Confession – Slipping Off The Path To Immortality, Or Slouching Toward Dusty Anonymity

There is a quote that appears near the St. Clair Street entrance to the Indianapolis Central Library.  The other day I received a note from Charles Chigna a celebrated writer of children’s and young adult literature saying “great quote.” It was with trepidation that I accepted the compliment.  I’ve seen the quote before in various places credited to me. I was puzzled, but  I wasn’t concerned. I went on about my business,figuring it was a fluke on the Internet. It was no big deal until someone, a real person, complimented me. Suddenly I wondered if I were a scoundrel and plagiarist.  Or, did I write it?  That might seem strange to you. How could I not know if I wrote it.

Periodically, I Google myself. (And the truth is, it can be painful.)  I check to see if my novels still appear and what, if anything, is being said about the sixteen or so in print. This is how I first discovered the above quote was attributed to me and why, until now, I considered it no big deal. The reason was maybe, just maybe, I wrote it. I have periodically written the lyrics of a fictional song in order to avoid going through the bureaucratic rigamarole of getting permissions to use a real one.  I have also written poetry to put in a fictional character’s diary.  I’ve written fictional news stories to be read by fictional characters over a fictional breakfast — all to establish character or move the plot along. A quote with the above sentiment is consistent with stories of my aging private eye who regularly finds the things he loves disappearing from his life. But, did I write these quotable and surprisingly popular lines?

Not likely.

Indianapolis Central Library

Mr. Ghigna sent along a photo of that quote. It was carved in stone.  I asked him where the photo was taken.  He replied that it was the Indianapolis Central Library.  Made sense in a tangential way.  The library was a hangout of mine. I lived behind the library in the Ambassador apartments for a few years. The library was my second home. In fact, I used the grand old library as a setting for scenes in various books. But a quote of mine carved in stone? Again, not likely. First, even as a Hoosier writer, I don’t come close to having the literary stature. Second, that area of the library was constructed in 1917, the year of my father’s birth. That means I couldn’t have written it.  How did I end up with the credit? The truth had to be that the verse appeared in one of my novels.  Which one? Did I take it and not give credit? I don’t have all my early books in digital format. Searching therefore was a boring, manual task. I could narrow it to one of the Shanahan private eye novels because of the Indianapolis connection. So all I had to do was sort through 600,000 words.

I thought for sure it had to be in Nickel-plated Soul.  The book is about those things that slowly, sneakily disappear before we do. Homes, family, careers, friends, loves, optimism. Little things too.  A favorite restaurant, maybe. A movie theater. A magazine, a tree, even a candy bar, not to mention memory itself. And Nickel-Plated Soul is about a man’s heroic or foolish refusal to accept a loss.

I was right that it was in a Shanahan book.  Going through them one by one, I finally found the passage in Concrete Pillow.

“…. She had to see him, but she was frightened just the same.  This meeting would be anything but casual.  She looked back to the doors she had just gone through as if to make sure they hadn’t closed behind her.  Above the entrance was a poem chiseled into the base of a huge clock:

TIME BY MINUTES SLIPS AWAY

FIRST THE HOUR THEN THE DAY

SMALL THE DAILY LOSS APPEARS

YET SOON IT AMOUNTS TO YEARS”

There was no credit line in the actual inscription. If there were I would have used it. In my novel, written 20 years ago, I merely described what was there, apparently.  And also, apparently, someone gave me the credit because I wrote the book in which the poem was printed. Repeated searches using the lines of the poem yielded nothing that would lead to the real author of it. Instead, my name kept popping up.

My guess is that those aggregating quotes for their web sites were content to copy from one another. Someone mistakenly credited the lines to me and the misappropriation was multiplied through the ubiquity of the Net. As Tolstoy said, “You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.”

 

All this is timely: The poem comes back to haunt me now when it has deeper relevance, when so much is slipping away and as I spend endless hours sorting through old letters, photographs and other papers.

Now for the obvious — perhaps the first call a good private eye would have made given this question would have been to the library. When that finally dawned on me, I contacted the friendly librarians in Indianapolis. They didn’t know. After some scurrying, huddling and laughter, they found it.  This quote, immortalized by chisel below a large clock at the beautiful and now exquisitely expanded downtown Indianapolis library, is from a 1779 hymn by John Newton, who also wrote “Amazing Grace.”  Incidentally, John Newton’s personal story is extraordinary and alone well worth the effort I took to solve the mystery.

 I’ll do my best to contact the various quote-oriented web sites to see if I can correct the self-perpetuating error. Meanwhile, any thought that in the reference books full of eloquent quotes the name Tierney will not appear between Thoreau and Tolstoy.  Drat!

Observations — San Francisco Street Art, Lower Haight

Most of the world knows Haight Ashbury, or “The Haight,” as it is called here.  It’s several blocks starting roughly at Central and going out to Stanyan at the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park. This Haight Street is a magnet for tourists and residents alike with more than a little attention paid to its Hippie past.  There are head shops and Medical marijuana centers amidst the shoe shops and tee-shirt stores.  However, there is another Haight — Lower Haight.  It is the continuation of Haight street east of Divisadero and down to Market.  It too is interesting.  Unusual shops, a variety of restaurants and great residential neighborhoods. My favorite spot in this area inhabited by a few serious anarchists is a saloon called “Molotov’s Cocktails.”  Most tourists don’t know about Lower Haight, so it is a place for those who live in the neighborhood and other city locals aware of its charm.  Here is a sampling of some of its street art.

Observations — E-Books, Self Publishing And A Semi-Blatant Self Promotion

It’s been a few months since I advertently plugged my own books.   I intend to do so, but I will be subtle about it — partially burying my shamelessness through the clever mention of other authors.

I am often inspired by the posts on the lively and informative blog Murderati.  Some of the more recent posts center on e-books — the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of their increasing dominance.  An article in the most recent Mystery Scene Magazine by writer/blogger Kevin Burton Smith (also master of The Thrilling Detective web site and blog) talks about living writers whose early works are being reissued in electronic formats. I would add that in some cases even new books are being released only in digital formats — increasingly so by traditional publishers as well.

Life Death & Fog Books

It makes sense in both cases.  Why would a business create an expensive product, one that requires considerable upfront expense and then, if it works, redo it in a format that demands much, much less expense?  A traditional publisher might do it that way if they have a brand name author with predictable sales.  But, for the most part, it seems backward.  It is much smarter when the book is a bit risky, it seems to me, to see if the story works before buying the paper, turning on expensive presses, setting  the distribution channels in motion and preparing for significant returns of unsold copies. If the e-book soars, the publisher can always release it as a trade paperback.  And from my conversations with book store owners, new and used, it’s the hardback that is dying.

This, I believe, is also the attraction of e-books when reissuing the works of popular authors, but whose work has, one never appeared in electronic format, and two, though vetted and extremely worthwhile, might not find room on store bookshelves reserved for the branded best sellers.  The new technology provides at least three electronic approaches for the author:  One is do it yourself.  This is what I did. I set up Life Death and Fog Books and released the early Shanahans (1990-1995) and one never-before-published novella.  And this is what others have done.  Two, do some of publishing work yourself and work with a group of award-winning writers who share your interests and vision to promote each other’s books.  Top Suspense Group is a fine example of a band of talented writers getting together to offer mutual support for the reissue of previous books and, in some cases, to promote new ones.  The third way is to connect with an innovative traditional publisher who is willing to bring these writers into the stable and make these ebooks available in the ebook format.  Mysterious Press, with Open Road Integrated Media, has pioneered this method and is reissuing the work of some highly praised mystery writers never before available for Nook or Kindle readers.

Top Suspense Group

As readers, we have always had access to the legends.  Hammett, Chandler, Stout, Christie, MacDonald and many of the others, are always in print or, at worst, they are periodically reissued in new covers.  It hasn’t always been possible to get the not-quite-yet legendary writers that way.  Some of our best, and still-living crime fiction authors — Gar Anthony Haywood, Janet Dawson, Ed Gorman, Jeremiah Healy to name a very few — provide great reads.  Fortunately, ebooks can make their early novels available again and damn near forever.

The advantage for readers in this process is that it affords us a way to combat the unrelenting onslaught of self-published dreck, which in no way suggests that all self-published books are in that category.  And there is some adventure in the random sampling of books by unknown authors.  There are, no doubt, some diamonds among the glass. I expect they will rise in their own way.  But, for all those who might berate traditional publishers, they do some things most readers appreciate. First, they filter out work that has always given “vanity” press a bad name.  Second, and most important, they EDIT.  If novel passes through the hands and eyes of professionals, it’s not as likely to be a sloppy book.  The books listed by the Top Suspense Group and Mysterious Press are not just two avenues for writers, they help narrow the field to a more manageable size from which the reader can select.

I strongly suspect that the smart, new writers, including those who wish to self-publish in some fashion, will approach the e-book market this way as well.  In addition to their likely comfort with the “new media” in terms of marketing, they will find ways to make sure there are not only means by which their work can be discovered, but also processes that will insure the product is a good one, at least qualitatively.

From Mysterious Press

Meanwhile, I don’t believe there is a single, right approach to meet the changing marketplace and the demands of a wide variety of readers.  Just as innovative publishers will find a way to deal with technology, so too will innovative libraries and bookstores.

On the other hand, as writers, there is a craving for more freedom, some of us anyway.  We can now write longer or shorter works instead of being coerced into writing books based on publisher-imposed guidelines.  And in fact, the idea of varying lengths of fiction and the application of appropriate, variable pricing can make this approach more appealing to the readers.  If I want a book to get me from O’Hare to LaGuardia, I might want a novella, not a short story and not a 500-page blockbuster that I would consider for Maui beach reading.  On the other hand, if I’m commuting from San Francisco to Palo Alto on the train, a short story is just fine for 99 cents.

Personally, I want to be on the bookshelves of libraries and bookstores and on the e-book bestseller list.  I also want to work with publishers who know the process and the marketplace to extend my reach.  AND I want to be able to strike out on my own to take the book from the first sentence to something I can hold in my hand.  This can be good news for the reader as well as publishers, bookstores and libraries who adjust to the changing times.  We all have more options.

  

Observations — San Francisco Street Art Again

Observations — As If Any Of This Is Important, Confessions Of An Accidental Hoarder

It is only quiet if I don’t listen.  In the early morning, just before light saturates the air around you and distracts you, you can hear the hum.  I call it the hum of the universe, but it is only the sounds of tires on asphalt all around the city — even on the interstates, which are too far away to see.  There are a few more obvious sounds —the fog horn of a ship heading into the Bay never far away and sometimes jets  above the fog.  There is the strange, otherworldly whine of the electric busses when they come near and before they go away and fade back into the hum.  The hum, though, is not intrusive. I hear it only when I want to. I’ve adjusted to urban quiet.

Though I often sleep through it, I love this time in the morning.  The wind hasn’t come up yet and no matter the temperature, I am warm enough and can breathe easily. There is a freshness to the air as if the night cleansed it.

But clutter invades.  Personal clutter.  I have a small apartment and I’m usually working on half a dozen projects at the same time.  Papers are stacked on papers.  In the kitchen, a few skillets are out because there is no place to put them and I’ve gathered several lethargic orchids.  They were beautiful years ago and I’ve repotted, watered and fed them.  They live, but they do not bloom. I can’t bring myself to toss them. 

There are books everywhere. I’ve sold a few to a local used bookseller. I plan — the key here is the word “plan” — to box a bunch up and give them to Friends of the Library for a sale to benefit one of the most important of public places.  There are also a bunch of books I know I will never read again, but cannot bring myself to part with.

I have a small monkey collection (not real ones) and a not particularly valuable (except to me) collection of art.  There is limited room on my walls, most of which is taken.

In a storeroom in the garage I have boxes and boxes of photographs.  I’ve taken a fair amount of them.  I’ve been through a large suitcase full of photographs I have tried to sort and thin out probably two or three dozen times in the last 30 years.  I’ve thrown away maybe half a dozen. Some of the photographs have been handed down through the generations.  There are few tintypes among them. Some of them are of people I don’t know.  I’ve been bringing them upstairs for a project I’m working on.  Many of them are stacked here and there.

My older brother likes to warn younger people about what happens when people grow older.  You know, things to expect.  No doubt one of those warnings must be there is likely to be an increased tendency and perhaps even a requirement to hoard.

There are not enough files for my so-called financial records. There is a stack, growing like a wild fungus of medical and medical insurance papers. There are wills and operating manuals for cameras, telephones, computers and printers.  There are dozens and dozens of notebooks, little pocket-sized books that serve as places to capture ideas as well as phone numbers and grocery lists.  Under my desk are plastic containers filled with drafts of novels and copies of the novels themselves.  More are downstairs.  I also have a small magazine collection, another box of every publication I’ve edited or contributed to, a dozen or so miniature (read toy) cars and old cameras. There are stationery supplies.  Hidden away are drawers with old watches and a dozen sunglasses, though I never wear sunglasses.  Neither the sunglasses nor the watches are antiques.  Just old watches and, oh, probably 30 pairs of reading glasses no longer strong enough for me to use.  I also have many pens. Some are fountain pens, which I love, but never use.

On my desk are notes for and drafts of novellas as well as material for one web site and two blogs.  There are three unpublished novels.  It’s so great to live in a paperless society.

Unfortunately I have only one, small closet.  Therefore it is hard to keep clothing from creeping out of the little space and hanging around doorknobs and over a few boxes of those books I mentioned.

There is noise clutter too.  Street cleaners, trash trucks, arguments, the neighbors’ television sets, another neighbor’s Harley and the skateboarders who have taken a liking to the hill I live on.  Still another neighbor has a dog who barks for at least half an hour every morning at eight. I suspect it’s when the inhabitants go off to work and leave him alone in the house.  I suspect they don’t know it is his habit. Once a week a leaf blower adds to the symphony of bad noise and there is, periodically but lasting a long time, house renovation.  Precisely at noon every Tuesday, there is a very loud horn, followed by an unintelligible voice explaining why, I suspect, there is a very loud horn blowing.

It’s endless and tiresome.  I didn’t used to like being up at three or four in the morning.  It seemed uncivilized; but in the darkness and the quiet, there is a lovely calm, a pleasant hum.  It may be one of the reasons why old people get up early.

Observations — Still More San Francisco Street Art

Opinion — Some Updates, Some News And, No Doubt, Some Foolishness

Whenever I’m asked for a brief bio for book jackets or as background when I appear on a panel, I always end it with: "Tierney lives in San Francisco where he is working on several fiction projects.”  Fiction projects.  Those two words allow me a certain freedom, while giving these "projects" an air of vague importance.  

The thing is:  it is actually true (not the importance perhaps) But I have been working on some shorter mystery pieces — 20,000 to 30,000 words.  The novella is a form that seems more natural for me. And finally, after all these years, the form has become more desirable.  Traditional publishing, unless it is a “literary” work, has frowned on books under 80,000 words. This wasn't always the case when pulp fiction had a market share.  But since?  People wanted blockbusters.  In defense of e-book publishing, its proliferation has opened a few more doors. That includes shorter novels.  Fortunately a major publisher agrees. We’re ironing out the details of what is most likely an August release of a new mystery novella.  When dates, cover, and availability are nailed down, I’ll probably make a big deal about it right here.

I’m also experimenting with what is for me an entirely new approach, again thanks to the dramatic change in publishing technology.  Though I suspect, many have already done this or a version of it, I’m using the blog format to create a living memoir.  That is to say, by using a blog, I can update, revise, rewrite, add pictures (or delete them) and link information to other sources at any time during the process, which may be, if I choose, the rest of my life. When I die or become unable or unwilling to write, the memoir is done. Up to the minute. Meanwhile, the reader may read it as he or she chooses, starting from the top or bottom or middle, sampling only a bit here and there, returning to see how what they’ve read has changed or, of course, finding the whole thing a pain in the butt and moving on to the next blog.

I’ve just begun, so there are only a few posts and I’m going through photographs now.  This is not just a time-consuming task, but as you might imagine, a sometimes rich and sometimes painful experience.  If you want a sneak peek at the blog in its earliest stages, click on Albion and New Augusta — A Memoir in Transit.  It is not a mystery, but rather stories of my family. Realizing that I am not particularly famous, nor is my story any more or less extraordinary than a majority of people on the planet, I can only say that the merit here, if there is any, is in the form it takes.  The blog format enables me (and you) a freedom that normal publishing does not — going backward and forward in time. 

One other thing, which is relatively new to me, is I am not writing about fictional characters in fictional places doing fictional things. I deal only in the challenge of reporting, biased reporting no doubt, but reporting nonetheless.  The stories focus on my parents and my understanding of their history and the lives I knew. I observe from my perspective their existence from birth to death not in the way an organized memoir does, but in the way our minds work — out of order, or seemingly random selections of past events. One memory leads to the next, but often not in linear fashion.  I want to capture that.  I want to be able to revise my memories as I think about them again and again, and link them to letters and photographs.  As I said, it’s an experiment in form.  

Observations — San Francisco Neighborhoods, Random Chinatown Photos