Declaring Digital Independence: Advice for Writers

Marketing guru and writer Seth Godin is a master when it comes to offering straight forward advice on how to be creative and at the same time, avoid distraction. It dawned on me recently that I have been spending way too much time looking at emails (which these days are overstuffed with SPAM), Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest of it.

When it comes to my Dumbphone, texts have been killing me. WhatsAp is fun (and free) especially when I'm overseas, but just hearing the short vibrating buzz that accompanies an incoming message while I'm writing makes me go ballistic. I'm guessing Mr. Godin feels the same way which is why he's offered up five quick and easy steps in reducing the digital virus in your life:

1. Turn off mail and social media alerts on your phone.
2. Don't read the comments. Not on your posts or on the posts of other people. Not the reviews and not the trolls.
3. De-escalate the anger in every email exchange.
4. Put your phone in the glove compartment while driving.
5. Spend the most creative hour of your day creating, not responding.

To add to this, turn off your social media while you're writing. In fact, perhaps check it in the morning, and then check in again in the evening. Use the rest of the time for creativity. Think about it, in the old days, you didn't check your snailmail box at the end of the driveway fifteen times a day. If you had, the neighbors would have chalked you up as either schizo or suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. At the very least, you'd be taking meds for ADD.

I particularly like Godin's suggestion No. 2. Don't read the reviews and don't pay attention to the trolls. Good advice for fiction writers like me who make a living off of their words. Many of the said "trolls" are wannabe writers who find it impossible to make a living without cheating or engaging in social media assassination.  

But wait, not being close to your phone and/or email and texts makes you anxious?
Remember, if there's an emergency, someone will get in touch with you one way or another. But do you really need to view a text about what color sweater someone is wearing today? Or what song is playing on the radio? Is it worth interrupting your work for absolute nonsense?

Enjoy your social media gadgetry and your digital Dumphone. Just don't let it take control of your life.

 _ _ _

"Most people wouldn’t think that pyromania and parenting would go together, but hey, every family is different. For me to lose myself in a thriller, I need characters (fire starters or not) I can care deeply about—action scenes alone won’t do it. Everything Burns took me on a psychological roller-coaster ride through action and emotion that I can’t forget."--Kjersti Egerdahl, T&M Editor

EVERYTHING BURNS ... the Amazon Number 1 Bestselling Psychological Suspense Thriller.

The Last Writer on Earth...

Papa writing in London during WWII

In his book about winning the creative battle, The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield asks, "If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?" So, what of it? If you suddenly found yourself all alone on this big black and blue planet, would you still spend your days putting words on a page?

If you are already issuing an emphatic Yes to this question, you are a true artist. If you are saying yes, but deep down inside, you know you wouldn't write so much as a comma, you're not a true artist. You're into the glory of it all, writing for the sake of fortune and fame, which of course, you feel entitled to.

Why did you start writing in the first place? Was it to fulfill some sort of inner desire? A need to craft words and sentences into something that seems truer on the page than it if happened in real life? Do you respect your art and talent, and do you respect the art and talent of others? How much time do you devote to your craft? How much "life" do you sacrifice in order to be a better writer regardless of your age? Do you give it your all without thinking about fame or financial reward or popularity? Would you write even if you were the last living person on the earth?

Perhaps your ambitions as a writer are purely selfish. Maybe you're like the kid who desperately

wants to be a part of the popular gang and is willing to do anything to grab a spot on the inside. Does working day in and day out without recognition just plain piss you off? Maybe you wish to jump start your success by hiring another writer to pen your words for you. Maybe your the vindictive type who leaves 1-star reviews for books that are propelled to the top of the Amazon lists in the hope that this will discourage readers from purchasing. Perhaps you think that regardless of the billions of souls occupying planet earth, you are the only writer. It's your books that count. Everyone else's are just taking up space and/or, stealing your glory.

I'm the first to admit, that when I saw old pictures of writers like Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, carousing with friends, fishing, traveling to exotic locals, being adored by fans, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I was young and foolish. It wasn't until I faced the absolute truth about the agonizing hard work that goes into being a successful writer, that I realized for all the fun Hemingway seemed to be having, he was putting in a whole lot of labor and sacrifice to get there.

Authors need to be thick-skinned to be sure. Good reviews and bad reviews are all well and good so long as they bring attention to the work. But do they matter in the long run? What matters in the end is that you can look at yourself in the mirror and admit without a doubt that if you had to do it all over again, you would write the same exact novel, word for word. You would not change a thing. You wrote it because you had to. Because it was a means to its own end, not a means for glory or fame or money. These things are nice, but they are only tangential and secondary in importance.

We write because we have a gift. Why we possess that gift is a great mystery. The writing centers us and soothes us and satisfies us like nothing else can. It makes us who we are. No God, or food, or sexual act can compete with the desire to write as well as one can, and then to wake up the next day and do it even better than the day before. Even if we were the last person on earth, we would write with all the negative capability we could muster.

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Hollywood Noir

A break in the filming for dinner at El Coyote

I'm not the first writer who's turned to film as another creative outlet. Countless word scribes like Norman Mailer, Sam Fuller, and Sam Shepard, have utilized the motion picture camera as an extension of their typewriters. Much of my work has been considered for film by companies like Dreamworks, George Clooney, and a bunch of others that I can't remember right now on a Sunday morning, my first steaming cup of coffee set out beside the laptop. Nothing has ever been produced, but that doesn't mean it won't be. It also doesn't mean I can't dabble in the medium on my own.

This past February, indie film maker Edward Alves asked me to write, direct, produce and star in (if you wanna call it that) a short noir piece that I could use as a promotional author trailer. It took us a few days to actually shoot the film down on Sunset Boulevard and at the close by Avalon Hotel, and many more days and nights in the production room, but here's what we came up with.

I think the film captures perfectly how I was living while writing Everything Burns...the paranoid, tense, living-on-the-edge quality of the life that flashes by day in and day out when you are writing all alone in a room with nothing but your story, and the invented people who occupy it.

Everything does indeed burn. So too does this trailer...

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Christmas: A Reflection and a Plan

For some, Christmas is a day to open presents, eat and drink a lot, and generally party it up with friends and family. This is my first holiday season home in a quite a while, so for me it's all of those things but also a time of reflection. Astrologers say that Cancers are always looking back at the past as if thirty years ago were yesterday. But today, Christmas Day, December 25, 2014, I'm looking forward.

Here's what I'm looking forward to in 2015:

--The release of my new big stand-alone thriller, Everything Burns, on Feb 1. This novel, from Thomas & Mercer, will be the first in my Albany Noir Trilogy. I am making a prediction that it hits the Top 10 for all books in Kindle right out of the gate (How about them apples Mr. Kennedy!?).

--2015 will also see the completion of the second in the Albany Trilogy, Orchard Grove, as well as my new international thriller, Lost Grace (new title pending). Scream Catcher will be republished under my own label, Bear Media, but there's a surprise in store for this project. It will published in six episodes, much like an online television series. Each piece will stand alone, but propel the overall plot of a serial killer who records the screams of his victims as they are dying with his cell phone (Where do I come up with this stuff? I don't know. I think my parents dropped me on my head when I was a baby...)

--I'll be writing the third installment in the Chase Baker series. This one taking place, in part, in Nepal, India, and beyond, and will rely on the research trip I took to each country this past summer. (The Chase Baker series has been holding court in the Top 50 for Amazon International Thrillers in the UK for months)

--I'm currently planning another adventure for the late winter, early spring. I'm not about to divulge the location because I haven't quite decided what it will be and on which continent. Of course, funding is always a challenge, but I'll manage to scrape up the casheshe. It will be doozy I guarantee.

--On a personal note, this is also the year I hope to become a better dad, a better friend, cut down on the beer (just a little), eat healthier, become more spiritual, push aside politics, spend time in Florence, Paris, and Madrid, and in general, live the life.

Thanks to my fans who have made that "life" possible. You are the greatest gift any writer can receive for the Holidays.

Cheers and God bless!

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Don't Force It, Damnit!: Choosing an Indie Publisher III (and Advice for Writers)

Mailer, the overnight sensation...

It's guaranteed to happen once a year. Some unknown author emerges from out of the dark shadows of obscurity and publishes a book that goes through the freakin' roof. The book's sales not only blow away even the most major of commercial authors (think James Patterson and Stephen King here), they could arguably outdo the Gross National Product of some small nation-states.

You, as an author, find yourself shaking your head in dismay. Not only have you never heard of this now overnight-famous author, you have been writing for years and years, published several books, and your annual sales don't even come close to this writer's weekly revenue. You look up his or her bio, and you become even more distraught. The author, the bio claims, has worked as a cook, or a video store clerk, or was on welfare until his book was published and every single reader in the world dropped what they were doing and when out to buy it. Or so it seems.

But wait, where have you gone wrong? You've done everything the right way. You started out by working at the local newspaper, then published short stories in the best literary journals, made your way through writing school, nailed a big contract, began establishing a career of steady sales, fans, and contracts. You've nailed all the Amazon lists and some of the traditional lists as well. You make a nice income and have a nice life. You've done everything right. Shouldn't you be the one with the huge blockbuster that blows the doors (or covers) off all other books published that year?

The novel that sealed the young author's fate.

If only logic had something...anything at all...to do with the publishing business. 

So what are your options? Sit down and read these books? Try and uncover their magic? Maybe you can somehow write a book just like them. Maybe you don't know it yet, but you're the author of the next A Million Little Pieces, 50 Shades of Gray, or Harry Potter. So you set your sights on writing something with a plot and characters that don't necessarily interest you, but you're sure contains the perfect recipe for the next bestseller.

Big mistake.

Back in 1998, an agent in NYC suggested I write a novel with a black man as the detective protagonist because that was the "in thing." I didn't do it. What do I know about writing from a black man's perspective? Why should it interest me? Besides, James Patterson was already doing it, and I would just seem like a copy cat. Fact is, many of these huge bestsellers are often, one-shot, one-hit-wonders. Tremendous pressure is placed on the author to duplicate not only the book, but also the sales. Usually, both fail to meet the grade established by the initial blockbuster success. Norman Mailer, who nailed one of these hits right out of the gate, witnessed the near dismantling of his career with two follow-up books that stunk up the joint, even if they were brilliantly written.

Many of the big one-time hits, however, aren't very well written. They create a hysteria not because of their value as a piece of literature, but simply because they have touched a trendy nerve. Again, referring to Mailer, he once said of these books, "The popularity of bad writing is analogous to the enjoyment of fast food." This is not to say all of these books are bad (after all, in the final analysis, even filet mignon ends up in the same porcelain God as the Big Mac). Some are brilliantly written and will stand the test of time (think Wool by Hugh Howey and Grisham's The Firm). Inevitably, the value of these novels is up to you, the reader.

But as a writer, what should you do in order to become a mega-famous, overnight sensational bestseller? As you mature, and practice your craft, you will come to realize that writing only about the things that interest you is the best and most trusted method of staying the often agonizing course of a full novel, which can take upwards of up to a year to write. In other words, don't force it, or else you'll end up like a rabid dog always chasing its tail (or in this case, tale...forgive me). Attempting to figure out why one book sells better than others is not only an inexact science, it is an absurd science devoid of logic, but chuck full of emotion. We all want to have that one book that sells a thousand or more copies per day for weeks or months. I've had the good luck of nailing a couple of these, but for every bestselling book I write, I have two or three that I can't even get my mother to buy.

The next time a relative unknown author scores a million seller right off the bat, remember, that author could have written a hundred novels before nailing his first huge success. Or, it could be his first and sadly, his only success. This is a business that just can't be controlled or trusted. The only thing you can trust is yourself to write a well as you can, as steadily as possible, and to practice the nail biting discipline day in and day out that's required of the next huge overnight sensational bestseller.

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An Affair in Italy

He's been coming to Italy to work alone for six years now.
The first year he came, he hardly worked at all. He was suffering from the pangs of lost love, and a career on hold, and he barely had enough work to keep him going, much less a novel in the works. He was also broke. He brooded as he walked the cobbled streets of Florence in his black leather coat in the rain, wondering where things in his life had gone wrong.

The next year he was a different man. He'd pulled himself out of his funk, and he reinvented himself once again as a freelance journalist who traveled to places like West Africa and Moscow writing for global news outlets such as RT. He was taking pictures and writing articles and essays as fast as he could while working under deadline. He came to crave the rush of dispatching a story written up on the fourth floor of a Florence guest house to Moscow, and then an hour later seeing it as a top-of-the-hour story in Europe. He was a foreign correspondent and life abroad was thrilling.

The year after that he was still a journalist but now he was back to writing fiction with a vengeance and it was wonderful to come to Florence be alone and walk the streets and think up plots. He had some scratch in the bank now and he could afford a real apartment. He would wonder about people he knew or had known, and women he had loved for a short time or a long time, who were going to make it as characters in his newest novel. People were drama and drama, although painful, was sometimes fun. It was also fun to play God in a place where almost no one knew him.

These days he's no longer unknown, and he's working on at least three books (and novellas) at once for three different publishers, plus a book for his own label. He's still a journalist (he knows this because he just paid his SPJ dues), only the fiction is trying to shove it out the door like the beautiful, young, brunette-haired affair who's angrily had enough of the wife. It's a violent and emotionally heartbreaking conflict. He forces himself between the two beauties wishing absurdly and selfishly that they could somehow get along and coexist peacefully.

"I need you both," he pleads.

But they both stare him down.

"Soon, you must choose between one or the other," says the affair.

But he will never choose. He wants them both. So, he just keeps on working as best he can, no matter what happens in his life, no matter what goes on in the world. The work: She is his most reliable friend, his most trusted lover, his affair, and his wife. She is ageless and her beauty only improves with the years, like ancient green-white marble that glistens and radiates in the Tuscan rain. She might resist him sometimes. She might pretend to be elusive, but in the end, she always sheds her clothing and slips into bed with him.

The work ... He comes to Italy to be with her, alone.

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Choosing an Indie Publisher? Choose Wisely

                                          "Are you an author? Well have I got a deal for you, bro..."


Most of you know by now that I don't stick to one type of publishing method or even one publisher. My books are published by several publishers both large and small, and they are also published traditionally and independently. The new digitally-based publishing model has not only become a boon to small, entrepreneur-minded individuals looking to create new indie publishing start ups, but it has literally turned upside down the method by which the old New York mega-houses have been doing business for nearly a century.

Perhaps the biggest example of an indie-minded start-up is Amazon Publishing and their many imprints (I publish with AP imprint, Thomas & Mercer). AP, however, can also be considered a traditional major publisher since it operates much the same way by offering big advances, stellar marketing, and equally stellar editing. But there are other far smaller indie publishers springing up all over the country who don't offer advances per se, but instead offer a high ebook royalty rate along with the promise of a quick draft-to-distribution publishing experience.

I've published with one or two of these "indies," and trust me when I say, not all of them are what they appear to be. An author just starting out (or even a seasoned mid-list author looking to re-establish his career) needs to have their guard up when it comes to publishing with these new outfits who might appear, on the surface anyway, to be "writer friendly" and "an alternative to the old traditional model that locks up your rights forever." These indie publishers might even invest in a nice website with false testimonials plastered all over its facade, but the outfit might truly be a rat in a sheep's clothing.

By this I mean, the indie publisher might persuade you to sign on the dotted line by dangling promises before your eyes like, "superior marketing," "a 50% ebook royalty," and even "manipulation of the Amazon algorithm system." But these are false promises delivered by shady characters who are looking for one thing and one thing only: to make a buck off of your hard work. The reality is more like this: these indie publishers will get you to sign their contracts knowing full well that they will (and I bullet here for your reading convenience) ...
--Skip out on the editing (or hire interns for no pay who are entirely incompetent)
--Make no cash investment in marketing (they will expect the author to do this...)
--Manipulate the pricing of your book entirely to suit themselves
--When your book doesn't sell, they will quickly lose interest and move on to the next victim
--And this is the big one: if your book goes on to sell very well despite the odds, they will lock up your rights forever and ever, or gladly return them to you say, in exchange for a couple hundred grand. Or, if the book is being picked up by a major, demand half your advance money plus an on-going percentage. Highway robbery? You betcha...




So what should you look for in an independent publisher?
--First thing to ask is this: what are the publisher's terms should you decide to request the rights back to your book, regardless of how it sells. Get the facts of author rights reversion clarified before you even think of signing a contract. To be honest, if you end up signing with a bad indie, it's really your own fault. I blame myself for past mistakes.
--Are the publisher royalty rates competitive?
--Ask about editing. Who are the publisher's editors and what are their credentials? Read one or two of the novels on their list and scrutinize them for mistakes.
--Talk to other authors who are publishing with the house. Do you recognize any of the names?
--Do some of the top agents work with the publisher?
--Does the publisher attend events like Bouchercon and Thrillerfest?
--Is the publisher willing to put serious cash and effort into marketing? Marketing that enhances your own efforts? Ask about a marketing plan.
--Is the publisher in fact, a wanna-be writer himself? If so, this could actually be a conflict of interests since the would-be author will always take care of himself first and foremost. I know of several indie imprints being run by established authors. Some are well run establishments. Others are traps designed to lock up your rights.
--Has the publisher experienced a mass exodus of writers who feel they've been lied to or even shafted? Do writers sign with the publisher only to realize they've been snared into said trap, and then fight to get the hell out? 

There are of course other things you will need to watch out for, like detailed royalty reports for instance. Anything less is criminal and reeks of underhandedness. Demand a sample royalty report upfront prior to signing.

Bottom line is this: If you're going to publish with an indie publisher, make certain they are as reputable as one of the big publishers. Your best bet is to engage in the publishing process via a reputable agent. Don't make the mistakes I've made by entering into some of these agreements casually, only to have been burned in the end. Again, I have myself and only myself to blame. In a word, don't drink the Kool-Aid. Better to start your own indie publishing business which publishes your own books exclusively than to give away your rights and profits to a used car salesman posing as a saint.

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End of the Road...

...or is it just the start?

A month on the global road:
--16,860 miles traveled by air, including a perfect circle around the globe, heading on an east-bound course the entire way (NYC to NYC) 
--Seven flights
--Six countries, three continents
--At least four different time zones (I've lost count)
--Temperatures ranging from 45F to 115F
--Modes of transportation: Airliner, boat, rickshaw, tuck tuck, tram, train, 4x4, car, van, elephant
--Food: vegetarian, seafood, mutton, beef

--Average amount of sleep per night: 4-5 hours
--Number of currencies: Four
--Terrorist attacks while en route to Dehli: two (both by Maoist Rebels aimed at the railroads. Total dead and injured: 100+)
--Top memories: The burning of the dead in Lumbini. The cleansing of the body in Varanasi, the giant orange swastika a holy backdrop. Monsoon rain and winds pummeling our little boat on the upper Ganges, and a human skull lying jaw up on the banks where we anchored and held onto our ratted rooftop tarp for dear life. Swimming downstream in the Ganges, nearly drowning when we hit a stretch of water so deep, the clear-over-gravel-color river turned to blue. The overnight train to Agra, sleeping beside dozens of Indians, young and old. The woman who rushed the train on a stop from Occha to Agra, slipping between the car and the platform, her right leg cut off just below the knee as the train pulled out of the station. Touching, for the first time, an elephant's ear, its smooth almost silky texture taking me by complete surprise. The nervousness of a rhino cooling itself with mud only a few feet away from where I stood in the back of the 4x4 ...

Next stop...who knows.

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A Dangerous Place

The train is late leaving Orchha.
Hordes of people wait in the station looking to get somewhere else. Ceiling fans mounted to platform shelters attempt to cool the stifling air but manage only to push it around. Air that makes your clothing stick to your body even at six thirty in the morning. The flies are relentless, as is the smell of stale urine and rotting garbage.

The train that will take us to Agra is late. But when it arrives, it's a mad rush to get on and to get off. People's very lives seem to depend upon this crucial transfer from ticket holder to train passenger, from passenger to the newly arrived.

I squeeze into a car marked B-1 represented in the white hand painted script of several languages. I step over suitcases, bags of onions and potatoes, sleeping children, and bodies everywhere. Someone is sleeping on my seat. An old man. He sees me coming, gets the gist of what's happening and gets up. He leaves, never to be seen again.

I set down my bags, pull my hat over my eyes, fall asleep.

An hour later, the train arrives in another station. It's the same deal. Masses of people waiting for the train. Men dressed in loose, bland colored clothing and sandals. Women dressed in colorful sarees, their rich black hair protected with thin veils, their black gem stone eyes accentuated by the blood red mark placed between them in the same manner as Catholic ashes.

The train whistle blows. Not everyone has boarded the train yet. I'm staring out the window when my eyes lock onto a woman who is beginning to panic. She's also dressed in a colorful saree and a veil. She's waving her hands in the air as if this gesture will make the conductor stop the train just for her. But instead the train begins to move. She runs for the still open door, but falls off the platform onto the tracks. The train doesn't buck or make even the slightest of odd movements or sounds when it cuts her left leg off. There are only the screams and shouts of the witnesses on the hot platform. The train stops. The woman is pulled up off of the tracks, her stump bleeding, the amputated leg left behind.
 
My fixer and I rush outside to see what we can do. But of course we can do nothing. Those who attempt to help the woman run the risk of making the situation worse, and even facing an inquiry of the law should that happen. The woman lies on her back, her hands raised over her head. No one does anything to help her. Her blood stains the hot platform. Soon it will attract the flies.

My fixer turns to me.
"There is a hospital here," he says. "Nearby. But it will take a long time for them to get here."
He shakes his head sadly, and turns.
I follow him back into our car.
As we sit back down, he turns to me once more.
"After the train leaves the station," he says, "they will retrieve her leg."

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