Kansas City Character

The crime scene is more than the chalk outline marking where the victim falls. It's the world surrounding that pale silhouette, spreading out in uneven ripples from the perimeter cordoned off with yellow tape to the metes and bounds of the jurisdiction that investigates and prosecutes the offense to the ill-defined society that wittingly or not harbors a killer in its midst.

The place where these overlapping scenes congeal and conspire is as alive and organic as any flesh and blood character. It makes and breaks promises, rewards strength and punishes weakness. It fills hearts with hope and drains them without a backward glance. Done right, place becomes a central character, casting heroes and villains against a geographic backdrop, driving the action as surely as any twitchy trigger finger.

My books take place in my hometown of Kansas City where my family has lived for a hundred years. One of my great-grandfathers left Poland in 1881 for the New World under cover of darkness rather than marry the girl his parents had chosen for him, settling in Kansas City for reasons lost to time. Another great-grandfather, also from Eastern Europe, ran a grocery store in Alaska during the gold rush, later deciding to move to Kansas City because it was in the center of the country. My grandfather and a friend, down on their luck during the Depression, asked Kansas City's legendary boss, Tom Pendergast, for permission to sell the scrap from the construction of Bagnel Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks, giving birth to a salvage business that lasted more than forty years.

Originally nothing more than a trading post at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, in 1838 the founders decided against naming it Possum Trot, settling for the more visionary Town of Kansas, later incorporating it as Kansas City in 1850. Once a wide-open town known for speakeasies, jazz and corrupt machine politics, everything has always been up to date in Kansas City. Mindful of its wooly past, Kansas City has a hard edge and soft heart. It's diversity and fascinating history make it a character with many faces.

One of the best sports columnists ever, Joe Posnanski, wrote for the KC Star for many years before moving on to Sports Illustrated. He wrote a piece published in today's Star talking about how Kansas City became his home and how hard it is for him to leave. Reading it made me feel good not only about making Kansas City a character in my books, it made me glad to call it home.

So What If I Shake?

I shake, spasm and stutter. Not all the time. Stop in some morning for coffee at my Starbucks office and, chances are, you wouldn't notice a thing. Spend a few days with me 24/7 and you'd get a good sense of the rhythm of my life; how well I do in the morning, how things can deteriorate in the afternoon - or not - and how the evenings can be a crap shoot. You might see me vibrate like a tuning fork on steroids. You might see me hyper-extend my neck until you'd bet the back of my head was about to touch my spine. And you might see me enveloped by the brain fog that slows down my cognition as if someone had poured glue on an engine.

My condition is a movement disorder called tics and bears some resemblance to Tourette's Syndrome with which people are more familiar. The cause and cure fall under the heading of known unknowns.

I don't let this condition define me. I do my best each day to get the most out of each day, complaining as little as possible and only to my wife in our quiet moments. Complaining doesn't change anything and takes too much energy which is often a commodity in short supply. And I never forget that there are many people whose burdens are far heavier than mine.

An article in the Science Section in today's New York Times makes the point. The article is an interview with Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most influential physicist of our time, who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) at the age of 21, a condition that usually is fatal within 5 years. Hawking is now 69. When asked by the reporter what advice he had for those with disabilities, he said: "... concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit, as well as physically."

Lest you think that's easier said than done, here's how he communicates with the world: "Mostly paralyzed, he can speak only through a computerized voice simulator. On a screen attached to his wheelchair, commonly used words flash past him. With a cheek muscle, he signals an electronic sensor in his eyeglasses to transmit instructions to the computer. In this way he slowly builds sentences; the computer transforms them into the metallic, otherworldly voice familiar to Dr. Hawking’s legion of fans."

And when describing the special joys of scientific discovery, he said: “I wouldn’t compare it to sex, ....but it lasts longer.”

This is a man who knows how to live. And I thought it would be tough to come up with material for a blog! All I have to do is pay attention.

Where's My Ebook Gold Rush?

An article in yesterday's Washington Post described what it called the ebook gold rush, repeating the now well reported stories about the ebook success of Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath and the decision Barry Eisler made to walk away from a half-million advance from St. Martin's to self-publish. The most important part of the article was not about these success stories. It was the segment titled "Word of Caution When Your ebook Tanks".

The article noted that most self-published authors end up in the same place as most print authors - oblivion. Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords was quoted as saying: “We have less than 50 people who are making more than $50,000 per year. We have a lot who don’t sell a single book...”.

When I first started writing in 1992, I learned the following: Agents reject 95-99% of what unknown, unpublished writers submit to them and publishers reject over 90% of what agents pitch to them. So getting published in those days was like shooting a BB through a lifesaver (pick your flavor). But I was able to do it, even though it took ten years.

And, as I write this post, my publisher plans to release another book of mine - in print - next March and is deciding whether to make an offer on another book I submitted to them. I have no complaints about traditional publishing. It's been good to me. My publisher agreed to publish my books. They didn't promise to make me a star. There are too many vagaries in the marketplace to predict who's going to end up on the NYT Bestseller list.

Self-publishing magnifies the risks and rewards for authors. We give up advances and all the editorial and marketing support our publishers provide in exchange for the opportunity to control our destiny and make more than we otherwise could. We incur upfront costs for covers, formatting, editing, etc. as part of the bargain. And we compete in an electronic marketplace so crowded that it makes standing out in your local Barnes & Noble look like a piece of cake.

So what is someone, like me, who's about to launch 4-5 ebooks this year, four of which have been previously published as original paperbacks, supposed to think. How am I supposed to become what my good friend Lee Goldberg happily calls a Kindle Millionaire?

All I can say is this - when I was practicing law, I never got a client I wanted that wasn't already represented by someone else; I'm a ten-year overnight success as a writer and my wife had a boyfriend when I met her. I'm mindful of the odds but not intimidated or discouraged by them.

I've got one other thing going for me - I write damn good books!

Remastered Originals

I'm releasing my first four books, Motion To Kill, The Last Witness, Cold Truth and Deadlocked as ebooks (and in print via POD) beginning in June with Motion To Kill. Originally published from 2002-2005 by Kensington as Pinnacle paperbacks, the books did well but, as is the fate of most original paperbacks, went out of print.

THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS! Because now I have the exciting opportunity to release them again. But what to call them? How to describe them? I got an email the other day from another writer who nailed it, calling these books "remastered". It's the perfect term because of the process I've been going through getting them ready for their second act.

My publisher no longer had the electronic files for the first two books and wanted too much money for the files for the last two books. My buddy Lee Goldberg recommended I use Blue Leaf Book Scanning Service to scan the books and create Word files, which I did for the incredible low price of $30/book. The conversion process resulted in a lot of errors that required careful proofreading which meant that I had to read these books again for the first time in years. I don't know how other writers feel about reading their books, but once I'm finished, I'm finished. The joy is in the process and when the book hits the shelves (real or virtual), I rarely dip into it and never read the whole thing.

Once I began editing Motion To Kill, my latent OCD tendencies blossomed and I couldn't resist doing a start to finish edit, fixing the quirks of my early writing and correcting the mistakes that many careful and devoted readers have shared with me over the years. I have always said that anyone who paid $7 for one of my books had every right to point out my mistakes but that there was no prize for whomever found the most errors! BTW - the same will hold true for the ebook edition notwithstanding the much lower price!

So now I think of these books as remastered originals - fresher, sharper and current. It's like getting a do-over with my kids!

Why We Reason

I am fascinated by the human brain. How a few pounds of gray matter filled with neurons, synapses and gateways and a bunch of other stuff (note my keen scientific vocabulary) can make us who we are is too cool for school.

As a mystery writer, I explore the human condition by starting with this question: What happens when things go wrong, especially when we think no one is watching? That question has implications for both plot and character, but the real answer is that it depends on what happens in our brains.

We've all been taught that our ability to reason is what separates us from other animals and that the reason we reason is to figure things out. Mystery writers depend on readers who want to do exactly that, and many do, though there are plenty of other reasons to love the genre. But, we may be wrong about why we reason.

Jonah Lehrer writes some of the best pieces on these topics in a blog for Wired titled The Frontal Cortex. His latest post, The Reason We Reason highlights a new theory of reasoning by a couple of guys named Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber who hypothesize that the function of reasoning is argumentative, to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade and not to figure things out and make good decisions.

That could explain a lot, beginning with why so many of us are second-guessers, quick to challenge even the most well-established facts if they don't fit comfortably with our world view. A couple of recent situations prove the point.

Some people who don't believe President Obama is an American citizen were unpersuaded by the release of his long-form birth certificate, arguing (reasoning?) that it could be a fake. I wonder if some of these people are also demanding the release of the photographs of Osama Bin Laden's body to prove that he's really dead.

Like I said, the brain is an interesting place to hang out.

Why I Love Being My Own Boss

Two things - one yesterday and one today - explain why I'm so excited to have control over my writing career and why I can't wait to launch Motion To Kill as an ebook on June 15.

Yesterday, the Top Suspense Anthology hit #1 on the Kindle Bestseller List for Mystery Anthologies (out of 100 ranked anthologies). I'm fortunate to be one of the twelve authors who formed the Top Suspense Group to give readers of ebooks a reliable source for outstanding thriller, suspense, mystery, horror and western fiction. We published the anthology to share our work and let readers know where to find us. The entire project - from idea to publication took about 3 months. THIS NEVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED WITH A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER. Thanks to everyone who made us bestsellers!

Today, The Dead Man - Hell In Heaven goes on sale on Amazon. It's the third installment in The Dead Man series created by my good friend, Lee Goldberg and his writing partner, Bill Rabkin. Written in the tradition of Stephen King and men's action novels, it's an action-packed, sexy, horror, gore and humor fest. Best of all, Lee and Bill have signed up a stable of fantastic writers (including, I humbly note, me) to write future installments. Again, it only took a few months from inception to publication of the first book in the series, The Dead Man - Face of Evil. Like Top Suspense, it's a great opportunity to do something different with people I like and respect. THIS NEVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED WITH A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER.

These are perfect examples of why this is such an exciting time to be a writer. And, best of all, readers agree and are making these books bestsellers. We'll keep writing as long as you keep reading. You can't beat that deal!

Welcome to What’s Shaking – a blog about what’s going on. I chose the name because there’s a whole lot of shaking going on these days – some I write about, some I live with and some I watch and wonder “what the hell we’re they thinking?”

Ebooks have shaken and stirred the publishing world like nothing since the Gutenberg press. There’s never been a more exciting time to be a writer or a time when writers have had more opportunities and control over their careers. I’ll keep you posted on the latest developments.

I wrote my first book, Motion To Kill in 1992, introducing Lou Mason, and became a ten-year overnight success when Kensington published it in 2002 as a Pinnacle paperback. Nearly ten years later, I’m riding that high again with the release of the ebook version only this time, I’m driving the bus and you can’t beat the feeling! Well, actually I can and will when I release the ebook versions of the next three books in the Lou Mason series, The Last Witness, Cold Truth and Deadlocked in the coming months. And I’ll do it again later this year when I release my next novel, Stone Cold, featuring Public Defender Alex Stone who demands justice with a vengeance. Check in regularly to find out what’s happening in my writer’s world.

Like I said, some of the shaking is personal. I have a movement disorder called tics, which is similar to Tourette’s syndrome. It’s not life threatening or life shortening but it is life annoying, making me shake, rattle and roll. I never ask “why me?” Instead, I ask myself each day, what now? How am I going to make sure I get the most out of life and not let this neurological glitch define me? So come along for the ride and see where it goes.

The world can be a crazy, upside down, exasperating, exhilarating place. I’ll give you my take on the stuff that makes me shake, smile or just scratch my head.

Stick around and let me know what you think.