Anthony Neil Smith: 2012

The Thing About Shorts

I just don't write that many short stories any more. I've got a bunch of half-written, not so good ones here. I would love to like any of them enough to finish them. I would love to be in Crime Factory, Needle, Noir Nation, and all the others, but I'm not happy with writing short stories right now.

I like writing novels.

Now, I know short stories are important, especially for finding new voices. One of the reasons we started Plots with Guns was simply to have a place where we could read more stories we liked. And it's often a great way to get students interested in a writer. I love the annual "Best Of" collections (well, some of them) for discovering the temperature of the shot story scene.

But still, I don't read them all that often. Not really. 

I'd just rather read novels. 

I dunno. I've been thinking about it recently because I've got a stack of anthologies on my desk, checking out a few writers I've heard about but haven't read yet. And I just realize that it's only an occasional thing now, not part of my normal reading routine. 

And even with the explosion of novellas on Kindle, I kind of find myself not that interested in those either. Guess I need a more complete experience. 

Anyway...I've got a stack of novels here, too, that I'm really excited about reading this summer. 

MORE FREE LAFITTE

Quick and dirty: Yellow Medicine and Hogdoggin' are free today and Saturday. Why? Because I want to spread the Lafitte saga way out there while I'm finishing the third novel featuring that charming murderous bastard.

So get these free fuckers already if you haven't. Tell your friends. Call people at random. Why the hell not?

(artwork by Erik Lundy)

Charlie Hood

I hope T. Jefferson Parker has at least a handful of Charlie Hood novels left in him, because those have really become an annual treat--great pulp and extremely well-written. They're a good companion piece to James Lee Burke's Robicheaux series, I think, as both have richly developed worlds and a lyrical bent. While Burke deals with the slow destruction of Louisiana due to greed and neglect, Parker sets his sights on the complex symbiotic relationship between the American Southwest and Mexico--the unrivaled violence and economic dominance of the drug cartels. Charlie Hood is basically a good soul in a war with those who think they have the moral high ground. He can't depend on "old school" police tactics to work in this new-world paradigm. Even worse is that he finds himself drawn to a family of outlaws who can't quite decide if they're Robin Hood and his Merry Men, or a band of Old West bandits. The outlaws are delusional, living in a romantic fantasy of what being famous criminals used to mean. When faced with the reality of the drug cartels, though, how can they compete?

I had seen T. Jefferson Parker's name all over the place for a long time before the first Hood novel, L.A. Outlaws, was published. His thrillers were all over newsstands, big sellers, but none of the descrips ever sounded like stories I gave a shit about. It was (still is) hard to get too "into" California stories. Just not much a West Coast fan, I s'pose. But then Esquire featured a little excerpt from L.A.Outlaws, calling it the "111 Grittiest Words Published This Month". And it most probably was. I still held off, but was intrigued. When it came out in paperback, I grabbed it off the supermarket shelf and took it on a train ride to Chicago for AWP in 2009. I devoured that thing. It was really fucking good. Exceptional. And somehow it had made it to the supermarket shelves as a mass market paperback rather than a deliciously arty trade pb that only the literary types might enjoy. Dude had some major talent.

I waited another year, picked up The Renegades as a mass-marketer, and devoured that one, too. I was hooked, and Parker became a "buy the hardcover" author for me, which is nowadays a rare thing (reserved for James Lee Burke and George Pelecanos and only a few others). Iron River. The Border Lords. And now, The Jaguar. Each one dives a little deeper into mysticism while still being brutal--blood on sand kind of brutal. The cast of recurring characters is a fascinating group of people, and I can just imagine this as the sort of story that would make for excellent TV--FX or HBO or Showtime. But for now, I'm glad it's all on the page while the movie spins on my head.

I really hope Parker's got a handful more up there in that head of his. I'm not one for driving a series into the ground and beating a few last breaths out of its lifeless body, but you at least want to make it to a spectacular funeral. Kudos, Mr. Parker.

ALL THE YOUNG WARRIORS is FREE on Sat & Sun (March 10 & 11)

You heard me. Today and tomorrow, my thriller All the Young Warriors will be free for your Kindle. Grab hold and don't let go. Thanks to Blasted Heath for all of the support they've given this book, and for this opportunity to get it in the hands of a lot of new readers. 

Onward, folks.

One Copy Too Many

I bought an extra copy of the Richard Stark novel Plunder Squad from the University of Chicago Press while I was at AWP. I guess I thought it was one I didn't have. But I did have it. I just haven't read it yet.

Anyway...

It's up on ebay now. I'm trying to get the money back so I can buy one I really want: The Seventh, The Black Ice Score, The Green Eagle Score, ya know. Those scores.

A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS AFTER AWP...

A couple of thoughts after my week at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Chicago.

1) I'm sick and tired of the "hipster douchebags" who swarm university creative writing programs.

2) There's not one goddamned thing I can do about it,

Carry on...

...my wayward son (sorry, sorry, couldn't help it.)

CHOKE ON YOUR LIES Free This Weekend! (2/24 to 2/26)

To answer your question, yes yes yes, I've already been scolded profanely by Octavia VanderPlatts for missing the great marketing opportunity of offering Choke on Your Lies free on Fat Tuesday. Really. She made me feel half an inch tall, or according to her, "The same size as your..."

Anyway...

I bravely soldier on! This weekend, pick up the first in my Octavia VanderPlatts series, Choke on Your Lies, for free from Amazon's Kindle store. Meet this rich, brilliant, mean, and heavily obese "detective" with an appetite for high quality marijuana, Gothic art, and shaming every one she knows--will be FREE this weekend for your Kindle. 

For three days, you can get to know Octavia and Mick Thooft, her narrator friend with a spine less sturdy than old paperbacks, as well as everyone else she surrounds herself with.

Take a look: http://amzn.to/zn8IUJ

I told everyone I'd commit to the second novel in the series when we sold 1500 copies of this one. And we're close, with over 1100 sold so far. I'm not going to count the free ones, but something tells me you might hear some good Octavia news in the coming week if this weekend's promo goes well.

Pretending to be Donald Hamilton

The writer of the Matt Helm novels. Fast and meaty pulp. Flatly violent, nothing "arty" about it (which, of course, makes it great art). Avid hunter and sportsman. And also the guy with the badest-assed of all author photos.

I once read (and for the life of me can't remember where) that a day for Donald Hamilton was some morning writing brutal pulp opera, then heading out to the beach club with his wife to drink martinis, smoke cigars, and watch the ocean.

If true...shit, I would do that. That's awesome.

I've been on a Donald Hamilton tear ever since my old friend Robert Skinner introduced him to me back when I was in grad school. I've been trying to grab up every old copy of his Matt Helm books I can, and I'm moving on to searching for his westerns and suspense novels. I think he's on par with Richard Stark, line by line. But there's something else to Donald Hamilton. Something about the image--that photo, his past, the outdoorsiness--that I try to evoke every time I sit down to work on a Billy Lafitte novel. I want to feel like Donald Hamilton, slamming my fat fingers onto the keyboard that the brutality splurges onto the page like it's coming out of a sausage grinder. When I'm done with a few pages, they'd better smell like blood, even the ones that don't have violence on them. Especially those.

But let's see...

Donald Hamilton was a big time hunter (whereas I got the flu the night before my dad was to take me hunting the first time. He died a year later and I never went hunting).

Donald Hamilton joined the Navy (I sure as hell didn't, though I did live in a Navy shipyard town).

Donald Hamilton loved to sail, and he had a yacht (whereas I like bass boats...but I do not have one).

Donald Hamilton wrote over 40 novels and sold over 20 million copies (um...I do often daydream about that part, but no. 6 novels, maybe around 7000 copies if you include print and ebooks)

Donald Hamilton. Dude.

All I know is that I'm a pretender. I don't go down to the beach club. I go to work at my university and run the creative writing program. I don't hunt. I watch a lot of TV. I don't go sailing. I swim in hotel pools.

And I write about a lousy, cold-hearted son of a bitch. But so did Donald Hamilton.

Good for him.

 

Watch Me Bleed All Over the BLASTED HEATH Blog Today

I was thinking about the Kindle I carry around, imagining it as a tiny paperback pulp novel, the kind I collect from the 50's and 60's, instead of as a mass of wires with a screen and magic ink. Also thought about how pulp paperbacks even changed the way literary writing was marketed (check out these Faulkner "pulp" covers on the Tally Ho blog). And I wrote a post about it, which I handed over to my publisher, Blasted Heath, for their too-cool website.

I'm embracing what I am--a new-fangled grandson of the Gold Medal tradition. Since I can't go back in time and write pulp paperbacks on old-fashioned typewriters, I'll embrace the same attitude and feel with my laptop and e-reader.

Go read "Pulp Machine" at Blasted Heath, y'all.

 

GENRE vs. LITERARY RESPECTABILITY

1. Short answer: "Fuck it."

2. Longer answer: "Let literary respectability come to genre instead of the other way around."

3. Whenever a writer talks about "transcending the genre", doesn't that really mean, "doing things to make readers who don't like genre like this"?

4. Whenever a literary writer "skulks about" in genre, don't you get the impression they think a) they can do something new and powerful with it that mere mortal genre writers can't, or, b) that it should be easy to pull off and grab cash with?

5. Okay, that previous point has gone round and round enough already. Sorry to dredge it up again. I'll leave it, though.

6. Been watching a lot of genre directors' films lately. Down Terrace, House of the Devil, the South Korean flicks Chaser and I Saw the Devil. Revered by film critics, it seems. Genre really means something to these directors. They're working to craft the best work they can within the genre. I mean, lots of no-name directors can grab a thriller and do it by the numbers and it can make Hollywood cash, but the ones who are best at the craft get love from the hardcore fans and critics if not from studios or Hollywood. And if they do get that love from studios, the studios instantly want to change how they do things. Or so it feels/seems. Better to do the best yo can with what you got, or take the bump and see if you can change the system before it changes you?

7. I've got no problem being called a genre writer. A crime novelist. That's what I call myself. 

8. Yeah, I said I get bored with noir. I do. I love the genre so much that it hurts to see writers cling to cliche or hack their way through. If you're going to be a hack (which isn't always a bad thing), be a goddamned awesome hack.

9. Noir is good flavoring. Spicy.

10. Have you noticed that a lot of contemporary noir (some call it "neo-noir", some distinguish it from "real noir", but I don't) has more in common with horror than it does with classic noir? Ever wondered why?

11. Anyway, like I said, fuck it. I'll do the best I can as a genre writer. Let others figure out what the hell to do with it.