What to Write and How to Do It?

First of all, this is a first world problem. I neither seek nor expect sympathy. I don’t mean to complain or whine and I appreciate more than I can tell you that I’m not breathing through a ventilator.

We’re all affected one way or another by the virus and a president who shows a willingness to run the country by executive fiat if given half a chance. As I type this the whole country and much of the world is (finally) riled up about how police treat minorities. All these things invade our consciousness and affect each of us differently. That’s as it should be. I worry about anyone who claims to remain unaffected. The trick is to compartmentalize enough so one can continue to move forward, learning along the way.

This is a blog about writing and I’d be lying if I said current events had no effect on my work. It’s not that I can’t write, or that I’m blocked. (Regular readers know how I feel about the idea of writer’s block.) Last week I finished a draft of a story I like, using a process different from anything I’d tried before. The problem is deciding what to do next.

The Western has bitten the dust, shot from the saddle by my realization I’m not at home in either the time or the place. I tried to pull together the scenes I’ve written over the past couple of years and, while there’s writing in there I’m proud of, it feels like cultural appropriation. The story seemed less organic than like bits and pieces of other Westerns I’ve read or seen. Maybe I’ll have an idea I like better someday.

I finished Penns River Volume Six last month, so PR-7 is the next logical step. The timing is awkward. Here’s the elevator pitch: A black cop shoots and kills a white guy. The police find no weapon on the victim. Oh, and the guy was a white supremacist and various factions decide to converge on Penns River to send their boy off in style.

You see my problem?

My PR cops are good people who work hard to do the right thing. There are a few jerks, but I know enough cops to know most of what’s in the barrel are good apples. I want cops to be good guys. They protect the people I care about.

Right now it’s impossible to write such a book and not have it be about more than that.

My timing isn’t altogether bad. A new chief took over in Book 6 and in Book 7 he’s going to start to bring in cops from other jurisdictions to replace an exodus of Penns River retirees. They bring big city techniques and attitudes, not all of them palatable to the holdovers. Or the town.

I don’t write door stops, so I’m in danger of doing what John McNally calls putting too much in the container. This is more often a problem with short stories, but it’s a concern with novels, as well. I also don’t want to give anything short shrift. There are things I dare not ignore, but I want to be fair.

I also can’t afford to write as if someone is looking over my shoulder. My books have always been well received (if not frequently purchased) when all I’ve tried to do is write a book I’d like to read.

Which I suppose brings us to the real problem: I don’t know what kind of book I want to read right now. The Beloved Spouse™ and I abandoned a long-anticipated re-viewing of The Shield last weekend after two episodes. We love the show but neither of us was in the mood to watch it. More than ever, I need to hit a proper balance, and that’s going to require more of a plan than I usually take into a book. I always outline the chapters to remind myself what needs to happen to move things along. How it happens I leave for the actual writing. This time I need a better defined vision of not only what happens, but how and why. Not to do so is an invitation to either drift into blandness, write a screed, or create something that goes in every direction without arriving anywhere.

It’s going to be interesting.

At least I’m not on a ventilator.

Stay well.

The Promise of Failure

John McNally occupies what is, at least in my experience, a unique place among writers who share their advice about the craft: more than authoring books on how to write, he talks about how to be a writer. They’re not the same thing.

McNally has written three books on writing. The first, The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide, talks about all the things to be considered when making writing a career that don’t involve actual writing, such as making enough money to live on while your career gets its feet under it, how to choose a writing program, how to handle workshops, and publicity. Highly recommended for anyone considering writing as a career, or in the relatively early stages of it.

His second book, Vivid and Continuous, is the how-to writing book. It’s designed to be used as a textbook, though it works well for individuals. It also lays out well for anyone trying to get a better handle on things they might not have been ready for on a previous reading. This is a book I take a look at every couple of years and consider to be on a par with Stephen King’s On Writing.

We’re not here to talk about either of those today, as McNally has released another book that deserves attention from writers of any experience level. The Promise of Failure (University of Iowa Press) is McNally’s examination of what it’s like for a professional writer to have to prove himself again with every book. Sure, there are writers who don’t have to deal with rejection anymore, if only because their names have become so well recognized that people will buy their grocery lists and wonder what was meant by “romaine lettuce.” Did she change her mind about what kind of lettuce she wanted? Did someone tell her they didn’t like romaine lettuce? Did she have a bad experience with romaine lettuce that reared up from her subconscious mind after the list’s first draft? (“Then I remembered when Algernon took me to my favorite restaurant to tell me he was leaving, though he knew I was pregnant. A piece of romaine lettuce hung from the corner of his mouth, waving insolently at me as he ruined my life. Until then I loved romaine lettuce.”) No offense, but you’re not one of those writers. You wouldn’t be reading this if you were.

What McNally does in The Promise of Failure is to prepare the rest of us for the inevitable bumps in the road. How to avoid as many of them as possible. How to make those we do encounter smoother than they might otherwise be. How to find that failure exists on multiple levels and is in large part defined by your personal definition of success. How failure can in some ways be a good thing by freeing you to try something you might not have done had “success” set you on another path where the vistas weren’t as wide.

As with all of McNally’s books, The Promise of Failure is written in common sense, matter of fact language. He has a working class background and has come up through the ranks of writers by having made his share—and maybe then some—of choices he would not, in retrospect, repeat. You know, just like the rest of us. The book isn’t a lecture delivered from someone who has either won a Nobel Prize in Literature, or thinks he should have had those Scandinavian pricks understood the subtleties of the English language. McNally is your uncle—maybe a Dutch uncle—sitting next to you at a quiet neighborhood bar making an effort to tell you what to expect. Maybe you’ll get it, maybe you won’t, and maybe something he says today will resonates later when you most need it. Whichever way, his conscience is clear, and you walk away knowing he meant the best for you.

(Full disclosure: I read an advance copy provided by the University of Iowa Press. I was a student in John McNally’s workshop during the winter and spring of 2002 while he was George Washington University’s Jenny McKean Moore Visiting Writer.)

January's Reads

January was a strange month for reading. There’s only one book I can wholeheartedly recommend, and one more I’m sure my comments will spark controversy over. Let’s start with the positive.

Vivid and Continuous, John McNally. I pull out this concise volume of writing advice every couple of years to see if anything resonates with me I wasn’t ready for before, what might validate what I do now, and just because it’s fun to read. The title is taken from a comment in John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist, that a writer should try to create a “vivid and continuous dream” that “other human beings, whenever they feel like it, may open his book and dream that dream again.” I try to remember this whenever I feel I’m becoming too authorial, and McNally’s little book is full of advice and tips to help me to make it so. (Full disclosure: John McNally taught the Jenny McKean Moore workshop at George Washington University when I participated in the winter and spring of 2002. I was the only genre writer chosen and I doubt very much I would have reached even my current level of success had it not been for the confidence he showed in my writing and what I learned there from John and my fellow fellows.)

Now the flip side:

No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy. I read Blood Meridian several years ago. It was one of the two most unpleasant reading experiences of my life; the other was James Ellroy’s The Cold Six Thousand. I was saved from ignoring Ellroy by a request to review Blood’s a Rover—which I loved—and have since become a Ellroy devotee. Having chosen exactly the wrong Ellroy book as an entry point, I gave McCarthy the same benefit of the doubt and read No Country For Old Men because I’d seen the movie and had heard it was McCarthy’s most accessible novel.

It’s certainly not as much of a slog as Blood Meridian, and the story seems less nihilistic. It’s still not my cup of tea. I could cite several reasons why the writing doesn’t move me. It lacks any lyricism to my ear, for one thing. “Whoa,” you say. “You love Ellroy and don’t like McCarthy because he lacks lyricism?” That’s right. Ellroy may be percussive, but there is a rhythm to his writing. It’s a rhythm not to everyone’s taste—his words sometimes read the way Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring sounds—but it’s his own hip voice and I dig. McCarthy lacks that.

What really turns me off about McCarthy was described above: he never lets me settle into that vivid and continuous dream. Part of this are his affectations regarding spelling and punctuation. No apostrophes are jarring, but not as bad as the lack of quotation marks, which requires me to always have to pay attention to who’s speaking when I should be getting lost in the story.

Bo Catlett summed up what hurts McCarthy most for this reader. I know words weren't spelled right and there was hardly any commas in it at all. It distracts me when it should draw me in.

A Conversation With John McNally

John McNally is the closest thing to a writing teacher I’ve had. (No, I don’t blame him and neither should you.) We met when I was accepted into the Jenny Moore McKean workshop at George Washington University while I was working on the book that would become A Small Sacrifice, which was eventually nominated for a Shamus Award, so thank you for that, John.

John has written and edited short story collections (of which my favorite is Troublemakers), written novels (of which my favorites are The Book of Ralph and After the Workshop), and a couple of writing instruction books I think fill unique niches. The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist fills a vital need: advice less on how to write but on how to be a writer, with all the challenges that career choice places on one’s life. His more traditional how-to, Vivid and Continuous, is a book I return to every couple of years as a touchstone. Both stress practical advice; neither messes with metaphysicality. Both should be on every writer’s shelf.

John is currently Professor of English and Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. His newest book, The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted to Have Sex: The Memoir of a Fat Kid dropped December 1 from Elephant Rock Productions.

One Bite at a Time: Let’s get right to it. You’ve written fiction, books on various aspects of writing (more on those later), and edited anthologies. What was it that got you to thinking about writing a memoir?

John McNally: In a concentrated period of time, three things happened in my life: I got divorced, my father died, and I took a new job that was 900 miles away. For the first time in almost twenty years, I decided to take a break from writing. I was burnt out writing fiction. I was burnt out doing pretty much anything, truth be told. But during that break, a friend asked me to write a short personal essay, no longer than 750 words, for a column he was editing, and I thought, okay, sure. I can do 750 words. What I realize now -- but didn't then -- was that once I start writing about myself, a small detail will unlock another memory that I had shoved aside, and the more I wrote, the more that those things I had forgotten about came back to me. And so I kept writing. My father looms over this book in ways that I hadn't anticipated, but it's because my father had always been -- and still is -- an enigma to me. I didn't cry when he died, and it bothered me that I didn't. And I still haven't. But this book is, in part, my attempt to understand our relationship better, even if I didn't realize that when I was writing it.

OBAAT: I have small autobiographical elements in my writing, but they’re things like time spent with my daughter or my parents. I can’t imagine opening a vein like you did. Was it intimidating once you realized you’d made a commitment to yourself to release it to the public?

JM: Very intimidating. But then I think, okay, so...how much longer do I have to live if this doesn't go over well? It's the same mindset as when I started getting tattoos at fifty. I'm actually a pretty private person. People will sometimes compliment me for how open I am about things on Facebook, so I guess I give the illusion of not being private, but what I reveal about myself on social media is probably one percent of my life. There are all kinds of things I don't talk about. I don't talk about my ex-wives or current relationships; I don't talk about teaching; I will talk about depression but not when I'm in the throes of it; I don't talk much about books or writing; and for as much as I bash Trump I never mentioned who I supported even if it's obvious. So, it does make me nervous to be so open in the new book. My forthcoming book on failure also has a lot of personal stuff in it, but in that book I talk about the importance of risking something of yourself when you write, and I certainly tried to do that in The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted to Have Sex. I had a teacher who once posed this question to the class: "What's at stake for you in this?" That's probably become the single most important piece of writing advice I've received. Not what's at stake for the character but what's at stake for you?

OBAAT: I’ve noticed that about you on Facebook, how open and entertaining you are about some things—tacos, cats, and vinyl, for example—but say little or nothing about the rest of your life. Has writing the memoir led you to feel more or less open in general? We all re-evaluate some things about our lives as we age. Are there things you now look at differently than you might have if you hadn’t written The Boy Who?

JM: I'm definitely not more open now. Maybe less open. As for looking at things differently...yes, definitely. It's difficult not to spend a few years writing about your childhood without coming to some realizations about why you are the way you are now. I've become more aware over the years that I have a compulsive personality, but writing the book illuminated for me the ways in which my compulsive behavior began at a very young age, and how the compulsiveness was often self-destructive or self-defeating. And then I saw how my father also had a compulsive streak that was also self-defeating. The patterns in my life became more obvious while writing the book. But I also become more aware -- and I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back -- of how much I had to overcome to get to where I am today. I'm sure compulsiveness explains how I overcame overwhelming odds to get to this point. So it's not all bad.

OBAAT: I think one of the things that attracts me to your writing is the similarities of background we share. You’re from outside Chicago and I’m from a semi-rural area near Pittsburgh, but we both have working class backgrounds and understand a person does what needs to be done to get by. I see that in everything you’ve written. Even the books about writing have a well-grounded, “it’s a job before it’s anything else” feel to them. Is this something you’re conscious about, or does it just come when you write?

JM: When I write fiction, my blue-collar upbringing influences nearly every story I write because employment and money (or lack thereof) are usually at the core of the story in a meaningful way. When I first began writing, however, I had moved those working class issues to the forefront of my stories, but the stories never worked. They came across as maudlin or didactic, but once I simply put an interesting character into motion in a particular situation that happens, they can't help but to be influenced by their background. As for my own process, I believe in work. My father was a roofer; my mother, who had grown up in a sharecropping family, worked in a factory. I've spent most of my life teaching, but I've been working since the first grade, hustling to make a buck doing any number of things. And so as a writer I don't sit around waiting for the muse. The muse is a myth, in my opinion. Times when I'm inspired are times when I'm working hard and I'm holding several disparate parts of a story or novel in my head at once, and then something clicks that pulls it all together; that's the result of working consistently so that my brain can begin functioning like the flawed computer that it is, not because I was visited by a muse. If you want a hole in the ground, you have to dig the hole. The hole doesn't simply appear one morning.

OBAAT: The writer who tends to come to mind when I read a lot of your stuff is Richard Russo. Same working-class sensibilities and similar dry senses of humor. You have some experience with him, don’t you? Did he influence the writer you’ve become?

JM: He was my undergraduate teacher my last semester of college. And then he was responsible for hiring me back, after I'd gotten my MFA, to replace him while he was on leave to write Nobody's Fool. I can't say he influenced my subject matter. But he influenced me as the kind of person I wanted to be. He's a good guy, a hard worker, and genuinely supportive of younger writers. He's not a prima donna. In many ways, the writers who've influenced me the most were because of their character. And I think that transfers into one's writing. When you read Rick's novels, you know you're in the hands of a generous writer. There's nothing precious or cloying in his books.

OBAAT: As I mentioned before, this isn’t your first departure from fiction. Vivid and Continuous is as good a book on craft as I’ve read, and I go back to it every couple of years for reminders. The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide occupies a unique niche, as far as I know: It’s a book on what writers need to do when they’re not actually writing. Tell us a little about why you wrote them.

JM: That's a high compliment, Dana. Thank you for that. The Creative Writer's Survival Guide came about because my editor at the University of Iowa Press asked me if I'd be interested in writing a book that answered common questions about writing. I said, sure, but I wanted it to be opinionated. I wanted a personality behind the writing. I didn't want to write something dry. And I wanted it to be autobiographical. I wanted it to be coming from a guy you might meet in a bar and not an expert. Iowa has been great to me. They let me write the books I want to write, and I can live or die by it. The second book, Vivid and Continuous, was written in a similar voice except that it's a craft book. I wanted to write about those issues of craft that I hammer home to my students but that seem to get ignored in textbooks. I'd already written some of those chapters for magazines or public lectures, so the idea of putting it together as a book was the next logical step. I have a third book coming out in the spring, tentatively titled The Promise of Failure, and it's the one I'm most excited by, and it's definitely the most person. It's a look at the role of failure in our work -- the positive role as well as the debilitating role. I teach part of the year in a low-residency MFA program, and several years ago I began giving lectures on failure, and they seemed to resonate, probably because it's a taboo subject. On Facebook, people like to post about their successes. Rarely do you see someone grappling with their failures. I have to say, in many ways these three books have been the hardest books to write. I had to keep going back to ask myself, “Would this make sense to someone with a basic knowledge on the subject? Would this be interesting to someone with a sophisticated knowledge of the subject?” There's a reason each book is shorter than the previous book!

OBAAT: A lot of writers have a concern that a writing teacher will try to impose his style and philosophy of writing on them. I have first-hand experience with you as a teacher, and you’re quite the opposite. I always felt you were making a conscious effort to develop me into the best writer my talents would allow. One thing that sticks in my mind was you noticing I had a little trouble getting into and out of scenes, so you recommended I look at how Ross Macdonald began and ended his chapters. Not that I do anything how—or as well—as Macdonald, but I was able to see some of his technique there and adapt the bits that suited my style. Long way around of asking what is it you look for in a student and how do you decide which things to focus on, and what to suggest?

JM: I try to follow the doctor's oath of "first, do no harm." I certainly have my own aesthetic likes and dislikes. I champion accuracy over cleverness, for instance. I see too much cleverness -- cheap cleverness -- so I've grown suspicious of it. I'm always cautioning writers to get out of the way of their own writing. That said, I try to take each piece of writing on its own terms. I certainly don't want to turn my students into me. These days I find myself asking larger questions, like, "Why this story? Tell me why you're drawn to this material?" Mostly I ask those questions so I can see better how to respond to the work. I work mostly with MFA and PhD students these days, so it's easier for me to respond once I've seen a book's worth of material. I look for patterns. I try to push them to risk more of themselves. How can you be in the work without being in the way of it?

OBAAT: That’s a great point: “Why this story?” You’ve already talked about the memoir as growing from a personal essay. In your fiction, what do you look for in a story before deciding to spend so much time on it?

JM: I tell my students that our stories are smarter than we are. By this, I mean that when you begin writing a story, you draw much of it from your unconscious mind, so it makes sense that we often don't understand, on a conscious level, why certain things creep into our work. I've learned to be patient with the stories I write. I'm patient because I'm hoping that my intellect -- that weak, lumbering tool -- will catch up to the savvier, sneakier subconscious. In other words, I put faith in the fact that every story I write is coming from some personal place, but in order for me to do it justice, I have to unlock the images and metaphors and cryptic things within it, which sometimes takes years. I have a batch of stories that I started six years ago. I'm only now figuring them out. I have to find myself in there, however obliquely I may appear. Once I find that, then the story's reason for being becomes more urgent to me. I don't write for personal therapy, but I think whenever you attempt art of any kind, the side-effect is that it's illuminating something about yourself or the world you live in. That said, I still honor story. The reader should feel that urgency of "Why this story?" but not necessarily see it. So, what do I look for? I look for something in a story that nags at me even while it's trying to elude me. I look for a mystery within the story that only I can see. And then I want to solve it.

My Best Reads of 2013

I don’t like writing Top Ten lists. It’s too hard to draw the line, but 2013 was such a good reading year for me, this post would be too long if I wrote a blurb for each worthy book. So, here are the Top Ten, plus some honorable mentions. (Books listed in the order in which they were read.)

The Cold, Cold Ground, Adrian McKinty. If there’s ever been a better historical mystery written, let me know. McKinty weaves Sean Duffy’s story into The Troubles in a way that would make James Ellroy jealous, if James Ellroy still read fiction, and were prone to jealousy.

Cheapskates, Charlie Stella. His best riffs on greed, duplicity, and amoral conduct in general. Funny in an Elmore Leonard “these guys are serious” way. Great fun.

I Hear the Sirens in the Street, Adrian McKinty. The second in the Duffy trilogy, and as good as Cold, Cold Ground, though the impact may have been lessened because the setting wasn’t such a shock to me. This time he works John DeLorean into the story and pulls it off. I’ll be all over In the Morning I’ll Be Gone when it’s available here in the States.

American Tabloid, James Ellroy. I read the Underworld USA Trilogy out of sequence, which is fine, as I like him better with each book I read (The Cold Six Thousand, Blood’s a Rover, American Tabloid) .Moving onto the LA Quartet this year.

Masters of Atlantis, Charles Portis. Hard to think of two more different books written by the same guy than True Grit and Masters of Atlantis. Not only has Portis done it, one’s as good as the other, and they’re both very good. If you’re looking for something to read that’s just flat-out fun for a change, you can’t go wrong here.

Prohibition, Terrence McCauley. 2013 was the Year of Historical Crime for me. McCauley writes of New York in the Twenties in the style of the old pulps, including enough modern touches to keep the writing from sounding dated. Highly recommended, along with its successor, Slow Burn. I put Prohibition in the Top Ten because it’s the first of the two, and sets the stage.

The Walkaway, Scott Phillips. All the great stuff you’d expect from Phillips. And then I found tears rolling down my cheeks in a restaurant while reading the ending. Brilliant.

The Onion Field, Joseph Wambaugh. Two young cops are kidnapped in 1963. One is killed; the other escapes. The best non-fiction crime book I’ve ever read, and I’ve read In Cold Blood twice.

Black Rock, John McFetridge. Montreal in the 70s. Constable Eddie Dougherty assists on a possible serial killer investigation while Francophones threaten to blow up the city. Things in Montreal weren’t as bad as Belfast, but McFetridge puts you right there. Hopefully only the first of a series.

Ratlines, Stuart Neville. John Kennedy is coming to Ireland and someone is killing Nazis hidden by the Irish government. Albert Ryan is tasked with stopping the killings and keeping the whole thing quiet so the Kennedy trip isn’t called off. Otto Skorzeny plays a key role in a book reminiscent of Day of the Jackal.

Honorable Mention

The Hard Bounce, Todd Robinson. About time this guy got a novel published. Hopefully the first of many.

Slow Burn, Terrence McCauley. Follow-up to Prohobition, and as good, yet different.

The Devil Doesn’t Want Me, Eric Beetner. A good action movie waiting to be made.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.

Dirty Words, Todd Robinson. Todd’s stories alone are as good as any of the Thuglit anthologies, and more consistent.

Road Kill, Zoe Sharp. Charlie Fox and bikers. What could possibly go wrong?

Vespers, Ed McBain.

Crooked Numbers, Tim O’ Mara. Get in on this series now so you can be one of the cool kids later, who gets to say, “Tim O’Mara? Know all about him,” and the latecomers will be jealous.

Saturday’s Child, Ray Banks. I’m jealous of everyone who figured out Banks was the good before I did.

Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley

I’d Know You Anywhere, Laura Lippman

Best Re-Reads

Deadwood, Pete Dexter

Get Shorty, Elmore Leonard. The bad news is, just about everything I’ll read by Leonard from now on will be a re-read. The good news is, I can read Get Shorty twice a year and not get tired of it.

The Lady in the Lake, Raymond Chandler. Marlowe gets out of LA for some fresh air.

American Civil War Trilogy, Bruce Catton. History may not repeat, but it rhymes.

Special Notice

Vivid and Continuous, John McNally. As fine a book on writing as I’ve read. Practical, unpretentious, and entertaining all at once.

Vivid and Continuous

The problem with many writing books—and writing teachers—is they tell you How it’s Done, sometimes in stentorian tones of great implied import. The end effect is too often to overwhelm the reader/writer, especially those still looking for their own way. There’s too much to remember, and it’s too hard. Some are deterred. Others decide rules are made to be broken, so I might as well start now.

John McNally’s Vivid and Continuous is an excellent entry point for a startup writer. It combines brevity (147 pages, not counting index and reading list) with a conversational tone to move the reader through key considerations in any type of fiction. Though the professed thrust is for those interested in literary ficiton, the lessons and examples will be useful to anyone.

The book breaks into fifteen chapters, each with its own topic. Ranging from The Ideal Reader, Beginnings, Titles, through Minor Characters, Humor (his “Sure-Fire Formula for Becoming Funnier in Thirty Days” alone is worth the price of the book) and wrapping up with Gestation and Humility. Each chapter describes a little of why it’s important, cites examples, but never becomes pedantic. If ever a writing book read like you were talking to a guy at a bar, this is it.

The examples are deftly used and should incline the reader to want to further explore many of them. The chapter on minor characters details how, in The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger uses a large number of characters who appear for too short a time to require—or even deserve—detailing to characterize Holden Caulfield through his descriptions and reactions to them. Salinger’s gift for putting the character’s image into the reader’s head with a single sentence. (Faith Cavendish, who “wasn’t exactly a whore or anything but that didn’t mind doing it once in a while.” Or Sally Hayes’s mother, who’d do charity work only if “everybody kissed her ass for her when they made a contribution.”) We may not have Holden’s background, but we all know these people.

The two final chapters stick out. In Gestation, McNally discusses the idea of each story needing its own time to be told. Some may flow, while others may need years to come together, left fallow for extended period until the writer’s experience or cultural events reach a point where the story opens itself to the author. The catch with fictional gestation periods is, no one knows how long they are, and they’re different for each story.

The final chapter is titled Humility. Cautioning young writers against hubris, McNally cites giants such as Thomas Pynchon looking back with dismay at some older stories, and John Steinbeck’s despair over how he had failed with The Grapes of Wrath. (“It’s just a run-of-the-mill book. And the awful thing is that it is the absolute best I can do.”) A caution to all fledgling iconoclasts who would break new ground because the world has never seen a talent such as yours: get over yourselves. If Pynchon and Steinbeck harbor doubts about their results, you should at least consider yours could be flawed.

McNally is not above using his own writing for example. This is often a turn-off. Here, it’s done with a difference. Instead of using his work to show How It’s Done, he uses what led to a piece of his to describe how it got there, warts and all. The lessons is not, “Listen to me, for I am great,” but, “You don’t to make some of the same mistakes I did. Take this for what it’s worth.” The engaging writing style and regular dollops of humor make everything do down with a smile.

Vivid and Continuous is an excellent book for fledgling writers, as well as those more experienced who need an occasional reminder of things to be aware of. It would be perfect for an adult education class that included student of various levels of ability, as its lessons apply on multiple levels. I learned a lot, was reminded of more, and had a great time reading it. My only disappointment came when I realized I had come to the end, a feeling that can be easily remedied with another read, if only to cherry pick the bits that most appealed to me.

Well, I’ll Be Go to Hell

After—let’s see, borrow from the one—eighteen years of writing, about fifteen years of looking to get published, and countless hours and blog posts whining about the current state of publishing, today I signed an honest-to-Chandler book contract with Stark House to publish the second of my Penns River novels, Grind Joint.

The successor to Worst Enemies (currently available for Kindle and Nook for a measly $2.99), Grind Joint is the story of what happens when the 21st-Century panacea for all urban financial woes rolls into a small town: a casino. It features many of the characters and occasionally looks back into an only partially resolved issue from Worst Enemies (yet another reason to get your copy, so you’ll be ahead of the curve).

The release date is tentatively set for early 2014, so there will be plenty of time to torment all of you with my idea of promotion. Suffice for now to say thank you to Greg Shepard and  Rick Ollerman at Stark House for taking a chance on me.

Plenty of future electrons will be devoted to thanking those who helped to get me this far, but three require mention immediately:

John McNally, for treating the lone genre writer in his workshop exactly the same as the more literary types, both in expectations and respect.

Declan Burke, who rounded up a posse of friends to comment here when I thought of hanging up my keyboard a couple of years ago and convinced me to keep plugging along.

And the inimitable Charlie Stella, who pretty much brokered the deal. Charlie is Stark House’s other writer of original novels (they focus on reprints of authors including Margaret Millar, Bill Pronzini, and Bob Randisi), and adopted me a couple of years ago. His counsel and encouragement have been formidable and much appreciated. Yes, Charlie, I did the writing, but I can safely say this book would never have seen print had it not been for you.

That’s enough shameless self-promotery for now. I need to save some for Worst Enemies, available now for Kindle and Nook.

Best Reads For 2011

I didn’t read quite as much this year as I had in the past, for several reasons, all of which have been documented elsewhere. That doesn’t mean I didn’t find plenty of books worthy of recommendation. I meant to have a list of ten, then twelve, the fifteen, but I could draw a bright line until I was into the twenties.

So here you go with the books I read last year and would be willing to read again, time permitting. They’re listed in alphabetical order; no preference should be inferred.

Absolute Zero Cool, Declan Burke. Publishing is more farked up than even I thought if this doesn’t establish Burke as someone to keep an eye on. Meta-fiction at its best, as the author argues with a character and himself to spin a tale no one else could have thought of, let along written.

Big Money and Big Numbers, Jack Getze. Getze’s trick is to show you the climax at the beginning, then work back toward it, a la Michael Clayton. Not only does Getze pull it off both times, he’s a lot funnier.

City of Lost Girls, Declan Hughes. Not Hughes’s best Ed Loy novel, and I still couldn’t bear to leave it off the list. There’s no one better working today.

Crashed and Little Elvises, Timothy Hallinan. Hallinan took a break from his Poke Rafferty thrillers to start an e-book series about a master burglar who works as sort of a PI for the underworld. The plots are witty and Hallinan hits a perfect balance of humor and action both times.

The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide, John McNally. Does for how to be a writer what Stephen King’s On Writing does for how to write. Young writers in particular should pay attention to what McNally has to say.

Eddie’s World, Charlie Stella. Stella first. The influence of George V. Higgins is writ large, but this is no knock-off. No one captures peripheral mob figures as well as Stella.

Generation Kill, Evan Wright. The book on which David Simon based his HBO series. Things have more perspective in the book. Must reading for anyone who wants a first hand look of what war is like without actually having to go.

Gun, Ray Banks. A novella that describes one day in the life of a just-released convict. Unforgettable.

The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James. Even more detailed than the original. Maybe too much to read straight through, though James’s writing wears better than a lot of people who are supposed to be writers.

In Defense of Flogging, Peter Moskos. Thoughtful and thought-provoking look into how criminals are punished in America.

Joe Puma, PI, William Campbell Gault. I honest to God don’t remember why I bought this collection of five stories from the Fifties, but I sure am glad I did. First rate PI writing.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money, J.D. Rhoades. Crime and corruption in a small southern town described in perfect balance and style for the setting and material.

Maximum Bob, Elmore Leonard. I’d read it before, and I suspect I’ll read it again.

Pocket 47, Jude Hardin. A deft combination of complexity and readability. Hardin keeps this up and he’ll be the obscure no longer.

Road Rules, Jim Winter. More fun than anyone has ever had in Cleveland. Either Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen would have been happy to write this.

Rut, Scott Phillips. Scariest post-apocalypse scenario yet: what happens if we keep doing what we’ve been doing. Phillips’s wit ensure nothing drags or becomes predictable.

Samaritan, Richard Price. Good intentions with questionable motivations. Not as gripping as Clockers, but a marvelous book.

Setup on Front Street, Mike Dennis. Don’t let the setting (Florida Keys) fool you. As hard-boiled as they come while still using the setting to maximum advantage. The first of a series; the second is already on my Kindle.

Shadow of the Dahlia, Jack Bludis. Maybe my favorite book of the year. Bludis has a reputation, but this was the first book of his I’d read. He captures the period perfectly with a riveting story.

Shit My Dad Says, Justin Halpern. Not just a compilation of tweets, Halpern provides some family history to place the quotes in perspective. He’s a good and funny writer himself, and the old man’s quotes are priceless, though some do seem a little prickish when you realize they were delivered to a twelve-year-old kid. (Sorry, I’m not going to go with the politically correct * when we all know it’s the I in shit.")

True Grit, Charles Portis. I’d seen both movies, finally got around to reading the book. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I can hold a job, waiting as long as I do for good stuff.

Two-Way Split, Allan Guthrie. Hard to say too much without giving away a key plot element. Pay close attention and you’ll not be disappointed.

A Vine in the Blood, Leighton Gage. This newest in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva series may be the best.

The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide

Finding books on how to write is easy. Lay in the parking lot outside any building housing an MFA program and sooner or later one will fall on you. Actually publishing a book, or even placing more than one short story in a respected publication such as the Pennysaver is optional. Many of these books dispense such valuable information as, “show, don’t tell,” or “grammar is good.”

In much shorter supply are books about how to be a writer. What to look for in a school, what’s involved in selling a book or story, and what will be asked of you once a contract has been accepted. How to keep ends together. Even whether you should become a writer in the first place. John McNally’s The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide is a welcome addition to this niche.

McNally’s credentials are substantial: three novels, two collections of short stories, the editor of six anthologies. His fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in over one hundred publications, and he is currently an associate professor at Wake Forest University. (Full disclosure: McNally was a visiting writer at George Washington University in 2001-2002, where I was fortunate to be accepted into his workshop.)

TCWSG is broken into six parts, each consisting of several sections: The Decision to Become a Writer, Education and the Writer, Getting Published, Publicity, Employment for Writers, and The Writer’s Life. These are bookended with a brief introduction (The Writer’s Wonderland—Or: A Warning) and the notes, bibliography, acknowledgements, and index such a book requires. The layout is logical, progressing through the stages of a writer’s life as they as most likely to be encountered.

The book works as well as it does because McNally has scuffed around as much as a archetypal writer should. He never starved in a garret, though he did freeze in a trailer, where he was almost overcome by the fumes of its kerosene heater. (A plan to work Alaskan crab boats before Most Dangerous Catch made it cool was narrowly averted.) Anyone who hopes to earn a living from writing will have few life events that aren’t at least analogous to something McNally has done.

The other element to the book’s success is McNally’s writing. If easy reading truly is hard writing, then John McNally busts his ass. Conversational without becoming colloquial, TCWSG is as much fun to read as his fiction. There are no sections to be trudged through. Even what may seem at first glance to be the lair of dryness may be spiced up with an anecdote or a well-designed phrase. McNally is expert at Elmore Leonard’s credo to leave out the parts people skip, often by finding a way to make them worth reading.

Yes, I’m in the tank for him. He convinced me I had some talent, and has been encouraging throughout our relationship. Still, the only book I’ve read about the writing life that comes close to TCWSG is John Scalzi’s delightful You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop. (Stephen King’s On Writing begins with a long and informative biographical section, but it’s much of it is a purging of his demons, and, hopefully, of little practical use to other writers, except as a cautionary tale.) The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide is thought provoking and fun, which is the best way to learn anything.