Confession — Memoirs Of A Midlist Writer

It may be a silly thing to do, considering my inconsequential position in the universe. But I do more than dabble in silliness.

The first draft of a book with stories from my life is done. I’ve named it Albion and New Augusta, Confessions of a Midlist Writer.  Albion is a small town in Wisconsin where my father grew up and New Augusta is an area now incorporated in Indianapolis where my mother remembers the golden years of her childhood.  Below is the draft of the preface, which I may use if the book is ever published.

Preface

I Never Slept With Rita Hayworth

We are told not to write prefaces.  No one reads them, they say.  But I feel the need.  I have a confession to make.  One is that I might not be a “midlist” writer as the subtitle suggests.  It’s probably something not quite “mid.” It’s probably lower midlist.  Even so, I have published more than a dozen books and have almost always received good reviews.  Not always, but mostly always. That, of course, shows that good reviews do no necessarily translate into good sales or being a household word.  And, in fact, the stories about mystery writing are few. It’s simply one little life amidst billions of them. Perhaps you’ll find some of it amusing if it is published and you are stranded on a deserted island when a copy floats ashore.

Also, I wanted to tell you upfront that while I know many wonderful, talented and interesting people, upfront, I don’t know any famous ones. I worry that the word “memoirs” might promise more than it delivers in terms of celebrities or important historical information. The disclosures here won’t make it to gossip TV.  For example, I have to tell you a few things — things like I never slept with Rita Hayworth or partied naked with Prince Harry. You should not expect a lot of juicy confessions that involve people you’ve heard about.   However, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll put my celebrity contacts up front:

Nietzsche On Acid?

I shook hands with Roy Rogers at a rodeo when I was five.  I was once in an elevator with Brenda Lee.  William F. Buckley stood behind me once as I exited a plane.  Clayton Moore winked at me.  Rita Moreno touched my shoulder at a charity affair. I nodded to Kurt Vonnegut at the bar at an event where he spoke.  I was in the lobby of a hotel when both Julian Bond and Roy Orbison checked in. It was night. Roy was wearing sunglasses.  Emilio Estevez and I exchanged polite hellos in an advertising agency once.  I had to dodge Kiefer Sutherland in an Irish bar in L.A. He was headed to the bathroom.  He had just left a booth still occupied by Julia Roberts, who was smoking like a chimney. George Lukas once walked by me during an art show in San Francisco. I may have been a table away from Daniele Steele at a restaurant on Union Street and I may have seen and exchanged nods with Barry Bonds, but I’m not 100 percent sure.  It may have been some other guy who felt awkward that a stranger was staring at him.

Now that the rich and famous and powerful are out of the way, we can proceed with the story with expectations appropriately diminished.

Though, to be fair, drugs and sex are involved.  So is Nietzsche, as well as calling in a Cobra helicopter attack on a porcupine and some dicey adventures in French Lick, Indiana.

The idea was to write about a life.  Not a sensational or famous life — though not really a normal life either, if there is such a thing?

The Authors Guild Bulletin reported that Evelyn Waugh once said, “Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.” I suspect that is true; but there may be other reasons. Maybe it is to come to some understanding and to wrap things up.

Book Notes — Confessions Of A Discontented Deity, A Different Kind Of Mystery

I asked Michael Z. Lewin about his new book, which is a bit of a departure from his two critically well-received and popular mystery series. Here is Mr. Lewin’s response:

Confessions of a Discontented Deity is a different kind of book for me, for sure.  A novel, yes, but not obviously a mystery except in the mystery-of-life sense.  But that doesn’t mark a sea change in my oeuvre or my interests.  I’ve always been more interested in people than in poisons, more interested in why people do things than how they kill each other.  A writer friend of mine, Carter Wilson, responded to my previous book (Family Way) by saying that as a mystery writer I was like a surgeon who got into the slicing and dicing before he realized blood and guts were involved.

Nor is the God who narrates these Confessions much of a stickler for what one might call the genre of religious forms and practices.  The basic idea is that if God created man then to understand God all you need to do is look at man, men, and work backwards.  That reasoning offers you a geek who likes to play with His toys, get laid, and avoid hassle.

Yet men can change — well, some of them.  So God too can change.  And in Confessions He reconstructs the latest time when He discovered Himself to be changing.  And He tells what He did about it.  In the course of the reconstruction He explains about Life, on earth and elsewhere in the Universe.  And why men (and women) came to be created.  And what’s going to happen next.

There’s even a chapter in which God solves a crime.

Michael Z. Lewin

This is not my first book that has been “different,” and I’ve never been one to stick even to a single series.  In the late ‘90s I published Rover’s Tales.  In that book Rover narrates his adventures as an “independent” dog, but in many ways it’s really a book about humanity, looking up from ground level.  Well, now “dog” has reversed itself and become “god” and instead of looking at man and womankind from below, Confessions is a view looking down from the heavens.  So maybe it’s a new series.  Dog, God…  What’s next?  The Ogds?  Whatever they are.  Meanwhile Rover, though unnamed, does make an appearance in Confessions.

A long time ago it was a revelation to me that for the tax folks instead of being a writer I was a “small business.”  If I were a better businessman I would have been writing versions of the same book over and over, like many of the most successful crime folks seem to do.  But I’m not much of a businessman.  So here, instead of more Albert Samson, is God.  How good a writer I am is up to you to decide.

However, for those interested in Samson, just let me say that I’m just finishing a Samson short story.  It is the fourth in a series in which he has the same client.  The first of these stories, “Who I Am” is the one honored by the Private Eye Writers of America with the short story Shamus this year.  It was followed in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by “Good Intentions” with “Extra Fries” yet to be published.  And, I hope, the fourth and last in what amounts to a mini-series.  MZL

Michael Z. Lewin has written more than 20 novels and numerous short stories as well as stage and radio plays. A resident of Indianapolis for many years, he lives in Bath, England.

Opinion — Free Books Will Rule: If That Is True, The Truth Hurts

Another title to this post could be “change or die.” Many of us, particularly those of us who grew up when the book — the object itself —was sacred, are being buffeted about by stormy changes in the business. These changes are caused, in large part, by the invention of the e-book and certainly by the ease with which we writers can publish (though not necessarily market) our own work.

In what might now be called the “olden days,” we might have found a “pre-read” book in a dusty used bookstore for a dollar. We might even find a stack of beat-up, old books on the curb along with a stack of dented kitchen pans and a bureau with missing drawers awaiting the rounds of a man with a grocery cart. But new books for free? No, not unless it was political or religious propaganda. And in that case, you knew what you were getting. Most likely you got exactly what you paid for. In those days, I say from my creaking rocking chair, even Readers Digest was treated with some level of respect.

Yet, increasingly on crime-fiction related websites, blogs and Facebook pages, I’m seeing, “Get this book ‘free.’” This usually refers to a download of an e-book. Some of the free offerings seem promising, written by professional writers. The books have catchy names and enticing covers and blurbs from generally reliable sources. Sometimes the offer is only available for a few days. But sometimes, it’s just a free book. And for big spenders with a high level of discretionary income, there are any number of books available for a whopping 99 cents.

Last week I read an interesting post on the blog, Murderati, which nearly always has something thought provoking. This one was by guest columnist Scott Nicholson who has been on the cutting edge of ebook and self-publishing. Many of us guessed correctly that ebooks were the wave of the future, and that this format, in particular, would encourage the proliferation of e-books. Most of us, on the other hand, had no idea how quickly the tsunami would arrive and how forceful it would be. He and a few others saw it coming. And now he is suggesting that another big wave is arriving and it is the “free book.” Now that he’s said it and I’ve thought about it, the notion makes sense. Sadly, it makes sense.

I’m as guilty as anyone when I expect stuff on the Internet to be free. I stopped reading The New York Times editorial pages when they partitioned the site and allowed me access to Maureen Dowd only if I paid a fee. I don’t go to sites I have to pay for. I can’t justify my feelings that you pay for books, but you get the Huffington Post for free, a site that gets most of its stuff for free as well. I understand that writers write for web sites, that they do research, that there is some overhead and that no one will do these things for free, at least for very long. So I may be part of the problem. But I see how my actions or lack of them help shape the future that I really don’t want. The thing is, it doesn’t make any difference. The wave is coming.

What Nicholson is saying is just an extension of that nonpaying mindset. He is merely applying it to another kind of product one gets from the Internet — the book. I truly want to say he’s wrong. But I strongly suspect he isn’t. So how will writers be paid for their professional services? Sponsorship. Advertising. How will that work? Probably in a variety of ways. A company or organization wanting to be viewed as philanthropic and supportive of arts and literature might choose some writers to endow with minimal exposure. Perhaps a little sentence acknowledging the support of the such and such foundation, kind of like they do on PBS. Another way is branding. A company may have a logo placed, subtly or not so subtly, on various places in the book so the reader will keep the word Mountain Dew top of mind. Matching products to individual books or writers might be a fun game. Crime fiction may be a great way to sell the new Glock 21. Then, of course, there is the more subtle approach — product placement. A book may contain advertising from more than one advertiser. Likely this will develop in significantly strategies on many levels.

As Nicholson also suggests, the whole notion of “flat text” on the screen is a temporary notion anyway. The possibilities of enriching text with graphics, static and non-static, are endless and fascinating. Using this technology to make incredible, as yet unseen thrillers, for example, is exciting. Using this technology to promote Coca Cola is inevitable. As you read about the victim being tied up in a third world jungle waiting for armies of hungry ants, an image of an ice cold Coke bubbles away in the margin.

Rail against it all you want. Some writers refused to use word processors, forgetting of course, that the earlier writers used quills and before that a chisel. What’s coming is what’s coming. And what’s coming is product placement. The truth is that I have always placed products in my books. Many writers do. We don’t get paid for it. Speaking for myself, I did it to help define character and make clearer what the reader envisions when he or she reads a scene. For example, if someone in the story wears a Burberry scarf, my purpose was not to sell Burberry, but to make the picture of that scene come through quickly and specifically. The use of the high-end, fashion-conscious Burberry also gives clues to the personality or nature of the character.

But, if a writer has a set of guidelines for product use in order to meet the contract that provides conditions of payment, in what way does that influence the writer, the plot, the characters? Unless your characters drive some model of Toyota, you’re out there on your own, writer. No marketing. No income. Just remember for every click on Prius, you get 30 cents. Does that matter if your only purpose is to entertain? This isn’t a new question. It’s been done for years in film and TV. How much did BMW have to pay the producers to replace James Bond’s Aston Martin in one of the Bond films? But books?

How much more material can our world be? Will each tree in the park have a plaque that says brought to you by Sherwin Williams? A friend of mine often ends one of our discussions with: “I’m going back to my apartment and lock the door.” He says it in a way that implies he will never come out again. There is that temptation. Of course, the world will go on. And most of the readers of the future won’t notice how the game has changed. For me the only upside is that those pirating, or appropriating if you wish, our books off the Internet will have been pirated themselves. You can’t steal a free book.

CAPTIONS: (TOP) A new patriotic crime novel could attract some interesting advertising. (BOTTOM) James Bond, starring BMW and Pierce Brosnan.