Noir fiction for the modern reader.

Once again, James Scott Bell has reeled me in to his topic du jour over at The Kill Zone. Today he waxed eloquent about the treacherous path from idea to story. Seems he had an idea for a full chapter some years ago, so he wrote it down. Then he set it aside as other projects commanded his attention. Eventually, though, he went back to it and extracted a novella from it. That brought to mind a similar experience of mine.

Approximately 25 years ago, a friend of mine said, “When I write my novel, I’m going to start off with this line: I moved into the Napoleon House on the day XXXXX died.” (I forget the guy’s name who died, but he was well-known around the Napoleon House in New Orleans) The line struck me as a good one. I loved the idea of tying a new-day-dawning event with someone’s death. I was well into my first novel at the time, but this line stayed with me.

Fast forward to 2009. I’m ready to start a new novel. I’m casting about for ideas. I know that, since I can’t really make up stories in advance, I’m going to have to wing it, as always, letting my characters tell the story while I merely write it down. That line, which had festered in the outer swamps of my memory, awaiting reclamation, finally showed itself and I jumped on it.

I changed it around a little, turning it into, “I got back to Key West on the day Aldo Ray died.”

Of course, I now had to add tens of thousands of additional words to complete that story, and I had no idea what those words would be, but the line got me going. I asked myself, “Who’s coming back to Key West, why is he coming back, and what’s the deal with Aldo Ray?” Ray was a movie actor from the 1950s, usually assigned to tough guy roles, so I took it from there and before you could say “Key West noir”, the book had taken flight.

Which brings me to the title.

I had actually completed the first draft without a title. I had absolutely no hints as to what this novel would be called. I was getting desperate and my title-idea well was virtually dry. Fortunately, I was playing professional poker at the time at Bellagio in Las Vegas and that would be my salvation.

In Las Vegas cardrooms, if a player wants a new deck, he/she requests it from the dealer. The dealer then calls out to the floorman for a setup, which is casino parlance for a little box containing two new decks of cards. One day, a player at my table made such a request and the dealer hollered out, “Setup on fourteen!”, since we were playing at table fourteen at the time. Something snapped inside me and I mentally transformed that to “Setup On Front Street“, and I had my title.

I’m just glad we weren’t sitting at table five or something. I’d probably still be searching.

Yesterday over at TheKillZone.com, James Scott Bell posted a blog about the moment one decides to become a writer. He included this provocative excerpt from Jack London’s semi-autobiographical novel Martin Eden:

And then, in splendor and glory, came the great idea. He would write. He would be one of the eyes through which the world saw, one of the ears through which it heard, one of the hearts through which it felt. He would write–everything–poetry and prose, fiction and description, and plays like Shakespeare. There was career and the way to win to Ruth. The men of literature were the world’s giants . . . Once the idea had germinated, it mastered him, and the return voyage to San Francisco was like a dream. He was drunken with unguessed power and felt that he could do anything . . . To write! The thought was fire in him. He would begin as soon as he got back . . . There were twenty-four hours in each day. He was invincible. He knew how to work, and the citadels would go down before him.

Pretty strong stuff. Jim went on to write that he himself could isolate the very day, the very moment in time when he made the decision. Like so many of his posts, it got me to thinking.

I write. I have novels out, one traditionally published and two self-published. I have some six or seven published short stories. I sweat over dialogue and narrative just the way Jim does, just the way Stephen King does, probably. I take pride in what I’ve written. I’ve been doing all this for many years.

And yet I never really decided I wanted to be a writer.

No warm wave of certainty ever washed over me, no hot bolt from the blue struck at my subconscious, not even a simple admission to myself that “I want to be a writer”, followed by a relentless pursuit of that goal.

Don’t get me wrong, now. I’ve done plenty of pursuing. As I said, I’ve done everything it takes to be a writer, and I guess I am one. Thing is, I never made the conscious decision to become one. It just…sort of happened.

It was all so gradual. Starting back in 1986 when I wrote an account of a bizarre trip I took to Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa, and then another account of an equally strange trip to Honduras the following year, I had absolutely not the slightest idea that twenty-five years later, I would have three novels and a short story collection published, with several more novels completed and ready to go.

I had no mentor at all during those years, no one to tell me about POV and passive voice and plot structure and dialogue tags and all the other components of the author’s catechism. So it was a very, very long learning curve for me. And I still haven’t reached the end of it.

I probably never will.

I’m still trying to decipher the code of getting readers to notice my novels, the code which appears to be well-known to a lot of authors I’ve seen on places like the Kindle Boards, authors who seem to accomplish it with very little effort. But I guess it’s all part of that long curve.

I think I have an aversion to goals. I mean, I’ve never really set goals for myself. How can I plan to achieve this or that level of success in, say, five or ten years when I don’t have any idea what opportunities or challenges will present themselves to me in those future years? Let’s say I set a goal for five years down the road, then in two years, I come to an unexpected fork in the road. The left fork takes me toward my goal, but the right fork takes me in a new, exciting direction away from my goal and toward a more appealing conclusion. If I were in dogged pursuit of my goal, I would take the left fork and plow ahead. But I know I would be forever haunted by not knowing what awaited me down that tantalizing right fork.

My whole life, I’ve always taken the right fork because I’ve operated in a goal-free zone. I’ve done okay for myself, I think, and I have few, if any, major regrets. I’ve had several great careers and I now am neck-deep in my latest one, writing noir novels, while living in beautiful Key West. There’s no doubt in my mind that had I been hamstrung with goals, I would today have many regrets.

So I’m going to continue writing as long as I can, and maybe one day I’ll wake up and say, “Yikes! I want to be a writer!”

Over at the Kill Zone today, James Scott Bell posted a very articulate blog about self-doubt among writers. According to Jim, virtually all writers are gripped with fear for most of their lives, 100% certain that they will be exposed as frauds or worse. Even the likes of Stephen King, Jim says, live in fear because they’ve set the bar so high with their previous successes, topping it often appears impossible.

Jim is himself an excellent writer with quite a few novels under his belt, along with the how-to book, Plot And Structure, which should be (IMO) required reading for all writers. So he’s not coming at this from left field. I’m sure he’s been plagued with doubt himself. And, like most of us, he gets over it after he writes each book, only to have it rear its head again as he sits down to write another one.

But when Stephen King or Dean Koontz start whining about self-doubt and how they’re just positive their lack of talent will be exposed, it’s real hard for me to gin up any sympathy, you know what I mean? And I certainly don’t get the touchy-feely “we’re all in this together” message that I’m supposed to be getting. Those guys, and others like them, sell millions and millions of books, they get huge advances, they sign movie deals worth a king’s ransom, and they crank out best-selling novels like Burger King cranks out Whoppers. Now, I know, they’re all worried about whether their next book will be any good, but who cares? They know deep down–and the rest of us know, too–that their next book is going to light up the charts just like all the rest of them did. All they have to do is click “send” and watch their latest novel shoot off to their eager publishers.

Real self-doubt, on the other hand, resides in those of us who have never been able to get the attention of even a single can’t-be-bothered literary agent or a mainstream publisher, those of us who wander unguided into the darkness of the self-publishing netherworld, those of us whose books can never seem to get off the ground, never take flight.

Real self-doubt resides in those of us who labor away at the computer, sweating out plot developments and dialogue just like Stephen King does, without being propped up by seven-figure advances, wondering if this will be the book that finally gets a little attention, gets a few readers.

Real self-doubt resides in those of us who are denied real membership in the elitist Mystery Writers of America and other such organizations who sneer at self-published authors, who claim our work is merely part of a giant “slush pile”, who arrogantly claim we’re contributing to a mountain of “crap” that has been made possible by the recent ease of self-publishing.

Real self-doubt resides in those of us who really do wonder, given all the above roadblocks thrown in our path, if we can write after all. And the question plagues us, is it all worth it if our only destiny is to be crushed under someone else’s train that has already left the station.

Put a bestselling author in those circumstances and let’s see what happens to his/her self-doubt. Want to bet it would feel a lot more real?

Yesterday afternoon, I returned from Los Angeles, where I attended the Left Coast Crime conference. It was held at the Omni Hotel downtown, and despite the sky-high room rates and costs of everything else inside the hotel, the conference itself was, in my opinion, a smash.

First of all, despite many trips to LA in the past, I’d never really been downtown. I quickly learned that it’s divided into two distinct areas: the clump of gleaming skyscrapers where all the big business is done, and “old” downtown, which is down the hill from the shiny stuff. Fortunately, the Omni is on the border between the two, at the crest of the hill, so that when Jim Bell conducted his walking tour, we all just slipped down the hill and into the old section.

The “old” downtown is surprisingly viable, looking for all the world like LA of the 1950s with newer cars. I half expected to see a Megan Abbott character skulking around, or maybe even Jack Webb pull up at any moment. We toured the Bradbury Building, a gorgeous relic if ever there was one, and down its hallways I kept looking for the pebbled glass door that read “Spade & Archer.” We also zipped through the Central Market, an open-air bazaar where Philip Marlowe had his regular bowl of chop suey. Jim’s informative commentary held everyone’s attention without a dull moment. There were other stops, but you get the idea. It was wonderful.

In addition, I was stunned at how little traffic there was downtown. I never, and I mean never, saw more than four or five cars at any one stoplight, and the streets were generally near-empty most of the time. This compares very favorably with other downtown areas I’m familiar with, such as New Orleans, Houston, Nashville, and Miami. Even my adopted hometown of Key West, hardly a paradigm of metropolitan traffic jams, usually musters up more traffic than I saw in four days in downtown Los Angeles.

Okay, enough of the wide-eyed tourist stuff.

The conference, as I said, was terrific. Every attendee got a goodie bag which included no fewer than six books, each by one of the authors at the conference! Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Jan Burke, and many others were in attendance, and unlike the big authors who were at Bouchercon, they didn’t just fly in, do their bit, and then disappear. They were around and available for buttonholing. Very classy.

The panels were rewarding, too. I learned something from every one I attended. The one I served on featured Boyd Morrison, Lee Goldberg, Dana Kaye, and Ashley Ream as the moderator. Boyd has a compelling story to tell and he told it in great detail at this panel. If you don’t know it, look him up. It’s worth reading. Lee also gave some good advice on the coming electronic age to unpublished writers, and Dana is a publicist whose depth of knowledge regarding internet publicity is astonishing.

Overall, the atmosphere was one of warmth and camaraderie. I made several new friends whom I hope to see again down the road somewhere.

Saturday night brought a cocktail party followed by the banquet. The wine was good, the food was tasty, and the subsequent awards ceremony and auction were lively.

As writers conferences go, you really can’t ask for more. Congrats to Jean Utley, Sherry Lilley, and all others who were involved in putting it together.

Jeff Pierce of The Rap Sheet (http://therapsheet.blogspot.com) has named me, along with six other unfortunates, to participate in the Bald-Faced Liar (aka “Creative Writer”) Blogger Award.  Never being one to sidestep a chance to lie, I gladly accepted. There are a few simple rules, and they are:

• Thank the person who gave this to you. (Thanks, Jeff.)
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (OK, done.)
• Link to the person who nominated you. (Check.)
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

After careful thought, I decided that six lies would be too easy, so I have elected to tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.  The truths are all absolutely true, but please don’t ask me to elaborate on any of them. Can you guess which is the lie?

1. During my poker career, I once won a large pot from actor James Woods.

2. Back in my musical career, I once played piano behind Jerry Lee Lewis.

3. Also, back in my musical career, I often played in a bar in Honduras frequented by “death squad” members.

4. When I was in college, I was in several classes with Bill Clinton.

5. I was arrested in Zimbabwe as a “provocateur”.

6. While in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, I once danced with Miss Trinidad (of the Miss Universe contest, where she went on to finish 2nd).

7. I know, without doubt, who was behind the JFK assassination.

Okay, there you have it. Step right up and take your guess. Meanwhile, the other writers I am nominating are (drum roll, please):

Tom Piccirilli (The Last Kind Words), Morgan St James (The Seven Deadly Samovars), James Scott Bell (Plot & Structure), Charlie Stella (Johnny Porno), John McFetridge (Let It Ride), Vegas Linda Lou (Bastard Husband: A Love Story), links posted to the right.