Open Wounds

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Lawrence Block on the Late Late Show

I met Lawrence Block at a the Ragdale Foundation, a writer’s retreat outside of Chicago. He was there for a month and I was there for a week. I remember thinking, holy crap, it’s Lawrence Block! And he’s sitting at dinner right next to me! Holy Crap.

Okay. Not the most eloquent but I tend to get tongue-tied when I’m around celebrities. Lawrence Block has been one of my hero’s as a writer for a long long time. Besides writing wonderful mysteries like the classic Matt Scudder series (as hardboiled as you can get) he wrote two of my favorite books on writing, Spider Spin Me a Web, and Telling Lies for Fun and Profit. They are collections of his columns for Writer’s Digest when he was the fiction columnist. I read him religiously when I was younger. I use his writing techniques today.

That was the last retreat I was at before my son was born and I haven’t been back since but… I got a chance to speak to Larry a few times, hear him read from a new book he was working on, and talk about the difficult process of writing a memoir. He even defended me against some challenging critiques in the audience when I read my work. I write him an email every once in a while and I’m on his newsletter email list. I just got one the other day and wanted to share his interview on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It’s a howler. I mean, I was laughing my ass off. He’s a man of few speaking words (Larry, not Craig), well-chosen and taciturn. Watch him talk about his book and enjoy himself. He’s a great guy, a wonderful writer and 100% himself.

Posted by  |  June 7, 2011 | Categories: Blog, On Writing, Publicity & Marketing | Leave a comment

Trainjotting.com Interview

I wrote a column on trainjotting.com for a few years called straphanger joe, and Mike Malone, trainjotting himself, has run an interview we did recently so check it out. Mike was around when Cid was just beginning to emerge as a character and has probably read Open Wounds more times than anyone I know. He’s a fine writer himself and I expect to see his name on a book’s binding some time soon.

Posted by  |  June 5, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Open Wounds | Leave a comment

In the Half-Light Essay in Hunger Mountain

Hunger Mountain is a wonderful online magazine (and print in the fall), whose editor, Bethany Hegedus (who wrote the wonderful Between Us Baxters), asked me to write an essay for them on the development of Cid Wymann, the protagonist of Open Wounds, and a secondary character named Winston Arnolf Leftingsham (aka: Lefty). Hunger Mountain is both a print and online journal of the arts that publishes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, visual art, young adult and children’s writing, writing for stage and screen, interviews, reviews, and craft essays and I’m honored to have been selected by them to write this piece.

After a difficult birth (on my part) Bethany pulled my piece together with some great suggestions and trimming, and I have to say I’m pleased with the way it came out. The essay is called “In the Half-Light” and is in the current online edition which has just gone live. The first chapter of Open Wounds is also included in the issue. If you’d like some insight into the creation of these two characters, and my own creative process (yes, I do have one), then take a look.

Check out what Andrew Smith has been writing about how he develops characters in his blog Ghostmedicine.com for a look at how another author, and the writer’s who comment on his blog, look at the subject.


Posted by  |  June 5, 2011 | Categories: Blog, On Writing, Open Wounds | Leave a comment

Elizabeth Willse: Book Blogger Review

I met Elizabeth at BEA’s Book Blogger convention last week and I’m happy to see that she put up a review of Open Wounds on her site today! Elizabeth was a fencer in high school and speaking with her at the end of the Book Blogger Conference (BBC at the BEA) was a wonderful way to finish off a week of book talk and promotion. Check out her review on her Elizabeth Willse Blog.

Posted by  |  June 3, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Open Wounds | Leave a comment

Rounding Third at the BBC

Author speed dating at the Book Blogger convention (BBC). The big room is buzzing with author’s pitching and bloggers listening.

The author at my table was in the middle of her pitch. Then she hesitated as if she had a secret she was going to tell but had decided not to. “I’m not going to tell you anymore about the story,” she said, “because this is the kind of story you have to experience as the main character experiences it.”

There was one other author besides me at our table and six bloggers and I hadn’t pitched yet  and this author, even with this statement, was sharp. I was feeling: 1) humbled (because her pitch to the bloggers was so good and practiced including a back story to herself that kicked butt with references to terrorists, Baghdad, and world hunger – okay not world hunger that’s just me being jealous and annoyed at the same time – that it put my pitch to come to shame) and 2) jealous and annoyed (the two do go hand in hand) because I was feeling all competitive and I was losing without even having said a word. Pitching against other authors is hard work. Especially when, after pitching, all the bloggers around the table pull out copies of this same author’s book and ask for autographs.

Really.

They did.

Every single one of them.

“Oh, you all have copies of my book!” she said, delighted and surprised.

She individualized each of the copies. It took a while. We only had twenty minutes at each table before we rotated to another one.

And as if that triple wasn’t enough the third base coach motioned for her to head for home so when she was finished she turned to me and said, “Oh, it’s your turn now, isn’t it?”

She smiled.

I smiled.

The bloggers around the table were all gazing down at their signed copies of her book.

I did some diaphragmatic breathing – three-part breaths, and let it go. There were other tables to get to and, I hoped, that author would not be at the same table as me again.

It’s good to have experiences like that because it keeps me from having a big head.

Okay. I can’t let this go anymore. …because this is the kind of story you have to experience as the main character experiences it. Isn’t that what reading is all about anyway?

Maybe I’m missing something.

But I had to say it.

I blame it on the testosterone.

Posted by  |  June 1, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Events, Publicity & Marketing | Leave a comment