Steve Hockensmith's blog

It's a Long Long Long Long Book

I wish Bonfire of the Vanities were a pill I could simply swallow with a mouthful of Tang. I'd like to have read the book, but I'm not so sure I want to have the experience of actually reading it. Ditto Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest. I'm sure they're good, maybe even great, but I'm also sure of something else: They're really, really long.

I have to take a book's length into consideration because of a double-whammy curse I live with. I'm a slllllllloooooooow reader and I change my mind a lot. Which means it takes me two or three weeks to get through a typical novel, and round about Day 14 there's a good chance I'll be thinking to myself, "You know what I'd really like to be reading right now? Something else." The fact that I actually finished Atlas Shrugged once upon a time is a miracle on the order of walking on water.

So it's pretty rare for me to pick up a 1,000-page book. It's even more rare for me to pick up a 1,000-page book with the intention of reading it. (In the first example I was just picking up the 1,000-page book because it was sitting on top of the 300-page book I actually wanted to read.) 

I've been on a Western kick lately, though, watching obscure (but really good!) old oaters like Man of the West and Day of the Outlaw and reading a lot of non-fiction about violence and crime on the frontier. So I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet (a .44-40 Winchester in this case) and try my luck with what's probably the most successful and acclaimed Western novel of my lifetime: Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

If you saw my last blog post, you already know what I think of it. If you didn't see my last blog post, where have you been, pal? We've missed you!

Oh, and I love Lonesome Dove. Love love love it -- even after working on it for three weeks and still having 400 pages to go. It's a little head-hoppy, but the continually shifting POV doesn't bother me. In fact, I think it's partially responsible for the book's great strength: its humanity.

At one point or another (and sometimes without much warning), we pop into the head of nearly every character in the novel. And what we find there is always recognizably human. Which is to say everyone has understandable reasons for their choices (or failure to choose), has blind spots that grow from their inborn natures and are plagued by self doubt (or aren't when they should be).

[An interesting exception: McMurtry doesn't let us peek into the thoughts of the novel's most irredeemable villains, who tend to be men who seem to act with absolutely no uncertainty or introspection. Will we ever get a passage from Blue Duck's point of view? I'm wondering....]

So what's happened in the book so far? Well, some old Texas Rangers decided to drive a herd of cattle to Montana, and once they got started people started dying. Plotwise, that's about it. A Luke Short would've zipped through the whole story -- and thrown in an Indian upraising to boot -- in less than 200 pages.

But I don't care, because it's not the plot that keeps me coming back night after night. It's those characters. They feel so alive to me it actually breaks my heart when they die. It's been a long, long time since a book made me cry, but when CENSORED, REDACTED and SPOILER ALERT!!! were killed by 'NUFF SAID, I had tears running down my cheeks. Really! Macho, super-manly me!*

[*For the record: This is sarcasm. I'm a complete wimp.]

I still have weeks to go before I'm done with Lonesome Dove, but I'm not worried that I'll lose interest and start pining for something, anything else to read. In fact, I have such great confidence in McMurtry and Lonesome Dove at this point, I just ordered a copy of the sequel, Streets of Laredo. 

It's nearly 600 pages long...and that doesn't scare me at all. 

Elmore Leonard Rules! But Elmore Leonard's Rules...?

I don't like doling out writing advice. Oh, I do it from time to time. But it's something I'd really rather avoid. Partially, that's out of modesty. As many of you no doubt know already, I am the most wonderfully humble man in the entire world. BOW DOWN, MORTALS, AND WORSHIP MY AWESOME HUMILITY!!!

Also -- and I probably shouldn't admit this -- I'm not a big believer in writing advice from anybody. As that noted literary thinker James T. Kirk once said, "We learn by doing." Taking a class isn't going to teach you how to write. Reading a book isn't going to teach you how to write. Writing and writing and writing is going to teach you how to write. (This is something I shouldn't admit because it might come back to haunt me if I ever try to get a gig teaching writing. Note to future self: Delete this blog post before sending your resume to that community college.)

I didn't become the writer I am today -- the nearly broke but, I like to think, rather skilled one -- because of a subscription to Writer's Digest, just as Tiger Woods didn't master golf by reading 101 Ways to Hit a Little White Ball Into a Hole by Jack Nicklaus (as told to a rather skilled but nearly broke writer). No. Tiger Woods got where he is today through practice practice practice. Or he sold his soul to Satan. Either way, it wasn't because someone said, "Try hitting the ball a little...I don't know...harder maybe. It might go farther that way."

So I bring to all writing advice a grain of salt about the size of a watermelon, even when the writer doing the advising is one I respect as much as Elmore Leonard. I see Leonard's "10 Rules of Writing" cited a lot, and there's some real wisdom in it. Of course there would be. When it comes to modern crime fiction, Elmore Leonard is The Man.

But here's the thing: Leonard's list is misnamed. It's not 10 Rules of Writing. It's 10 Rules for Writing Like Elmore Leonard. If all you want to write are Get Shorty pastiches, well, this'll give you a great head start. But if you have any interest in your own voice as a writer -- indeed, having any sort of voice at all -- keep in mind that Leonard's commandments weren't written in stone by the finger of God. They were banged out on a Smith Corona by a dude in Michigan. Big difference.

I got to thinking about all this recently because I've been reading the most insanely entertaining book I've encountered in years -- decades even -- and it's constantly making what some gurus would tell you is a rookie mistake. The point of view bounces from character to character with no particular rhyme or reason. One minute we're in one guy's head, the next we're in another's, a paragraph later we're in yet another's. The author doesn't start a new chapter to indicate the switch and he doesn't use section breaks, either. He just jumps to a new perspective whenever the heck he feels like it.

This is a no-no grande -- a technique that would simply be labeled "incompetence" if you or I tried it. And it works beautifully. The book also breaks some of Elmore Leonard's Rules for Writing Like Elmore Leonard and is none the worse for it. The only rules the author followed were My Rules for Writing Like Me.

Those are the rules I follow, too. I figured out what they were by breaking them, a lot, and realizing that what I'd produced wasn't good. I won't bother mentioning what my rules are, because they're my rules. I need Steve Hockensmith's Rules for Writing Like Steve Hockensmith, but nobody else does. If you want to be a good writer, you need Your Rules for You.

Oh, and that author who can't keep his POVs straight? He's Larry McMurtry, and the novel in question is a little something called Lonesome Dove. It won a Pulitzer Prize. It also breaks one of my biggest rules when it comes to books: For god's sake, don't be over 500 pages long. Lonesome Dove is more than 1,000 pages -- and I'm enjoying each and every one.

Sometimes it pays to break your own rules, too.

Classical Gassing

There are lots of classics. The Scarlet Letter? Classic. Robinson Crusoe? Classic. The Brothers Karamazov? Classic. Mile High Escapades of the Stewardess with the Mustache? Class-...wait. How’d that get on the list?

Let’s try again.

There are lots of classics. After all, the novel’s been around for...what? A few hundred years? So even if we arbitrarily call Don Quixote (1605) the first great novel and then say even more arbitrarily that other great novels have only come along once every decade, that still gives us 1,732 “classics”! (An admission: My math can be very, very arbitrary.)

But you know what? Classics might be a dime a dozen at this point in history, but they aren’t all cut from the same moldy old cloth. There are classics and then there are classic classics.

Let’s try that list again.

Pilgrim’s Progress? Classic. David Copperfield? Classic classic. Vanity Fair? Classic. Little Women? Classic classic. Finnegans Wake? Classic. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? Classic classics. Mile High Escapades of the Stewardess with the Mustache? Non-classic. Hooker for a Day? Uhhh...well, ditto. How did I mess up two lists in one blog post? Damn!

Anywho, did you detect the pattern there? The difference between the classics and the classic classics? The difference between, let's say, Jude the Obscure and The Hound of the Baskervilles? If not, let me lay it on you.

The classics people still read because they have to (assuming that by “people” we mean “English majors”). The classic classics people still read because they want to -- and then they actually go and enjoy the darned things!

Despite what I said above about classics swarming around our culture like flies who’ve discovered that, oh happy day!, the deep-fried Twinkie stand is right next to the Tilt-a-Whirl at the state fair, it’s actually not that easy to become a classic. You’ve got to get at least a hundred English professors to agree that you’re worthy, and getting those folks to agree on anything is sheer hell. I mean, jeepers creepers -- they still can’t decide if Ulysses is an example of late modernism or early post-modernism! (The answer, of course, is deceptively simple: Ulysses is utter horseshit.)

So salllll-UTE to any book that can become a classic, no matter how horseshitty it might be. And double salllll-UTE to any book that can become a classic classic. It’s hard enough to entertain people when they get your pop culture references (such as, perhaps, salllll-UTE). To entertain them when hundreds of years have passed since your book first saw print? That’s more than an accomplishment. It’s practically a miracle.

Which is why today I’m saying salllll-UTE to you, Jane Austen. Last month, Pride and Prejudice celebrated its 200th birthday, and it’s not only being read and enjoyed by people around the world, it’s still inspiring new imitators and extensions and homages and salllll-UTEs. That makes the book more than a classic or even your average classic classic. It is, in a way, alive -- and perhaps even immortal.

Sorry, Mile High Escapades etc. etc. I just don’t think that’s going to happen for you....

I'd Like to Spank the Academy....

I don't always agree with the awards the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out. (Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction? Crash over Brokeback Mountain? The English Patient over anything?) And I don't always agree with how those awards are handed out. (Slowly, punctuated by periodic bursts of soul-searing, nuclear-strength inanity.) Yet I watch the Oscars every year.

And I bet on them every year. I lose a lot, too, because I'm a movie fan and I tend to let my personal opinions affect my judgment. (I don't care if Fargo was a long shot and The English Patient is exactly the kind of bloated, self-important, pseudo-profound claptrap the Academy used to love, THE COEN BROTHERS WERE ROBBED!!!)

But this year I'm trying to be a grownup about it. I'm setting my feelings aside and letting the oddsmakers call the shots. (It helps that I haven't seen enough of the nominated films to have strong feelings about anything.) You know what, though? I can still be beaten -- and you could be the one to do it. 

Gonna watch the Academy Awards Sunday night? Well, why don't we make it a little more interesting for all concerned? My Oscar picks are below. Post yours in the comments, and if you beat me, I'll send you one of my books. And if I beat you? You buy one.

Come on -- what have you got to lose? I mean, other than a few bucks and three (or, ugh, maybe four) hours of your life you'll never get back....

Best Picture: Argo

Best Director: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Best Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, Argo

Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Animated Feature: Wreck-It Ralph 

Best Foreign Film: Amour

Best Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man

Best Original Score: Mychael Danna, Lincoln

Best Original Song: "Skyfall," Skyfall

Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi

Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina

Best Makeup: The Hobbit -- An Unexpected Journey

Best Production Design: Les Miserables 

Best Cinematography: Life of Pi

Best Costume Design: Les Miserables

Best Editing: Argo

Best Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty

Best Sound Mixing: Les Miserables

Best Animated Short: "Paperman" 

Best Documentary Short: "Open Heart"

Best Live Action Short: "Curfew"

The Not So Great Dictator

I'm always amazed by those scenes in old movies where some fatcat executive dicatates a letter to his secretary. Miss Cranston, take a memo! he'll say and on he'll go speaking in perfect sentences rattling off line after line of 1950s business speak. I'm amazed because I think that's not just a silly old movie thing. I think a few people can actually do that. But not most. And certainly not me.

Today I'll prove it. I'm dictating this blog update with my newest toy: Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It's a computer program that allows you (supposedly in parentheses in the parentheses I said I hadn't parentheses. Let's try that again.

It is a program that allows you parentheses supposedly parentheses. Damn.

Obviously I haven't figured out how to do parentheses yet. So I'll rephrase. Dragon naturally speaking is a program that supposedly allows you to dictate your communications as if you were the fatcat executive with Ms. Cranston sitting before your desk.

We bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking for our nine-year-old daughter thinking it would help her with her homework. She's a great talker and a great reader but writing can sometimes be a challenge for her. But I have to wonder how helpful Dragon NaturallySpeaking will really be.

And it's not just because I can't figure out how to do parentheses. The path from your brain to your mouth is pretty short. Getting words out through your fingers requires a longer and trickier journey and a lot more effort. But that effort pays off in the form of structure, pickiness and all around polish.

Not pickiness. That was supposed to be seeing this. No. Pickiness. No. He has seen this. No.

Well, apparently Dragon NaturallySpeaking doesn't know the word that is spelled P I T H I in E ass ass. Oh my God. You're going to think I did that on purpose. I said P I T H I in E at ass.

Christ, it won't even let me spell it.

There is a word that means to have great tests. Tests? Pig. Oh Lord.

I'll just go back to the point I was trying to make. True writing, good writing, doesn't just require revisions when you're done with the first draft. It requires constant revising, word by word I word. For instance: I'm not happy with a lot of the phrasings here. I would love to be able to tinker with my word choices. But I'm not going to give myself that option. You're getting exactly what's coming out of my mouth. Okay well not exactly what's coming out of my mouth. But what's coming out of my mouth as far as Dragon NaturallySpeaking can figure it out. I'm speaking extemporaneously. 

Wow. I can't believe Dragon NaturallySpeaking got extemporaneously but won't let me say pickiness. Pitch in nest. Her. That's supposed to be G R are our, not her. 

Any who, dictating is not writing. Writing requires forethought and what I'll call during the thought. Close enough. Point being writing and speech are not the same and shouldn't be thought of as the same. So I don't know about this for homework and God knows I won't be using it for future blog posts.

But it is kind of fun to play with. Let's see what it does with this: in a got a Davida honey, don't you know that I love of you? In a got a Davida honey, don't you know that I'll always be true?

That's supposed to be in a God Davida. In a God a Davida. Sigh.

Obviously, the designers of Dragon naturally speaking are not big iron butterfly fans. But then again who is?

Okay, enough Tom fool airy. It's time to come up with a headline for this post. I'm going to sit here and think of one and when I say it out loud whatever Dragon NaturallySpeaking thinks it is I'll be stuck with. Here goes.

The not so great dictator.

Hey that's right. Maybe I could get this thing to work after all.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking, take a memo!

Pride and Prejudice and Anniversaries and Freebies

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice turns 200 today, and I'd swear it didn't look a day over 179. Of course, you're only as old as you feel, and Pride and Prejudice is still as spry and lively as a book one-one hundredth its age. People around the world are still reading it, talking about it, ripping it o-...I mean, paying homage to it. Pretty darned good for a novel that nearly drove Mark Twain to grave desecration!

A lot of books were published in 1813 -- almost as many as are published on Amazon every minute today. Yet most are utterly forgotten. (I'm referring there to the books from 1813. But it could apply just as well to the others.) Why is Pride and Prejudice remembered and beloved while so many others aren't? I have three theories.

Theory #1: It's got a great title.

Ironically enough, Jane Austen originally wanted to call her novel First Impressions -- a title that, while not bad, doesn't make a particularly strong first impression itself. Yet even that would have been sheer poetry compared to the names slapped on some of the other books appearing in 1813.

Ever hear of The French Convert: A True Relation of the Conversion of a Noble French Lady, to the Reformed Religion, By Means of a Protestant Gardener, Her Servant? How about Voyage Round the World, in the Years 1803, 1804, 1805, & 1806 by Order of His Imperial Majesty Alexander the First, on Board the Ships Nadeshda and Neva, Under the Command of Captain A.J. von Krusenstern, of the Imperial Navy? Or Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse, Interspersed with Various Notices of Many Distinguished Men, with an Appendix Containing Sundry Philosophical and Other Papers, Most of Which Have Not Hitherto Been Published?

Suddenly Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium doesn't sound all that bad, does it?

Theory #2: It's really good.

'Nuff said.

Theory #3: People sometimes do promotional giveaways tied to its most notable milestones.

Case in point, me. Here. Now. I'm honoring Pride and Prejudice's 200th birthday the best way I know how: by giving away copies of zombie-filled spinoff novels Austen herself surely would have loathed.

Congrats on the big anniversary, babe!

Be the fifth person to correctly answer the trivia question (far) below, and you'll receive autographed copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After as well as a cool PPZ poster!

Be the fourth person to correctly answer the trivia question (still far) below, and you'll receive autographed copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After as well as a cool PPZ poster and...ummm...a peppermint!

Be the third person to correctly answer the trivia question (still pretty far) below, and you'll receive autographed copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After as well as a cool PPZ poster and a peppermint and...another peppermint!

Be the second person to correctly answer the trivia question (not so far) below, and you'll receive autographed copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After as well as a cool PPZ poster, two peppermints and...another peppermint!

Be the first person to correctly answer the trivia question (almost immediately) below, and you'll receive autographed copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After as well as a cool PPZ poster, three peppermints and A FOURTH PEPPERMINT!!!

The trivia question: Is today Mo Rocca's birthday?

Answers should be e-mailed to steve@stevehockensmith.com. Good luck!

Oh, and happy birthday, Mo!

UPDATE: The giveaway is over, and the five winners will soon find books, posters and peppermints aplenty in their mailboxes. But if you're still in the mood for a me-themed contest, the fine folks at Litmocracy can oblige. They've just launched a new mystery short story competition that includes several books by me as prizes. Check it out!

New Year's Devolutions

A few friends of mine seemed to find my last couple posts here a tad too negative. In the past, I might have responded to that with something along the lines of "Too negative? Screw you, pal! I'm a 24-7 ray of goddamn sunshine! Now shut your face and bask in my cheery warmth, shitbird!"

But not now. New year, new attitude. From here on, it's all positivity, all the time! Until 2014 rolls around, that is. Then I'm going to go back to being a surly S.O.B. You've been warned. Enjoy it while you can, people.

Let the good vibes commence.

You know what I love? Christmas! Too bad it's over. But that's O.K., because January has some great things to look forward to, too. Like...umm...well...New Year's Day. Which is over, too, of course. Oh, and Martin Luther King Day. That's cool...even though I don't work in an office anymore, so it's not like I'm gonna get the day off. It just means my children will be out of school, so I'll get, like, zero work done even though I've got this huge deadline hanging over me. But whatever! Accentuate the positive, right? I'm sure I'll have a wonderful time playing games with the kids and making them cookies and hot chocolate and snuggling up to read them stories and breaking up their insane, pointless fights and getting shrieked at by them because we're out of ketchup and like an ass I made hot dogs for lunch instead of the f-ing frozen pizza that tastes like tomato-smeared cardboard. Yeah. That's gonna be great.

But I kid poor, dear, dreary, depressing, soul-crushing ol' January. For some people, it's the highpoint of the year. When else can you get on TV just by flash-freezing your testes in a major body of water? And every film fan knows that January's the time when Hollywood rolls out its most unique offerings -- movies so special they wouldn't be able to fit in (or compete) during the blockbuster summer or Christmas seasons. So, hello, Van Helsing 2! Let me grab my popcorn, Dick Tracy Returns! Boy, I think Al Pacino's buried under even more makeup this time than last! He's got enough goo on his puss to fill every Silly Putty egg from now till Easter! What's that you say? That's Sean Penn hiding behind the Play-Doh schnoz? Well, the joke's on me...especially if I bought a ticket.

Alright, alright. You caught me. I'm being a wee bit sarcastic. But seriously -- who could hate January when it means that a new Congress is in session? I mean, if these guys don't put a smile on your face, nothing will, right? Right? Right?

Awww, screw it. January sucks. I'll start over with the accentuate-the-positive crap in February....

Postscript: A genuine, unironic, no foolin' list of things I'm enjoying this January.

*Portlandia on Netflix

*L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

*Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

*My Kindle

*Star Trek on Netflix

*Smoove & Turrell

*Words with Friends

*Mayer Hawthorne

*The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes on Netflix

*Star Trek: The Newspaper Strip, Vol. 1

*Bourbon, amaretto, Angostura bitters, maraschino cherries and instant lemonade (e-mail me for the precise proportions)

The Impossible Meme

If you visit a lot of author blogs, you might have noticed this "Next Big Thing" thing. Some people are calling it a meme, but it's really just the self-marketing equivalent of a chain letter. A writer answers questions about his or her next project, then "tags" (i.e., suckers and/or browbeats) a small group of fellow authors who are supposed to answer the same questions. A week later, these new writers tag/sucker/browbeat more writers in turn, presumably perpetuating the cycle until everyone who's ever jotted down a limerick or a grocery list has taken part.

I was assimilated into the NBT collective (resistance was futile) by my writer-pal Scott Browne. Unfortunately, I said "yes" to Scott before I said to myself, "What the heck am I gonna write?" Though I've got not one but two exciting projects in the works, it's too early to discuss what's going to become of them. Why? Because I don't know.

Still, a promise is a promise. I agreed to answer questions about my Next Big Things, so I will. But no one said my answers had to be helpful. 

The Next Big Thing(s): Project X & Project Y

Where did the ideas come from for the books?
An editor, a friend and my brain.

What genre do your books fall under?
I'd rather not say yet.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in movie renditions?
Lindsay Lohan, Nipsey Russell and Deep Roy.

Just kidding. I'd rather not say yet. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your books?
I'd rather not say yet.

Will your books be self-published or represented by an agency?
I'd rather not say yet.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscripts?
Ah! That I can say! Four months and two months, respectively.

What other books would you compare these stories to within your genre?
I'd rather not say yet.

Who or what inspired you to write these books?
I'd rather not say yet.

No, actually I can answer that one.

Who: Chase Home Lending.

What: my mortgage.

What else about your books might pique the reader’s interest?
I wrote them -- and I'm me! 'Nuff said, right?

BTW, I wasn't Scott's only victim this week. He also tapped Mario Acevedo, Scott Kenemore and John Hornor Jacobs for Next Big Thing reports. You should check 'em out.

And now it's my turn to do the tapping. I've decided to recruit writers who'd be every bit as forthcoming as me.

So tell us, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and Kurt Vonnegut -- what are your Next Big Things?

If I Had a Hammer, I'd Hammer My Brains Out

Writers -- do you enjoy writing? Seriously. I'm asking. Do you think it's fun? Because I don't. For me, it's work. Hard work. The mental equivalent of digging a ditch on a Mississippi chain gang. In July. Yet I'm a writer. 

Am I nuts?

I ask that rhetorically, but feel free to provide your own answer. Mine is this: 

Kinda.

Imagine:

You love chairs. Love 'em! Oh, the cushions and the legs and the upholstery! You'll never forget the day you sat in your first chair. You never wanted to stand up again! Now your favorite way to while away a day is to curl up in your beloved Papasan and watch This Old Chair while flipping through the Ethan Allen catalog. And when you see a particularly beautiful chair, you think to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could make something that cool." And when you see a particularly ugly chair, you think to yourself, "Lord knows I could do better than that."

So one day you finally decide to try. You buy yourself a lathe and a hammer and nails and some sandpaper and you hit 84 Lumber and then you come home and get to work. And after a mere, oh, decade of effort and second guessing and disappointment and splinters up your wazoo and trips to the hospital to reattach sawed-off fingers, you've built yourself a goddamn chair! And you invite your friends and family into your blood-splattered workshop to give it a try, and one by one they plant their keisters in the seat and say....

"Ooo. A little lumpy, isn't it?"

And the next morning you start over.

Meshuggeneh, am I right? 

Yet here I am with three missing fingers and sawdust in my lungs and I just staple-gunned my jeans to my knee, but I'm still whacking away at those damn nails while trying not to swoon from the varnish fumes. 

It's not for giggles, I can tell you that. I'm not whistling while I work. It's more likely I'm screaming.

So why? Not? Quit?

It's the "Ahhhhh," I think. The one you sigh when you settle into something someone's made and say, "I like it here." Or the one you hear when someone settles into something you've made and says the same thing.

That's what keeps my ass in a chair and my fingers on a keyboard. It's not because it's party time. And it's not the urge to write.

It's the urge to create. Writing's just a means to an end. A really, really agonizing means. But that end?

Ahhhhh....

O Christmas Free, O Christmas Free

The tree's been lit. The first batch of cookies has been baked. I'm humming "Winter Wonderland" (because I can never remember the words). 

But here's how you can really tell I've got the Christmas spirit: I'm playing Santa Claus. Ho ho ho, gifts for one and all! So what if it's the same gift for everyone? You see any elf slave labor around here? 

I do have a magical helper, though. It's called Amazon and it's helping me give away my book Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime. Just click here before Saturday, December 1, and (assuming you have an Amazon account) you can download the book for free. In it, you'll find nine holiday-themed crime stories originally published in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Reviewer Elizabeth A. White wrote about how much she enjoyed the collection here, and the lady has taste. (How do I know she has taste? Because she enjoyed Naughty, of course.)

Is this some kind of promotional campaign/marketing gimmick aimed at boosting the book's visibility at the start of the holiday season? Nope (though a better salesman than I -- which is all of them -- might think that wasn't a bad idea). Really and truly, I'm just doing this because I can. 

Have you been a good little boy or girl this year? Well, I don't care! You get the book no matter what! That's the kind of Santa I am. You won't get any creepy "He sees you when you're sleeping..." stuff from me. Just follow the link, download the book and (if you're so inclined) enjoy!

UPDATE: Well, the big Naughty giveaway is over, and the book's back to $2.99. So how'd I do as an Amazon Santa? Not too shabby, I think. More than 2,600 people downloaded the book. Most of them were in the U.S., but there were hundreds in the U.K. and Germany and a smattering in Japan, Italy and elsewhere, as well. So while I can't compete with a guy who brings goodies to every kid in every country (or so his publicity machine would have you believe), I did alright. And FYI, Naughty is still a freebie for some folks: It'll be in Amazon's KDP Select program until December 11, so if you're an Amazon Prime member you can borrow the book for zero dollars and zilch cents. Tell 'em Santa Steve sent you!