I scoop the city. I'm hired.

1963-65: I'm a 20-year-old with a press card that gets him in anywhere in New York City. I cover MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech" in D.C. Also the rise of Malcom X and the Nation of Islam. The anti-war movement, demos and sabotage. Harlem erupts in riots. Then Newark and Elizabeth and Paterson, N.J., explode. Break a story about rats infesting a Harlem housing project. Ride with civil rights activists trying to stall cars on New York's highways to prevent the opening of the World's Fair of '64. Great idea, but nobody shows up and the fair is a big success. A California surfer breaks through the skylight of the Museum of Natural History, going under and around the electric eyes, and steals the Star of India, a huge sapphire, providing the inspiration for Topkapi. An epidemic of fat dentists drugging and raping their patients. Seems they have a club and a newsletter. A spoiled Park Avenue scion kills his girlfriend and rides around for days with her body in a blanket in the back seat of his '56 Jaguar convertible. Mafia Don Frank Costello arrested for vagrancy. Flashes a wad of hundreds and the judge laughs as he dismisses the case. Occasionally on the 4 to 12 shift I'm a leg man, picking up quotes and items for Earl Wilson, a syndicated gossip columnist (604 papers around the world). I sit at the press table in the Copa, drink Chivas, smoke Camels and hear Sinatra, Nat "KIng" Cole, Vic Damone, Joe E. Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr. The Latin Quarter, another famous nightclub, has ten "leggy chorines," 6 feet and taller. I'm tall, trim and 20, look good in my suit and have a fund of witty (at least to me) repartee. Plus, I'm making $95 a week. But they go for the short, fat and 50 guys, pinky rings and big cigars, look exactly like they do in every movie. Hard to tell who's imitating whom.

More stories. The South Bronx is a war zone. Drugs, street crime, grinding poverty. An occasional short, fat 50 guy is found in the back seat of a Caddy with a bloody hole in his head, cigar between his fingers. A Chinese crew mutinies on a docked Greek freighter. I sneak on board pretending to be a doctor. I will go anywhere, do or say anything to get a story. There are six newspapers in the city and I want to scoop them all. I live in a sub-basement on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village. Fifty-three dollars a month. I eat myself into a stupor in Chinatown for three dollars. (If you don't believe me ask someone who was there.) It's too good to last.

February 1966: I'm drafted.

1966-68: A roaring darkness descends over the world. I discover the "control class," people whose only skill is to acquire power over others. I will spend the rest of my life scuttling out from under their hobnailed boots.

1968-69: I surface from a weird dream to discover I have a wife and a baby son. Somehow I convince IBM that I'm the head of a cutting-edge media company. (See Corporation Freak.) I play basketball on LSD and dominate. One of my teammates is the story editor of a TV show called N.Y.P.D. I tell him some of the stories I covered as a reporter. He brings me to David Susskind, the biggest TV producer in New York. Susskind is eating a corned beef sandwich and working three phone lines. "Sure, give him a script," he says. I'm so green I put quotation marks around the dialogue. Nobody cares. I get loaded at  the Xmas party and puke all over Susskind's desk. Next day, I slink in to apologize. "That was some party, huh?" he says. "Were you around when that hooker chased Jack [Warden, the star] around his trailer?" Ah, the good old days.

1970: N.Y.P.D. canceled. All the writers go to L.A. I stay in New York because I'm going to write The Great American Novel. I write for Stag, a men's magazine. Make up news stories like "Diving for Nazi Gold Off the Florida Coast," "Rabbi Officiates At Lesbian Wedding." The editor-in-chief is Mario Puzo. I write porno novels, five bucks a page. Ghost write books on Swedish massage and college basketball. Write a biography of Sir Christopher Wren. A medical book called Headaches and Health. Anything that pays. I play poker to make the rent. Finally have a losing night and have to borrow from a shylock who lurks around the edges of the game like a jackal around the campfire. Can't pay him back and the vig is mounting. He knows if he breaks my legs nobody will borrow from him so he gets me a job as a bartender in the Hotel Diplomat in Times Square. I discover cognac and ditch all the other drugs.

1970-73: Short stories rejected, novels rejected. I'm divorced. Hack work and bartending pay the child support. An agent needs a writer for a movie about two cops who work the 41st, or "Fort Apache," in the South Bronx. The cops keep putting his candidates through an ordeal by fear and alcohol and they all quit. I go to the Bronx. "You took the subway?" they ask in amazement. We go to a mob bar. They try to get me drunk, but I'm in training. After a few hours they're so loaded that I dump my drinks on the floor and they don't see. They drive me to the Bronx Zoo. Hookers patrol the perimeter. They get the biggest, fattest hooker into the back seat with me. This time my experience as a reporter pays off. I know how cheap cops are. "Is this on you guys?" I ask. They throw her out. I get the job.

1973: I write the first draft of Fort Apache, the Bronx for $1,250. The producers can't sell it. Susskind reads it and says, "I'm going to make this movie." I file the script and forget about it.

1973-75: Rejections and general dissipation.

1976: I finally learn how to write fiction well enough to get a novel published. I think the screenwriting taught me how to structure a story.

1976-78: An agent circulates Fort Apache in L.A. I get jobs on Baretta and Kojak but fight with the producers and Robert Blake and never finish the scripts. I write a pilot for John Houseman, which later becomes The Paper Chase. Bill Devane prevails on Larry Gordon to hire me to rewrite Rolling Thunder. I spend six riotous weeks in San Antonio. The laws of God and man are suspended on a movie location. The producer of Fort Apache hires me to adapt Ira Levin's The Boys from Brazil. Six more great weeks, traveling super-first class in Lisbon, London and Vienna with Peck and Olivier. Susskind sells his company and gets financing for three movies. He calls me. "I'm going to do Fort Apache," he says. I finally think it's safe to quit my bar job.

The rest is war stories.

Me: Wow -- what a saga! So tell me what life looks like now.

Heywood: Life is trying to turn out as much coherent work as I can before they put me in the Old Hack's Home.

Me: I've got a question about how you're putting out that work these days. Lately, all writers seem to be able to talk about is e-publishing. Yet it looks like The Serial Killer's Daughter isn't available as an e-book. Is that a temporary situation, or are you making a bold one-man stand against the Kindle and its ilk?

Heywood: It's part of my agreement with the publisher. I maintain e-book rights and I promise not to put the book on Kindle until it goes into remainder. Kindle has been a boon for me. It's revived a lot of my books that were out of print. I sell between 20 and 30 a month, and the number is inching up. I'm publishing all my books and have started a company, Tolmitch Press, to put up other worthy, forgotten titles. So far we have five new titles and are acquiring more. There's no real money in it, but it's great to give good books a new life.

Me: Obviously, publishing has changed a lot since you got your start. What do you think of the state of the industry? Are you in the "We're the orchestra on the Titanic" camp or are you more hopeful?

Heywood: It's always been a struggle for me to get a book published, so that hasn't changed. The publishers that were content to give writers like me a small advance, take a share of the paperback and foreign sales and make an incrementally increasing profit as I took the 10 years to build up an audience are now non-performing divisions of industrial conglomerates. Their structure is no longer geared to the modest earner. They need a mega-hit to cover their overhead and justify their existence as the poor relation. They publish best-selling authors only and insist that they replicate their previous success by writing essentially the same book every time out. Marketers don't innovate; they repeat a formula until it no longer works. Thus, the same tired heroes labor through 20 or 30 iterations of the same story until even their fans cry for mercy.

I could not follow my career chronology if I were a young writer today. The hundreds of magazines and scores of paperback publishers who kept so many of us alive no longer exist. It's almost impossible to break into the movie business the way I did. Studios don't make the kind of movies I was hired to write. Success was always based on luck colliding with talent. Now success is just a happy accident.

For me the future is with the small independents. Everybody wants to make money, but these people are in publishing because they love books. I sold my last two books by e-mail. Never met the publisher of Leading Lady [a thriller put out by Five Star in 2008] and just met the publisher of Serial Killer at the book launch. If I were a young writer today I might never be able to quit my bar job. But I'd keep writing anyway.

More Talk, Less Hock #1: Russel D McLean

As an author with a new book in stores as of yesterday, there’s just one obvious thing for me to do here on my blog: pimp someone else with a new book. They don’t call me a marketing genius for nothing! (Note: They do not, in fact, call me a marketing genius at all.)

And so it is that we launch a new feature here at stevehockensmith.com: “More Talk, Less Hock,” a semi-regular series of Q&As with whoever the heck I want to Q. (Semi-regular means I might decide pretty quickly that this is a pain-in-the-ass idea.)

First up: Scottish crime writer and five-time Mr. Universe world bodybuilding champion Russel D McLean.

Me: In your novels, The Good Boy and The Good Boy 2: Nuns on the Run, lots of mysterious-type stuff happens that the hero, Patrick Macnee, must deal with when he's not cashing residual checks for The New Avengers. Did you make that mysterious-type stuff up or did Mr. Macnee allow you to write about actual incidents from his real-life life? [Note #2: This is not an accurate reflection of the content of the book.]

Russel: Patrick Macnee came into my life about 25 years ago, during a period in which I was under the tutelage of two mysterious Yogi masters named Hock ’n’ Smith. After ingesting some “medicinal ’erbs” (but not inhaling them) I experienced a strong sense that Mr Macnee wished me to write about his life. Unfortunately when I returned to Messrs Hock ’n’ Smith to procure more of this herbal communication, their premises had been padlocked by the local police.

Doing some leg work (and then realising I’d get on a lot faster if I used more than one leg at a time), I finally tracked Patrick Macnee to his home in the South East of England. Later that evening, I found myself a guest of the local constabulary with written orders to “never again bother Mr Macnee.” The letter went on to say that failure to adhere to said instructions would result in “severe damage internally and externally as well as immediate cessation of liquor rations.” It was this second point that frightened me the most.

So at that point I jacked in writing about Patrick Macnee and just made up lots of stuff about a Scottish private investigator with a very similar name (J. McNee) who gets beaten up rather a lot. While not as epic as my planned tetrology concerning the real Macnee, publishers were very happy to accept my postal order to the tune of 10 million Scottish pound notes and publish the book.

Also, Nuns on the Run was nixed as the title for book #2 following covert legal action from Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle. A fair point. One wouldn’t want to devalue that most classic of movies by associating it with cheap and tawdry fiction written by a weirdly bearded Scot.

Me: I'm glad we got that straightened out. Now...wait. Did we get that straightened out?

Russel: Hmmm. I think there was maybe one kernel of reality in that last answer. Still, I think we at least managed to sort out the classic status of Nuns on the Run. So we definitely achieved something.

Me: O.K., lesson learned. Enough funny business. Because noir isn't anything to joke around about, right? So tell me, in all seriousness: Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?

Russel: You’re right. We noiristas¹ are not allowed to have anything to do with funny business. Do you see me smiling in any of my author photos?

As to your question...the “bomp” was discovered (along with the lickable postage stamp and electric street lighting²) right here in Dundee by Jock “Get Ootae Mah Face Wi’ That Bloody Camera” McGinty, one of Scotland’s lesser known physicists from the turn of the last century. By inserting the “bomp” in “bomp bah bomp bah bomp” he revolutionised the field of theoretical bah-bomping and ushered in a modern age of scientific enlightenment.

As to who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong, I’m not sure, but I do hear of certain practices in the more remote parts of these isles that do involve putting your rama lama ding dong into a ram....

¹ noirista: a bit like a barista but generally less employable.

² These are yer actual historical facts. Well, the postage stamp and street lighting bits anyway.

Me: Obviously I came to the right man for the lowdown on the rama lama ding dong, which makes me hopeful that you can solve another great mystery. Tell me, Russel -- who's zoomin' who?

Russel: You did indeed come to the right man to ask such questions. Zoomin’ Who was the hero of a short-lived 1980s spinoff from Doctor Who featuring the Time Lord’s hick cousin Zoomin’, who travelled in time and space via a TARDIS disguised as a pig-trough. It lasted three 200 hour-long episodes and has sadly been lost after the BBC were conned out of over three billion yards of film stock by a mysterious grifter wearing a false moustache over his natural facial fuzz and calling himself Mr. Smithenhock.

Me: Now that we know who Zoomin' Who is perhaps we should find out who Russel McLean is. What's the scoop? You write mysteries, obviously, and you clearly know a lot about rama lama ding dong. What else would you like people to know? By which I mean how would you like to brand yourself to potential consumers?

Russel: I’ve tried to stop branding myself. Mostly because it really really hurts when the iron sizzles the skin.

But yes...[adopts serious, writerly pose] my name’s Russel D McLean (the D’s important for finding me books) and I’m a 5 foot 7 Scottish author of dark crime novels set in Scotland’s fourth largest city, Dundee. I also have a beard. Because I think every good author should have a beard. The books themselves are private eye novels and people seem to enjoy them. Let’s pull up a quote from the blurb-o-matic to give you an idea: “...an intense, taut crime story with a caustic PI. Not to be missed by fans of straight-up hardboiled noir.” (RTBookreviews). I like to think I’m following in the tradition of Ross Macdonald, Lawrence Block and so on, but with a distinctly Scottish accent.

I have lived in Dundee for over 10 years now. My current abode came with a cursed mask, a la a Stephen King novel³.

I was not, despite popular mythology, the executive producer of Zoomin’ Who.

³ This is genuinely true.

Me: So you've put out The Good Son and The Lost Sister (or so Amazon's telling me -- sorry for getting the titles wrong in the first question). Any plans for The Grumpy Mom and The Absent-Minded Dad and The Annoying Cousin Who Won't Stop Talking About Charlie Sheen? By which I mean will our man Macnee/McNee be back?

Russel: Oh, he’ll be back if I have my say in it (and I may or may not do at the moment) and if the readers have their say as well. The next book is planned and primed, so if the big bad world of publishing lets me play in its sandbox again there’ll be another one. Watch me blog (www.theseayemeanstreets.blogspot.com) which I do honestly update on occasion, especially when I have news to report! The next book was originally going to be called Father Confessor, but the more I think about it the more I think the title may indeed change to The Annoying Cousin Who Won't Stop Talking About Charlie Sheen. See, Steve, this is why you’re my new writerising guru. You’ve always given out such top advice....

Me: Final question, and it's an old chestnut. What writerising advice would you give to the aspiring, o guru?

Russel: 1) Despite the fact I joke a lot about wearing a tatty dressing gown when I write, I actually find it helps to get dressed, showered and refreshed. Treat it like a job and in the end, it’ll give you the rewards.

2) Don’t write to market unless that’s what you love. There are two reasons for this. Number one is that by the time you get the book publishable the market will probably have moved on. And two, readers can spot a faker a mile off. They know cynicism. They appreciate passion.

3) When redrafting, eliminate the unnecessary. [Note #3: The rest of this answer was cut for space.]

4) Read. Seriously. Read everything you can get your hands on. Even the bad stuff -- especially the bad stuff –- can teach you something.

5) Grow a beard. Unless this is impossible for you. In which case don’t.

6) Be patient. If you’re an aspiring musician you don’t release an album after you’ve learned only one chord. (You have to know at least three.) Same thing with being a writer. Slinging a sentence together doesn’t make you ready for publication. You have to practice. Hone your craft. Treat it with the respect it deserves. In the end, readers will thank you for that.

7) Don’t get uppity about being an author of prose. You can learn things from watching how TV and film construct their stories. In fact, you might learn more than you ever expect. I wouldn’t be writing the way I do without the influence of other media teaching me new tricks.

8) If Steve Hockensmith offers to show you his “collection of zombie etchings,” think very carefully about your answer. To this day, I can’t stop the twitching in my right eye.

Me: Well, that does it, Russel. Thanks for dropping by! Happy trails! Sorry about the twitching! Good luck with the book! Don't forget to write!

Well, that was a lot of...hey. I forgot to ask him how he got the middle name "D" and whether that means he's related to Chuck D. And did he say something about living in a house with a haunted mask?

Obviously follow-up questions are not my forte. Oh, well. I'm new to this blog interview thing. Hopefully, the next one will go a little more smoothly.

Assuming anyone will talk to me after this....