First Offenders

It's Not For Me. It's For You.

Hope you all had a Happy Turkey Day and stuffed yourself until you wanted to puke.

I started working on a story over the vacation. Not sure if its a short story or a novel yet, but I had this opening image pop into my head while we were at that movies and it was crystal clear in my head and I know from past experience that is always my jumping off point. I get that initial scene in my head and run with it. I may not know where I'm heading, but I run with it and see where it goes because its just so vivid - I can see and hear it, like a tiny movie in my head - and its just screaming at me to go down on paper.

So as I started putting this opening scene into words and began formulating the rest of the story, it occurred to me that I was writing this story for a particular person and that was a new feeling. In the past, the books I've written and the short stories I've written have really been for me. They were stories that I wanted to tell and read and play with. Things that interested me and while I hoped that other people would find them interesting, they were essentially for me. And while this new story definitely interests me, I realized I was writing it mainly because I wanted this other person to be able to read it, to be able to give it to them in some form or another after its done. It didn't really change anything for me - the motivation is there to continue with the story and see what happens - but it was just a bit of a different feeling in the process.

And I don't mean any of this in a bad way. I think we've all heard stories about writers feeling compelled to write something to satisfy an editor or agent. I've actually done that and its not a good feeling and I've yet to find anyone who feels different. So I don't mean it in that way. This just feels like a story that I want to share with this other person and that is kind of a new, exciting motivation. It's definitely a good feeling.

Just wondering if any of you have ever written something specifically for another person.
Jeff

BABES IN JOYLAND
Was Britney ever really like this? It's hard to remember that far back...

Britney Spears Hit me baby one more time
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Go Chase A Turkey

Hey FOFOs. We're taking the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving. We'll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming. And I highly encourage you to watch this. Multiple times.

Happy Thanksgiving from The First Offenders!

The Sacred Week of Turkeys Approaches...

As far as I know, we'll be taking the next week off in order to stuff our faces and grit our teeth through all the "togetherness" with family, etc.  But then will be back after that to line you all up and kick all of your asses right on til Christmas.

I'm going to be reading here at Southwest Minnesota State on Monday night, as it's a tradition that faculty with a new book out throws a party for the home crowd. Hogdoggin' isn't exactly *new*, but I was able to get out of doing the reading until now.  Still, it gives me a chance to cut loose and try some stuff I probably wouldn't dare attempt out in the real world where people pay real money for my real books (or more likely, they don't).  So, yes, Mr. Not Too Cool For The Room But Too Dumb To Realize It will be there with his leather coat and sunglasses on.

I have seen quite a number of readings in my twelve years since starting grad school and moving on to work in academia.  I've seen mumbly poets, self-important asses, self-important mumbly poet asses, fiction writers who thought reading their stories without any inflection or emotion would thrill an audience, legends who didn't do it right, legends who were mighty impressed with themselves, and writers who made me nap in my seat.

But I've also seen some people who knew how to connect with a crowd, knew how to make the static words on their pages come alive.  These are the people who were giving us more than a reading.  They were giving us a PERFORMANCE, halle-fucking-lujah.  You got your money's worth (well, a lot more since these were all free readings) and had new respect for whoever it was putting on the show, even if you'd had no idea who they were coming into the thing.

I tell my students that they should give the sorts of readings they would want to watch if they were in the audience.  Not bad advice, right?  I'm assuming the answer is always "Not Boring."

My personal faves at this include James Ellroy, Craig Johnson, my buds Doolittle, Gischler, and S G Jones, Maggie Estep, department colleagues Marianne Zarzana and Susan McLain, W.D. Snodgrass, Nathan Singer, Ander Monson, and probably a handful of others.  I love to see someone read with gusto instead of sinking into the sorts of tones that feel like those CDs full of waves and wind which help put you to bed.

And I haaaaaateses "poet voice".  You know what I mean: bit of uplift at the end of each line.  Same rhythm, kind of what you expect from "spoken word" and people with berets and bongos.  Too fucking serious.

So, tell me who you love to hear read (and not just because you like the writer.  I've been disappointed by plenty of writers whose work I love, but who should shut up otherwise).

I'll give you some Friday Bonus Readings as we head off to cook the fuck out of those turkeys (god, I love turkey). Y'all have a Happy, Warm, Non-Healthy T'giving!

JAMES ELLROY

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN 

SHARON OLDS

That's MRS. Crankypants To You

Lori here~

I'm cranky as hell and I don't feel like slapping on a happy face today, nor am I going to be particularly nice. Feel free to skip this post if the bluebird of happiness didn't shit in your oatmeal this morning. Oh and if profanity makes your eyeballs pulse? Stop reading right fucking now.

Part of my crankiness is self-imposed. I'm under deadline again. That's not what's making me cranky, it's all the other shit that goes along with being a writer -- business, connections, promotion. I'm happiest when I'm locked in my own little world, working. For me it always was, and always will be about the work. Period.

And guess what? Hanging out on Twitter all the time is NOT working. Neither is obsessively checking Facebook a 1000 times a day. Argue all you want about the importance of "social media" and I will argue back that it's nothing more than a time waster. I freely admit I feel that way about most things. I don't mindlessly watch TV. I don't mindlessly surf the internet for long. Doesn't make me better than anyone, it's what works for ME. I don't jam my philosophy down anyone's throat. So yeah, I get a little pissy when I'm not afforded the same courtesy.

So naturally, when I check blogs, email, etc., first thing in the morning, I laugh, blow off what pisses me off, shove all the bullshit aside, move on and park my ass in the chair and get back to work. But lately...it just seems I'm getting lectured from all sides on what I "have" to do as an author. This isn't coming from my publishers, agent, or publicist, but from...other authors, in all genres, who think they've got it all figured out on how to be successful in this crazy business. And ooh...wouldn't you like to know their secret? Pull up a chair and lean very very close to the monitor. Psst. The secret is...social media. Maintain a blog or ten. A website or two. A Myspace account. A Facebook account. Establish a Twitter following. Make sure you Tweet at least 10 times a day. Blog hop and leave comments. Join Good Reads. Join Linkedin. Join Shelfari. Get your name out there.

Uh-huh. Really? THAT's all it takes? SIGN ME UP -- and look out because I'm hitting the NY Times, baby!

Just because I don't have a fucking crackberry in my hand 24/7, nor do I have 114 Twitter followers, nor 737 Facebook "friends" doesn't make me clueless about this business. Doesn't mean I'm missing a "critical" opportunity. It's a personal choice not to waste the limited amount of time I have in my life, reading about some stranger named JoJo taking her dog to the vet again for deworming. Or reconnecting with the asshole kid who tripped me in third grade in the lunchroom and made me cry -- just because he asked to be my "friend." Tweeting won't make you successful. Neither will building a pineapple plantation on farm town on Facebook. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

And what the fuck is up with preachy author blog posts lately? A blog to give me industry information? Fine. Giving me a peek at your writing journey? Fine. Sharing your writing triumphs? Fine. But DON'T presume to lecture me on the do's and don'ts of being a "professional" author. We've all run across authors at conferences or online who act like total douchebags. Guess what? Posting online about how you're so much more professional than the other idiots in this business is a total douchebag move. You may be someone's mother, but you're not my fucking mother, so shove your dumbass, finger wagging, tsk-tsking posts and get back to work. Right after you fucking tweet everyone and their recently dewormed dog about how fucking cool you are.

I warned you this rant wouldn't be pretty. I try to keep my blog posts upbeat. I've tried not to give "how to" advice on writing, because everyone's path to publication or reason for writing is different. I try to remain positive in the face of the ugly side of this business. I stay out of discussions on politics. But there are times, like now, I need to blow off steam. Unlucky you.

So yank me out of my shit mood, FOFO's. Tell me one thing that never fails to lift your mood.

Ah hell, I'll even go first. Our middle daughter Haley, was named the 2010 South Dakota Junior Miss last weekend. She'll be representing our fine state at the national competition, in Mobile, Alabama, in June 2010.

A friend remembered

I've been thinking a lot the last week or so about endings. I'm about this-close to finishing my book, a process that's been frustrating and exciting all at the same time. Frustrating because it's taken longer than I expected; exciting because this week I wrote a scene that was entirely unexpected and something that will definitely move these characters forward emotionally.

But then yesterday I couldn't write. Because of an ending I didn't anticipate.

I found out my friend David McClendon died.

David had been battling sarcoidosis, which causes inflammation around the body's organs. Bernie Mac died from the same disease, and David was determined to beat it. He was writing a blog about it, about his treatment, and his outlook on life. You can see it here.

I worked with David at the New Haven Register for several years. He was a big guy with a big smile and a laugh that echoed across the newsroom. He started out as a city reporter, became a bureau chief, and then city editor. He taught journalism classes at Quinnipiac University and mentored a lot of young kids coming up through the ranks. A young woman he worked with in Chicago remembered him in a very moving piece here.

David and I were the only two in the newsroom who watched THE WIRE, much to our dismay, and we'd hole ourselves up with a cup of coffee to dissect each episode and marvel at the best show on TV. Omar was our favorite character and David always talked about Omar's "code."

I left the paper before he did, but it wasn't long after that he took a job in Michigan and then went on to Chicago. We were still emailing, mostly during the seasons of THE WIRE, but we lost touch in the last year. We reconnected on Facebook, which is where I first saw his blog and that he'd moved back to New Jersey to his parents to fight the disease. I emailed him a couple of months ago to find out how he was doing, and he wrote back, asking first about my daughter, then my husband. He said he'd be coming to Connecticut for a visit very soon and we would definitely have to see each other.

And then on Facebook yesterday, I saw that he passed away suddenly on Monday. He apparently just collapsed and couldn't be revived.

I spent yesterday afternoon with a flurry of emails and phone calls with people I hadn't been in touch with in a very long time, people I'd worked with for years but because of moving on and life getting in the way had not kept up with. We all promised we'd have to see each other soon. I wish that it hadn't taken the loss of a friend to bring us back together.

I have no question today, but one request: Reach out today to an old friend, someone you may have wanted to get in touch with but never seemed to find the time. Life is too short.

Karen

The Post In Which Our Traffic Will Probably Double For All Of The Wrong Reasons

(It's Jeff today. Because I didn't post yesterday and because Alison was up all night writing about super famous people.)

So about this time last year was the first time I posted about Varsity Fan Club. You may remember that post. Or you may not. But it went something like this:

"I watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade and I saw something called Varsity Fan Club and it made me want to throw up my turkey."

Something like that.

And as you may or may not recall, some of the VFC fans showed up here to argue with my opinion. Fervent, ardent, poorly spoken fans.

And a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned them again and how all of that success that their fans had assured me was on the horizon...had not materialized. Shocking, I know. And their fans rallied again, showing up here en masse, calling me names (JOURNALIST!) and generally letting me know how clueless I am. Things like "OMGURLAMELOLZKBAI!" And the one that alluded to me being some sort of pedophile. And they were also clever enough to locate my email address and let me know they had outsmarted me and that I would most likely die in the face of Varsity Fan Club's greatness.

I love you, Internet. You connect me to a world I didn't know existed. You complete me.

So I gave these comments and emails some careful consideration and came to this conclusion:

I AM SO RIGHT.

But I'm gonna try to be fair this time and post a few things and let you folks decide if I'm right because if I know you guys, you really haven't checked out their entire body of work and I think that's important. Plus, I find it all really amusing. And to be clear - I have nothing personal against these guys - probably very nice young men - who would be better served going to college and not dressing themselves in the dark.

First - the video that started it all - LIVE FROM A MALL IN SCRANTON!!!

I am still not clear on whether she found love in the club or not. I am pretty sure the guys went to Hot Topic after the show, though.

Next up, we have the video that was supposed to break them wide open. Oops!

Varsity Fanclub-Future Love
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To be fair, as pop songs go, that is not a horrible song. But it IS a horrible video. Outfits made out of aluminum foil. Glow in the dark earphones. Names on the screen so we can tell them apart. Not good in any way, really.

Hmmm...let's see what else. I used my professional journalist skills and dug this up on their website. It's a letter explaining what's gone wrong. Lots of analogies and things like that. They assure us that they are still going to be huge. No explanation for the crappy videos.

Okay and here is a video of them in Vegas a few days ago with ALL of their fans. (You will need to endure this thing until about the 6:50 mark to see ALL of them.)

I froze the video and counted. Think I found 18 fans. Not bad. Probably more than I have. But probably not enough to assure their future hugeness.

Look, there's plenty more, but I think I've given you enough background info to play with and I'm sure a few folks will get dropped off by their parents at the front door of this blog and give us some more useful info.

So here's your job FOFOs: tell us exactly what day Varsity Fan Club becomes huge.
Jeff

BABES IN JOYLAND
Do you remember DeBarge? Of course you do. You are old like me. Who's Holding Donna Now? Why does that song come to mind? And why do I admit it? I don't know. Anyway - this girl must be one of the DeBarge children. Hey! Listen to that song! Does it sound familiar? Does it sound better than when you listened to it up above about a minute ago? Yes. Yes, it does. You know what I think? Kristinia DeBarge is gonna be HUGE!!!

WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND DUMBASS-Y

I was just going through a bunch of old floppy disks (yeah, the 3.5 inch ones.  Not the 5.25 ones.  I used to have a lot of those, too, for my super awesome Commodore 64).  On those disks, tons of stories or seeds for stories I was writing back in grad school.  I'd just begun publishing in Blue Murder and Handheld Crime and Nefarious, and in all these crime stories I find that I'd have a great idea.  An idea for a setting, a crime, a twist, a scene, and then...just go nowhere with it.  Nothing.  Too focused on how cool the idea was to worry about the story.  So I had a lot of two, three, four, five page pieces that ended mid sentence, abandoned forever.

These days, I think of how many ideas just come and go, flitting through like butterflies on the wind.  I don't even bother to write them down.  A good idea is good only if it works for the story.  So I let the story come first before trying to cram a story into an already built idea.  These days the sparks of stories are characters, their actions, their wants, and the consequences thereof.  I want to feel something besides "Oh, that would be a cool gimmick," or "That's neat...if I could think of an ending."

And that means more novel writing than short stories.  I like the feel of immersing myself in the world of a novel, spending all that time on a core group of characters.  I just prefer it to the one night stand (I'm sure I've talked about this before). 

Right now I'm working on some short stories for various projects and anthologies, and it's fun to be back at them, humping away.  So far, it feels good.  Feels like I'm onto something.  But only for a brief period before I'll feel the stabs of pain at not working on the novel.

And for those stories?  One was inspired by a scene from the opening of Black Caesar, and another from my love of the word "Conquistador" plus the fat guy playing World of Warcraft on South Park.  And still another that just popped into my head in some horribly scary erotic nightmare, which I then twisted to make as awful as possible.  And yet another stirring in my head because of the titles of current pop songs.  None of that seems as contrived t me as the old days, when I would sit around looking for an idea!  One that would click!  Nowadays, I could give a shit about the idea.  It doesn't take that much effort to get the old imagination spinning.

Not that these new stories are any better, or that I finish more of them than I did ten years ago.  But now, at least I feel a lot more loose and willing to risk it on the slightest interesting flash of weirdness that comes along. 

What do you have to say about that, eh?

Friday Bonus Music Video:

Road Kill

Lori here~

This is the time of year known as "the rut" when bucks and bulls fight over the right to mate (more than 100 times a day) with their herd of females. It's not uncommon, at least in my neighborhood, which is overflowing with deer (and I live in town), to have a standoff with the bucks. They'll square off with me in the yard and dare me to infringe on their space (oh how I wish it was legal to discharge a firearm inside the city limits). These magnificent animals also stand in the middle of the damn road staring down a car.

Due to urban sprawl, or lack of natural predators (however, mountain lions have made a huge resurgence in our area in recent years), or the tasty grass which urbanites cultivate by fertilizing and watering to perfection -- a tempting feast for woodland creatures -- it's no surprise we have a deer problem. I take it in stride and pay extra close attention at night to the creatures that dart across the road. On the interstate, it's much more dangerous. The animals come up out of the ditch at breakneck speeds and you hit one before you know what hit you.

A couple years back a deer hit my car on one of the busiest roads in Rapid City. Wham! It ran into my Ford Explorer, shattering the windshield, crumpling the hood, ripping off the side mirror and scaring the living crap out of me. I had my youngest in the passenger seat beside me, so talk about a rush of adrenaline. We were fine. No one was hurt.

Because dealing with runaway wildlife is part of the driving experience in the wild west, Mr. LGA has been drilling into our teen daughters, since the moment they got behind the wheel, the importance of overcoming their natural reaction to swerve when faced with an animal in the road. And the fact our oldest daughter heeded Daddy's advice saved her life Sunday night.

Lauren was home this weekend from college. She always calls us outside of Lusk, WY because it's the halfway point between Rapid City and Laramie and she loses cell service for about 40 miles. Long story short. Twenty minutes later the phone rang again, and the poor girl was hysterical because she'd hit a deer. Luckily, she wasn't hurt at all. Luckily, a woman came upon the accident right after it happened -- in and of itself a miracle, as I've traveled that road dozens of times and not come upon a single car -- and this Samaritan called the sheriff and a tow truck since the car was undriveable.

Here's the kicker: Lauren didn't hit a deer. She hit a fucking ELK. An elk. If you've never seen an elk, let me tell you, they embody the phrase "ten foot tall and bulletproof." Usually when a car hits an elk, because they're so tall, it shears the legs off and the 800 pound body drops right through the windshield.

So to say we're thankful that just her car was damaged is an understatement. A major understatement.

The road kill count in the Armstrong house is this: one deer, one elk, one racoon, one racoon family, a couple of pheasants, a mysterious bird of some sort, a couple of squirrels, gophers, a snake and many close calls with turkeys.

Anyone else wanna share?

Advice you can believe in

I've been thinking a lot lately about advice I've gotten concerning writing. The most recent came at Bouchercon, at the editors and agents panel. Every one of them said the same thing: Write the best book  you can.

What does that really mean? The best book? Every book we write feels like the best book, or at least it should, before we start sending it out into the world. We write and rewrite and rewrite again until we've honed that sucker into something we think is publishable. We have to believe, otherwise there's no point, is there?

I have a writer friend who is still writing a book a year and he's now in his 80s. Tom Fleming writes historical fiction and nonfiction, lately mostly about the founding fathers. His books, both fiction and non, are riveting tales. He once told me, write four pages a day and you'll have a book in three months.

This advice is far more worthwhile than "write the best book you can." This is actually just "write the book." Because we can dream about writing the "best" book, or we can just hunker down and write the thing, turning it into the "best" when we've at least got some words to work with.

What do you think is the best advice you've ever gotten, either as a writer or not?

Karen

I Think I'm Doing It Wrong

So we've talked a lot here in the past about how we all write, what constitutes routine, where motivation comes from, what we do when we get stuck and just our general approaches to writing. And I always find it interesting to read about the different thought processes that each writer goes through in writing a book.

My process has never been that complicated, at least to me. I've always tried to keep it simple. I usually start with a first sentence and then let the ball roll. I try to write every day. I use my computer, but I occasionally scribble notes on stickies or in a notebook. I'll edit both on the screen and on paper. Nothing terribly unique. I've always felt that the less complicated I made it, the less there was to get in the way of actually my writing of the book. Strip it down and just go.

But I just read this and, uh, wow. And then I look at the careers of each of these writers and the success they've had and I think, man, maybe I need to start taking this a little more seriously and write on my roof or something because there is some crazy, elaborate stuff here. Margaret Atwood's advice cracked me up and I loved Michael Ondaatje's refusal to acknowledge writer's block.

And I'm not critiquing anything these folks do as part of their process - anything a writer needs to do to get the words to the page the way they want them is what they should do. I just think, for me, that doing some of those things or creating a more elaborate routine might prevent me from writing at all.

Read the article. Share your thoughts.
Jeff

(Hat tip to Sarah Weinman for posting the article.)

BABES IN JOYLAND
There was a recent article in Entertainment Weekly celebrating the 20 year anniversary of Say Anything and that seminal scene of John Cusack holding up the boombox, playing "In Your Eyes." It's a actually a pretty funny article because the writer actually did that for a girl back in his youth and both Cusack and Cameron Crowe talk about how many people come up to them and tell them the same thing, that they did that for a girl and that it worked most of the time. Also a funny anecdote about how Gabriel originally denied Crowe permission to use the song. Anyway, if I had to nominate a new, contemporary song for that kind of thing, I'd pick this one. I could totally see myself holding up a boombox outside someone's window and blasting this song. If they still made boomboxes. (Gosh, don't you just hate it when there is no official video for a song??? I hate that. Should be illegal.)