This Writing Life

What I've Been Reading

2012-02-13T06:27:00.000-08:00

February 13, 2012
Here are the first 10 (sort of) books I've read so far in 2012.

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
I'm re-reading the series in order, slowly. Phoenix is one of my favorites, certainly one of the darker books, as we get to see Harry develop undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder.

2. Threat Warning by John Gilstrap
Gilstrap's action hero that runs a security firm and hostage retrieval service gets totally wrapped up in domestic terrorism. With some quibbles, I enjoyed this book.

3. The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America's Rush to War by David Willman
There are many lessons one can take from this book. One is: If you're going to give a PhD in bacteriology top secret clearance and access to deadly pathogens, it might be a good idea to occasionally run a psychological screen on him. Two, if you are ever caught in a widely televised criminal investigation, hire the best damn lawyer you can get because the system will chew you up and spit you out. Three, do not believe anything the media says. This was a very disconcerting lesson, because Willman tracked many of the news stories by major news sources like Brian Ross at ABC World News only to find that Ross's sources were people who were passing on gossip and who had no real access to the investigation. In fact, if there's anything I got from this book, it's that the media can become a sort of echo chamber in these types of cases, where so-called experts don't have primary access to information, but talk to friends of friends of friends and pretty soon rumor and innuendo gains the weight of fact. Also, the FBI and the Justice Department leaks like a sieve.

4. The Defector by Daniel Silva
I'm almost caught up in reading the Gabriel Allon series. Gabriel is a spy/assassin for Israeli intelligence and the plots are extremely complicated. I'm not as impressed as many critics seem to be with Silva's ability to write action, but I like his sense of place and his tradecraft and the complexity of his plots. This one involves a Russian agent who defected to the UK (with Gabriel's help) who either returns to Russian or is coerced to do so. Then Allon's wife is kidnapped...

5. Killer's Wedge by Ed McBain
I meant to write an entire blog post about this book, but got busy with other things. McBain's backlist has been re-released as ebooks and one of my goals is to read much of it, which ought to take years. Killer's Wedge is an 87th precinct book that was published in 1959. In it, the widow of a crook who died in prison walks into the 87th precinct with a gun and a suspected bottle of nitroglycerin and holds the squad hostage, waiting for Steve Carella to show up so she can kill him in revenge. Meanwhile, Steve's investigating a "locked-room suicide" that he thinks might be a homicide, but he can't figure out how it would have been accomplished, since the victim hanged himself inside a locked room. This is a riveting book and McBain's writing energy is amazing. I also note with some chagrin that he breaks one of the cardinal rules I often lecture new writers about - shifting POV. The narrative shifts among the various cops and the woman in the squad and it's just so deftly done that it works - but I'm fairly sure in less gifted hands it would have been a confusing mess. A terrific book that I highly recommend.

6. An Election by John Scalzi
A short story by SF/F writer Scalzi (available as an ebook for 99 cents). Scalzi is probably best known for his mostly military SF book series starting with OLD MAN'S WAR, but he also writes almost political satire SF that's very damned funny. And that's what this hilarious short story is: it's the future and well over a hundred different alien races live on Earth. The main character, a human, decides to run for city council in a district that hasn't had a human councilman elected in over 30 years, due primarily to the fact that humans are a dramatic minority in that district. For instance, one of his opponent's entire campaign platform is a rewriting of the laws that would allow people's pets to be eaten. Hilarious.

7. The Tale of the Wicked by John Scalzi.
Also a short story for 99 cents. More military SF with space battles and spaceships with artificial intelligence. Somewhat humorous, but thoughtful with some nice twists and perhaps, inside jokes for the SF lover.

8. Breaking Point by Dana Haynes
I'm not entirely sure how to describe this book. I really enjoyed Haynes's first novel, CRASHERS, about a NTSB team of investigators that investigate plane crashes. In his second novel, he takes damn near everything - terrorists, plane crashes, cutting edge weapons, assassins, forest fires, dirigibles, hackers... and it's thrown into one huge pot of gumbo and although fairly entertaining, it's about as plausible as Star Trek (and probably a lot less coherent). There are also about 800 characters to keep track of. So I'm not entirely sure I recommend it. CRASHERS is significantly better, but if you liked CRASHERS, you'd probably like this one reasonably well.

9. Taken by Robert Crais
Well, it's Elvis Cole and Joe Pike and the plot is fairly interesting, if someone chopped to pieces and scattered across the pages. It's rather hard to follow and there are some continuity issues, but I enjoyed it for the most part.

10. To The Hilt by Dick Francis
I've long cited this as one of my favorite novels. I still probably will, but people change, even if the books don't. I haven't read this in 8 or 9 years. One reason for that is it's largely about a man, Alexander Kinloch, who is a painter who lives out in the mountains of Scotland by himself, but gets called back to London when his mother's second husband has a heart attack. He gets drawn into trying to get his stepfather's business back on its feet after one of its officers embezzled millions of dollars. He also gets tangled up in a lot of asset management and family politics. I last read this when my father was going through the last stages of cancer and much of the sickbed issues described in the book came back to me hard. Also, I last read this before I was a full-time writer. I identified strongly with a character who just wanted to go off by himself and paint (i.e., write). Almost a decade later my life has changed, as, apparently, have I, and my identification with the character is different - although I can definitely relate to how Alexander gets pulled into situations he doesn't want to simply because, well, somebody has to and apparently he's the one most willing to. Still a terrific book and I was struck by how strong the writing was in this one. Still highly recommended.

Cheers,
Mark Terry

Adjustments

2012-01-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

January 24, 2012
You've no doubt heard the statement that doing the same thing over and over again in hopes of a different outcome is the definition of insanity? I don't know who said. I seem to recall it credited to Albert Einstein, but I probably read it on Facebook, which has a bit of a credibility problem when it comes to passing on inaccurate information.

I don't know if it's the definition of insanity, but I think sometimes you have to step back and say, "So, how's that working for you?" (I've heard this credited to Dr. Phil, but then again, who cares?)

Which is a long ways of saying, er, I parted ways with my literary agent yesterday (again). Yes, again. We parted ways a year or two ago, and then about two days later I got an offer for which I needed her services. So we decided to give it a go (again) and frankly...

Well, as I told her yesterday, the publishing industry has changed so dramatically in the last two years that I just don't foresee writing anything in the next year (or even two) that that will be offered to her to market or, for that matter, offered to a legacy publisher.

Unlike, say, Joe Konrath, who argues you should never go to a legacy publisher (unless that "legacy" publisher is Amazon, but that's a discussion for another day), I think a more reasonable response is: It depends.

I think there are authors out there that have reasonably effective careers with legacy publishers. I think there are clearly some self-published authors these days who are breaking out in the new e-book self-publishing environment (not necessary as many as you might think, given the deluge of titles being e-self-published). And I believe there are many so-called mid-list authors who are doing at least as well, and oftentimes better, by self-publishing than they were with their legacy publishers.

If I fall into any of these categories, it's this last one. I've never particularly felt like I was successful enough to be called "mid-list," but the fact is, over the last several months I've made more money off my Kindle and other e-book sales than I've made off any of my other book sales. Enough, in fact, that I can conceive of it actually being a reasonable part of my yearly income, at least if it continues the way it has lately. Which prompted my wife, something of a publishing agnostic (or perhaps even fiction publishing atheist), to say, "E-books are the way to go." She also said, "When are you going to let your agent know?"

I think it's possible that in the future I will write something that I want to show to a legacy publisher, assuming that in that time frame there are any legacy publishers around whose contracts won't seem like a joke. A friend commented to me yesterday that he bought THE FALLEN for $1.98 and wondered what the royalty must be like, then joked that "they say publishing is a low-profit business." Well, let me put it this way.

If I had self-published THE FALLEN as an e-book and were pricing it not at $1.98, but at $2.99, my royalty would have been $2.04 per copy sold. If I had self-published it at $1.98, that would have qualified for the 30% royalty rate, which would come to 59 cents ($0.59) per copy. As it stands, due to the contract I had with the publisher (negotiated by my agent), and which fell into the nebulous period before anyone started to dig in on e-book royalty rates (or, perhaps, my agent just didn't know any better and neither did I), the e-book royalty rate is, I believe, identical to my hardcover royalty rate, i.e., 10%. That is to say, when it sells for $1.98, I get, well, $0.198, or about 20 cents per copy. (And for the hardcovers, which have only sold a few hundred copies, as far as I know, I get 10% of $25.95, or $2.595).

There's another factor, and it's not insignificant. My publisher writes royalty checks once a year. Last year I believe I got paid in May. That did not include sales from that year, but were for the previous year. It also gets routed through my agent, who takes 15%. Then I get a check and pay the federal government 24% and Michigan 4%.

For the most part (not Smashwords), with Kindle and Barnes & Noble, I get money direct-deposited into my checking account at the end of each month. I'm not 100% sure with B&N if there's lag time, I'll have to check. With Kindle, the deposit into the account runs 60 days behind, so, for example, my payment at the end of January reflects sales from November.

So, there were financial reasons, for sure. There are plenty of marketing reasons as well.

There are creative reasons, too. Here's some truth. I've written any number of non-Derek Stillwater things over the last few years that my agent didn't like or even refused to market. And this goes to other issues of personality and approach to business, but sometimes the feedback I got was, "I hate it. Try something else."

Except you know what? I didn't hate it. I thought it was great. And I want to write them and complete them. Let the readers decide. And several of the projects I have planned for this year are works my agent didn't like, so I knew that even if I did want to market them, she wouldn't (which begs the question of who works for who, but this post is long enough already).

So, to get to the point. I've made some adjustments. I've tried not to burn any bridges. There's a film agent still dealing with my works and she would probably be interested in looking at any future ones I write and publish. If I get into a contract negotiation that is over my head, I'm going to take the advice of Dean Wesley Smith and hire an IP attorney to negotiate it - for a flat fee.

Times have changed. I expect they will continue to change. But I'm trying to adapt with those changes.

Thoughts?

Details

2012-01-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

January 16, 2012
I recently read a thriller by a bestselling thriller author. He's not a brand name, per se, but if you read a lot of thrillers you'd probably recognize the name. I've read several of his books in this series and I like his books a lot. We have very similar story-telling sensibilities, by which I mean if you like my books you'd like his and if you like his books you'd like mine. (Which sort of kills me, because he has a lot more readers than I do).

Let me say from the outset that when I finished the book I really enjoyed it. It was full of action, had a reasonably thought-provoking premise and it was, for the most part, an enjoyable read.

Why "for the most part", Mark?

Therein lies a problem. At one point in the book we get a chapter from the POV of a little girl who is Muslim. We are led to believe that she lives in the Detroit area. Her father drives her to school in Detroit. Much is made out of how where she lives has the highest density of Muslims in the U.S.

Then, it is indicated that they lived in Flint, Michigan.

Okay. I'm a life-long resident of the area. So there are some problems here.

First, Flint is not a suburb of Detroit. It's 60 or 70 miles away and although you might get commuters from one to the other, really, nobody who lives in Flint is taking their kids to school in Detroit. (And for god sakes, why would you want to? Detroit's got one of the worst school systems in the country).

No, the writer meant Dearborn, Michigan, which does have the largest Muslim population in the U.S., and in fact, is typically described as having the highest numbers of Arabs outside of the Middle East.

So another problem. Living in Dearborn and going to school in Detroit. Um... why? But that's not really the point, because Dearborn is never mentioned. Flint is.

In other words, I'm fairly convinced the writer remembered some news story about Dearborn and never bothered to double-check or, for that matter, even look at a map. And this mistake isn't an isolated mistake. It's pretty much ongoing for the first third of the book, repeated over and over again.

Okay. So is this writer a sloppy researcher? That's not my impression. The man knows a lot about weapons, bullets, hate groups, Delta Forces, special forces weapons and tactics, presidential security, etc. There may have been some "hand-waving" when it comes to the hacker stuff (there almost always is), but I know he wrote about his research on his blog and how he went to the Special Forces training program and they let him shoot guns and run through the obstacle course and watch them train and allowed him to ask questions.

So no. I don't think he's a particularly sloppy researcher. But man, he screwed up.

I think you can go overboard with the authenticity, or at least, worrying about it. I try to get things right, but there comes a time where I just have to write the damned thing.

I remember someone complaining about The Da Vinci Code because he had the character on the wrong side of the Seine in Paris. And although I think you can fault Dan Brown for a lot of things (like sloppy writing), I'm not sure I'd fault him for sloppy research.

It's just hard to get every single freakin' pesky detail right.

Just days ago Barry Eisler (who did not write the book I'm bitching about here) said he was going to Thailand or someplace to research a short story. Which definitely gives me a WTF moment. Clearly his self-publishing ventures with short stories are making him some money to justify that.

On the other hand, Dean Wesley Smith has said at least once on his blog that you can waste a lot of time on research and maybe you should just make stuff up and get on with writing the story. And Stephen King once made a comment about if you don't know the details of (for instance) Moscow, why don't you set the story in someplace you do know (like Derry, Maine, Stevie?).

I'm somewhere in between. Of course, the novel I'm writing now takes place mostly in Moscow (Russia, not Idaho) and I've never been there and these sorts of locations sort of drive me crazy because I want to get it right but I constantly ask myself if I should have just written a different story.

I will say this. Despite liking this guy's books a lot, I almost quit reading it with his repeated Flint, Michigan screw-up. I kept getting tossed right out of the story and it was pissing me off (and, alas, there may have been some sour grapes, because he sells a LOT more books than I do, mistake or not). So getting it right can make the difference between a satisfied reader and a non-reader.

What do you think? Ever been thrown out of a book by something you know is wrong? Are there levels of mistakes you're willing to forgive and some you're not?

Inspiration

2012-01-10T07:18:00.000-08:00

January 10, 2011
I've been looking for inspiration.

No, not looking for ideas for stories. I'm looking for a broader type of inspiration - the type that gets you up in the morning eager to get to work.

For seven years that's rarely been a problem, no matter what type of writing projects I've been working on. I always looked forward to getting into the office.

Starting this year, less so. Some of it is simply that it's winter and I'm not that eager to get out of a nice warm bed. Some of it, though, is a little more problematic.

I know some of you dream of being a full-time writer. I was for years. I spent most of my free time writing. At lunch, in the evenings, on the weekends.

Then I became a full-time writer and for the most part, I was still eager to write all the time. But that's hard to do. Really. And writing for a living often means you have to write things you're not really all that excited about writing. I'm careful to point out that I can often be interested about things intensely while I'm working on them, but they may not necessarily be intrinsically interesting to me. In other words, once I'm done working on them, I go off and pursue passions, rather than "interests."

I think I may have returned to a little earlier time now, a time when I wanted to focus more of my energies on fiction of one sort or another. I definitely find if I don't, the rest of the writing thing becomes work. If I just carve out some time to work on fiction, fit it in as a priority, then I get to my desk with enthusiasm.

I'm currently working on a short story, "Humanitarian Aid" and a novel, THE SINS OF THE FATHER. Both have been limping along for a while, but by pushing deeper into both of them, I seem to have found that enthusiasm for writing that seemed to be lacking. Perhaps it was all there to begin with, but I just wasn't giving it enough time to get into the zone. (Or I just really need a real vacation).

What do you do to find inspiration?

2012 Resolutions & Goals

2011-12-30T07:31:00.000-08:00

December 30, 2011
I almost didn't put these up here, because, well, it's really none of your business, right? Anyway, here they are, broken into 4 categories of sorts.

Business

1. Earn $80,000+
It's do-able, I've done it before, and it solves a lot of money problems when I make that much. But I also remind myself that if I spend all my time working on projects I don't enjoy just because they're big money-makers, I'm on the wrong path.

2. Publish 3 reports re. Terry Communications, LLC.
A couple years ago I tried newsletter publishing and found I didn't really have the time for it (or financial resources). Last year I spent some time on some web-based things, but didn't follow through because my heart really wasn't in it. This year I'm thinking of publishing a couple reports directly and selling them myself and/or via various e-publishers. These would be the types of business reports I write for clients already. We'll see how this goes.

3. Write a nonfiction book proposal.
Almost didn't put this one down. I wrote one last year we didn't sell. I'm not 100% sure what I want to write about, although I have a couple ideas. Once I settle on an idea, I need to do research. But it's on my radar, so again, we'll see.

Creative
I've separated this for the first time from business.

4. Finish THE SINS OF THE FATHER and market and/or publish it.

5. Finish short story, "Humanitarian Aid" and market it.

6. Finish another novel and market and/or publish it (CRYSTAL STORM, CAPITOL SECRETS, A PLAGUE OF STARS or something else).

7. Write another Derek Stillwater novella and publish it with DIRE STRAITS.

Health & Fitness

8. Lose 18 pounds.

9. Run 2 or 3 organized 5Ks

10. Run/walk 7 or 8 miles at least once.

Sanchin-Ryu
I haven't numbered these because I don't see them (except the last one) as an actual goal, but rather more of a focus for the first part of the year.

CBAs (combined basics advanced): Work in particular on San-Go and San-Ju.
These are combinations and they both, not surprisingly, involve a fair number of kicks. San-Go, for instance, is 3 kicks, front, back, to the side, all without putting your foot down in between. These two CBAs I feel are my weakest, so I'm going to put special emphasis on them for a while until I either get sick of working on them or feel like my improvement has reached a temporarily acceptable level.

Forms: Work in particular on Empi-Uraken.
I know all the steps, and there are always other things to work on, but Empi-Uraken is one that eludes me most in terms of "why am I doing what I'm doing?" Parts of it I understand. But there are some spins that I'm not terribly proficient at and I'm also not clear on why I would want to do them and when. I could just ask, of course, but in my experience that gets me only partway toward where I need to get; I need to experiment and work on it and then I see things as possibilities. Also, I need to practice the spins to the point where I could actually imagine doing them in a real-world situation without having to think about them.

Kata: Learn the entire choreography to Sanchin-San.
I've been a shodan for a little over a year. There's no rule that I'm aware of that says you need to learn Sanchin-San to get to nidan (2nd degree black belt), but Sanchin-San is essentially the first kata (technically second, but anyway...) and I've worked on it and probably know the steps of about the first 2/3, although it's not clear to me how accurate what I know actually is. As the thing I wrote about Empi-Uraken above might suggest, knowing the moves and knowing the applications are two different things. This year I want to learn all the steps to Sanchin-San (About a hundred or so). Learning what it's all about, well, that's another 20 or 30 years of practice and study.

P.S. One thing I've learned over the years is two-fold: 1) Sometimes I don't meet my goals and resolutions for a number of reasons - sometimes because they require involvement of other people and... 2) Sometimes my priorities change. With #2 and #3 I can imagine that happening fairly easily, simply by deciding they're interesting ideas, but I don't have the time or enthusiasm needed to actually make them work. I would point out also that #2 and #3 are the ones I have the most doubts about anyway. Well, except #8. No doubt it's a great idea, but...

Evaluation 2011, Part 2

2011-12-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

December 29, 2011

So yesterday I talked about my goals and resolutions for 2011 and how I did. Today I wanted to look back over the year and bring up some things that occurred that I didn’t expect, not all of them writing-related.

Teaching Karate.

In November of 2010 both my oldest son, Ian, and I, received our black belts (shodan, i.e., first degree) in Sanchin-Ryu karate. Typically before they let you teach a class you undergo a year (or so) of apprenticeship with a higher-ranking sensei or master. For reasons still not completely clear to me, Ian and I were given a class to teach in the spring of 2011. (Ian continues to apprentice with a 6^th-degree master.) During the summer it became a combined class at a different location, and this fall continued back at our original location. Teaching karate has been both a joy and a pain in the ass, often simultaneously, and I’ve found it to be a very enriching and educational experience. I suspect I learn more than my students do.

Published Some Books.

Yes, I organized, edited and published a collection of short stories, DEADLY BY THE DOZEN. An interesting experience that I enjoyed, for the most part, although from a financial point of view it’s been something of a mess. Still, I enjoyed working with the writers. I also self-pubbed FREELANCE WRITING FOR A LIVING, which also has sold almost no copies, and THE FORTRESS OF DIAMONDS, which also has sold almost no copies. Hmmm. Well, as I’ve figured out, it’s good just to have them out there and you never know, they may make money someday. I don’t regret writing or publishing them.

Bowling.

Friends convinced us to take part in a bowling league. Neither Leanne nor I are particularly good bowlers. The league we’re in has been described as a “drinking league with a bowling problem,” which seems to me to be a completely accurate description. So every other Saturday night we bowl. And drink. And often go out and eat and drink afterwards. I’m still a crappy bowler, but I’m having fun and meeting a lot of new people in town, which I believe is primarily the point. Now, if the scoring in bowling was only more like golf – low score wins, right?

Exercise Obsession.

I’ve been exercising a lot the last five or six years. It seems to have solidified into the things I most prefer to do: weight lifting, biking, running, karate. That's probably one more activity than I really need, but life's short and I enjoy and benefit from all of them for different reasons. I also walk the dog a lot and kayak in season. I lift 2 or 3 days a week, bike 3 or 4 days a week, run 3 days a week, teach karate one day a week, typically visit another class one day a week, and do my own personal karate workouts a couple days a week. It’s a mood enhancer, if nothing else. I could give up running if the right motivation to do so came along, but I persist for reasons that I don’t completely understand. I do think I’d be a far better Sanchinka if I spent more time on it, but it’s also a constantly receding horizon, because the more karate I do the more I seem to have to learn. Hence, martial "art," I suppose.

Did some article ghostwriting.

I mentioned this before, but I worked as an article ghostwriter/collaborator with a physician and a health information technology consultant this year. I don’t know how much more of it I will do, but it gave me some entrée into some publications I hadn’t been able to break into alone, so it was worthwhile. And collaborating can be an interesting thing to do. On the other hand, it makes you dependent upon someone else who has different priorities than you do and that annoyed the hell out of me. So if the right opportunities come along, great; if not, well, that’s okay.

Wrote White Papers.

I’d done a tiny bit of this before, but this year I did a lot and expect/plan to do more in the future. It’s rather like making a living writing college research papers, but it’s lucrative and interesting and I’m good at it.

New York City.

Spent 4 or 5 days on a trip to New York City with the high school marching band. I blogged about this. We did more in 4 or 5 days than many New Yorkers do in their lifetimes, it seems, and it was a really wonderful trip. Now I look forward to returning to NYC without a herd of teenagers and being able to wander the Met without a time limit or touring The Intrepid or tons of other things.

So, overall, a pretty good year.

Evaluating 2011, Part 1

2011-12-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

December 28, 2011
Well, since I insist on creating resolutions/goals etc., for upcoming years, I suppose this is the time to look at the ones I made at the end of 2010 and see how I did.

1. Lose 12 pounds.
No. I didn't. Probably enough said. I exercise more than ever, am probably in the best shape of my life in many ways, but I eat too much and I eat too much of the wrong types of foods. An ongoing struggle.

2. Earn $80,000+ with my writing.
No. Not even close. 2011 was one of my worst years, very close to 2009 in terms of being shitty financially. 2010 was my best year ever. If I average the three years, then I'm quite happy. So the key might be better financial management. I was also hit in 2011 by a non-paying client and a client that had me to do work, then went out of business. Although they claimed they would honor the invoices, nagging hasn't gotten me any money. Also, a third client, whose work is ongoing, hired me and a bunch of other writers to revamp a corporation's giant website. The corp was wildly impractical in terms of their timeline, so although it looked like I would make upward of $8000 on this gig in 2011, I've made about $2000 or so, although I fully expect to make the rest and more in 2012 as everyone's expectations about the size of the project and the timeline starts to merge with reality. I also did some reports that either are totally royalty-based (something of an experiment) or partially royalty-based, so I won't see monies (if I do at all) until sometime in 2012.

3. Finish SINS OF THE FATHERS and get a contract for it.
This is the 5th Derek Stillwater and no, I haven't finished it. I don't know if Oceanview will be interested in it when I do, or if I will even show it to them given that they expressed no interest in looking at the partial earlier in the year. I'm working on it, I will finish it, and it will be published, either sometime in 2012 as an e-book and trade paper, or at a later date in various formats by Oceanview. I just plain don't know yet.

4. Finish A PLAGUE OF STARS and start to market it.
Um, no. This is an SF novel I've been working on for a couple years and it's stalled, although it's on my to-do list for 2012. I'm also working on a short story with the same main character and in the same universe.

5. Finish FREELANCE WRITING FOR A LIVING and e-pub it.
Yes, I did this. To-date, this wildly successful nonfiction book has sold two copies. One to myself. Go me.

6. Make all my current e-books available on PubIt and in paper.
Yes, although not completely. But some of them. This is a slow and ongoing process, but I give it a "qualified yes."

7. Finish CHINA FIRE and begin marketing.
Um, no. And maybe never. Hard to say. But out of several WIPs, this one's not on my radar. Sorry, Natasha. Maybe someday.

8. Get at least one more book contract signed.
Well, yes, although not the way I expected. The point of this was to get a contract for a novel or nonfiction book. That didn't happen, although I self-published several books this year. More about that in tomorrow's post, I think. What did happen was I was contracted by FierceBiotech to write an e-book and it paid quite well, even though the timeframe was murder. These are not really books in the way we think of them, they're really a series of interconnected articles on a single topic and run maybe 5000 words. But I did it, got paid for it, it got published, and got contracted for another one due at the end of January, so I'm happy, actually.

9. Get a ghostwriting gig.
Again, I did a fair amount of article-based ghostwriting this year and although I was thinking of bigger money for book clients when I wrote this resolution, it was an interesting experience overall and I made some money and connections with it.

10. Write a nonfiction book proposal.
Yes, I did this. Probably one of the most intelligent resolutions I have here, because it was under my control. I wrote it, got an agent for it, she marketed it some, it didn't sell. Still, there it is, I have a relationship with the agent, and I think in 2012 I'm going to cannibalize parts of the proposal and try to sell the parts to magazines in the subject area. And it's a nice addition to the portfolio and was a good experience.

11. Run a 5K.
I did. It was both horrible and glorious. I'd injured myself a couple weeks before and was just starting to recover, but having paid for it, I ran it with my youngest son, Sean (who damn near lapped me), and I pulled a muscle pretty badly in the first half mile or so, but kept stumbling through the course. It was a sunny, clear and cold day and the course was through woods and farmland and dirt roads and hell, as painful as it was, I'm looking forward to running more of them. I've got my "elitefeet 34" big number on my wall in my office.

Tomorrow I'll look at things that happened in 2011 that I didn't plan for but that I think were good.

Sustainability

2011-12-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

December 27, 2011
I've been thinking about "sustainability" a lot recently. Particularly in terms of the so-called e-book revolution. A number of writers have been touting how traditional publishing is dead and the future is self-publishing e-books and they've been showing how much money they've been making doing so. I think everyone reading this will recognize the names: Joe Konrath, Barry Eisler, Scott Nicholson, Lee Goldberg, Blake Crouch, etc.

My point here isn't to criticize any of them. I've met Joe and Barry and like them both. I have a lot of respect for what they're doing, and when they speak, I listen. I've never met Lee although we've occasionally had reason to email back and forth and I've been an active participant on his blog for years. I don't know Scott or Blake. I think one reason these folks get mentioned here and in other places is they have been the loudest (and occasionally shrillest) advocates of e-book self-publishing.

And you know what? I'm not one to talk. I currently have these books available as self-published e-books:

The Devil's Pitchfork (which was originally published in paper by a legacy publisher)
The Serpent's Kiss (also originally published in paper by a legacy publisher)
Edge
Hot Money
The Battle for Atlantis
Monster Seeker
The Fortress of Diamonds
Freelance Writing For A Living
Deadly By The Dozen

I've also got a few books out that were traditionally published, are only available in paper, and two that are available in both through the legacy publisher (The Fallen and The Valley of Shadows).

If you went back about a year to 18 months, most of the above-mentioned writers were rolling in money, reporting $50,000 and $80,000 and $300,000 a year sales on their e-books. Awesome!

That's like a license to print money.

Except what I noticed was that a few months ago Joe, Scott and Lee all mentioned that their sales had dipped ... dramatically.

It's entirely possible that this dip is just that, a dip. They'll come out with new books and the numbers will increase. And as they (and I, for that matter, though far more quietly) say, the shelf-life of an e-book is infinite (I might argue with that actually, but another day), and forever is a long time, so over time the sales will be greater than they would if they had gone out of print in paper. Also, it has been pointed out, because the books are out there, they can gain an audience at any time.

Both are true, I think. I know that paper books get returned pretty damn fast from bookstores and although they're generally available for some time through online retailers. Therefore, even if an ebook sells modestly (how modestly, he wonders?), if it continues to sell modestly for 5 years, it will sell far more than it would have in 6 weeks in a bookstore. My only caveat to that is the "how modestly?" question. Some of the folks who are the biggest advocates of e-book self-publishing have been selling hundreds and thousands of copies of their e-books each month. They envision that continuing.

Those of us who have had e-books that sold 4 copies a month can envision that continuing, too, but so what? That's desirable? Even with the $2 royalty on a $2.99 copy, it'll take me 2 or 3 years just to get into the black from the modest expenses for cover art and layout. And believe me on this, a LOT of people's e-books sell like that.

This month, for me, has been quite good. I've probably sold a total of 800 or 900 e-books total. The two top sellers are The Devil's Pitchfork and The Serpent's Kiss, each of which have both sold over 300 copies to-date in December. But it's worth pointing out that some of the others have sold 3 or 4 or 5 or 20 or 30.

Hey, I'd be totally amped if Pitchfork and Serpent continued to sell over 300 copies a month for an indefinite period of time. But having been on the other end, the 3 or 4 copies, then the 8 or 9 copies, then the 12 or 15, then 20 or 25 copies end of things, I'll wait to crow about how sustainable it is.

As for being able to gain an audience at any time, yeah, I agree with that. My December sales are ALMOST completely directly related to my legacy publisher offering THE FALLEN for free for the month of December. It worked. (And recently a relative asked me if Amazon was paying me for those free books. Um... no.)

That said, my sales had picked up in November before that happened and I'm not sure why. I suspect that my online publication of DIRE STRAITS helped. But I don't really know.

I would point out that the primary difference I see between the sustainability of an e-book self-publishing career and a career writing books with legacy and/or traditional publishers seems to be control. A legacy publisher can (and will) dump you with very little reason and with precious little explanation. They have short attention spans, and even if a book makes a modest profit, they may still dump you. Most writers who've been around for any length of time have had it happen to them. Bad sales, not a surprise. Slow sales that still make a profit ... well, that happened all the time. A publisher would look at an authors' body of work and say, "Well, after the initial big push was over, sales have continued to increase by 2% each book. But we want it to be 10%, so we're dropping the writer."

That's business. Too much supply, not enough demand. Finite resources on the part of publishers.

You can read far more into it than that, but that's really what it comes down to. A publisher has finite resources and if sales don't grow the way they want or expect, well, there's always other writers to try. If the e-book self-publishing trend has proven anything, it's that there's a hell of a lot of "product" out there, - thousands and thousands of people who write books. I'm not going to even go into quality.

So?

No conclusions other than sustaining a writing career is hard. It was hard before and it's hard now. The writer has more options now - good - and more control - very good - but is anything guaranteed? If you write the book and put it out on Amazon/B&N/Smashwords/iBooks et al., will they come? Will readers find it, read it, recommend it, will sales grow?

My answer: not necessarily.

But who knows?

Part 7: LIving The Dream

2011-12-25T06:11:00.000-08:00

December 25, 2011
And finally, Part 7 of my pieces on Novelspot: LIving The Dream.

And more importantly, Merry Christmas!

Me, Me, Me Part 6

2011-12-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

December 24, 2011
I don't know if the final part is tomorrow or not, but here's Part 6.

Merry Christmas!

Me, Me,Me Part 5: When the Write Way is the Wrong Way

2011-12-23T05:57:00.000-08:00

December 23, 2011
Yes, I continue on Novelspot today.

Me, Me, Me Part Troi: On Rabbits and Chromosomes & Part 4: Angels

2011-12-22T06:40:00.001-08:00

December 22, 2011
Yup, I'm back on Novelspot with "On Rabbits and Chromosomes."

and Part 4: Angels

Me, Me, Me Part Deux: When Red Eyes Blue

2011-12-20T05:29:00.001-08:00

December 20, 2011
Yup, Part II of Me, Me, Me Week continues at Novelspot with When Red Eyes Blue.

Cheers,
Mark

It's Me, Me, Me Week!

2011-12-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

December 19, 2011
I'd actually forgotten all about this, but I wrote a 7-part series about me and my writing career for Novelspot, which begins today.

You Might Be Curious

2011-12-16T06:13:00.000-08:00

December 16, 2011
So, my publisher, Oceanview, offered last year's Derek Stillwater novel, THE FALLEN, for FREE on the Amazon Kindle. It moved its way up to #1 for a while on the Amazon bestseller lists (for free) although it's dropped down to about #51 overall, although as of today it's still #3 in the Action/Thriller list. Great advertising that.

In that I get no money from this (nor does my publisher, presumably), the question becomes: Did it do anything for your other books? I have no answer to that in terms of the paper versions of THE FALLEN or any of the versions of THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS.

I do, however, have some data on how it affected e-book sales of my other titles on Amazon. So, keeping in mind that today is the 16th and due to Amazon's silliness they didn't actually get the price down to $0.00 until about the 5th or 6th, here's what happened to my other titles to-date.

#	Title	ASIN	Units Sold	Units Refunded	Net Units Sold
1	DEADLY BY THE DOZEN	B004OA6KFQ	3	0	3
2	Edge	B002CJLSV2	13	0	13
3	Freelance Writing For A Living	B004XNKWSA	1	0	1
4	Hot Money	B0045U9R3C	10	0	10
5	Monster Seeker	B003QHZ6VC	3	0	3
6	The Battle For Atlantis	B003QHZ7V6	10	0	10
7	The Devil's Pitchfork	B003LSTW3E	231	3	228
8	The Fortress of Diamonds	B005HVZ96M	3	0	3
9	The Serpent's Kiss	B003NUQRA6	204	2	202

Clearly we can see that the incentive increased interest in THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK and THE SERPENT'S KISS. How much? Well, sales were increasing in November anyway for no completely identifiable reason, although I suspect the blog-publishing of DIRE STRAITS had something to do with it.

It's having some effect on HOT MONEY, which is gratifying, and on EDGE. THE BATTLE FOR ATLANTIS sells about that many copies each month anyway. The other titles, well, they haven't budged much. Typical sales of PITCHFORK and SERPENT prior to November were something like 20 to 30 copies each. So clearly something has happened, and just getting onto the Kindle lists probably has a lot to do with it. I've always argued that the best advertising in the world is actually getting onto certain bestseller lists, and this seems to confirm that.

So, I'm happy about it. I'm not confident in the sales' sustainability, but I'll get a nice deposit into my checking account at the end of the month that will help me somewhat offset my Christmas spending. I would generally have preferred THE FALLEN show up in the Top 10 of the list on December 25th so a million or so people who found Kindles under their Christmas trees would download it, but, as they say, timing is everything. Hopefully it'll still have some legs in a week.

As for how this compares to my Nook sales and sales via Smashwords, well. Last I checked (yesterday), I had sold 2 copies of Pitchfork and 2 copies of Serpent this month, and nothing else. On Smashwords, hell, I haven't sold anything on Smashwords in months.

After a dry blogging period, I'm hoping to do some semi-regular posts from now until the end of the year that will address publishing and e-book sales and writing in general and what I'm thinking about 2011 and 2012.

Cheers,
Mark Terry

THE FALLEN - #1 Bestseller

2011-12-07T16:14:00.000-08:00

December 7, 2011
Yes. Even when it's free, that's pretty damned exciting.

Best Sellers in Action & Adventure Fiction

The Fallen (Derek Stillwater)

Mark Terry

4.9 out of 5 stars (9)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

Free

BRAINRUSH, a Thriller (Book One)

Richard Bard

4.7 out of 5 stars (230)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

The Last Call (The Bill Travis Mysteries)

George Wier

5.0 out of 5 stars (6)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

Free

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Vintage)

Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland

4.4 out of 5 stars (1,317)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$12.99

Touring the Afterlife

Nancy Frederick

5.0 out of 5 stars (1)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

Free

An Awesome Book Of Thanks!

Dallas Clayton

4.7 out of 5 stars (44)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

The Time Machine

H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

4.1 out of 5 stars (479)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

Free

THE FALLEN on Kindle is FREE, FREE, FREE!!!! (Yes, Really! This Time For Real!)

2011-12-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

December 7, 2012

AWARD-WINNING THRILLER, THE FALLEN - FREE!!!!

Yes, you heard it! For the entire month of December, the Kindle e-book of the Derek Stillwater novel, THE FALLEN, will be FREE!

THE FALLEN is the winner of the 2010 National Best Books Award for Adventure/Thriller!! FREE!

Tell all your Kindle-owning friends.

When twenty of the world's most powerful leaders meet at the G8 Summit, the fate of the world will rest on one man's shoulders.

Twenty world leaders meet for the G8 Summit at the beautiful Cheyenne Resort in Colorado Springs. But an ugly plot lurks beneath the surface: a terrorist group, The Fallen Angels, plans to wreak havoc on the summit.

With the Secret Service, the FBI, Homeland Security, the military, and security from twenty different governments on hand, shouldn't the resort be the safest place in the world?

It seems impossible that a terrorist group could infiltrate the summit. And yet they do. Within minutes, twenty world leaders are taken hostage, and Richard Coffee, the group's leader, makes his first demand: release twenty detainees from Guantanamo Bay, or he'll execute one leader each hour until his demands are met.

Only one man can disrupt this plot. Derek Stillwater is that man.

Working undercover as a maintenance man at the resort, Stillwater will wage war on the world's deadliest, most sophisticated terrorist organization, picking off the terrorists one by one—until he comes face-to-face with an evil force from his past, Richard Coffee, The Fallen Angel himself.

"Blisteringly paced and unrelenting, Mark Terry's THE FALLEN reminds me of 'Day of the Jackal,' but with a modern polish. With a ripped-from-the-headlines urgency, here is a novel that will keep people talking long after the last page is turned." - James Rollins, author of THE DEVIL COLONY

"THE FALLEN is a singularly entertaining read.... Engagingly written, THE FALLEN is a real page-turner, everything a first-rate thriller should be." - Lawrence Kane for ForeWord Reviews

"Terry writes like Lee Child on steroids." - Ray Walsh for the Lansing State Journal

It would be awesome if this generated interest in the series as a whole, so please, pretty please, with sugar on top, if you have friends who owns Kindles or have Kindles on their phones, etc., please encourage them to download this book. It's FREE!

What I've Been Reading

2011-11-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

November 29, 2011
Here's the last 10 books I've read.

1. Bag of Bones by Stephen King. One of my favorite novels, I re-read it every couple years. Conveniently, I read it before the mini-series is aired on A&E in early December starring Pierce Brosnan. He wouldn't have been my first choice - certainly not an obvious choice - but he's got the acting chops. I'll be curious to see how faithful they are to the book. Hope they don't screw things up too much.

2. City of Ruins by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Science fiction. This is a sequel to Diving Into The Wreck. The main character, Boss, is an archaeologist/space diver/ship wreckage expert. It takes place way, way, way, way in the future. In the first book Boss discovers an ancient ship that seems to have somewhat active stealth technology. In City of Ruins, she's formed a company and team that actively looks for the technology, and they think there are indications of it on a planet whose major city periodically suffers geological disturbances. Oh boy, was she right, and although the pace is slow (to say the least), the story slowly unveils a fascinating look at the stealth technology and how little they actually understood the past. If there's a theme to these books - there are probably many - it's how history gets distorted over time.

3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling. I'm re-reading the series this year and this second novel is still my least favorite of the seven. Still, an engrossing read.

4. The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. Riordan continues his Percy Jackson series, or at least, his second series featuring the Olympians. Percy wasn't in the first book of the second series, but he is in this one, although he has amnesia through much of it. It may be one of the best books he's written, period. A hell of a lot of fun. Hilarious with tons of action and engaging characters. Probably one of the most enjoyable books I've read this year.

5. Shock Wave by John Sandford. A Virgil Flowers novel. In this case, someone attempts to kill the CEO of a retail chain store in Grand Rapids, Michigan using a bomb, then related bombings occur on a building site in Minnesota. Although people outside of the midwest will think WalMart, the headquarters of Meijer is in Grand Rapids. Anyway, I liked this one quite a bit. Lots of twists and turns and Virgil is a great character.

6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling. The third in the series. One of my favorite movies as well, although I think the movie perhaps improves on the book. This, to me, is the book where the series really gets going, where you start to see the grand arc of the whole series.

7. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step At A Time by Mark Adams. I already wrote about this, and had a nice email exchange with the author. A wonderful nonfiction book, highly recommended.

8. Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. I wrote about this as well, but I enjoyed it. I think I've enjoyed thinking about it after I read it more than I enjoyed actually reading it. Some memorable things in it, even if while I was reading it I was sometimes frustrated.

9. V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton. It will take me some time to make up my mind about this novel, I think. I still count I is for Innocent as being one of the best mystery novels written, and in general, I'm a fan of Grafton. That said, readers change, and I have since I started reading this series about twenty-some years ago. I prefer a bit more tension and action and pace in my novels now than Grafton puts in her books. Nonetheless, there's much that's memorable about this book and I certainly liked it better than U is for Undertow.

10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling. What struck me repeatedly while reading this novel was how great a job the scriptwriter, Steve Kloves, did of rearranging events, summarizing things, and chopping and shifting dialogue. Although I think the story is wonderful, I think Rowling might have benefited from some editing, particularly toward the end when she starts doing some Morrie the Explainer things (she does this a lot) so it makes sense - Dumbledore's interrogation of Bartie Crouch under veritaserum goes on forever. It's so complicated I have no problem understanding why Kloves et al decided to simplify the plot.

But she does a great job of setting up the next book's political issues with Cornelius Fudge at the end. I think it's too bad, actually, that they didn't manage to fit in the scene on the train at the end somewhere. To refresh your memory, as they are riding the train home, Harry, Ron & Hermione are talking when Malfoy, Crabbe & Goyle come in and start taunting them. When they start in on Cedric, the three of them - and Fred and George who were out in the train car hallway - simultaneously hit the three of them with multiple jinxes. Fred or George looks at the unconscious three, asks who did one jinx, then notes that it apparently didn't mix with the one he threw, because Crabbe or Goyle appeared to be growing tentacles. A very enjoyable read.

A Little Help From My Friends

2011-11-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

November 22, 2011
Something interesting has been going on with my Derek Stillwater novels. In any given month THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK and THE SERPENT'S KISS, the 1st two, which I have released as e-books myself, sell somewhere between 10 and 20 e-copies total. This month, to-date, THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK has sold 97 and THE SERPENT'S KISS has sold somewhere in the 80s. I'm not sure why the sudden jump (but I'm grateful). It might have to do with DIRE STRAITS, the Derek Stillwater novella I serialized here on my website. It might have to do with some mentions on a couple friends' Facebook pages recently.

So. I want to see if I can push e-book sales of THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK up to 200 copies by the end of this month. That's 8 or 9 days, 11 or 12 copies a day.

Only $2.99!

But I could use your help. Any mention you could give me on your blog or on Facebook or Twitter or wherever you hang out would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

A Rant About Publishing By Someone else

2011-11-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2011
This is fairly entertaining and, in many ways, deeply true. I'm not on board with this guy's ego, but, I'm on board with much of what he says, especially when he says that the publishing industry doesn't use technology well and is very slow. Don't in any way feel obligated to read this. He gives permission to reprint it, so I am, because I found it amusing and sad and true and educational pretty much all at the same time.

Cheers,
Mark

An Open Letter to Simon and Schuester CEO Carolyn Reidy

Posted on 17 November 2011 by Sebastian

Hi Carolyn,

Sit down before you read this.

We’ve got to talk.

Look. This is going to piss you off. This is going to look like I’m causing problems.

I’m not causing problems. I’m just pointing out where problems already exist.

Your publishing company has treated me like a bitch over the last year. This is partially my fault, because I’ve let S&S treat me like a bitch. But it’s also your fault, because you nurture and work with artists, and artists really really really deserve to be taken good care of by their publishing house.

I’m not naturally an artist. I’m kind of sort of a businessman. That’s why I’ve finally got the nerve to write what I’ve been thinking for a year now -

Your company fundamentally mistreats its editors, writers, and all its staff. If you don’t change course, you’re fucked and out of business very soon.

I don’t say that as an artist. I say that as a businessman. Your company is stuck in the year 1850 or whatever, when ships came from England with books to sell to the New World.

Your company (and indeed, whole industry) is stuck in slavery-era thinking.

And it’s bad business.

So, we’ve got to have a chat.

The Backstory Starts in Southeast Asia

After you read this, I suspect you’ll be saying, “How the fuck did we get in this position? WHOSE FAULT IS THIS?!!”

So, for your convenience, and for the entertainment of the reading public, let’s go through how we got here.

On 23rd December 2010, your publishing house agreed to sign me with a $65,000 advance.

I’m under the impression that’s pretty good for a first-time author, especially one as raw in writing quality as I was. But I really hit it off with the signing editor, Matthew Benjamin, and my agent, Jim Levine.

(Sidenote: Guys, I’m really fucking sorry to put you in the position I just did. You guys are both great, and I’m going to explain that you’re great and that the industry as a whole is fucked in a moment. But sorry for the tidal wave this is about to unleash.)

This was good news. I’d been panicked a little, to tell you the truth… my chief project had been consulting on high technology for the hospitality industry. My partner, Yifei Zhang, was and is incredibly brilliant, one of the most talented people I know.

Yifei and I built out processes for hotels to increase occupancy and revenues, and he was going to come meet me in Southeast Asia once we were ready. He designed a beautiful site (reachadventurers.com) that was about half-finished, and we had various creative and brochures and things like that.

This was happening in parallel with Jim Levine selling the book to various publishers, including your house.

Now, I’ve always been tenacious. If something important has to be done, give it to me.

Thus, I started “commando’ing” my way into high end hotels by just showing up and insisting that something really important was happening. I met the Director of Sales and Marketing at Caravelle in Saigon (I totally embarrassed myself with a terrible pitch) and I met the General Manager at the Sheraton (who was really cool, and we talked for three hours and he referred me to their head office in Singapore along with useful information about the whole industry).

We weren’t selling yet, but we had enough money for six months. Yifei was ready to quit his job, and we’d work full-time, starting in Malaysia and then moving to Singapore.

Yifei gave notice, and… his boss recognized he was a genius, and offered to triple his pay to stay, along with letting him hire six people and run his own skunkworks mini-division.

That motherfucker. What a smart move.

Yifei asked. He felt guilty. I told him take the offer. Amazing opportunity. And he’d never made real money before.

So Yifei was out, and I didn’t want to run Reach by myself. I’m not sure what was coming up.

And then – two days later, Jim lets me know we’ve got agreement and I’m publishing with you guys!

Title: for contract – How to Make a Self-Made Man; but final title subject to mutual approval of Author and Publisher
Length: 50,000 – 60,000 words
Delivery: July 1, 1011
Advance: 65k
Territory: world rights, all languages
Payout:
1/3 on signing
1/3 on D&A
1/3 on first publication (which would probably be somewhere between January – June 2012) but no later than 12 months after Publisher’s acceptance of the manuscript

Staring At The Harbor

Our “due date” was July 1st. Cool! Let’s work fast, and bang this out of the park!

Carolyn, I was really excited to work with you guys.

Really, really excited.

I can’t even tell you how excited. Jim thought my first book wouldn’t be a good fit, so I was going to write a new one from scratch from the outline I was given.

No problem! You know Nietzsche wrote Zarathustra in only three sets of one day each of manic writing?

I’m cyclothymic too. Like Nieztsche and Byron and those guys. Albeit, much less talented; I’m just saying I got the same affliction.

What’s a cyclothymic? It appears that we feel emotions more strongly than other people, and cycle through them. I’m fucking awesome when I’m manic, I can rapidly invent, experiment, implement, advance science, build systems, recruit and hire people, and just massively do unhumanly large amounts of stuff. Cyclothymic mania is when the SPIRIT OF GOD is within you.

Most people wouldn’t get it. Couldn’t get it.

Anyways. It’s pretty fucking awesome when it’s going on. SPIRIT OF GOD WITHIN YOU. Imagine that, eh?

There’s just one problem.

I need to feed the mania to keep it going. If I can chain manic successes together, it grows and I can go through multiple year-long mania runs where I travel through 60+ countries, explore the world, do massive deals, get invited to stay in mansions and villas and go to top nightclubs and parties and whatever.

Jut one rub – it’s a Faustian Bargain – crashing is… well, “hell” is a cliche, so I can’t use that. I’ll try to explain.

The more structured my life is, the better people around me, and the more resources I’ve deployed intelligently, the less likely I crash. But when a convergence of bullshit strikes, then I crash hard and I’m fucking useless for a while. It’s a real bummer, I’ll tell ya. All you think about when crashed is drowning. I mean, literally drowning, I’ll stare the harbor in Hong Kong and think it’s be pleasant to be under the water. I have to just remind myself that when I’m uncrashed I’ll be glad I’m still alive, and someday I’ll probably be manic again, and then I can get back to serving humanity.

Anyways.

July 11th! Woohoo!

But then… your publishing house kind of drops the ball.

There’s some back and forth talk, but I didn’t a copy of the final contract to sign until 1st March 2011.

But fine, I signed quickly. Let’s get to work!

Never Have Only One Thing Going

Now Carolyn, I’ve got to explain something. When someone doesn’t do what they say, and you keep soldiering on, you’re letting them treat you like a bitch.

You guys had already dragged ass for more than three months after we had agreement in principle. Then we sign, and the contract calls for payment “Immediately.”

Now, how immediate is “Immediately”?

I’m sure it’s a settled question in American legal law, but I’m not going to bother researching it. I’m sure it’s not –

– wait! Let’s play a game!

Carolyn, how long do you think it took your publishing house to pay me your contractually obligated “immediate” payment?

C’mon, guess before I tell you.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Guess!

Three hours? The same day? The next day?

The same week?

Carolyn, do you think your publishing house paid me the same month? We signed on the 1st of March. Do you think you paid in March?

Hmm. I bet you know where this is going.

And it’s not like we’ve got any surprises coming up. We had agreement in December of the previous year, and you already dragged ass.

You paid me on 18th April 2011, six and a half weeks after “immediate” payment was due.

Unfortunately, I just accepted this nonsense.

At that point, I had demonstrated that I was a bitch that would accept table scraps from your company, and I started subsequently being treated like a bitch.

The Downward Spiral Begins

So, I’m not entirely sure, but I think your company signed me because I have interesting ideas, and I know how to market them. The team at Simon and Schuester’s Touchstone division (who are great btw, sorry S&S Touchstone team for causing you a headache right now) – well, I was on the phone with THE WHOLE TEAM right away.

You guys were serious and ultra-professional in December. And you were excited with me. Particularly my marketing savvy – the Touchstone team commented that I was extremely prepared (and they were impressed with that), clearly I understood marketing very well (and they were impressed with that), and they thought I had a chance at being “the next Tim Ferriss” (!!!!). (Sidenote: I think Tim Ferriss is much better at marketing than me.)

So yeah, you guys wanted my writing and marketing ability.

But now, shit’s about to get ugly.

Subject: Has there ever been a moneyback guarantee on a print book?
I had an idea that might be interesting. Moneyback guarantees are pretty thoroughly proven to increase conversions and sales online. What if we printed this on the first or second page of the paper book?
–
This Book Rocks Your World, or It’s Free
To the best of my knowledge, this has never been done before.
I think this book contains excellent insight and guidance in it. The whole thing is tested and has been effective with a variety of people. But if you buy it, try the ideas, and they’re not worth what you paid, I’ll buy your copy from you. Go to:
http://www.selfmadebook.com/guarantee
And there’s instructions on how to sell me your copy of the book. I’m leaving this offer open for all of 2012.
I’m confident that I can serve you with this writing. If I can’t, you’re not out any money. So, read on and enjoy. Thank you.
Your loyal strategist,
Sebastian Marshall
–
On the terms and conditions of the guarantee, we specify that they’ve got to read some of the book, that it applies for only 2012, and then we set up a way that isn’t a headache to deal with it. (Maybe they submit proof of purchase and proof of donation to a library or something? Screwing around with return inventory is a nightmare, probably much cheaper just to let them keep it) In the guarantee T&C, we also specify that it only applies if the store they ordered from doesn’t offer their own guarantee first.
I think this could spur an increase in buying definitely, but more importantly I think it could be a really nice angle for the media and for people to talk about.
Could we try to do something like this? I think this could be really a boon for our marketing and PR.
Sebastian

I don’t know Carolyn. Maybe it’s a bad idea. But it is an idea, and it got no play from you guys.

Okay, whatever. At least you spent some time implementing the three hour long design brief I wrote for the cover, giving specific recommendations and historical comps?

Alas, no. When I got the cover, they totally ignored everything about my audience, my goals, my notes I gave you guys, and whatever else. I re-wrote notes, and they were ignored. So much for “meaningful consultation”!

I’d list more, but it’s all the same sort of thing. Suffice to say, I kept coming with ideas that might or might not work, and getting back nothing or less than nothing in return.

But The Worst Part…

…is that I kept being given pseudo-deadlines, meeting them, and then whoever would be on vacation and wouldn’t reply for a couple months. I burned fucking hard in Tokyo to meet my deadlines, BRUTALLY working on nothing else to get some stuff to Matthew…

…and then he’s on vacation, and didn’t tell me. On the supposed very important deadline day.

So I kind of crashed. Hard.

I was pretty invested in this emotionally, and I’m usually able to will things to work. But here? It’s not happening. I’m being blown around in the wind, and I can’t figure it out.

It’s Not The Editor’s Fault. It’s Your Fault.

It’s not Matthew’s fault. Matthew’s fantastic, he pushes me, he’s very intelligent and well read, and I like him a lot. (Sidenote: Sorry for doing this, Matthew.)

Here’s the thing – it’s the year 2011, and you guys lack basic technology calendaring. Your editors don’t work with your marketers. There’s no rudimentary project management system in place. There’s no consistency or fairness or transparency in the author’s contract process. You guys don’t keep your own promises.

It’s not Matthew’s fault. Matthew’s overworked, underpaid, and I imagine he’s somewhat frustrated with your company’s bullshit as well. In fact, I think everyone is frustrated with your whole industry’s bullshit, which is why traditional publishing is dying.

You need better tech.

You need to pay your people better, equip them better, give them better tools and resources, and kill as much of the bureaucracy and paperwork they do. Matthew spends all his damn time dealing with internal bullshit, doesn’t work hands-on with marketing people very often (your marketers and editors don’t work together Carolyn! Do you know how fucking stupid that is in 2011?!!), and his authors wind up pissed off and disrespected.

I’m not much of an artist, really.

But let’s play pretend. I’ll be a pretend artist. You too, Carolyn. Pretend you’re an artist.

You’re kind of up and down, which is a common temperament for art-making people, especially weird-paradigm-shifting-art-making-people. You’re really excited, since you’ve dreamed for forever of getting published.

All you do is work on the project, highly motivated.

They keep jerking you around and treating you like a bitch.

You’re kind of afraid of them, because the contract you signed gives them all the power and you none.

(Sidenote, Carolyn: Fix that. Less draconian contracts will make it easier to build the goodwill and collaboration necessary to make art. The Sword of Damocles hanging over the writer’s head doesn’t help. Really, I promise it doesn’t help. Trust me on this if you can’t understand me.)

So, do you think you can make great art in those working conditions? Where you’re being mistreated, not cared for, ignored, lied to, and having your “great marketing ideas” just fall into dust?

C’mon now. And mind you, I’m a hell of a lot less sensitive than most artists; I’m not even an artist, really.

This is 100% not the editor’s fault, who is great. Jim apologized to me. He said, “Sebastian, I’m sorry, it’s just how the industry works… I’m sorry, I wish I could say more, but it’s how it operates!”

Carolyn, that’s a fucking problem. It’s 2011, you’re running a sinking ship, and it’s “just how it operates.”

Matthew’s not a problem.

Jim’s not a problem.

Your designer (who is good – I bet he’d have done good work if he ever saw my design brief) is not the problem.

I don’t think I’m the problem.

Maybe I’m just a problem, and should be really grateful you were maybe going to publish me, and should just accept that I have to play by your rules, be ignored, be lied to (yes, lied, Carolyn – when you said you’re going to do something and sign your name to it, and don’t do it, we call that lying), and otherwise just be jerked around?

But I don’t think I’m the problem.

I don’t even think you’re the problem, really. Maybe it was rude of me to call you out personally. It’s not your fault, you took over the ship in 2008 and you’re trying to keep it on course in a disinterested corporate conglomerate that’s all about P&L and various draconian bureaucratic bullshit.

I think the system is the problem, it’s broken, and should be fixed.

Not Afraid Any More

Carolyn, I’m sorry for calling you out. I hope I didn’t ruin your Wednesday too badly.

I’m not here to make you feel bad. I wanted you to see it from my perspective.

See, I stuck with you because I was afraid.

I was scared.

Not love.

Fear.

I thought I needed you as recently as ten days ago.

Ten days ago, a catalystic process happened. I’m back on the insane upward trajectory I was on a couple years ago. I just signed a business contract that pays me $40,000 to $700,000 in 3 months based on performance. It’s 54 times the highest 30 consecutive days net profit, on high dollar products – the equivalent of 4.5x annualized. If you plug some numbers in, it comes out pretty big pretty quickly. I’m willpowering a business to exist that didn’t before, just hired seven top-notch people at top of market pay plus fantastic benefits, and I’m arming them to the teeth with a top designer, a market researcher, tons of resources, and all sorts of great things.

And you know what? It’s not even all that expensive!

I’m building so fast with so little money… it’s amazing what you can do when everyone is in sync with no politics, no bullshit, everyone committed, and pure love and support.

Anyway, taking this position put me over capacity. From now until February, I’m at 180% to 240% of my maximum possible capacity at the current rates, obligations, coordination, and resources I have.

So you know what? I just told everyone in my life that they’ve got to do better to stay in my life. Not just be more professional or work harder or coordinate better.

But really do better, on a philosophical level.

I called out one guy who has always been difficult that I worked for. Whenever I had a great idea for him that would make his business run better, he’d drag ass on implementing it, make me explain myself 10,000 times, I’d have to press him and he’d complain about the littlest expense or commitment.

And this, despite the fact that I’ve made him tens of thousands of dollars!

So I told yesterday, “Hey! You don’t appreciate me enough! Every time I have a good idea for you, you get pessimistic and stupid and whine. STOP IT AND BE MORE GRATEFUL THAT I’M MAKING YOU MONEY.”

He starts to say, “Well, I’ve got to be carefu–”

And I say, “No you don’t! How much money have I made you?”

And he says, “A lot.”

I say, “Yeah. At least 20 grand you wouldn’t have. So STOP BEING A BITCH WHEN I WANT TO MAKE YOU MONEY. AND BE MORE GRATEFUL.”

And he starts to dislike that, and I say it again, but louder. And then he offers me equity in his company worth something like $180,000 to $360,000 if I implement all the ideas he’d been demurring on.

Jesus. Where was all this when I was being nice?

Most Artists Aren’t Businessmen, And Thus…

…you know, Carolyn, or whoever, I’d like you to treat me better, appreciate me more, and use my talent so we’re all very successful.

But that won’t be enough.

Most artists aren’t businessmen. So they’ll stay afraid, desperate, clinging to your company like a life-raft in a sea of obscurity and toil.

But your raft has holes in it. It’s sinking.

It’s sad.

It’s really, really sad.

Artists expect to do art with you, and they instead get bullshit.

We can’t work like this.

I don’t know. Maybe other people can take being disrespected by a gigantic corporate clusterfuck, but you’re missing like 90% of my talent.

Matthew wrote me. The last batch of my writing is apparently up to snuff. Quite good, even!

I’m almost done.

But you know what? The book isn’t right. It’s like, 20% mine, 20% Matthew’s, 10% Jim’s, and 50% corporate clusterfuck.

I could put my head down and just grind, get it done at 4AM before I go to work, and whatever.

But you know what? You’re now the people in my life who treat me the worst.

I mean, you’ve really treated me like dogshit. And I stuck around because I was afraid.

Who am I? Well, fundamentally I’m just some dude. If I’m saying anything that doesn’t make sense or doesn’t jibe with your experience, and the publishing industry is actually doing awesome, then go ahead and write me off and go back to your process.

But okay. You already know your industry isn’t healthy. So you should very carefully evaluate how reality-based I am before making any decisions. Does what I’m saying make sense?

You’ve got a couple options:

Option 1: If you still want to publish me, I’ve got to know that things are going to get better.

Yes, you’ve got to do better by me. Clearly.

But not just me. Everyone you work with, everyone’s whose lives you touch.

You need to do some sort of audit of all of S&S looking for stressful bureaucracy, unfriendly things for editors, lack of modern collaboration and technology, and unfriendly hostile terms to authors.

At a BARE MINIMUM, you establish basic project management, basic calendaring, drastically simplify the standard S&S contract, and provide plenty of paid time for knowledge share between different branches of the company so that editors and marketers work more intimately together and get in sync. Then start treating your editors like GOLD, kill their stupid bureaucracy requirements and let them run more freely.

That’s the bare minimum.

I have other suggestions. I think you should get together with the other publishers and lobby Congress to let you automatically turn all paper books into digital form and pay a 3x higher royalty to any author who doesn’t opt out of the deal.

I think you really ought to speed up. It’s not so hard. Modern businesses run fast, there’s people who know how to make that happen. Three months from agreement in principle to contract, followed by a six week breaching-of-contract delay? Not okay. Amazon’s publishing wing doesn’t make mistakes like that.

Oh, and you really need some new angles on marketing and distribution. You guys don’t get my generation at all. You need to let your bright authors try crazy things. You’re in a hits-based business, stop being so damn conservative. You need more big winners, which requires letting abstract creative thinkers try weird crazy stuff.

Option 2: Cancel My Ass, And Do Whatever Bad Things You Can To Me

I wouldn’t blame you after this stunt I just pulled!

Look, I’m sure you’re all unhappy with me. I’m not saying pleasant things.

But here’s my basic message:

*Your industry is fucking slow
*Your industry disrespects authors
*Your industry under-equips and disrespects editors
*Your industry is lacking basic modern technology
*Your industry uses draconian contracts with artists which destroy goodwill
*Your industry is conservative about trying new things despite being in a deathspiral (this is the most confusing one to me)
*Your industry doesn’t foster a good enough collaboration among basic functions like editing and marketing
*Everyone knows this, and thinks it’s okay “because that’s how publishing is”…
*…but it’s not okay, and we all know that deep down…
*…so, do something about it before it’s too late.

Respectfully Yours,
Sebastian Marshall

–
Anyone is welcome to republish this in full or in part, anywhere, without asking for permission. Have fun.

A Few Thoughts On Attitude

2011-11-17T06:35:00.000-08:00

November 17, 2011
Have you ever met someone who just seems to always look on the bright side of things? Do you just want to kill them and wipe that happy smirk off their face?

Sometimes I do. There are certainly some people - in my experience anyway - who go through life happy, happy, happy never acting as if a bad thing will ever happen.

Then there are others who seem well aware of the gamut of outcomes, but choose to go for the positive.

This was driven home a couple weeks ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. We went to the Sanchin-Ryu Fall Workshop a couple weeks ago, a three-hour karate workshop held in the metropolis of Leslie, Michigan. It was held in the town's middle school gym and there were probably a couple hundred people there. One of the things about Sanchin-Ryu that's a bit unusual is it starts to seem like family - you get to know a lot of people if you spend any time visiting other classes and going to workshops, and in a very unusual tradition, Sanchin-Ryu people are huggers. Yeah, a bunch of skilled martial artists greeting each other with hugs (which is good, because a short time later they may be kicking you in the crotch).

Anyway, before the workshop got going I was chatting with Sensei Chris, who was the sensei (teacher) whose class I came out of. Chris asked me to substitute for his class this week because he was having sinus surgery the weekend before and didn't know if he would be in shape to teach.

Because of my medical background and upbringing, I tend, like most people, to focus on the discomfort and risks of the surgery. Also, just a few days before, a woman my wife worked with went in for sinus surgery and, she was told, died on the table from a hemorrhage. (Actually, Leanne told me a few days later she got the real story, which was that the woman went in for a nose job, got home, started hemorrhaging and died. Either way, horrible story). I wisely didn't mention this to Chris, just told him I hoped everything went well.

As we were chatting, Chief Grand Master Robert Dearman came in and gave us both hugs. CGM is a 10th degree black belt and the creator of Sanchin-Ryu. Chris mentioned the surgery and CGM promptly said, "Well, you'll sure be able to breathe better after that."

Then we joked around a bit about what Chris would do with all the extra oxygen that would be going to his brain.

I've spent some time mulling the conversation over, because I really liked the approach and attitude CGM showed there. It was focused entirely on the positive outcome. I don't doubt he was aware of the discomfort involved, that surgery has risks, but what he focused on was the reason Chris was having the surgery and how much better things would be when it was done.

Which I think is a pretty good way to go through life, actually.

I know that I can't successfully be a freelance writer without having a positive attitude, without believing that good-paying work is just around the corner, that I can stay busy, that my clients will pay me in a timely fashion. I KNOW that there will be droughts, that some clients don't pay, that projects fall apart, that there's a current trend for really low-paying work with "content farms," that the book publishing industry is undergoing a huge change right now, that yes, THINGS GO WRONG.

But I stay positive. I tell myself there's good-paying work, that I'm uniquely qualified for much of it, that I'm quite good at what I do, I work hard, and I prepare myself to deal with the droughts by managing my money reasonably well, etc.

That's different than being all happy-happy-happy that everything will just be all kittens and unicorns and rainbows. You don't run a steeplechase without figuring out how you're going to get over the water hazard. You prepare.

And you keep a positive attitude.

Thoughts?

COLD VENGEANCE

2011-11-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

November 16, 2011

For book discussion today, COLD VENGEANCE by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This is, I guess, about book #12 to feature very strange FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast. But perhaps I should get some disclaimers out of the way. Preston & Child co-write thrillers (tech thrillers, sort of) together, and also write thrillers alone (as well as nonfiction. Preston's true crime THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE is a terrific book). I've read all of their books together, I think, and most of their books that they write alone. Child's UTOPIA is one of my favorite books and Preston's TYRANNOSAUR CANYON is great fun, too.

And I've really enjoyed many of their earlier books together that did NOT feature Pendergast, books like RIPTIDE and THUNDERHEAD.

I've also interviewed Doug Preston and he was gracious enough to blurb my last novel, THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS.

So I'm a little cautious about criticizing. I will say, as much as I've enjoyed most of the books that have Pendergast as the main character, I'm not a huge fan of the character. Oh, I think he's a brilliant character, a sort of modern day Sherlock Holmes with a strange pocket full of quirks and weirdness. But it's his very strangeness that makes him a difficult primary character. Doug and Linc (yeah, like we're buddies) have worked around this (intentionally or not) by usually teaming him up with someone far more normal and likable. After all, Sherlock Holmes was never a POV character - Watson describes him, and it's through Watson's humanity that Holmes becomes a living breathing character. (In my opinion, anyway).

Well, that's a bit of a problem in COLD VENGEANCE, because for the most part, Pendergast is the main character. There are other characters - including from previous books - that are in here. Typically Pendergast's "Watson" is NYC cop Vincent D'Agosta, who is in maybe 10% of this book.

The other thing is that Doug & Lync tend to write these books as trilogies. COLD VENGEANCE is the 2nd book in an apparent trilogy, with the first being FEVER DREAM (which I liked quite a bit, actually). In true STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK fashion, COLD VENGEANCE leaves so many threads hanging that it doesn't feel like a complete novel. Which can be frustrating.

So, briefly: in FEVER DREAM, Pendergast finds evidence that the death of his beloved wife, Helen (during an African hunting accident in which she was mauled to death by a lion) eleven years earlier was actually homicide. Intent on finding out who killed her, he goes all over the place, discovering some involvement with a weird avian virus related - yeah, I couldn't possibly connect these dots in a blog post - to a missing painting by Audubon.

So, then, in COLD VENGEANCE, Pendergast's brother-in-law attempts to murder him and lets slip that Helen isn't actually dead. So Pendergast goes on an uncharacteristically emotional rampage (in a cold, calculated, methodical emotional rampage sort of way) to track down his brother-in-law in order to force him to reveal his wife's location, all the while hinting at some Nazi cabal called the Covenant.

Got that?

Okay, good. So, although I enjoyed the book fairly well, there were some frustrating things in it. Their writing, however, isn't one of them. Their writing sort of requires me to use the dictionary function on my Kindle a bit more often than usual, but it's nicely efficient yet elegant writing.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu

2011-11-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

November 9, 2011

I'm trying to figure out what to do with this blog - if anything - besides whine about writing. So here's some discussion (rather than, say, a review) of the most recent book I've read, TURN RIGHT AT MACHU PICCHU: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams.

Mark Adams is or was an editor for adventure magazines, but he's a guy who did all his adventuring from behind the desk (I can relate). He's married to a Peruvian woman, so he'd been to Peru several times, but finally had, I suppose, what one might consider a midlife crisis of sorts, and decided to get out from behind the desk and go adventuring, following in the footsteps of Hiram Bingham, the explorer who "discovered" Machu Picchu.

So what follows is a very entertaining and often fascinating story with more or less two tracks - Mark's journeys, and Bingham's journeys and history. In that respect it's structured very much like THE LOST CITY OF Z: A Tale Of Deadly Obsession In The Amazon by David Grann, a book I highly recommend as well. The Lost City Of Z probably is strongest when it's dealing with the explorer it's describing (Fawcett), whereas TURN RIGHT AT MACHU PICCHU is strongest when Mark is discussing his trip with his muleteers and his guide, John Leivers. Mark, even more so than David, has a self-deprecating sense of humor and John Leivers probably deserves a book of his own, a real-life Indiana Jones.

I had several thoughts while reading the book. One, much of the archaeastronomy indicated at Machu Picchu - the alignment of landscapes, windows lining up with the sunrise on the solstice, etc. - is almost identical to that found at a lot of Anasazi ruins. Which makes me wonder if there's more to some theories about connections between the Aztecs and the Anasazi (and continuing further south, to the Incas) than seems probable. Maybe ancient engineers just needed a religious reason to shift most of the local workforce (or slaves) and economy over to building a temple, rather than, say, a king's summer home. Interesting stuff. But then again, I could probably argue, since my office window faces the east and has a north-south alignment, that modern architecture does as well - although I don't think that's really the case, just a happy coincidence.

Secondly, as a sometime writer of nonfiction books, I'm somewhat in awe (or something related to chagrin) at nonfiction book writers who so thoroughly immerse themselves in their book's subject matter that they risk their lives for the material. At the very least, I can just imagine saying to my wife, "Honey, I'm going to take a couple months off, leave you at home with the kids and the dog, and go hiking through Peru/Amazon/wherever for my next book project. See ya." Her response may very well be, "If you go, don't come back." Or: "Good thing the life insurance is paid up." But then again, she works in a parasitology laboratory and takes a dim view of dining in third-world countries.

Author Doug Stanton, a friend of my brother's and a somewhat 2-degrees of separation friend of mine (his wife was one of my first editors), took several trips to Afghanistan when writing THE HORSE SOLDIERS: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan. (All nonfiction subtitles must have a superlative in them: "Extraordinary" or "Deadly." I think it's a law.) I'm disinclined to voluntarily go into war zones for my job, but maybe that's why Doug makes a good living writing a book every couple years while I am on the trade journal/white paper/ghostwriting treadmill making a decent living.

Anyway, I enjoyed TURN RIGHT AT MACHU PICCU quite a bit and am even slightly more fascinated by Choquequirao, which I had never heard of before. But that may be why I'm fascinated by it.

Finalist

2011-11-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

November 2, 2011
I just found out that THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS, was a Finalist: Thriller/Adventure Category in the USA Best Books 2011.

Last year my novel, THE FALLEN, won the Thriller/Adventure Category for 2010.

So very cool.

Frustrated Reader

2011-11-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

November 1, 2011
Recently I've been a frustrated reader. I read two terrific books - Shock Wave by John Sandford and The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. Then I started reading a novel by a guy who shall remain unnamed, but I met him during a book promotion thing, he's been very successful and his book sounded like the kind of thing I would like.

Except I can't get into it at all. Too much unnecessary description. The guy walks into a room and spends pages describing the room in detail. Yes, I get that it's the main character's mindset, but it's boring. I've tried reading it. Twice. Finally gave up.

Now, I'm naming this person. Kathy Reich. Over the years I've enjoyed her books reasonably well, although I'm not overwhelmed by them. I kind of drifted off reading her books, and then I got the Kindle and bought 206 Bones, but put off reading it, for whatever reason. I'm 25% of the way through and I put it aside and thought, "God, where was your editor?" The narrative jumps around all over the place, she goes into long expository periods describing not only the technical things, but the history of neighborhoods, characters, parks, cities, streets, rivers... I gave up.

I'm not sure what to read next. I've been happily reading Turn Right At Machu Picchu: Rediscovery the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams. It's nonfiction, but he has a great voice and the topic is interesting and he's a good, entertaining writer.

I've got a bunch of books on my Kindle and I'm sure something will catch my attention. I'm still slogging through a very textbook-like biography of Theodore Roosevelt, but I gave that a break for a couple weeks. It's that kind of book.

How about you? What are you reading? Anything driving you crazy?

Hey, can anybody recommend some good MG/YA books?

7 Years

2011-10-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

October 21, 2011
Today marks the 7th anniversary of me writing full time. On October 21, 2004 I was completely done working at Henry Ford Hospital and was a full-time writer. In June of the same year I had gone part-time, working at the hospital 2 10-hour days a week. Ian was 11. Sean was 7.

I haven't looked back (except for an occasional stress dream where I'm working at the hospital).

What have I learned, if anything?

- I like being self-employed.

-Things change, sometimes for the better, but not always. Very few of the clients I started with are still with me. Only one, I think. Maybe two.

-The Internet giveth & the Internet taketh away. It would be extremely difficult to do the work I do without email and the Internet. I also do a fair amount of work on website copy, e-newsletters, and online publications. That said, there's been a growth of so-called "content farms," like Demand Studio that churn out crap to jack up their search engine optimization so they can charge higher ad rates, and they pay their writers pennies. So although it might be a place for beginning writers to get paying clips, I personally feel it's driving down the overall market for paying work for writers. (It's also cluttering up the Internet with a wealth of really shitty journalism with bad writing, few if any references, reliable quotes, or reliable information. My brother joked recently that the Internet was 65% cat pictures, 34% porn, and 1% outdated user manuals. Increasingly I'm seeing so-called news stories that don't quote anybody, don't name sources, don't have reliable information cited - like the name of the organization they're writing about - and include typographical errors and bad grammar).

-There's still paying work, a lot of it, and some of it pays really well. You just have to find it. Usually it's business related.

-I'm making good money writing things I never even knew existed 10 years ago, like white papers. I'm guessing in another 5 or 10 years I'll be making money doing things I hadn't thought of yet (or hadn't been invented yet), too.

-A couple years ago I had a client I'd had for a few years - that year that client earned me $57,000. One client. Then they restructured, the editor/publisher I worked for left, they pretty much stopped working with freelancers, and as of today, I've done $200 of work for them, and the replacement editor left as well. Along with "things change" I would have to say "shit happens." I've picked up several clients to replace that one, and I'm happier having, say, 3 or 4 clients that pay $15,000 or so a year instead of one big client.

-Priorities change. Maybe this is just life in general, but things you thought were important 5 or 6 or 7 years ago as a writer don't seem as important to me today (say, fiction, for example).

-There's more to life than writing. That's been a big surprise to me. I knew it intellectually, but I'm not sure I really knew it emotionally until the last year or two. Really.

-Book publishing is going through a huge upheaval right now. In a lot of ways, it really sucks for writers. In a lot of ways it's really good for writers. For all of those writers who are praising e-book self-publishing as the solution to all their problems, let me personally refer you to my point above about content farms. Nuff said.

-I'm happy to be where I am and look forward to the next 7 years.

Cheers,
Mark

DIRE STRAITS Chapter 13

2011-10-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

Two-and-a-half, actually. And by the time they pulled into Galveston, Sally had found a buyer for her boat – Derek. Sally was thirty-five, had married a man twenty-five years older than her when she was thirty. The man, who she said was a nice enough guy, had several million dollars rattling around in the bank and several million more in the stock market. Then, while eating at Joe’s Stone Crab, he’d fallen right off his chair, dead before he hit the floor from a heart attack. Sally inherited the millions, a big modern house overlooking the ocean, and the boat. She decided she wanted a bigger boat and she wanted some time alone to “grieve,” so she decided to sail it to Texas where she had some family, see if she could sell the boat while she was there. Then she thought she might want to spend a few months in Europe. Did he want to come?

It was a double entendre, and not a very subtle one. Sally was like that. Derek figured her husband must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven when they hooked up. Maybe he even knew she was screwing him for his money. Maybe he didn’t even care. But Derek politely declined, saying he had a job to get back to.

Standing on the dock, he said, “I’ve got to fly back east.”

She smiled and kissed him, a lingering kiss. “You never really did tell me what you were doing in Cuba.”

“Stealing kayaks,” he said. “I told you. Big black market in Cuban kayaks. Didn’t you know?”

“I’ll get the paperwork going on the boat. Call me.”

“Absolutely.”

He caught a flight from Galveston to Houston to Washington DC. He was met at the airport by a muscular man with a gray crew-cut in a dark suit that didn’t hide the fact that he pumped a lot of iron and probably used a lot of steroids. He didn’t say anything as he drove Derek to a bland office building in Maryland where Derek was ushered into a small room with two plastic chairs and a Formica table.

A thin blond man in a gray suit and black and silver tie entered and sat opposite him. “Hello, Derek. Have a nice vacation with Mrs. Kendall?”

“Bought her boat. I’m going to have to fly back down to Galveston to sail it back here.”

“Yes, we’re aware of that.” The man, whose name was Richard McGee, was the man who had sent Derek to Cuba. “Just one more fuckup in a long line of them, apparently. Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

So Derek did. The first time through, McGee didn’t ask any questions. The only time he said anything was when the subject of the Russian woman came up. McGee looked to a spot near the wall and said, “Get that.”

Derek said, “Hidden camera?”

McGee nodded. “Continue.”

Derek did. Finally, once the story made it to Sally Kendall, Derek stopped. McGee said, “Oh, let’s keep going.”

Derek shook his head. “Sorry. Nothing to tell.”

“Plenty to tell. You’re being … debriefed. But maybe you already were.”

“Jealous?”

“You were forty miles from shore. You didn’t have to stay on the boat. What did you tell her?”

“Black market in Cuban kayaks.”

McGee stared at him. “You failed at your mission.”

Derek leaned forward. “Your Cuban network was totally compromised. And it was compromised before I showed up in Havana. I’m lucky I’m not in a Cuban prison with a car battery wired to my nuts.”

McGee nodded.

Derek stared at McGee. “I’ve got a question for you, McGee. Did you know your network was compromised when you sent me in there? Was I bait? Was the real mission to find out if and how much your Cuba network was compromised?”

McGee stared back at him, giving away nothing.

Derek knew the answer, though. He shook his head. “The odds of me getting into that facility and finding something useful sucked. And you know it. But the odds of me getting hung up if your network was compromised – they were pretty damned good, weren’t they?”

McGee blinked a moment. “You will be given a polygraph.”

“Of course. Let’s continue with this little game, shall we? I hope you’re happy with my mission. Hope you found out what you wanted.”

McGee didn’t respond, but led him back through the story, asking questions, asking more questions, picking at thing, asking the same questions in different ways. Finally McGee leaned back in his chair and said, “Why did you leave the Army, Derek?”

“You guys asked me that when I signed up. I was done with the chain of command. I thought I had skills the Agency could use.”

“You’re more resourceful than I would have guessed under stress, but you’re not much of a spy.”

“Thanks.” Although it was something Derek had been wondering about. He supposed it depended on the nature of the mission. Plots within plots. If the Agency sent him in to blunder around and they viewed him as largely expendable, then he’d been a fantastic spy. Particularly if they got the extra bonus of him actually getting out of the country when everything fell to pieces. If they really wanted proof of biological weapons manufacturing, then it had been a miserable failure.

If it had been entirely up to him, he would have skipped trying to talk his way into the facility and done a black-bag job in the middle of the night, snuck out of the country and picked up a boat five miles off-shore. It wasn’t terribly subtle, but then again, neither was he.

The door opened and a woman handed McGee a notebook. McGee handed it to Derek. “Take a look.”

Derek opened it. It contained about a hundred photographs of women. Mostly headshots, mostly taken while the person wasn’t looking. Beneath each photograph was a number. He went through the photographs, finally stopping at 14E. “Her,” he said, tapping the photograph. It was the woman he thought was Russian who had saved his ass in Havana.

McGee said, “Her name is Irina Khournikova. Spent a little bit of time in Spetznaz. Now she is newly assigned to the FSK.”

Derek had to think about that for a moment. “FSK?”

“Federalnaya Sluzhba Kontrrazvedki. Less than a year ago, better known as the KGB. She joined the FSK and, as far as we know, was assigned to Cuba. Which, given the deteriorating relationship between Cuba and Russia, probably means they didn’t expect much out of her.”

Irina Khournikova, he thought. Well, he supposed that was good to know. He didn’t expect to ever run into her again. “Can I go home now?”

“Yes. Get some sleep. Come into the office to write up your report tomorrow. We’ll schedule the polygraph. Then fly down to Galveston and get your boat. I assume you want some time off to deal with all that.”

“I do.”

“Make it a good report, Derek. We’re trying to figure out what to do with you.”

Derek got to his feet. “Any ideas?”

“Maybe Pakistan. Only we’ll send you semi-official.”

Derek winced. “Pakistan?”

“Yeah. Enjoy. The Asian folks want a bioterror expert on the ground. I’m glad to get you out of my hair. By the way, the U.N.’s been asking about you, too. You might want to take them up on their offer. Running around Iraq doing weapons inspections.”

Back to Iraq? But Derek understood what McGee was saying. You fucked up, buddy. We’re trying to unload you.

“We’ll see,” Derek said.

Three days later he was back in Galveston standing on the deck of his new home, a fifty-two-foot Criss-Craft Constellation. Sally was going to ride back with him to Miami before she headed to France and Italy for a few months. Derek thought it was going to be an enjoyable couple days.

As they pulled out of Galveston, Derek in a pair of cut-off denim shorts, Sally in an orange string bikini, Sally said, “Are you going to keep the name?”

“Nope.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What will you name it?”

He grinned. “The Salacious Sally.”

“I like that,” she said, leaning against him.

“I thought you might.”

“And when you get back to wherever you’re going? Back to Cuba, stealing kayaks?”

“No, I’m out of the kayak black market for now.”

“Then what?”

He thought of his next assignment: looking for evidence of biological warfare agents among civilian casualties in Pakistan. Digging up bodies in mass graves.

“Gravedigger, maybe,” he said.

The End

Dire Straits, Chapter 12

2011-10-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

Her name was Sally Kendall and she was out of Miami, heading to Galveston to see if she could sell her boat, The Taste of Honey. “You’d think Miami would be a good market,” he said when she told him that.

It was a long time before he’d been able to have that conversation, though. He’d barely been able to climb up the ladder. On board, he staggered, dropped to his knees. The world swirled around him.

Then all was black.

He woke up an unknown number of hours later on a soft bed. Next to the bed was a glass of water. He vaguely remembered drinking some water. But he was still thirsty. He gripped the glass and forced himself to drink slowly.

When the water was gone he slowly sat up. His arms were red with sunburn. His hands were blistered.

He felt pretty lousy. And hungry.

Derek found the head, relieved himself and looked in the mirror. A couple day’s growth of beard, a tangle of wavy hair matted with salt, deep-sunk eyes. The boat rocked a little. He decided to use the shower without asking.

A half hour later, feeling significantly better, he realized he couldn’t find his clothes. Next to the glass of water was his utility tool and a warped and water-soaked wallet. He wrapped a large red towel around his waist and went looking for the mistress of The Taste of Honey. She was sprawled out in the sun on the boat’s bow, sipping what Derek thought might be a screwdriver, although maybe it was just orange juice. She wore a filmy top over a black bikini bottom, but had not added anything else. She was, he thought, drop-dead gorgeous.

“So, the merman wakes.”

“Thanks for rescuing me. Um, I don’t really remember how I got to the cabin.”

She patted the lounge chair next to him. He sat next to her.

She held out her hand. “I’m Sally Kendall.”

He shook. “Derek Stillwater. Um, where are my clothes?”

She eyed him. “Washer. They were a mess. So were you. She pointed to one shoulder. “Not really a scratch. Looks like you got shot.”

“Just a graze.”

“You know, Derek. When we find people like you floating around in the Gulf, we tend to think drugs might be involved. But I don’t know what moron of a drug dealer would try to smuggle drugs in a kayak.”

“No, no drugs.”

“But there’s a story, I guess.”

“I’m really hungry,” he said.

“And thirsty, I would guess.”

“Yeah.”

“Help yourself to anything you find in the galley. It’ll give you time to come up with a good story.”

He found orange juice and coffee and bread that he made toast out of. He took an uninvited mini-tour of the boat. He liked the boat a lot. Joining Sally at the bow, he said, “I’m not sure how this would work, actually, but I’d like to use your radio to connect somehow to a telephone.”

“We should be able to do that, find somebody to patch you in. Come up with your story yet?”

He smiled. “I’m working on it.”

“I bet you are.”

“So if I told you I escaped from Cuba?”

“Why?”

“Why would I escape from Cuba? They didn’t like me much over there.”

“They arrest you for stealing kayaks?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you in the military?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why would you say that?”

She pointed. “Your tattoo.”

“Ah.” The CIA had been very concerned about the tattoo on his right shoulder. It was a sword pointing upward and crossed by two arrows. It was one of several insignias of Special Forces. “Yes. I was in the Army for a while.”

She looked him up and down. “Got some scar tissue, but you look fit.”

He grinned. “So do you.”

“I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“I noticed.”

“Well good. Maybe we should make that phone call?”

“Sure.”

* * *

It took some time, but he eventually got through to a special phone number. It was answered simply with, “Hello.”

He recited a number. The voice on the phone, a neutral male voice, paused for a moment, then said, “I need to confirm. Give me a callback.”

Derek explained that would be difficult and why. The man paused, said, “Do you have the alternate number?”

“Yes.”

“Call it.”

He did. A different voice answered, a woman this time, with an odd accent, maybe east coast, New Jersey maybe. “Where exactly are you?”

He looked at Sally. “Where are we?”

“Middle of the Gulf of Mexico.”

He relayed that information. The voice wanted more specifics. He told the voice he was heading toward Galveston. The voice wanted to know how long it would take for him to get there.

He looked at Sally, who waggled her eyebrows at him. “Depends on if you want to go fast or go slow. I vote slow.”

Derek studied her for a moment. Into the phone he said, “At least two days.”

Sally smiled. It was a smile filled with a fair amount of promise. Derek reflected that there probably wasn’t much point of being a spy if you couldn’t occasionally act like James Bond. Into the phone he said, “Maybe three.”

DIRE STRAITS, Chapter 11

2011-10-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

Hours later, the storm ended. Derek slumped in the kayak. His shoulders, arms, and back all ached. He was very thirsty. Off to his right the ocean glowed scarlet, the sun beginning its reliable leap into the sky.

At least I’m still heading in the right direction, he thought.

Looking behind him, he could no longer see Cuba. All he saw was blue-black water in every direction. That was probably a good thing. It meant he was several miles away from Cuba. Far enough away from the Navy or the Coast Guard?

He hoped so.

Rotating his arms, he stretched his shoulders. For a time he just rode the swells and watched the sunrise, happy he had the opportunity to.

A failed mission, though. He didn’t accomplish his main objective.

Pushing that thought aside, he started to paddle, keeping the sun to his right, wondering exactly how far he was from land. Knowing that if he was off by a degree or so, he would be a lot further than a hundred miles from the U.S.

* * *

The sun rose. The remaining clouds evaporated. The ocean calmed.

The temperature rose.

The sun glared down hard. He paddled, rested, paddled. Eventually he took the cockpit skirt, cut tiny slits in it for his eyes, and arrayed it over his head to block the sun, which scorched down. It kept the direct sun off him, but created its own kind of greenhouse.

First the sweat poured from his body. Then it stopped.

He looked longingly at the seawater and the water in the cockpit and shook his head. If he was still out here in another ten or twelve hours, then he might find himself drinking saltwater. Drinking saltwater was controversial in survival situations. Drink enough, it would dehydrate you more and damage your kidneys and liver.

Drink a little, it might keep you alive.

Not healthy. It could kill you. But you were dying anyway.

Derek hoped he wasn’t out here that long.

He kept paddling, feeling his strength seep away and the sun rising high in the sky, then falling behind him.

* * *

Derek dozed. When was the last time he had slept? Thirty-six hours? Forty-eight?

He jerked awake, scanning the sky. Thought he saw lights. A plane. But so far away he wouldn’t be seen.

He paddled. Saw the sun slide toward the horizon on his left.

He had been on the water almost twenty-four hours.

Thirst was a problem now. He could tell it was affecting his strength. It was all he thought about now. Water, water, everywhere…

Derek wished for the tin can, but it was lost. He scooped up water from the cockpit and sipped.

Salty. But maybe not as salty as the ocean, diluted by rainwater.

He didn’t drink much. He wanted to. One handful. Two.

It made him want to vomit, but that would be even worse.

He sent out a little message to God: This would be a good time for a little help.

He dozed.

* * *

The sun was setting. The ocean glowed pink all around him. He didn’t notice. He was exhausted. Sunburned and dehydrated.

He heard a voice. Hallucinating, he thought. Not surprising.

“Hey there! Is there someone there?” A female voice.

Sitting up and tearing the skirt off his head, he blinked in the harsh light of the setting sun.

A boat. Pretty good sized, maybe sixty feet. A cabin cruiser. Looming over him. Squinting, shielding his eyes with a swollen, blistered hand, he saw a woman leaning over the rail of the boat’s bow. He closed his eyes, certain he was hallucinating for certain. The woman, who was very attractive – somewhere in her thirties, perhaps, with blonde hair and a heart-shaped face – wore only a white bikini bottom. She displayed a lot of deliciously tanned skin.

He looked up again. “I’m…” His voice sounded like a wood rasp.

“You okay?”

He shook his head.

“Come on board,” she said, pointing to the ladder at the bow. “You look like you’re in trouble.”

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Better now.”

DIRE STRAITS, Chapter 10B

2011-10-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

Spinning on his heel, Derek raced toward the rear of the house, slamming the glass door open and leaping over the deck rail to the sandy beach below. Which way to go?

And then he spied the neighbor’s kayaks.

Lunging in that direction, he was just reaching the kayak when the troops appeared around the sides of the house. Gunfire cracked the air.

Snatching a paddle, he shoved the kayak into the water, leapt in the cockpit and pushed off. Bending low, he dug in, paddling as hard as he could.

The ocean waves nearly slammed him back into shore. He reached deep and began paddling up the shoreline, angling into the waves. More gunfire breached the air. Something tugged at his shoulder. Glancing over, he saw a streak of blood.

Leaning down, he continued to paddle, heaving into the waves, timing the surf, trying to use the tides to his advantage, even if that meant staying close to shore – just as long as he moved away from the Cuban soldiers.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw he was having some success. He was several hundred yards away from the shoreline now, the soldiers jogging up the beach, but the distance growing wider and wider.

He kept at it. And within an hour, the sun had sunk behind the thick clouds, the waves had kicked up, and the coast of Cuba was to his back and Key West was one hundred and six miles ahead of him.

Then it started to rain.

DIRE STRAITS, Chapter 10A

2011-10-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

October 12, 2011

Derek found a corner of the apartment building’s roof with his back to the rising sun and gave the city some time to quiet down. Too keyed up and paranoid to sleep, his senses became hyper-attuned to the sounds and vibrations of the building beneath him – doors slamming, water running through pipes, people walking around, the smell of coffee and food wafting out windows. Below, the city woke up, traffic picked up, people called out to each other, chattered in rapid-fire Spanish. Sirens wailed, music played.

Finally he felt that the building had quieted down. He rolled to his feet and slipped into the building. Listening at the nearest door, he thought he heard voices inside.

He moved on to the next door. Hearing nothing, he knocked at the door. Nobody answered.

Checking the doorknob, Derek noted it was locked. Pulling out his utility tool, he went to work on the lock. It was a cheap lock and he had the door open in seconds.

It was a small apartment, a tiny kitchen and living area, a bathroom and two small bedrooms. Based on the number of beds, probably three kids used the bedroom. He used the bathroom then went into the refrigerator. Derek opened the refrigerator, found several bottles of TuCola, a Coke-like product, opened it and drank. Caffeine flooded his body. Several mangos and bananas rested in a glass bowl. He had one of each.

He sat for a while and considered his options. This, he realized, was getting him nowhere. For the last several hours he had been sitting around considering his options. They were few and far between. “Somewhere,” he muttered, “between shit out of luck and hell-and-gone.”

Derek also felt his luck was getting used up.

Looking around the apartment, he threw some money on the counter in an anonymous thank-you, and slipped out the door.

He walked down the stairs. The apartment was mostly quiet. He could hear the occasional TV behind a closed door, or a baby crying, but otherwise all was silent. Out on the street he took a meandering course around the city. He had no intention of returning to where he had left the Vespa. For the time being, he wanted to stay clear of the safe house.

He blended in moderately well. Havana had plenty of tourists from Europe and South and Central America. He visited a clothing store and bought a pair of jeans that he put on in the restroom of a bar, tossing his torn black jeans in a trash can. Derek bought up a T-shirt from a street vendor, then bought a baseball hat for the Marianao’s with a golden tiger on the front. From another vendor he bought a pair of dark sunglasses.

With the shirt untucked and acquiring the kind of rolling gate so many Cuban males seemed to use, he hoped he would blend in for the rest of the day. He wandered. Sat on benches. Stopped in a bar where he could linger over a beer for several hours.

Leaving there, he drifted, listened to some street musicians playing guitar and trumpet. He threw a few coins in their open cases and thought that under other circumstances he might like Cuba. He liked the weather, although today it was cloudy and cooler. He liked the food. He liked the girls with their dark hair, olive skin, big black eyes and their flirtatious ways. He liked the music.

Finally, he walked toward the safe house. It had been a long day. Dusk was coming on quickly. He waited a block away, leaning against the trunk of a eucalyptus, watching the house. Finally, fairly confident that nothing was going on, he walked to the house and let himself into the garage. The first thing he did was turn on the computer.

No new message had been left for him.

He roamed the house, restless. Peeking out the front window through the closed drapes, his heart thrashed in his chest. From the building across the street Juan Osorio stepped out of the front door. He raised a finger and spun it in the air.

From around the corners of the building and the door behind him burst a dozen uniformed men with AK-47s. They sprinted toward the safe house.

DIRE STRAITS, Chapter 9B

2011-10-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

October 5, 2011
[My apologies. I've been swamped with work and family responsibilities lately. Hope you enjoy today's installment]

He didn’t make it far. He peeled out of the alley, turned onto a narrow street, and skidded to a halt. The street was blocked by two cars. Standing in front of the vehicles was none other than Juan Osorio. On his left stood the auburn-haired woman he had noticed while barhopping with Coro, the one that gave off the Russian vibe. On his right were two uniformed men carrying assault rifles.

Osorio called out, “Senor Hamill, you are under arrest.”

“The hell I am,” Derek muttered, spinning the bike on its rear wheel and hammering the throttle. The bike roared. He heard gunshots over the bike’s racket.

He skidded around a corner only to see another vehicle blocking the street. This one didn’t block the entire street and the soldiers or agents or cops, whoever they were, stayed in their vehicle.

Pull his handgun, Derek held it in his left fist, gripped the throttle with his right, and raced toward the car, firing as he went.

He was squeezing past on the right when the car slammed into reverse. The car’s trunk struck his rear wheel. The bike skidded, wobbled, then Derek laid it down on the pavement, rolling away from the bike.

Lying there for a moment, he wondered if he’d broken anything. Bruised for sure. Looking down at his jeans, he saw he’d shredded his right leg and hips. He was sure as hell bleeding. And sure as hell lucky.

Rolling to his feet, pain shot up through his leg and his side. Behind him, a uniformed cop staggered out of the car, the shoulder of his uniform dark with blood. He raised a handgun.

Derek shot him.

Turning, he levered up the motorcycle, whose engine had cut out. He straddled it with some difficulty and tried to kick it into life. Nothing.

Shit!

He tried again. Still nothing.

He turned to see the red-haired woman standing two dozen feet away from him. Their eyes met.

She had a gun pointed at him. In English with a Russian accent she said, “Derek Stillwater.”

A jolt of adrenaline blasted through Derek. She knew who he really was!

“I think it would be better for my country and yours if you just got out of here. Go.” She waved the gun at a doorway. “Through there.”

He didn’t ask questions. He sprinted for the door. Who was the woman? He had no idea, but she’d done him a hell of a favor. And if she was Russian – and it seemed she was – perhaps she was right. The analysis Derek had read after the breakup of the Soviet Union and their relationship with Cuba was that it was spiraling downward in a big way.

He didn’t give it much thought. Gift horses, and all that. Darting through the door, he found himself in an apartment building. Racing through the hallway, he headed upward. The buildings in this part of Havana were old and sandwiched together, sometimes only a half dozen feet separating them, sometimes less, sharing walls.

It was six stories tall. It smelled of herbs, mildew, some sort of cooking meat or beans. This early in the morning it was quiet.

He climbed the narrow stairs to the top floor. A ladder went up one wall to a hatch. Derek climbed up, pushed it open, and rolled onto the roof of the apartment building, closing the hatch behind him.

Heart hammering in his chest, lungs burning, he took stock of his situation. Scraped up, but functional. Pretty much out of options.

As far as he was concerned, he’d just been about as lucky as he was likely to get, running into a Russian agent who would rather get him out of the country than turn him over to the Cubans.

Glancing around, he saw that the next closest building was about six feet away and maybe four or five feet lower. Pocketing the gun, he took a deep breath, set himself, and leapt the distance between the two buildings. He hit the next building, rolled, and was happy to discover that the next half dozen buildings were built adjacent to each other.

Within minutes he was several blocks from where Osorio was looking for him. Hopefully the Russian woman had pointed Osorio in a different direction.

In the east, the sun was starting to rise, the sky ribbed with scarlet as the sun burned through distant clouds. A beautiful sunrise, he supposed, if he weren’t such a pessimist: red sky in morning, sailors taking warning.

Derek thought a storm was coming.