From the C3 writer’s conference

Sometimes my mouth gets me in trouble. Maybe I say something because I think it’s funny. And sometimes maybe I shouldn’t.

If you’re a guy, you know the Guy Code. It’s filled with rules and regulations about what guys should and shouldn’t do. Women have their own code. If you’re a guy, you’ve probably wondered about that. Don’t waste your time. As long as we live, we’ll never crack that code.

The Guy Code is not a written code but an inferred one. You learn about it and are reminded about it, not from study but from example. Violations are called out in elegant language in phrases like, “C’mon, man,” and “Not cool, Bro.”

It’s not difficult, but once in a while we forget and need to be reminded. At this year’s C3 conference, I tripped up. And it wasn’t a minor violation, but a big one. Chiseled in stone. Chapter one. As plain as the nose on the face of a clown in the woods, and not a very nice clown.

But timing is everything.

The one thing you don’t do is snicker in the men’s room as you walk by by another guy doing his business. Verboten. Not cool, Bro.

But I couldn’t help myself. On a bathroom break between author sessions and book-signings, I walked by a guy wearing a T-shirt with the capital letters, W W R D, beneath which was written, “What Would Raylan Do?”

If you’re not familiar with the TV series “Justified,” a series based on the books by Elmore Leonard, you may not know who Raylan is. But I did. I knew exactly who Raylan was, and I snickered. It was clever, and maybe the perfect shirt to wear to a mystery writer’s conference. And I couldn’t help myself, but my snicker outpaced my Guy Code recall.

The dude hit me up outside the restroom, reminding me of my Guy Code violation. I acknowledged in authorized Guy Code body language (close eyes; nod with sheepish grin). Before I was able to ask where I could get a T-shirt from this generous, self-creative, in-your-face keeper of the Guy Code, I had to do some quick calculations.

He was a big guy, and the real question was not, What Would Raylan Do? The question was what this big guy would do for my Guy Code violation. Fortunately, the big guy turned out to be Dana King. PI, mystery writer and, of course, Elmore Leonard fan.

Lesson learned? If you’re a writer, and you haven’t read Elmore Leonard, do yourself and favor pick up one of his books. Then go grab one of Dana’s.

They’re killer.

Oh, one more thing. If you’re a guy,and you walk by another guy in the bathroom doing his business, remember the Guy Code. You might not be as lucky as I was.

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I know myself pretty well.

If you read the back cover of my first book, you’ll discover I’ve put myself on the hook for writing a trilogy. I figured if I didn’t do that, I might not even write a one-logy, so it was more of a challenge in consistency to myself than anything else. Plus, I like things that come in threes.

So the logical next step after book one of the trilogy would be book two, right?

I should think so. And don’t get me wrong. I’ve begun outlining book two of the trilogy made some good progress. Then I had some great ideas for the prequel, and not only did I outline it, I wrote a few chapters. Two options now. You’d think that would be it. Mind like water.

Apparently not for me. There I was with two really decent writing projects, and there’s a knock at the door. I LOVE knocks on the door because they’re full of surprises. It wasn’t a literal door, but a figurative door in my mind. Know who it was? Ray Bishop, a self-confessed professional spreadsheet jockey with a dual personality who discovers, much to her dismay, that her alter ego masquerades as a hard-drinking private investigator at night. Check out the first look at Bishop Takes Night.

No, not mind like water. Mind like watermelon. Why? It’s big and round and full of disparate ideas, Inside it’s all slippery, spitting out random seeds of story ideas. Mind like watermelon. It’s a blessing. And a curse.

The quandary? What to do in November? Nanowrimo. National Novel Writing Month. I have a decision to make. Of course, I’m not starting from scratch or even an outline, and I have some things I may join in progress. I don’t have the focus to complete a single project in November, even though I’ll probably write the 50,000 words. For me, every month has become Nanowrimo.

Oddly my dictation software has transcribed Nanowrimo as “Nano crime.” You might call it a mistake. I call it a knock at the door.

Who is it? I bet it’s that damn watermelon again. Sorry, I have to get this.

“Who’s there?”

“Watermelon who?”

“What are melons doing on my porch? OK, very funny.”

Sorry about that.

My advice? If you have to make a decision, don’t ask a watermelon. Of all the melons, they’re the least mature and the most indecisive.

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Many thanks for your encouragement and support over the past year or so! I’ve worked diligently to bring you a memorable book and an engaging website. It was my intention to write the story that I wanted to read, but couldn’t find.  If you’re a fan of Asimov’s foundation, of Whedon’s Firefly or of Doyle’s Holmes, I think you’ll like the story as those were some of the influences I hoped to find when I went looking and was disappointed.

The website?  It’s got a couple of bonus items I think you’ll like, a number of tongue-in-cheek (or foot-in-mouth) blogs and a couple of easter eggs, too. So happy hunting!

I planned to launch next week as Amazon informed me last night that my book would post in 72 hours.  I guess they actually said “within 72 hours” because they were up this morning.  Like Tesla doesn’t make slow cars, Amazon doesn’t post slowly.  That’s cool.  The Universe likes speed.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can download the Kindle for free. If not, you might need to skip a latte to acquire.  Hard copy only? Paperback can be at your doorstep in a couple days.  You can use the money you saved not buying a Kindle <wink>.

Think about it.  If I’ve wasted your time, just click the unsubscribe on the email.  If not, check out my Amazon author page. Or leave a shout-out, a comment or your own brand of smartasstic humor below.  Or both! You know you want to. I’ll be waiting.

=James

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She told me her name was Lanae, but that the “n” was silent. Her suitcase was a green plastic bag, and she plopped in down on the bus seat beside me using her suitcase as a seat, and told me her life story.

I was on my way home, like pretty much every day after, working on some final touches for one of my books. The bus makes a regular stop at the Census Bureau, just east of the Suitland metro stop in D.C., and that’s where she boarded.

I reminded her of a friend of hers, she said, a judge. Did I know him?

I know the names of two judges. One is Judy and the other is Lisa. Neither of them look like me. Of course I didn’t.

“It’s OK Sweetie. Don’t worry.”

She called me that a number of times. I could’ve baked fudge with all of her sweeties. And it wasn’t just me. After her suitcase seat became too ungainly for her taste, she stood up and put in on the floor, bumping one of our bus neighbors in the process. He was Sweetie, too.

She was black and slim and something of a nervous, impatient soul. The straps of a lime swimsuit peeked out from beneath her sleeveless polyester dress that reached the tops of the tall shoes that hurt her feet.

No, she didn’t tell me her feet hurt. She told everyone. She’d swiped the phone from her traveling friend in the seat across the aisle and made a call that might have been to one of her kids or her brother. After the call, I was pretty sure it wasn’t.

“Are you hungry? You want something to eat? Maybe there’s a place there somewhere close-by. And we’ll get some beer.”

And she kept apologizing. “Sorry. Sorry about that. I am sorry. I apologize. And my feet,” she announced to the entire 55 passengers on our way home from work. “They’re killing me. No, it’s these shoes–”

She seemed unfamiliar with the concept of an inside voice.

“I can’t talk a lot,” she said into the phone. “I’m on a bus. No. I said…”

And she repeated herself. A busted inside voice unit with volume control on the fritz.

“I just want to make sure we’re on the same page,” she told the phone.

She repeated that a number of times, too, before she returned the phone.

I was still on the same page. I was working on the final page to my ebook “Tuck” trying to get a graphic of playing cards to look just right, a blackjack and a joker.

She glanced over at my screen, and read off the last line faster than I thought possible.

Lanae was born in 1978 she told me, and dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. Best way to get called on in math class? Get caught sleeping. Apparently she’d done it a time or two. But fighting with a classmate that ended up with her broken leg got her a suspension and a reason not to go back.

We had a conversation about spelling, too. “If you miss one letter, it’s wrong. A big fat ZERO,” she said.

I asked about partial credit. Turns out she wasn’t really a partial credit kind of woman, and she didn’t live in a partial credit kind of world.

She filled me in on her family history. Lots of names with unique spellings and, apparently, silent consonants. Babies and daddies all over creation, some of them passed on. I found it hard to keep track. We did agree on one thing. We both found decaffeinated coffee a strange concept. She’d visited her grandmother and found the coffee inventory barren with the exception of decaf.

“That’s just crazy,” she told me, bouncing in her seat.

What did she want? The same things we all want. First, she wanted to own her own home in D.C. Then she wanted to start a business. She wasn’t sure what it might be. Would she serve real coffee?

That was one thing she was certain about. She wanted the coffee there to be free. She had a big smile on her face, thinking about it.

She’s a restless spirit born in the wrong decade. A citizen of the world, talking with everyone, believing none of them and always getting by one way or another. She’d be right at home hitching a lift on a tramp steamer; floating down-river on a Mississippi steamboat; or riding the last train out of town. She’d sit on the back step of the caboose, a sardonic smile on her face and a middle finger extended to a population that never understood her and never cared to try.

I wished her good luck. She said it was nice to meet me. I wondered to myself if that might be “Ice to meet you,” since the Ns were silent. As she walked across the parking lot trailing her companion, her green suitcase bag tilting her shoulders to one side, I thought to myself that the word “character” has no Ns either. And that fit well. She was a character, and of all the things in the world she was, silent was not one of them.