The Books I'm Not Reading

David Corbett

Due to a scheduling snafu, I had to swap days, and Alexandra graciously obliged. I’m taking her spot today, and she’ll be taking mine next Wednesday. So, if you’re disappointed Alex isn’t here—and how could you not be?—take heart, she’ll be here at the controls this coming Wednesday, February 8^th.

John Updike once remarked that he realized early on he couldn’t be both a reader and a writer and he had to choose one or the other. As my career has progressed I’ve increasingly realized the truth of that insight, unpleasantly so.

Writers are readers first and foremost. But recently the onslaught of work has been so overwhelming my reading has come to a virtual standstill. The time it takes to write, pitch, research, keep up with the business of writing (with more research required), prepare for my classes, teach, network, do my volunteer work in the community—I feel like I’m skating across my days like a madman on black ice. More and more often I wake up with a jolt of apprehension clenched in my gut. I know I’m behind, I know I can’t keep up, I know the stakes.

Read? For pleasure? It is to laugh.

One sneaky outlet I always had was the High Crimes book group I lead at my local indie bookstore. I knew that I’d get to read at least one book I wanted to each month. But even that has fallen apart on me. During December I was supposed to be reading Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling. I loved the book, and was really enjoying it, but I got only halfway through by the time the group met to discuss it.

I promised to do better this month with Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, a book I again was loving, but I barely got past page 20. I'm not exaggerating.

This isn’t just irritating, it’s irresponsible. I’m letting my group down. Worse, I feel like I’m letting myself down.

I’m not one of those writers who can’t read fiction when he’s writing. I actually get inspired reading fiction I admire and relish when I’m working on my own book. I take care of the voice-infection problem, the possibility that what I’m reading will seep into my own voice, by going back over what I’ve written the day before as I begin working and tidying it up before moving on to new pages. But now that inspirational fertilization of my imagination, that spur to my creativity, is absent. And I feel it.

I know we all have TBR piles that seem overwhelming. My TBR pile became a box, then several boxes, then a closet, and now pretty much consumes a whole second office. In no particular order (who has time to prioritize what you’ll never get to do?):

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter

Lucifer at the Starlight by Kim Addonizio

The City The City by China Miéville

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Spooner by Pete Dexter

The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell

Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

Dreamland by Newton Thornburg

Murder City by Charles Bowden

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow

The Hidden Assassins by Robert Wilson

The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty

Body of Lies by David Ignatius

Ash & Bone by John Harvey

The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst

He Kills Coppers by Jake Arnott

Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo

I’m just listing the ones in easy reach. There are so many more—including books written by my friends and my fellow Murderateros. And I have to reread James Crumley’s The Wrong Case for an article I’ve been asked to do, and I should probably reread The Last Good Kiss while I’m at it, and I’m reading a number of writing guides as I conduct my courses and write my own book on character, and and and…

It’s not just that I feel like a slaggard. I feel like I’m letting the most important thing, one of my life’s greatest pleasures, slip away. And in no small way, it’s killing me.

Warren Zevon wrote an anthem to life at full throttle: “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” I’m beginning to think that’s when I'll get some reading in.

So, Murderateros—what book or books have you been aching to get to but just can’t? What is it that’s swallowing up your days? Is the pace of modern life really accelerating or are we just becoming increasingly scattered and unfocused? And if we don’t read, who will?

* * * * *

Jukebox Hero of the Week: Take a wild guess.

Golf...what the?

by PD Martin

Okay, I’m still in holiday mode here (this is the view from my towel most mornings, although this picture does NOT do it justice!). In my last blog I talked about what I’ve been up to on my extended holiday break and today I’m going to continue with the holiday theme. We’re still down in the Mornington Peninsula (until Saturday), and then on Monday my daughter starts school (scary!). Anyway…holidays…  

My mum is an avid golfer. She’s now retired and plays golf two to three times a week. She loves it. So, when she came down to the coast for a few days it was natural for her to persuade us all to go for nine holes of golf. I did try to suggest I could stay at home and write, but the look (you know the one that only a mother can give you) told me that it was NOT a good idea for me to bail on the golf. So off I went.

I’ve played golf a few times and keep thinking I’ll “get it”…but it hasn’t happened yet. After the first hole I was completely perplexed. What do people see in this game?? Why do they play it? Now the cynics reading this might think it had something to do with the fact that on the first hole (a par 4) it took me around 12 shots to get the stupid ball into the stupid hole. It may have even been 14 shots…let’s face it, by around six you lose count. My mum also tells me you have to count the shots when you completely miss the ball (air golf) but I think that’s a bit rough for a beginner.

The second hole wasn’t much better, but by the third I was down to about 8 or so shots (not counting the air-golf shots). Then one hole, I think it was the fifth hole, I took four shots for a par 3 and it did feel kind of good. But let’s face it, it was a complete fluke.

In the next hole there was a pond between me and the fairway. My daughter (who’s only 5) was in hysterics: “No, Mummy. It will go in the water. No!”  She was also quite worried about the ducks in the lake. But I thought I’d give it a go (maybe artificially buoyed by my four-shot hole). And what were the chances my ball would actually hit some poor innocent duck? Nil, surely. First ball went straight into the lake (of course), as did the second one. Thankfully, the ducks remained intact. Grace was most concerned about losing another ball (and I don’t think my mum wanted to give me another one either) so I walked around and dropped the ball on the fairway. And it still took me like a million shots to get it in the hole.

I think it was around this point that I said to my mum: “How many more holes have we got to go?” I guess it’s a variation on “Are we there yet?”

Interestingly, my daughter enjoys golf! My mum sometimes takes her to the driving range where they have 50 balls and then do some putting. On our 9 holes, Grace teed off about six times, often striking the ball further than me. Then we’d pick up her ball and give her a shot at the other end – putting. She seems pretty good for a 5yro, but then what do I know about golf?

As I walked around (for nearly three hours) I couldn’t help but think about what a complete waste of time golf was – and how I’d MUCH rather be at home writing. Time is very tight for me (the juggling act of motherhood, freelance corporate work and fiction writing) and I felt like I’d completely wasted three hours of my precious time. But I’m trying to be more ‘the glass if half full’ so I tried to think about the up-side.

1. I did walk around eight kilometers so at least I got a bit of exercise.
2. Cape Schanck is a stunning golf course, and on many holes you catch glimpses of the ocean in the background.
3. I was with my daughter, mum and mother-in-law.  Family time!

The only other thing that worried me on the course was that this particular course has lots of houses on it. I kept saying to my mum, “I’d be worried a ball was going to come sailing through my window.” She assured me they were designed so it rarely/never happened. But they hadn’t seen me play golf! Or maybe the designers had taken into account people like me because I miraculously avoided both ducks and houses. Yay, me!

So, any golfers out there? What am I missing?  Or do you think this game is as absurd as I do? Or maybe there’s some other sport or hobby that you just don’t get. 

BUILDING THE (TOO-) PERFECT PROTAGONIST

by Gar Anthony Haywood

One of the questions we writers get all the time is:

"Is your protagonist you?"

I've heard a lot of different answers to this question, some long and some short, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone just come out and say what we all know to be true:

"Of course he is!"

Because really, is there ever any doubt?  Why create a heroic character --- especially one who triumphs in the end --- if you can't live vicariously through him?  And how can you live vicariously through a character who's totally removed from yourself?

Has any card-carrying 'Rati ever read a Charlie Fox thriller and not seen Zoë Sharp herself doing all that ass-kicking?

I didn't think so.

Sure, we take pains to disguise ourselves, giving our protagonists attributes we don't actually share, but we're in there, all right.  Fiction is a game of pretend, and part of the fun of writing it comes from putting yourself at the center of the action, in the guise of a bigger and better you, facing enemies and dangers larger than you could reliably handle in the real world.  With ourselves as the underlying framework, we build a protagonist built for heroism, endowing him with strengths and powers we either lack altogether, or do not possess in sufficient quantity to tackle the task at hand.

But there's a limit to this process.  Unless you're writing pulp, or some kind of retro-crime fiction that harkens back to the days when "realism" was a dirty word, you never want to follow such fantasies to their extreme.  You know what your perfect protagonist looks like, but he's not anybody you could actually use in a story supposedly grounded in a non-fictional universe.

God bless Ian Fleming.  He got to have his cake and eat it, too, creating the ultimate male protagonist in James Bond, agent 007, at a time when scores of readers were still willing to forgive such laughable affronts to realism, common sense, and the sensibilities of women.  Try writing a series about such an ingenious, indefatigable, sexually flawless protagonist as Bond now and see how many rejection letters you collect.

Still, whether you can use him or her in your fiction or not, it's always fun to imagine what kind of protagonist you could build were the sky the limit.  Unencumbered by any restrictions suspension-of-disbelief might demand, what would he look like?  What would his powers be?

Or should I say, what would your powers be?  Because your protagonist is really you, remember?

When I created Aaron Gunner, the Los Angeles private investigator I've now put at the center of six novels, I drew the line at giving him only one thing my "perfect" protagonist would possess that I, sadly, do not: a red Ford Shelby Cobra, my favorite sports car of all time.

But I could have been much more generous to Gunner than that.

If I were building him according to my own personal wants and needs today, independent of what I thought readers would be willing to buy, this would be his basic profile:

1. Height/Weight: 6'-2"/220 lbs.
   
   Just big enough to give someone thinking about throwing down on him reason to think twice.
   
   
2. Physical attractiveness: 7.5
   
   This is on a scale of 1 - 10, 1 being Homer Simpson and 10 being Denzel Washington.
   
   
3. Sexual prowess: 8
   
   Again, this is on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 basically means any song featuring the words "all night long" in its lyrics could have been written about him on a typical Tuesday in March.
   
   (Sorry, ladies, I know you think this stuff is silly, but we guys really do fantasize like this, especially those of us with serious performance anxieties.  You dream about chocolate and warm baths, we dream about making Gisele Bündchen forget she ever even met Tom Brady.  What can I tell you?)
   
   
4. Annual income: $95,000
   
   Enough to live comfortably without losing sight of his humble origins.
   
   
5. Place of residence: 3 bedroom home in Ladera Heights (Los Angeles, CA)
   
   Because every man should have an expansive view of his city, and a spare bedroom to put all his toys in.
   
   
6. Could be a Jeopardy champion in the category of: World history
   
   
7. Aptitude in the kitchen: 7
   
   Where Bobby Flay would be a 10.  Not good enough to win any cooking contests, but capable of making any first date memorable for the food and drink alone.
   
   
8. Languages spoken fluently: 3
   
   English, Spanish and Japanese
   
   
9. Musical instruments played: 2
   
   Piano and guitar.  Self-taught.  No pro by a longshot, but he could join the band at any concert and not embarrass himself.  And every once in a blue moon, can rip off a jam like this:




10. Hidden talent: Expert magician.
    
    And I don't mean card tricks.  I mean "How the hell did he do that??" stuff.

And so on and so forth.  You get the idea.  A ridiculous character, to be sure, but someone it might be fun to be for a day or so, just to see how it would feel.

So what about you, my fellow 'Ratis?  Using the 10 categories above as a jumping off point, what would the profile of your "perfect protagonist" look like, if suspension-of-disbelief was not a consideration?

Acrostics

by Pari

Any parent with a kid in elementary school has had to read at least a dozen acrostics. If you haven’t been so blessed, let me explain. These are the “poems” in which the first letter of each line spells out something that, one hopes, refers back to the meaning of said poem.

For example

Mona could be found
Underneath, definitely not above,
Rachel’s  rosewood
Desk  . . . strangely
Emitting smells most
Repugnant.  

Or . . .

Kneeling quietly, hand
Nearing the throat
In and out
Forward and side
Enter eternity.

Okay, I must be in an Edward Gorey kind of mood. I’m just writing the first things that come to mind.

Pretty little eyes of newt
Odiferous fungi from the inner forest
Immerse in alcohol for a week
Sit it in the sun until dry
Open a packet of arsenic for insurance
No, not in the pudding! Add it to the stew.

So does anyone else want to play? I’d say anything goes. But if you want to keep it to a mystery theme, that might be fun. Repeated words are fine by me.

Let’s see just how wild we can make this Wildcard Tuesday!

Exuberant writing

by Pari

Lately I’ve been streaming a lot of Bollywood movies. I’ve always liked the dancing and music in these films and, of course, the happy endings. But the other night when I’d stayed up late to watch one with a really stupid plot -- that had it been from Hollywood I would’ve turned off hours before -- I realized that it’s not the music or dancing that keep me coming back for more . . . it’s the exuberance.  The joy, man, I’m into the joy.

That’s what I want in every aspect of my life right now. I know being blissed out on a constant basis would be boring, but I want moments of that unabashed vitality and enthusiasm for life every single day.

I want it. I want it now!

In the Bollywood films, the camera pans around love-struck couples and then rises high above groups of dancers swirling in saris of hot pink, royal blue, new leaf green. I jump up from my couch and dance with them on my worn carpet in the privacy of my living room and I can almost feel the Indian sun warming my arms and shoulders, shining off my graying hair.

And do you know what? I want that same feel, that rush of delight, sometimes when I read. I want a laughing literary experience that doesn’t so much astound me with its wit or cleverness, the perfectly placed word or phrase  -- but that takes me on such a wonderful rapid ride I can hardly catch my breath.

Who am I kidding?

I want literary rides that take me so fast I don’t even think about catching my breath!

So much of what we write about here at Murderati has to do with control and thought and the wonderful mastery of creating excellent work.

But right now, I want to read books just for fun,  for the giddy experience I inhale when I’m engrossed in my Bollywood movies.

So, please, today help me:

Where can I find exuberant writing?

(Oh, and if you've got Netflix and want to recommend some b-wood movies, that'd be fine too. Or if you know of some posted vids online . . . I'd enjoy those too!!)