Last night I finished the first draft of Earthly Things, the first novel I’ve written as Julian Vaughn. I am so excited about this story. Like The Lesser People (which I wrote as Thomas Morgan) it’s a meaningful, beautiful, tragic story full of humanness. I’ve got to start editing it today so I can send it to my pre-readers by April 1st. Can’t wait to hear what they think of it and the feedback they offer. Then I’ll work in their feedback so I can see what Chip MacGregor thinks of it. I’m so excited about it.
You can also buy Gossamer for your Kindle or snag it on other formats at Smashwords. Buy, read it, think about what it all means. Tell your friends who enjoy dark fiction.
Here’s the cover and a quick synopsis:
An ancient witch, Dorothy Good, has lost everything to the vampire who has blown in on the hot desert wind and lain waste to her soul and her town. When a young family arrives at the end of a two week battle, she sees a chance to end the bloodshed and possibly regain a portion of what was stolen.
But they’re heavily outnumbered and night is falling…
Currently reading James Lee Burke’s Cadillac Jukebox. He’s amazing. And fellow Dark Fiction writer Brett J. Talley has sent me a copy of Limbus Inc., which I look forward to checking out this next week! Thanks Brett!
I’m also super pumped about Bouchercon. Last year I met John Connolly, Michael Connelly, Michael Koryta, Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip), Les Edgerton, and a number of other wonder book lovers there. And this year my best writing buddy Shaun Ryan is going with me! We’re going to tear it up, and learn a lot, and make memories that we can look back on with great fondness later in life.
Anyway, time to knock out some editing on Earthly Things. Go make your dreams a reality.
I went on a little book spending spree since there are a bunch I want to read over the next few months. I might not be online much.
1. Books 3-16 of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series
2. Shock Totem #6 (issues for the giveaway and for me and my pre-readers)
3. The Drop by Michael Connelly (Reading now)
4. The Affair by Lee Child (Read yesterday, my favorite Reacher so far)
5. Mystery; In the Night Room; and The Throat by Peter Straub
6. Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
7. The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
8. The Wrath of Angels by John Connolly
9. That Which Should Not Be by Brett Talley
10. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
11. The End of Everything by Megan Abbott
12. The Cyrpress House by Michael Koryta
13. Winners copies of A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
And I have a bunch of books lined up to buy my next go round once I finish all of these and what I have in my TBR mountain. It’s going to be an awesome year!
Well, it’s almost the end of 2012 and I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what an incredible year it’s been. I may post this early. I will just post it today. Frees up the rest of my year to just read, write and spend time with family. I’ll add any big developments before New Years. There are probably a bunch of things I’m forgetting.
Last summer/fall, when my first novel (Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children) and first novella (Iron Butterflies Rust) came out, was a very surreal time. I had been striving to learn how to write well enough to sell my work for almost a decade. It was a relief to sign the contracts, to get my author copies in the mail and see them, to mail copies to my readers, to dedicate the books, to get some feedback and strive to learn more.
This year has been even better. I had a ton of work come out.
But it’s funny how we can roar but still feel like we aren’t doing enough. When I was talking to my buddy Shaun Ryan, which I do so much you’d think we were married, I remembered that I always feared dying young. Like I’d never make it to forty. I think it’s been in my subconscious, spurring me on to write every story taking up space in my heart as quickly as I can before the worms claim me, before the cold, damp earth is my pillow. I do want to leave something behind whether I die prematurely or whether I live as long as Ray Bradbury did. Something of substance, that has meaning for somebody other than myself. I don’t think it’s a lofty goal. I think all true artists, whether they’re successful or not, want to connect with other people and share the beautiful things they’ve seen, and the tragic times that have scarred them, and how the world has shaped them. As writers, or painters, or musicians we hold a mirror up to ourselves and the time we live in, and it’s not easy. We’re a very quiet voice that can easily be lost in a lot of white noise. But I see how important it is to try and keep trying. I’ve gained some wonderful fans. They might not know it but they know me through my work.
My buddy Peter Schwotzer, of Literary Mayhem and Famous Monsters of Filmland, designed a fantastic website for the Division Mythos. Thanks so much, Peter!
Narrator Matthew Stevens recorded my first audio bookNURSERY RHYMES 4 DEAD CHILDREN. We’ll also be working on the audio for the sequel THE DAMPNESS OF MOURNING after New Years.
I also had a local paper interview me, which was neat. Thanks to reporter Bill Petzold! That was a lot of fun and I found I enjoy being interviewed much more than I ever thought I would.
Some other highlights this year were meeting John Connolly, Lee Child, Michael Sears, Stanley Trollip, Les Edgerton, Michael Connelly, Michael Koryta and Sabrina Callahan at Bouchercon (The World Mystery Convention.) I don’t know that I would be the writer, or even person, I am, if not for the books my heroes have written.
Me and my hero John Connolly
Me and the awesome Lee Child
Some of my heroes (Tom Piccirilli, Jack Ketchum, Brian Hodge, Robert Dunbar) read my work in 2012 and gave me blurbs. Having your heroes read something of yours is one of the greatest feelings there is. It’s fireworks in your head and a sudden jolt to your heart. It’s quite dreamy.
Reviews, which I never get very many of, have really taken off this year. Especially on Goodreads, which is one of my favorite sites. I get to talk to fans on there, too, which has been wonderful. And one of the groups (Horror Aficionados) has invited me to be the guest author for January 2013. They’ll be reading my brutal novella WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL and we’ll all discuss it. Very neat, yeah? Thanks to Jason and Tressa for the opportunity!
Sales grow as my audience grows. Thanks so much to everybody who has been buying the work and spreading the word about it! Word of mouth is vital. It helps me when I feel like I can’t write worth shit and then I find a stranger who enjoyed something I wrote, which leads to me finding my balance again. To remember that, yes, I’m writing for me, but I’m also writing to connect with other people. It’s weird, but it’s good.
New novels… I wrote three novels this year (The Collected Songs of Sonnelion, The Lesser People, and The Wolverine) and got halfway through a fourth (Gossamer). I have ideas for the next ten books that will range between 70-90,000 words. All I have to do is write them. Easy. My goal is to write four novels a year. I tell myself to take it easy, don’t work so much, but it’s part of my nature. I am an obsessive and the work gives me purpose that life would be too depressing without sometimes.
I signed a three-book deal with Darkfuse/Delirium Books in December. I’m very excited about it since Shane Staley has been awesome to work with and he publishes what he believes in. I’m writing and turning in a standalone novel every March, which works out great too because I have a ton of novel ideas and nothing for novellas or short stories lately.
Since I am quite prolific when it comes to novels, and I write more than just Dark Fantasy, I’ve decided to use several pseudonyms. I’ll keep the Dark Fantasy under my name. Have the name Thomas Morgan for Heartbreaking Coming of Age tales with a Historical Thriller slant; James Logan for suspense fiction that is very tightly plotted but has more hopeful endings than all my other work; Julian Vaughn for novels that are more big-concept with a lot of heart/more touching than horrific.
I had a writer I met at the World Mystery Convention (Les Edgerton) refer me to his agent for the pen-named work after he read WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL. That was really nice of him and whether it works out or not, him trying to help me counts for a lot. I’m really not worried about it since all of my worry is that the books are what I want them to be.
I got to interview a bunch of my favorite writers here. They are amazing.
I sold a couple of short stories. The River to my favorite mag Shock Totem. It will be in issue #6 along with Jack Ketchum and interview with me! And The Most Mysterious Silence sold to Nameless Magazine, owned by Jason V. Brock who made a great documentary about Charles Beaumont.
Not the Final Cover
Tuesday’s Training, my weekly writing advice essays for novice writers, has been a lot of fun. I know it’s helped a few people. That’s nice. I had help too: from things I’ve read, questions I asked answered by people far busier and far more experienced than I am, and help just through the encouragement that comes in something as simple as a smile.
Thanks to the publishers who have put their faith in me, the writers who encourage me, the pre-readers who help so much by offering feedback I can’t come up with on my own, the fans who help pay my bills and continue to come back for more of my work. 2013 is going to be an even more incredible year, which is really hard to fathom. But it will be. What a life. Thanks for helping me live my dream! Now go buy all my books for your friends for Christmas!
First off, there is no competition between showing and telling so get that out of your head. Both are required, in their place, and work together to push the story toward the climax and payoff. I remember when I first joined some writers’ groups (Editred and then Zoetrope) and these are good places but nearly everybody would do critiques that can be summed up with “Show, don’t tell.” It’s very misleading, and it creates very thin work. After I began studying what my heroes did and I started learning how to use showing and telling together is when I also started selling work professionally. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It’s too easy to buy into rules like “Show, don’t tell!” because we desperately want to believe that if we follow the rules then somebody will buy our work. So we only show, we never open with weather, we always write in active voice, all that crazy shit. Anytime somebody gives you a bunch of absolutes–Always, Never, Everybody, etc.–run away. Or better yet, see what your heroes have done. Figure out why they did it and why it works.
Mastering when to show and when to tell (and how to blend them) are essential in drawing the reader into your story. There are dangers with both, even though writers have it pounded into their heads to “Show! Show! Show!” I say bullshit. Showing can be done very badly. Telling can be done and connect with readers quickly. Telling can prepare the reader and most of all make the characters and their actions understandable. You read Stephen King, Clive Barker, James Lee Burke, John Connolly, Lee Child, William Faulkner, Tom Piccirilli, Jack Ketchum, Dennis Lehane, etc., and pay attention to how often they’re ‘telling.’ It’s a lot. And there are reasons they tell when they do instead of showing. It’s an essential and basic part of great storytelling. Learn how and when it’s right for you personally to use both of them. Know why you’re showing, know why you’re telling. Just remember this, it’s a key: Whether showing or telling, it must be interesting, it must have movement and advance the story and/or show character.
Think about some of your all-time favorite books, the ones that inspire you to write something so moving and entertaining and grand. Study them. Seriously, take them apart and see why things work, where they work, how they work.
I’ll list what I believe to be some of the dangers and benefits of both showing and telling that novice writers face. I’ll give examples, too, so you can see what I mean, though some of this will be a bit tongue-in-cheek.
Dangers of Showing:
#1- The novice writer can easily write scenes that show nothing happening (no emotional turmoil, no physical challenge, no doubt or anticipation)
Example:
(Showing only)
Bright sunlight hurt her eyes as she carried flowers to her husband’s grave. She knelt and set them near the headstone. Tears wet her cheeks. She read his name and the date of his death.
(Showing and telling)
She dreaded taking flowers to his grave because it reminded her of all the times her husband had bought her roses. Bright sunlight hurt her eyes as she wandered from the car and over the lawn, the wrapping soft and crinkling beneath her fingers the way the letters he used to writer her had. She knelt and leaned them against the headstone. He’d been gone a year and she thought it was supposed to get easier. Tears wet her cheeks but she ignored them, reading his name, the date of his death–July 4th, 2011– and slowly, her neck and heart aching, she glanced at the empty plot next to his. They’d had no children, and she feared the day she’d take place next to him, for there would be no one to bring either of them anything.
#2- It’s easy for a novice to write scenes that play out well in their head, but do not play out the same way in the readers because the telling details aren’t there (how the character feels about the setting, themselves, those involved in the situation, etc.) I won’t take the time to write a whole scene showing examples because I have a novel to work on as soon as I finish this post.
#3- The novice writer can easily present back story through character dialogue, which comes across forced and unrealistic.
Example:
Derrick popped the top on his beer and placed his feet on the coffee table. “I’m really glad you’re finally divorcing that bitch. You put up with her cheating, lying, stealing ass for way too long. Like five years. You guys met in Vegas, so I guess it figures. Your parents were so mad that you married a stripper. A midget one at that! If they hadn’t disowned you you’d have been in their will though and shared the inheritance with your brother. Instead you’re drinking beer in the morning with a guy with little ambition or interest in anything other than internet porn. I’m starting my own company though and if I ever get rich, you’ll be rich too. The bitch and her boyfriend can suck it, then, right? Blah, blah, blah.”
It could go on and on, unfocused, instead of hitting the points that matter most for the story.
#4- A writer may show something graphic, overdone, overwrought, for showing’s sake and never follow up with how it affects the character emotionally and intellectually. If you have a chapter where something incredible or hardcore happens it’s good to follow it up with the character dealing with it, or trying not to deal with it. If the reader is invested in the character and story they care even more after seeing the protagonist struggle to restore balance.
#5- For a novice it’s easy to be vague when showing instead of being specific.
Look at Example #1.
Benefits of Showing:
#1- Creates suspense by visually showing your protagonist physically/emotionally in jeopardy.
#2- Transports the reader into the action via sensory details: Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight, Sound.
#3- It’s engaging if it’s raising the stakes and showing the character making a choice, followed by setbacks and more choices and higher stakes.
Dangers of Telling:
#1- Loss of suspense… It’s easy to fall into telling too much (though you can also show too much if it’s not something that moves the story and characters forward).
#2- Preaching your beliefs. You feel very strongly about something and you have your character preaching about it from beginning to end instead of growing. Easy mistake to make.
#3- It’s easy to summarize instead of letting important moments play out.
Benefits of Telling:
#1- Increases anticipation since telling serves setting things up well and the reader can visualize the showing portions to get to the payoff of each scene.
#2- Transports the reader into the story via descriptive details: setting, back story, secrets, etc.
#3- Works with showing to establish who your character is, how he feels about those around him, and why he makes the choices he makes.
#4- Helps you speed past the boring crap which improves pacing.
Don’t be afraid of telling or showing. Study the professionals and see how they apply each to draw you in and hold you to the end. For more of my thoughts on writing go here.
And watch this video of Lee Child at The Center for Fiction. Good stuff.
“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.” ― Ernest Hemingway
A lot of beginning writers worry about finding their voice. They spend money on courses and exert an incredible amount of energy thinking about it. I think it is within us from the beginning. It’s not hiding at all. Our voice is our experience, our biases, our pains, our joys, our passions, the themes of our own lives. We just need to learn and practice our craft so the expression and execution of those things that are ours and of us come across as powerfully as possible.
I believe, at least in my own case, that there is a duality that has to be acknowledged and embraced. My duality is a deep-seated wonder of life and people in contrast to the other side of my nature which is hip-deep in melancholy. I can write with authority in a certain area because I know them, feel them, and they’re of my essence.
I believe favorite writers–like Dennis Lehane, Stephen King, John Connolly, William Faulkner, Hemingway, Michael Connelly–all have a unique voice. Their writing is an extension of them is my bet.
You want to discover your voice? Know thyself. Your voice comes from honesty, reflection, acknowledgment, craft and confidence.
What holds people back from letting their voice out? Fear is probably number one. We don’t want people to hear what resonates in our hearts, what makes us us, and not accept it, or worse, make fun of it/judge it, and in turn judge us. But that’s part of connecting, and we can’t please everybody, so write from your deepest self. I get it, our egos our fragile. Yet I believe that if we’re spending a ton of energy protecting who we really are then we’re NOT expressing who we really are.
Know thyself.
It’s also fun to explore the things we squirm away from. The ‘hot buttons’ for us. I think it’s a quick way to challenge ourselves, by creating a character who shares an opposing core belief different from one of our own, and instead of showing the reader how the character is wrong, let the character show why he’s right from his perspective. It’s an important skill learned to grow as a person and a writer. To gain new perspective and tear down the walls we build to protect ourselves from the world.
What do you really want to write, more than anything else in the world? What story are you scared to tell because you’re afraid of what those around you might think of you?
What do you think you need to become a great writer that you lack now? Once you can identify it, you can learn it. You can learn what is important to say and what is wasted breath. You learn what you fear is not insurmountable, even if every fiber of your being cries out that you can’t do it, or think it, or say it. You learn to understand yourself, the good and the horrible. And you learn to understand other people and show their lives honestly, beauty and blemish.
Everything you need voice-wise is already intact. You just have to trust yourself. Refine it. Learn how to express yourself masterly. Expect that not only will you discover the voice already inside you, but it will morph as you experience more, assimilate it, reflect upon it, and share it.
For more writing advice visit this page. If you find any of it helpful, share it with someone else.
Rocking on this Crime novel THE WOLVERINE that I intend to sell under the pen name James Logan. It’s a dark and complexly layered Thriller. Here’s a simple teaser:
A Texas Senator’s teenager is brutally murdered on shamed ex-Governor Edward Wood’s lawn. The Senator and his wife are missing. Eddie Wood claims he saw a man with scars on the backs of his hands beyond the kid as he stumbled onto his property and died from his wounds.
Eddie’s drug dealing son, Sammy, suspects his father of the crime since his old man has snapped once before on a seemingly normal sunny day, when he beat his wife with a lead pipe and crippled her before coming back to his senses.
Sammy searches for the truth in direct opposition of a Corpus Christi detective, risking exposure of his budding criminal empire, and totally unprepared for what he’s about to find.
One
He said he noticed the tall guy in the black rain slicker and wide-brimmed hat first.
Then he noticed the teenage boy between them covered in blood.
My old man swore this is what he noticed first, but I had a hard time believing him because he’d had history tormenting this kid, and there was the day he’d snapped and beat my mother into a coma, not to mention my father had made a career based on lying.
The day the boy and the stranger made their grand appearance it’d been raining all morning, the quiet street close to the bay lost beneath the drumming of nearby thunder, the quick etch of lightning across car windshields, these cars more upscale than most, parked in front of the fancy houses lining the cul-de-sac. It was a peaceful street in a town on the southeast Texas coastline, not far from Corpus Christi. My father had watched men and women go about their business, fretting over things that didn’t amount to more than strands of plastic, polished steel, fake tits and even faker smiles. Once he’d been one of them, the great Edward Woods, but after a nervous breakdown, he beat our mother with a lead pipe, cracked her skull. She was in the coma for a week and the neurosurgeon said her chances of ever walking again were slim. After that I was done with him, and our mom left us all, as if even seeing the children she bore with her husband and attacker was too much to handle. Our father gave his resignation as governor before they could fire him.
After his resignation he seemed quiet and peaceful again for the most part, but every once in a while, for what appeared no reason at all, he’d tormented some of the neighboring children by making his big Shepherd, Grendel, chase them down the road.
What a bad joke.
But he’d learned that someone seriously bleeding wasn’t a joke. Whether it was strangers in a bar fight, some brothers dishing each other pain, or friends cutting each other over some girl who wouldn’t be there for either of them in a year, blood wasn’t stingy.
Blood came like rain, sometimes a trickle, other times a cascade.
He didn’t know why the kid was bleeding, though it was easy to give into speculation, the way the world fed on its own dark center, lost in some numbing agent or another to tide them over until things got better, and deals made in those trades along the coast—drugs, booze, prostitution, gambling, arms dealing—sometimes went wrong.
The teenager stumbled forward into his yard, looking at nothing, his face slack. He was seventeen, the same age as my little sister Delilah. My father sat there on the porch with Grendel.
The kid, Shaun Garrett, had one hand raised toward my father, a gash in his forehead leaking fluid in his eyes. He said, loudly, “Anna?”
The man in the slicker paused at the end of the block, his face a pale mask beneath the hat, the only thing remarkable about him sticking out sharply in contrast to the gloom. My father remembered thinking he thought the stranger had thick white scars running from his knuckles up to where his jacket covered his wrists.
For some reason those scars frightened him, reminded him of something painful from childhood that he’d thought he’d hidden away for good.
The boy slowly assessed where he was, the condition he was in, and that there was help waiting for him on the porch. He tried to take a step forward, tripped over his own feet, and landed heavily in wet grass, a geyser of water splashing in front of his face like a load of buckshot.
He tried to rise, a few dozen holes in his pants and tee-shirt showing all the red ravaged flesh beneath. He slipped again on his hands and knees. He shook his head, trying to get his bearings. Some people think that’s the beauty of violence; that it leaves you so shaken, so essentially you, that the act committed strips you of your masks and leaves you stark naked, and defenseless, and wholly you.
The stranger, as much as he hated seeing his quarry escape for a moment, didn’t make a move. He just watched with the rain dripping from the brim of that hat. My father couldn’t see his face clearly. He didn’t want to. For years, other than the children who had learned to avoid him, Eddie Woods had done his best to avoid eye contact with anybody.
His hand was a foot from his cell phone. It lay on the small table where his tall boy of Labatts rested. He stared at it dumbly for a second before casting his gaze back across the lawn.
The kid sobbed and rolled onto his back, let the rain pummel him.
The three of them held their positions a moment longer.
My father thought he heard the roar of the tide close by, even though he lived a mile from shore, as the stranger turned his back to them and wandered up the street from the direction he and Shaun Garrett had come. The drizzle swallowed his form. My father blinked. He looked at the boy in the grass. His fingers brushed the phone and he was dialing before he realized what he was doing. Grendel tramped into the soggy turf and approached the boy.
My dad’s chest hurt, he thought he may have a heartattack. He spoke numbly into his cell once the 911 operator answered. He gave her the necessary information and explained what he’d seen. Wiping his eyes, he sighed deeply, and said, “Yes,” though he had no idea what he was saying it in response to.
In his yard, Grendel whined and nudged the motionless Senator’s son with his muzzle.
Two
The detective’s name was Jim Thompson. He looked like a fire hydrant with a thick trunk, a low center of gravity, short arms and a shot of bright red hair. He didn’t like me and I tolerated him, but he had a lot of respect for my father and seemed friendly with my brother Andy who worked for the local paper. Jim questioned my father while the forensic team worked over the boy’s corpse, it firmly planted in his mind that the great Edward Woods had fallen far and fallen fast, yet still retained something that most people just didn’t have.
Too bad he was the only one who could see it.
My father sipped his beer, a deep chill running through him after Jim said, “You know whose son that was, correct, sir?”
My father nodded, once, slowly. He said, “Marcus Garrett’s son.”
Mr. Garrett was Texas’s senator, a big jolly man who claimed it his God-given calling to clean our state’s streets of all the things that stained them. He’d grown up poor on the streets of Dallas and worked hard to get ahead and establish a legacy his children and grandchildren could be proud of and adhere to. Under the first year of his term, things began to change on the street, which was an unexpected occurrence and one I wasn’t particularly fond of since it cut into my business. But it proved beneficial because most of the criminals in prison are the dumb ones, or those who act on a whim, or those with no long term plan. I wasn’t brilliant but I wasn’t retarded either. I had things firmly established, a great product that not just any jackass could get their hands on, and if a situation arose that required drastic actions I’d sleep on it—sometimes for a couple nights so I could move with a clear head and an iron-clad alibi.
At first I, like my father and brother, thought all of Senator Garrett’s hyperbole was a political move, just another blowhard with no backbone. But old Mr. Garrett was just as fervent in action as he was in his speeches to the communities he visited. He was a man who caused ripples. Some people don’t like ripples, which is probably why Detective Thompson said, “We can’t find them, sir.”
“What?” my father said. “Who?”
“Mr. Garrett and his wife.” He leaned forward, said, “Do you have any idea of their whereabouts?”
My father, Eddie, stared at the Jim’s shoes. They were black with thick rubber soles that gave him an inch or two of extra height. “No, I haven’t got a clue.”
The rain let up and the air grew humid. A stray spray of rain stabbed a puddle in the road. The detective sat on the top porch step. He said, “Why did their son run into your yard, sir?”
“I have no idea what the kid was thinking,” my father said.
“And your daughter,” Jim said, looking at his notepad. “Delilah? She knew him well, didn’t she?”
Eddie swallowed hard. He took a long slug and set the empty can down. He went inside the house to retrieve a new can. Detective Thompson turned and sighed, placing his back to the porch support and leaned hard into it. He’d had some suspicions but knew he had to keep them in check and let the evidence lead him toward what happened here. To most people he’d tell them that he hated cases like this, ones involving murder, but secretly they were his favorites. Cases like this were the only time he slept well at night. It fed his belief that his job was making a difference. He believed that if there was any justice in the world it was that everybody’s humanity was laid bare beneath the harsh light of tragedy. He and the stranger had that belief in common. And I had to agree with them. You didn’t know somebody well when all you saw was their happy-go-lucky side. You had to see them broken and so broken they were unashamed and unguarded. That’s who they really were.
Jim smiled a little, feeling guilty for it. He wasn’t sure if Eddie was coming back out, which didn’t bother him too much, he’d gotten most of the information he needed, though he thought the old man was holding some things back. Then again, everybody held some information back. He ascribed the need to keep secrets as a basic human function. Hell, he still did it with his wife, sometimes to protect her, sometimes just because he didn’t think it was any of her business. And he was certain she did it to him, just like they both did with their parents, telling them they were as happy as they’d ever been and never broaching the defeat they felt since finding out they couldn’t have children.
Children and parents, he thought. What a strange dynamic.
He wondered where the senator and his wife had gotten off to, it still too early for him to expect anything suspicious regarding their whereabouts since the patrolmen he’d sent to their house down the street reported it undisturbed.
He scratched his head, wondering where the kid had come from then, rolling with a theory that he’d been abducted for ransom, escaped, and suffered the consequences of escaping. Sometimes all it took to fuck you up was bad timing, or not enough endurance.
He glanced at the team working over the body, catching glimpses of the corpse they knelt before. The kid was chewed up. Looked like somebody had used a meat grinder on his legs, arms and torso. It tainted the puddle of water he lay in pink. Upon first arriving and seeing Grendel with his bloody snout, Jim had feared the dog finally went and did it after the last few years of Eddie encouraging him to attack the kids who lived down this way—which he never understood in the first place since the old governor was one of them, even if two of his three kids didn’t have respectable jobs—and he thought that maybe Eddie hadn’t been able to stop the mutt once the leash slipped from his hand. But the forensics team concluded that the punctures weren’t caused by a dog, and Grendel had been sitting there next to Shaun Garrett, whining, his teeth clean. It seemed good natured. A kind of dog he’d always wanted. It crossed his mind to take it with him when he left until he realized how stupid that sounded, thinking that a moment later if nothing else it’d at least bring a glimmer of the old Edward Woods back.
Jim rubbed his head then stood. He tried to peer through the screen door and into the darkened interior of the house. He wondered what keepsakes the old man had on the mantel from his glory days as governor. He wondered how my dad slept at all when he had a son—me—who lived a life he didn’t approve of, and he had a daughter who ran the fringe as well. He thought Andy was probably the saving grace and had been the only one to inherit Eddie’s better traits: balance, honesty, fairness.
I wouldn’t have argued with him. I never claimed to be a good guy and I knew my sister was always one step away from lock-up because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut or her hands off what didn’t belong to her. And that was partly my fault and partly my parents.
Three
The day the stranger with the scarred hands turned his back on my father and Shaun Garrett, Delilah was smoking weed in a small apartment overlooking main street, perched on the corner of a mattress in a bedroom full of stolen goods. She was built like a gymnast with dark eyes and pale skin. Pretty much everybody who met her loved her. She drifted off into a netherwhere from time to time when she was alone, like now, as she moved into the living room and reclined on the sofa, knowing that Shaun would be back soon with what she wanted from his dad’s house, and then they could celebrate.
Delilah usually attracted the wrong kind of people, and by people I mean men. She didn’t live in one of those fairy tales where she thought she could take some ex-con and mold him like clay, her deft fingers shaping him into what she thought he could be instead of what he really was. She went for the good boys instead and chose to corrupt them.
She’d known Shaun Garrett since they were children. They’d gone through private school together until Dad had his breakdown and she ran away. Garrett watched her from afar, crushing hard and then harder as the years passed and they’d matured. It’d taken her running away at fourteen for Shaun to go looking for her. At first he’d went to Andy, who our sister never much liked—her always believing him a people pleaser—but our brother didn’t know where she was or he would have told our father, not that he claimed to care since seeing or talking to her reminded him of conversations he’d shared with our mother. After discovering from Andy that I was the closer brother to Delilah, Shaun came looking for me. He found me, but on a bad day, and he got lippy, the kid frustrated that nobody seemed to care about my sister’s welfare or his puppy love. He demanded I tell him where she was hiding, and if he didn’t have a valiant stead and a Knight’s armor, I’d imagined he did. Something about his attitude got to me and I hurt him a little, needing somewhere to direct my anger with my father even though in many ways I was just like him.
I punched Shaun hard enough to make him bleed but soft enough that he could try and fight back.
It went on for twenty minutes.
The whole time his face shifted from my father’s to his father, never either of them for more than a few seconds. My partner, Levi, he said nothing, just watched with sad eyes as if I’d disappointed him. After it was over, after I went and found Delilah and ran her to meet the kid at a café downtown, I told Shaun if he let her hurt him it’d teach him an important lesson. Delilah smiled, sitting across from him, because she saw what I did, this helpless, spoiled brat who didn’t know what he was stepping into by opening up his heart.
He’d kept up appearances with his parents but disappeared nightly to join Delilah in some scheme or another, both of them thinking the beliefs of the young—that they’re eternal, indestructible, and wise.
Shaun hadn’t been eternal, indestructible or wise enough to avoid overdosing once. Delilah had left him in a stinky basement to die if the other people there couldn’t get him help. Luckily for him one of the girls still had enough wits about her to dial 911 and scram. But he went back for Delilah after his father disowned him and his mother sent him to rehab. A few months later he took the fall when Delilah fumbled a burglary. And he came back after a ninety-day stint inside the Wargrove Correctional Facility, a little more cautious around everybody except my sister.
Our father heard about it all through Andy. The two of them were concerned that she was headed for a hard road, unable to accept that she’d been on it for the last couple years, and it was a road that she chose to travel willingly, much like I chose to do what I did despite having other dreams, and they did what they did because it was what came natural, or caused the least amount of discord in their lives.
Don’t rock the boat… Eddie Woods had lived by that until he couldn’t anymore and just gave up because giving up was easier than caring or being responsible for your choices. It’s hard to respect your father when he goes from an employed shit bag to an unemployed one. I’ve never trusted people who spout common catchphrases as if they hold some incredible philosophical meaning. Life isn’t even that complicated. You live and you die. So does everybody you love, and thankfully, everybody you hate.
I can’t say that I hated my sister, but I can’t say that I loved her either. She was talented in what she liked to do, but selfish. I didn’t trust her, even though, in a way, I watched for a glimmer of some kind of goodness she kept suppressed to protect herself.
Even back when Dad was governor, and we’d spent a bunch of time dressed up at a party with his constituencies, I’d find myself bored out of my skull, while Andy smiled and made conversation with those boring, rich assholes, and Delilah teased many of them, saying, “It’s funny how unaware people are that sociopaths are some of the most charming people in the world.”
And those people would laugh and nod, imagining that somehow they could win her affection or acceptance.She had a throaty voice for her size, and when she wasn’t staring directly at you, she was playing at the innocent little girl who needed a knight. So many suckers fall for that. Among them lot of old men in powerful places who enjoy the flesh of an underage girl, especially the daughter of a man they pretended to like but secretly despised, or envied, or simply yielded to.
And Delilah loved every second of seeing their hidden faces, all the desires they kept in check against close scrutiny in their political circles. But she’d always find one, like Shaun Garrett’s father, who her charms didn’t work on, which only made her want to disprove their honor even more. In a way I used to enjoy watching her trap them, but it grew tiresome, just more logs she was tossing on an already out of control fire.
She shifted on the couch that morning, the television’s volume low enough that she could hear car tires squealing and someone yelling down the street. When the news showed our father’s house surrounded by cruisers, their lights flashing, a strange feeling ran through her, soft and quiet at first, but quickly growing in volume and intensity.
She reached for the phone blindly and pressed it tight to her thin, hard stomach. The television showed our father’s house from a different angle as the cameraman shifted, following the reporter, showing at first a smidgen of Edward Wood’s front porch, the end of a scuffed black shoe, then the camera jerked up and she saw our father sitting with a detective. One was in his prime, clean cut, clean. The other, the old man, was wrinkled, shoddy, hunched. He had dark circles beneath his eyes and a can of beer resting in his lap.
Delilah squeezed the phone, felt a tear slip down her cheek, and lowered her head before letting out a long breath. When she looked up again the camera was on the lawn and a group of men discussing something at their feet. One of them shook his head, scratched some notes, while another looked directly at the camera and asked a policeman at the crime-scene tape to get the reporter out of there. The patrolman shrugged then told the reporter to back up.
Delilah waited for the camera to swing back to our father. She waited a long time, long after the report had ended and moved on to other things, before she gathered her senses. She called Andy, plowing through the noise she heard in the background at his office, overriding him as he said, “It’s not a good time, Dee, I—”
“Something happened at Dad’s,” she said.
Hearing grief in her voice, a quality he had come to suspect she lacked, he said, “I don’t have anything on it here. Hold on.”
She was about to tell him that no, she wouldn’t hold on, but decided against as she chewed on a fingernail and stared at the clock hanging between the windows, above the TV. She thought Shaun should have been back an hour ago. A pang of something she’d never call worry bit deep into the pit of her stomach. When Andy came back on the line his voice startled her. He said, “Okay, Dad’s okay, but somebody murdered a kid. You remember Shaun Garrett? The senator’s kid? I don’t have all the details yet but I’ll have them in a bit. I’m going to head over there to talk to him in a few, you’re welcome to ride with me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“He’d be glad to see you, Dee. He might even need you right now. May be he’s needed you for the lp /spanspan style=”font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: ‘Times New Roman’, ‘serif’; color: #000000;”ast couple of years but you’re both too stubborn to apologize to each other.”
“Let me know what you find out,” she said, not wanting to hear him.
She ended the call and set the phone on the arm of the couch and wrapped her arms around herself. She sat that way for about ten minutes before she slapped herself once, the sting hot across her cheek, nestling up beneath her right eye and burrowing into the smile line at the corner of her lips. She jumped up, went into the bathroom and pulled off the back of the toilet. Knowing it could just be the dope fucking with her head, but thinking it better to be safe than sorry, she withdrew a clear plastic bag, half filled with light blue pills, from the water. After she dried it off with a towel she snagged a garbage bag from the kitchen and slid the first bag into it. She knew it’d be a couple of hours before Andy called back and filled her in on what happened.
She thought, Somehow Sammy found out.
With the package tucked beneath her arm she fled the apartment and disappeared in a throng of the people Dad both pitied and hated, allowing the violent sea of flesh and concrete to swallow her.
It’s been a crazy and exciting year so far, and it’s hard to believe that it’s almost over.
Right now I’m working on an interview for @HarperCollins author Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip)who I met at Bouchercon a month ago where they won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original for the third novel in their series. They’re such lovely guys and the Detective Kubu series is so unique. I think the interview will be a lot of fun for everybody.
In the past couple days I’ve knocked out some serious story wordage in a new Thriller novel–The Wolverine. I expect I’ll finish the first draft by the end of the month if life doesn’t throw me too many curve balls. It’s about a dysfunctional family and a complex killer, a book that will explore the bonds of family, forgiveness, death, and maturity. This is another novel that I intend to sell under a pen name to keep separate from my Horror/Dark Fantasy work. It’s a lot of fun writing this book like it was to recently write The Lesser People. I see my career branching off, and like the idea of it, since most of my favorite work is more Literary Crime/Thrillers (think Dennis Lehane, John Connolly, Michael Koryta, Michael Connelly, Lee Child.) I’ll still write under my own name too, because I love Dark Fantasy in the vein of Clive Barker, Joe Hill, Brian Hodge, John Gardner, Jack Cady, Neil Gaiman, Robert Dunbar, Greg Gifune, and Peter Straub. So it’ll be a doubly fun adventure to do both genres under different names.
My latest novella (When We Join Jesus in Hell) from Darkfuse is doing well. If you’ve read it, share it with a friend and leave a review somewhere please. I also picked up two new pre-readers yesterday and look forward to their feedback from a reader’s standpoint to balance my writing buddies that pre-read from a writerly/reader angle.
Some things I’ve found interesting around the web lately…
Shock Totem, my favorite Dark Fantasy magazine, shared a bunch of covers here.
Jane Friedman from Writer’s Digest shared this post on her blog: 2 Critical Factors for Successful Stories. It’s a simple way to stay focused and on track in your story.
I love old blues and thought this was a pretty neat movie: Lead Belly.
Got to meet some more heroes in the Crime/Mystery/Thriller genre today! Meeting John Connolly in person was definitely a huge deal to me since he’s one of my biggest influences, and he’s one of the best writers working in the field today. If you haven’t read The Book of Lost Things, get to it. Then give his Charlie Parker series a try! I can’t wait for the next release! Thanks to Clair Lamb again for everything!
Also met the very interesting Lee Child! He’s a badass. I would have never guessed him to be so soft spoken and reserved, but there you go. What a pleasure. Check out his Jack Reacher series!
Me and the awesome Lee Child
Meeting Karin Slaughter was a lot of fun. She did a great job in a one-on-one with John Connolly (that sounds so perverted, I know. ), and she was terrific on the panel called The Pleasures and Perils of Series Slueths with moderator Dave Magayna, and authors Robin Burcell, Reed Farrel Coleman, Michael Sears, and Ben Coes. Great group of authors sharing their wisdom. I took some notes on that experience that I’ll make a post on for the next Tuesday’s Training about writing a series character. Also talked to Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip in the lobby for a while and they were very nice guys. Look forward to interviewing them in the coming month or two about their work and what it’s like to work as a writing team (something I find fascinating.)
Me and Karin Slaughter
This is one sexy book talking about other sexy books. I have a feeling my TBR pile is going to grow astronomically.
Plus I got some signatures from John Connolly, Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, and Clair Lamb.
Also started reading SO COLD THE RIVER by Michael Koryta and loving it so far. Go check out his work! Thanks to him and Sabrina Callahan for the smiles. That interview between Koryta and Michael Connelly was one of the highlights of the weekend. And it was great talking to Les Edgerton, who is quite the character! Also met Sarah Melnyk from Minatour Books at the bar. She was very cool and made me laugh.
And that’s a wrap. Going to go up there for a bit tomorrow to say goodbye to some people between 9:00 – 10:00 and can’t wait for Bouchercon 2013 in Albany, New York!
Took some random shots of downtown Cleveland, too. Pretty neat city.
Had a short day Friday because I had a horrible toothache (probably from drinking too much the night before. ). But I did make it up to the convention for a bit. I listened to a great interview between Michael Connelly (who has been one of my favorite writers for a long, long time) and the very cool Michael Koryta. They’re both wise and entertaining and if you haven’t checked out their work you better rectify that!
I video taped some of it but learned that next year I’ll invest in a great camera and sit closer so the quality will be a lot better.
Afterwards I snatched a couple hardcovers from the book room and had them signed.
This lady (Sabrina Callahan, from Little, Brown and Company) kept stepping in the way of photos I took, which I found amusing. I wanted to buy her and Michael Koryta a drink but due to the tooth ache ended up going back to the motel and sleeping until it went away. For shame! I’ll see if they’re around this morning (it’s 3:19 am on Saturday morning right now) and see if they want to get some pics together and let me grab them both a drink later today. *Fingers crossed*
Wish I could have stuck around and caught up with Les Edgerton, but I’m sure I’ll see him later today. And I wish I would have been able to stick around for the BOOKS TO DIE for signing, but figure I’ll snag a copy tomorrow and ask Michael Connelly, John Connolly, Lee Child, and some others to sign it when they’re not overwhelmed with attention.
Going to head over there in about five hours to attend the following panels:
9:00-9:50 am- The Pleasures and Perils of Series Sleuths
10:15-11:05 am- Heroes & Villians
11:30-12:20 pm- What a Character
1:30-2:20 pm- Across the Pond
Until then, I’ve got crits to work into my Literary Thriller THE LESSER PEOPLE, and have the galley for my next Darkfuse novella WITHIN THIS GARDEN WEEPING to keep me occupied. Fun! Looking forward to an interesting Saturday!
"10 out of 10 Stars... GOSSAMER: A TALE OF LOVE AND TRAGEDY will blow you away my friends. It is that good." -- Peter Schwotzer/Famous Monsters of Filmland.
"WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL is as crazy as its tormented protagonist. Hard as nails." -- Jack Ketchum, author of The Woman.
"Lee Thompson knows his horror-noir. He fuses both genres together in the turmoil of terror, tragedy, blood, guilt, and lost chances at redemption."--Tom Piccirilli, author of THE LAST KIND WORDS
"The Dampness Of Mourning is taut, tough, and terrifying..." -- Brian Hodge, author of Picking The Bones
“The Dampness of Mourning is a riveting thriller." --Midwest Book Review
"Thompson’s voice is his own — strong, hypnotic, and unsettling--grabs you by the balls and rips them right off, breaking your heart and your psyche in the process.” -- Brian Keene, author of Ghoul, Dark Hollow and The Rising
"Brooding, soulful, haunted." -- Robert Dunbar, author of Willy and Martyrs & Monsters
). But I did make it up to the convention for a bit. I listened to a great interview between 
I wanted to buy her and Michael Koryta a drink but due to the tooth ache ended up going back to the motel and sleeping until it went away. For shame! I’ll see if they’re around this morning (it’s 3:19 am on Saturday morning right now) and see if they want to get some pics together and let me grab them both a drink later today. *Fingers crossed*
