The Road Goes On Forever

By David Corbett

In my last post, I mentioned the need for near perpetual publicity in this day and age of publishing meltdown and online promotion.

A little over two weeks after my book release, I feel like I understated the matter considerably. I need seven more hours a day, five more days a week, and a bottomless bowl of Wheaties to tackle everything.

As for sleep…

There are the events and readings I’m doing in the Bay Area and Los Angeles—please come out if you’re nearby—including a wonderful panel I did with Ellen Sussman this past weekend at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference (they sold out of my book!).

There are the workshops I’m conducting—again in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and also at Left Coast Crime in Colorado Springs, where I’ll be serving as toastmaster, and then in various northern California locales, at the DFW Conference in Dallas (where I’ll be co-keynote speaker with the lovely and charming and gifted Deborah Crombie), and finally, Memorial Day weekend, at the High Sierra Writers Conference in Reno.

There’s the various blogs I’ve posted for—call it Bombing the Blogs—including:

1. A book giveaway on Goodreads. I’m giving away five copies of The Art of Character, to be followed by a week-long Author Chat March 4-8.
2. An interview with the writing community at Scribophile, with an extra forum for additional Q&A at the Scribophile Forum. (The interview is open to the public; the forum requires a free signup to join the community, which is much like Goodreads, but more writer oriented.) Scribophile will also soon be sponsoring a contest with free books and a free critique session as prizes: Stay tuned.
3. I’ve posted various items with bloggers Kristi Belcamino (a Murderati regular), Vince Keenan, and Jungle Red Writers, with one planned with another Murderati regular, Erik Arneson, and more on the way.
4. I’ve posted excerpts from The Art of Character at Narrative, Zyzzyva, and We Wanted To Be Writers.
5. And I’ve even touted what I keep nearby for pleasure reading at Books By The Bed.

Then there’s just keeping my News page on my website current, with updates such as:

1. The Art of Character was chosen one of the 13 Top Picks for Writing Guides for 2013 by The Writer Magazine.
2. My article, "Push Your Characters to the Limit," appeared in the January 2013 edition of Writer's Digest.

I’m pitching an article I wrote called “The Politics of Plot” to the Huffington Post, and one titled "Secrets & Contradictions" for the New York Times' The Opinionator/Drafts column.

And then there’s the constant drafting of event invites on Facebook, keeping up with the ever-changing world of Amazon, communicating with everyone who responds to the book giveaway on Goodreads (and inviting others I know), answering comments on the Scribophile blog, updating what I’ve already done, building my Twitter base (hey guys, over here, follow me, follow me, no me, over here, I said here, hey guys?) …

Plus I have my online course through UCLA Extension -- incredibly wonderful, hard-woring students from around the world -- a new one I’m pitching to LitReactor, three manuscripts to review and edit, a novel to finish (close, I’m very close)...

I've yet to inload any financial date into Quickbooks for my 2012 taxes, I’m refinancing my house (don’t get me started), my car needed new tires and a new radiator before I headed south to LA, my computer keyboard has developed a new glitch where -- only in Word -- the forward cursor moves backwards and no one at Microsoft has a clue…

Then there’s the happier end of Things to Prepare For: My other half, Mette, is driving cross-country next month with Hamley, the Wonder Dog, and moving in with me.

(I’ll be traveling to Norway and Turkey this summer to meet Mette's extended family. Yes, she’s descended from Vikings and Turks. This is not lost on me.)

So, let’s just say I’m keeping busy. Or busier. Make that busiest.

Every now and then, I get to read a book—which reminds me: Cara Black’s latest, Murder Below Montparnasse, is coming out on March 5th, and you can win a trip to Paris with Cara if you pre-order now. (I'll be interviewing Cara about the new book on Wildcard Tuesday, March 26th.)

Oh, and lest I forget, you can buy copies of The Art of Character here.

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So, Murderateros—what’s keeping you up these nights?

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Jukebox Hero of the Week: Robert Earl Keen, Jr., one of the great Texas singer/songwriter/storytellers, with one of my favorite tunes ever, and something of an anthem for my life right now, thus the title of today's post: 

The Pleasure of Panels

By David Corbett

One the great pleasures of publicity tours—yes, Virginia, there are pleasures to publicity tours—is teaming up with other authors for a panel.

Panels provide one of the great exceptions to the Less is More principle. Two minds are indeed better than one, as are—depending on the minds at issue—three and four or even five, though I think that’s the limit for a decent panel. After that, it’s a chorus line. Or a scrum.

There’s always a balance that needs to be struck between the joy of spontaneity and giving the panelists enough of an idea what the topic is that they can prepare a few interesting ideas and lines—and a couple good jokes.

This is particularly on my mind as I prepare for two panels I’ll be doing in the span of one week:

First, a panel with A.M. Homes, Megan Abbott, and Duane Swierczynski at the Barnes & Noble at 86^th and Lexington on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, 7 PM on Monday, February 11^th; and

Second, a panel with Ellen Sussman at the San Francisco Writers Conference on Sunday, February 17^th.

Frankly, with fellow panelists like that, I could sit there and drool and come off semi-smart. (Well, okay, maybe not drool.)

Ellen is a San Francisco writer I met through Murderati alum Cornelia Read at a reading for Dirty Words: An Encyclopedia of Sex, which Ellen edited. (Ellen’s entry on Happy Endings appears immediately before Cornelia’s on Hard-ons.)

In The Art of Character I use a scene from Ellen’s novel French Lessons to illustrate how to use clothing—in this case, a pregnant, jilted, miserable teacher’s fascination with a pair of turquoise pumps in a Paris boutique—as an objective correlative for the character’s inner life.

Ellen and I are doing a panel titled MY CHARACTER ATE MY PLOT! Creating characters that drive your story. It seems to be a bit of a mash-up of a workshop I proposed on how to balance story and character demands and an impromptu panel. Whatever. Ellen and I will have a gas.

The New York panel really has me intrigued. I’ve been reading A.M. Homes’s May We Be Forgiven and I’m mesmerized. Later this month I’ll be posting for the Books by the Bed column on the website for We Wanted to be Writers (the group memoir about the Iowa Writers’ Workshop). One of the books I mention is May We Be Forgiven, and this is what I say:

As deft a balancing act between heartbreaking realism and wicked black humor as I’ve read outside the works of Pete Dexter. An opening scene with a gutted Thanksgiving turkey, fingers dripping with meat juices, lips coated in same, and then an illicit kiss between the protagonist and his taller, smarter, more successful brother’s wife—and it just takes off from there. Uncanny pacing for a so-called literary novel—violent and smart and did I mention funny?

Many of you probably already know Duane Swierczynski, though you probably can’t pronounce his name. (It’s okay, no one can. Or spell it for that matter.) I also included his The Blonde in my Books by the Bed posting:

The reading equivalent of listening to Eddy Angel channel Link Wray. Gutsy and quick on its feet, with so many deft strokes and oddball observations and switchback plot turns, not to mention (lest we forget) the eponymous blonde who, of course, is not who she seems—a patch of red in a private spot gives her away. More to the point, she’ll die if someone isn’t within ten feet of her. Literally. Beat that, Salman Rushdie!

And Megan Abbott, after writing and winning an Edgar for creative re-interpretations of fifties noir (with an emphasis on the women characters so often trivialized in that genre) has broken out with two novels set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, her childhood hometown: The End of Everything and Dare Me.

I mean, I’ll have to concentrate very, very hard if I want to screw up this panel.

Like my panel with Ellen, this one also will gravitate toward character, and Megan and Duane both want to talk about the difficulties of characterization in the compressed formats of graphic novels and film, and A.M. wants to talk about the challenges of writing about someone fundamentally different than oneself.

I also want to ask Megan about what characterization challenges she’s faced in switching from noir pastiches to more realistic novels, and generally just invite everybody to jump in and say whatever comes to mind. (Like I'll be able to stop them...)

If you live in New York and feel inclined, join us at 7 PM at the B&N UES at 86^th & Lex.

Or if you’re ready for the whole smorgasbord of writing panels and editor consultations and agent pitches, check out the San Francisco Writers Conference—and join Ellen and me on Sunday morning (at the ungodly hour of 9 AM).

How we suffer for our art.

BTW: One final nod to Blatant Sell-Promotion (that's a deliberate typo): If you or someone you know is interested in the craft of characterization, and would like an inspiring, in-depth and yet practical guide, please check out The Art of Character. Follow the link to find out more, including where you can buy a copy. Or read a brand new excerpt here.

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So, Murderateros, what’s the best panel you’ve ever been on or seen?

What was the worst?

What made the one great and the other not so great?

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Jukebox Hero of the Week: Valentine’s Day will have come and gone by the time my next post goes up, so in premature celebration (ahem), I offer this Brubeck chestnut used to brilliant effect in the film Silver Linings Playbook. It beautifully sets the mood for a crucial scene, when Pat goes to Tiffany's house Halloween night for their first (this-is-not-a) date. It's spare and haunting but playful, with its 7/4 time creating an off-balance tension. Perfect.