Whiplash River Pub Date
Tue, Jan 17 2012 11:26 AM
| Shameful Self-Promotion
| Permalink
I’ll provide more information down the line, but for a quick impressionistic preview here’s a selection of words and terms from the official proofreading sheet that came with the copy-edited manuscript:
Baby Jesus, Ambergris Caye, AR-15, Louboutin, dama blanca, dumb-ass, “Please, Please, Please” (James Brown), St. Francis Cabrini, Inshallah, Baird’s tapir.
Comments (2)
Reader Questions - July 2011
I’m fortunate enough to get a fair amount of email from readers who really liked my first novel, GUTSHOT STRAIGHT. And I’m fortunate that most of the readers who didn’t like it (a miniscule proportion of the total, I like to think) don’t bother to write in and tell me so.
A lot of readers ask questions, and a lot of the same questions, so I thought I’d tackle a couple of them here.
QUESTION #1: Will there be a sequel to GUTSHOT STRAIGHT?
ANSWER: Yes. More specific news on that will be forthcoming very soon.
QUESTION #2: Your bio says you’re a professional screenwriter. What movies have you written that I’ve seen?
ANSWER: Outside of Los Angeles, I get asked this question a lot, in usually a kind of skeptically hostile way: What do you mean, you’re a screenwriter, if you’ve never written anything I’ve seen? The implication being, of course, that I must suck as a screenwriter if I’ve never had anything produced. I can say, categorically, that this is not true. I do not suck as a screenwriter. Only a small percentage of screenplays ever get produced. And I’m talking about screenplays that have been bought or assigned by studios or production companies. The quality of a screenplay certainly helps its chances of getting shot, but there are a ton of factors beyond the screenwriter’s control. The money might fall through (it takes a lot of money to make a movie, even a modestly budgeted one), or the star who’s attached might jump to a different project, or the head of the studio who loved the project might get fired, or a movie just like the one you wrote bombs at the box office and makes your genre toxic, etc.
QUESTION #3: How did GUTSHOT STRAIGHT come about?
ANSWER: You want the short answer or the long answer? The short answer is: paint by numbers.
Here’s the long version:
Right before I decided to write the novel, there were two things I was spending most of my waking hours doing: writing screenplays and mixing paints.
My father, who passed away in 2009, had Alzheimer’s. We were lucky, though, because he kept busy and happy by doing paint-by-number kits. He was amazingly good at them. And fast. He could knock off a Super-Expert 64-color summer seascape in like a day or two. The problem, though, was that the Paint By Number industry had recently stopped making kits with pre-mixed paints. Which was not a great development, understandably, for their customers with Alzheimer’s. So it fell to me to do the paint-mixing for my father. I was happy to do it, but you can maybe guess how long it takes, how tedious it is, to mix 64 colors into tiny little plastic cups every day or two, getting the formula just right for shades like asphalt sunset and loquacious teal. Sometimes it felt like I was in a Kafka novel.
So I’m doing that, one cold, bleak, gray November day, and I get a call from my screenwriting agent, who says he’s got good news, bad news. Now, whenever a Hollywood agent says he has good news, bad news, that means he has bad news and worse news. In this case, (a) the WGA was going on strike and so (b) the TV project I’d been planning to be a main source of income for the coming year was dead.
For a week or so after that, I was in a definitely not-great mood. I couldn’t work on screenplays because of the strike, and since I live in Oklahoma City not Los Angeles I couldn’t even drive out to Paramount or Universal to picket with other writers and yell obscenities at all the studio executives driving in.
That’s when I decided to write a novel, because it was either that or just mix paint by number paints all day until the strike was over. That’s why, for example, the second half of GUTSHOT STRAIGHT takes place in Panama – because I wanted go somewhere in my mind that was fun and warm and exotic and lively and had good snorkeling and interesting food – that wasn’t, in other words, Oklahoma City in the dead of winter, during the middle of a WGA strike. Writing this novel was kind of like my therapy for all that. People read to escape, but writers write to do it too.
A lot of readers ask questions, and a lot of the same questions, so I thought I’d tackle a couple of them here.
QUESTION #1: Will there be a sequel to GUTSHOT STRAIGHT?
ANSWER: Yes. More specific news on that will be forthcoming very soon.
QUESTION #2: Your bio says you’re a professional screenwriter. What movies have you written that I’ve seen?
ANSWER: Outside of Los Angeles, I get asked this question a lot, in usually a kind of skeptically hostile way: What do you mean, you’re a screenwriter, if you’ve never written anything I’ve seen? The implication being, of course, that I must suck as a screenwriter if I’ve never had anything produced. I can say, categorically, that this is not true. I do not suck as a screenwriter. Only a small percentage of screenplays ever get produced. And I’m talking about screenplays that have been bought or assigned by studios or production companies. The quality of a screenplay certainly helps its chances of getting shot, but there are a ton of factors beyond the screenwriter’s control. The money might fall through (it takes a lot of money to make a movie, even a modestly budgeted one), or the star who’s attached might jump to a different project, or the head of the studio who loved the project might get fired, or a movie just like the one you wrote bombs at the box office and makes your genre toxic, etc.
QUESTION #3: How did GUTSHOT STRAIGHT come about?
ANSWER: You want the short answer or the long answer? The short answer is: paint by numbers.
Here’s the long version:
Right before I decided to write the novel, there were two things I was spending most of my waking hours doing: writing screenplays and mixing paints.
My father, who passed away in 2009, had Alzheimer’s. We were lucky, though, because he kept busy and happy by doing paint-by-number kits. He was amazingly good at them. And fast. He could knock off a Super-Expert 64-color summer seascape in like a day or two. The problem, though, was that the Paint By Number industry had recently stopped making kits with pre-mixed paints. Which was not a great development, understandably, for their customers with Alzheimer’s. So it fell to me to do the paint-mixing for my father. I was happy to do it, but you can maybe guess how long it takes, how tedious it is, to mix 64 colors into tiny little plastic cups every day or two, getting the formula just right for shades like asphalt sunset and loquacious teal. Sometimes it felt like I was in a Kafka novel.
So I’m doing that, one cold, bleak, gray November day, and I get a call from my screenwriting agent, who says he’s got good news, bad news. Now, whenever a Hollywood agent says he has good news, bad news, that means he has bad news and worse news. In this case, (a) the WGA was going on strike and so (b) the TV project I’d been planning to be a main source of income for the coming year was dead.
For a week or so after that, I was in a definitely not-great mood. I couldn’t work on screenplays because of the strike, and since I live in Oklahoma City not Los Angeles I couldn’t even drive out to Paramount or Universal to picket with other writers and yell obscenities at all the studio executives driving in.
That’s when I decided to write a novel, because it was either that or just mix paint by number paints all day until the strike was over. That’s why, for example, the second half of GUTSHOT STRAIGHT takes place in Panama – because I wanted go somewhere in my mind that was fun and warm and exotic and lively and had good snorkeling and interesting food – that wasn’t, in other words, Oklahoma City in the dead of winter, during the middle of a WGA strike. Writing this novel was kind of like my therapy for all that. People read to escape, but writers write to do it too.
Comments (1)
Six Things About Egypt
In May, my wife and I spent 10 amazing days in Egypt. Egypt had been at the very top of my must-see list for as long as I could remember, and I wanted to case the country as a possible setting for a future novel or screenplay.
Six Things I’ll Steal From Egypt for a Future Novel or Screenplay:
(*) The hair-raising traffic in Cairo. It makes the traffic in Bangkok, which I always thought was pretty heavy and chaotic, look like a couple of horse-and-buggies rolling down an Amish farm road. (Speaking of hair-raising traffic: I’m pretty sure the closest I’ve ever come to a dramatic death was the high-speed headlights-off drafting-three-inches-from-the-van-in-front-of-you four-a.m. caravan race through the desert from Aswan to Abu Simbel, near the border with Sudan.)
(*) The evening call to prayer. From the mosques all over Cairo or Luxor or Aswan. In the soft light of dusk, the cries of the muezzin all around you is eerie and peaceful and beautiful.
(*) The snorkeling at Soma Bay in the Red Sea. In GUTSHOT STRAIGHT, the character of Gina goes snorkeling off the Caribbean coast of Panama. She’s pretty damn impressed, but only because she’s never been to the Red Sea. Coral, clarity, and cool marine life (octopi! deadly scorpion fish!) – spectacular.
(*) The Great Pyramid. I thought it would be a disappointment. How could it not be? It’s not a disappointment – it’s a mind-blower. It also blew my mind to think about some of my fellow tourists, from years past, who had stood right where I was standing and had their minds blown too: Herodotus, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Mark Twain.
(*) The Khan el Khalili bazaar in Egypt. My favorite souk was in Aswan, but the legendary Khan el Khalili will end up in a future novel or screenplay. The predatory vendors there have just unbelievable game. They’re able to switch at the speed of light from charm to flattery to reason to affront to humor to humorous charming affront, plus they’re better than most NBA power forwards at keeping you boxed in and unable to escape from their stalls.
(*) A felucca ride on the Nile at sunset in Aswan. The water slapping against the hull, the sail creaking in the cool breeze, the rocky cataracts flushing with color, little Nubian boys swimming out to sing songs for you. If I ever need to have two characters fall in love, I may have them do it on the Nile in Aswan.
Six Things I’ll Steal From Egypt for a Future Novel or Screenplay:
(*) The evening call to prayer. From the mosques all over Cairo or Luxor or Aswan. In the soft light of dusk, the cries of the muezzin all around you is eerie and peaceful and beautiful.
(*) The snorkeling at Soma Bay in the Red Sea. In GUTSHOT STRAIGHT, the character of Gina goes snorkeling off the Caribbean coast of Panama. She’s pretty damn impressed, but only because she’s never been to the Red Sea. Coral, clarity, and cool marine life (octopi! deadly scorpion fish!) – spectacular.
(*) The Great Pyramid. I thought it would be a disappointment. How could it not be? It’s not a disappointment – it’s a mind-blower. It also blew my mind to think about some of my fellow tourists, from years past, who had stood right where I was standing and had their minds blown too: Herodotus, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Mark Twain.
(*) The Khan el Khalili bazaar in Egypt. My favorite souk was in Aswan, but the legendary Khan el Khalili will end up in a future novel or screenplay. The predatory vendors there have just unbelievable game. They’re able to switch at the speed of light from charm to flattery to reason to affront to humor to humorous charming affront, plus they’re better than most NBA power forwards at keeping you boxed in and unable to escape from their stalls.
(*) A felucca ride on the Nile at sunset in Aswan. The water slapping against the hull, the sail creaking in the cool breeze, the rocky cataracts flushing with color, little Nubian boys swimming out to sing songs for you. If I ever need to have two characters fall in love, I may have them do it on the Nile in Aswan.
Tour Wrap
Under the heading of “Better Three Months Late Than Never,” I thought I’d better put the Gutshot Straight January world tour to bed.
After finishing up the Midwest leg of the tour, I flew out of Milwaukee and into Phoenix. This was late January, remember, and Phoenix – not, historically, one of my favorite cities – never felt so good. And I started to understand, at a much deeper level than I ever had before, one key reason for the post-war westward migration from Rust to Sun Belt.
I drove straight down to Tucson, where thanks to Priceline I spent the night at a luxe but spookily deserted mountain resort (no blood pouring from the elevators, but glassy-eyed children in 19th-century school uniforms did keep popping up freaking everywhere). The next day I dropped by Clues Unlimited to sign stock and chat with owner Chris Acevedo about books, dogs, and lovely Tucson (I definitely want to go back there).
After that, I turned around and motored back up to Phoenix, where I had a mid-day reading at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale. Lesa Holstine, a nationally-syndicated reviewer of crime and mystery fiction, runs the terrific reading series at the Velma Teague, and I had a great time there (as well as a excellent homestyle Mexican food at a restaurant across the street from the library).
From Glendale I drove across town to Scottsdale for an evening event at the legendary Poisoned Pen Bookstore. There was a nice turn-out, and the audience included fellow writer Jeffrey Siger, author of acclaimed thrillers set in Greece, and Sarah Spears, my former student, former dogsitter, current good friend, and I-hope-not-but-if-necessary my future high-powered criminal defense lawyer. Patrick Millikin was one hell of an excellent moderator, grilling my ass backwards and forwards with a series of thoughtful, penetrating, and funny questions. I answered them all with as much truth as I could muster.
From Phoenix (where, again, thanks to Priceline I stayed at a luxe but spookily-deserted desert resort), I flew to San Diego. I hit Mysterious Galaxy to sign stock and laugh pretty much non-stop at the very funny Linda Tonnesen. From there I drove up to Orange County, where my cousin Jim Harrigan (you remember him from this post) and his wife, Katy, hosted a party for me. I’d started my tour with family, in Austin, so it was great to end it that way. I’d been in the air when the Today Show aired the segment where John Searles picked Gutshot Straight as one of the winter’s best reads, but Jim had DVRed it for me so I got to see my book jacket’s national TV debut on the big screen. Jim had already gone seriously above and beyond in the generosity department, but this was the mother of all book parties – complete with a chocolate fountain and lots of saucy blonde California girls (see photo). I was pretty tired when I got to the party, but full of energy by the time I left, thanks to all the interesting people I got a chance to chat with. I won’t name them, at the risk of leaving someone out, but they provided me with enough material for another two or three books.
After finishing up the Midwest leg of the tour, I flew out of Milwaukee and into Phoenix. This was late January, remember, and Phoenix – not, historically, one of my favorite cities – never felt so good. And I started to understand, at a much deeper level than I ever had before, one key reason for the post-war westward migration from Rust to Sun Belt.
After that, I turned around and motored back up to Phoenix, where I had a mid-day reading at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale. Lesa Holstine, a nationally-syndicated reviewer of crime and mystery fiction, runs the terrific reading series at the Velma Teague, and I had a great time there (as well as a excellent homestyle Mexican food at a restaurant across the street from the library).
From Glendale I drove across town to Scottsdale for an evening event at the legendary Poisoned Pen Bookstore. There was a nice turn-out, and the audience included fellow writer Jeffrey Siger, author of acclaimed thrillers set in Greece, and Sarah Spears, my former student, former dogsitter, current good friend, and I-hope-not-but-if-necessary my future high-powered criminal defense lawyer. Patrick Millikin was one hell of an excellent moderator, grilling my ass backwards and forwards with a series of thoughtful, penetrating, and funny questions. I answered them all with as much truth as I could muster.
The Frozen Midwest
After lunch, I knocked out a few more drop-in signings in the Chicago area, then drove three hours to Madison, Wisconsin, for my appearance at Booked for Murder. It was, by a pretty long stretch, the smallest turn-out of the entire tour: one guy. But he was a very interesting one guy (I learned a lot of surprisingly cool stuff about embedded traffic sensors that I’m going to steal for a future project, bet on it) and BOOKSTORE OWNER Sara Barnes was a delightful host who provided chocolate cookies.
That infusion of sugar was necessary, because after the event I had to drive an hour and a half back to Milwaukee, where Priceline had hooked me up at the downtown Hyatt, on the site of which in 1912 an insane man tried to assassinate Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was on his way to address a political rally, and his life was saved when the manuscript of his (characteristically lengthy) speech, in the pocket of his coat, stopped the assassin’s bullet. How’s that for the power of the written word?
Did I mention that the windchill in Milwaukee was something like forty degrees below zero? Teddy Roosevelt was wearing a heavy winter coat when the assassin shot him, and that helped stop the bullet too. I’m not sure what lesson to draw from that.
Next: Sunny and Warm Thank God Arizona.
