Crime Pop and Burning Bridges

I've got a piece over on A Knife & A Quill on pop music with crime (no, not criminally bad pop music, although I do make mention of The Buoys' "Timothy" alas):

I was listening to Skydaddies’ “Murder in the Park”, a fine Beatlesesque — no, really more Rutlesesque! Not because it’s a parody, but because it knows how it’s being Beatlesesque, if you know what I mean — tune about a girl who takes pictures of a murder in a park and it struck me that there’s a good amount of crime music in unexpected places. Not in rap songs about poppin’ caps in someone’s arse or thrash metal about KILLING! but in more unusual places...

And do listen to Skydaddies (kind of a preview of tomorrow's book as well):

SKYDADDIES - Murder In The Park (2012 edit)

I had a guest post over at Fiona's: she's asked the Burning Bridges folks to suggest what they'd like to set fire to -- sort of an impromptu Room 101. Drop by and suggest more things to burn because
I am the god of hellfire and I bring you:

Postcards, Bridges, a Knife and a Quill

I model the latest SL Johnson design with lighting by Garbo

I have got so far as narrowing down the entries in the First Annual Postcard Fiction Contest to a pool of final contenders (yes, Ale! Your card arrived). Agonizing to make the final choice! I may need a glass of wine for this. Alas, I have none. I suppose that could be remedied, but I have so much to do today.

I will force myself to make a choice by Wednesday and keep rereading them in the meantime. A huge thank you to everyone who entered. I may indeed make this an annual event. It was about this time last year that I got the call saying I was going to Ireland. It has to have been the fastest year on record, whew.

Not that it felt like it when I was packing and clearing out my old flat. The horror, the horror. But wherever I may be, I will stop around this time and think of the adventure about to unfold and feel very happy:

“If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper...”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited 

 No time to spare for wistful thoughts: much too busy! One of the latest projects: a book trailer for Burning Bridges: A Renegade Anthology. Yes, if you're reading this you likely already know the story -- and that you have no excuse for not getting it! Free on Smashwords, 99¢ on Amazon and all that going to literacy. Don't make me come over there! No, really -- because I'm staying over here. The trailer tells the story of the assembly of our renegade band. Check it out and give it a like and get the book already!




One more important bit of news: I'm writing reviews over at A Knife and A Quill, a site for dark fiction, as you might guess from the name. Lots of horror and crime fiction covered over there. So if you have an interest, drop by and read some reviews, interviews and features. If you're an author think about submitting something for review by the team. Yes, this is in addition to writing for The Girl's Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse and the occasional piece for Un:Bound. Why do you think I'm so busy? My quill is always scratching away.

Writers, who can resist a quill? I remember comparing quill tattoos with Sarah Pinborough at P-Con. Writing: it's in the blood, it's in the flesh.

Interview & Friday's Forgotten Book

Hey, that's me over at Book Reel talking about book trailers, my prodigious output and where I get my ideas (not Schenectady!). I had a terrific time answering the questions, so stop by and leave a comment if you're of a mind to and feel free to share the link where you can. Help me claw my way out of obscurity!

If you haven't already heard, the fabulous Alessandra Bava has a bilingual collection of poetry out, Guerrilla Blues. Her work is amazing: passionate, vivid, fearless. I can't wait to get my copy!

FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN BOOK: Somebody Owes Me Money

Talk about prodigious outputs! Donald E. Westlake is a legend. Over a hundred novels, many under pseudonyms, mostly in crime but also in other genres as well. He was in the back of mind from some conversation this past week, so when I went to the library this week to return books I checked to see if they had any Westlake and sure enough, they did (not that my shiny shiny iPad Rook isn't groaning with books to be read >_<). This one looked like fun.

First published in 1969, Somebody Owes Me Money got this shiny new edition from Hard Case Crime in 2008. The main character is the hapless Chet Conway, cab driver and inveterate gambler. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he generally catches on eventually. There's something fun about writing a character that's going to be less swift than the reader and Chet fills the bill. The brilliant opening line plays with the gradual reveal: "I bet none of it would have happened if I wasn't so eloquent."

What happens is that Chet gets the tip of a lifetime, scores big, goes round to his bookie Tony and finds him dead. And then Tony's wife arrives and eventually the police and things don't look so good. Chet manages to get the police to believe he didn't kill Tony, but the next thing you know the bookie's sister Abbie arrives with a gun in hand, sure he did murder her brother and ready to get revenge.

Chet and Abbie make a winning pair, bickering and working at cross-purposes; she's way out of his league and Chet's constantly surprised to find her in the vicinity. If it weren't for Abbie, he'd have bought it in the first few chapters, which brings out his chivalrous desire to protect her, though as even he realises, "Abbie McKay was no helpless damsel in distress. She could take care of herself, that girl, I was sure of it."

Fun stuff: suspense, twists and turns as well as laugh out loud moments. Full of those nice little touches that give a richness to the story and fill in its world, like everyone arriving out of breath from the long walk up to Jerry's fifth floor apartment or the insane insurance calculations that obsess Chet's dad. Well worth a ride.

See all the FFB recommendations over at Patti Abbott's blog.

Snow Day

An official snow day: a rarity! It's eerily quiet around here. The only birds to be seen are the crows. The usually-busy street below my eyrie has only the occasional car. The drummer downstairs, however, is home. It was snowing quite hard yesterday morning as I walked to campus. During the short walk, here's how much snow accumulated:

Crazy, huh? And it continues to fall. Well, I plan to use the day to get some writing done of course! So go entertain yourself. What, you're bored? Well, I'll read for you for a little while, but then you'll have to find someone else with whom to while away your day. If you need something to do, start planning your submission to The Journal of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers.  All right, then?

Kit Marlowe's talking about making trailers over on the Tease Publishing blog.

BitchBuzz: How to Ruin the Holidays + Mangrove Trailer

First, my column for the week: if you're mild-hearted and love the holidays, you may want to skip it. I am particularly proud of finding that picture of Katy Perry:

How to Ruin the Holidays

By K.A. Laity

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Solstice or Yule, you have an equal opportunity this year to destroy all hopes for any beautiful memories from social gatherings by following a few simple rules.

People get too stressed trying to make the holidays perfect: cooking, cleaning, buying, singing, organizing and spend, spend, spending. They put up trees, light menorahs, bake cookies, mull wine and in the process, gain weight, lose hair and empty their bank accounts.

Ruining the holidays can be accomplished with very little effort and almost no spending or preparation. You do not need to make elaborate plans (although a well-thought out scheme can have a spectacular pay-off) and cooking is completely optional, as are fuzzy jumpers with appliqués.

How can you ruin the holidays? To find the answers: http://life.bitchbuzz.com/how-to-ruin-the-holidays.html#ixzz17d1QLUsM

While book trailers have been said to be a waste of time, I can't seem to help wanting to make them. So to amuse myself, here's one for Kit Marlowe's The Mangrove Legacy coming Dec 15th (in case you forgot ;-)

WLoAD #1 and a Book Trailer Review

Hey kids, get yourself a fine publication for just 99¢! Yes, it's the inaugural issue of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers journal featuring some wonderful art by pal Stephanie Johnson (who designed the whole issue) and a whole lot more -- like my long unplaceable story, "Fear and Loathing in Deptford," in which I imagine how Christopher Marlowe's last night might be if he wrote in the style of Hunter S. Thompson (albeit with Elizabethan sensibilities). I got lots of compliments on the story from editors who nonetheless did not buy it because it was too this or too that (too obscure, too much strange vocabulary, and -- oh no! -- even some Latin!). Check out the table of contents for more delights including some familiar names.

My book trailer for Pelzmantel received a review over at 1st Turning. I'm learning a lot from people's comments -- things that never occurred to me. It's hard when you know the story inside out to think about how to introduce it to someone unfamiliar with it. Feel free to add your comments as well. I need all the feedback I can get as I'm starting to think about the trailer for The Mangrove Legacy: whatever will that have?

Talking Book Trailers at Sia's

Here's Sia's introduction to my piece on what I learned from making book trailers: please stop by and comment, and be sure to check out the many interviews with writers featured on her blog.

PROMOTION AND BOOKTRAILERS

My guest is a favorite of mine, Kate Laity. She's written some wonderfully entertaining stories under various names, including tales of magic, myths, and legends, as K. A. Laity. 

Branding and promotion is something of interest to authors. We talk about both quite a bit and you see resulting conversations on many blogs. Another aspect of promotion is what I call gadgets. Really, they are various promotion tools used to capture the interest of potential readers and can include everything from bookmarks to booktrailers.

Like websites, booktrailers visually solidify your brand as an author. There are professionals out there that will produce both. Many writers choose to make their own. So how does one go about creating a good, eye-catching booktrailer? How much is too much? Not enough?

Kate shares some of what she's learned in the making of booktrailers.  

Thanks, Sia! You're very kind.

A hectic day so far: webmail isn't working so if you've emailed me, you're going to have to be patient. Maybe when I get home I'll be able to download it, but here on campus I keep getting "unknown error" when I try to login. Curse you, Mercury! My "quiet" semester has so far been a non-stop whirl of things that must get done NOW and I am scrambling to get to everything in a timely manner, so I look forward to catching up on things while everyone else is enjoying a long holiday this weekend. I'd like to be able to breathe again! And one of these Fridays I will get back to Forgotten Books; in the mean time, read Todd's and Patti's George's round-up of all the others for the vacationing Patti.

Unikirja Book Trailer

Here's my new video, featuring the beautiful music of Ulla Suokko, whom I'll be celebrating this week over at The Women's League of Ale Drinkers, part of the month long festival of creative women. I'm trying to focus the rhetoric of these trailers on opening up the sometimes obscure titles of my books to give a sense of the flavor of the stories. You can tell me whether I'm succeeding.

I've kind of had the feeling lately of needing a dump truck to unload my head, so it's been good to work on a few things that use a different part of my brain. Some days just need to be without words.

Advertisements for Myself

I'm beginning to doubt their usefulness and they seem to cause nothing but headaches in the making, yet here I go again: a general book trailer using my new "branding" concept, as developed in conversation on this blog: hard to spell, easy to read!








The music is courtesy of my friend Gerry Luoma Henkel, who built my first kantele, Louhi. Gerry makes amazing instruments and beautiful music; not surprisingly, he tells me some of his music is going to be be featured in a play as well as in a movie being made in Australia. I'm lucky to have so many talented people around me. When I ordered my kantele from Gerry, he even included a videotape that he had made to show me the basics and how to tune it. It was a big help! Kanteles are easy to play and have a gorgeous and soothing sound. Everyone should have one!

Today I will be heading off to MassMOCA for the Bang on Can marathon. After having my head down over work all week, it will be a nice change to empty my head of words and just listen to the music. And not thinking about things I wish I had done...

Pelzmantel Book Trailer