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.

If I only had the time in my day…

I should write a book about this…

Remember when you said you were going to write a book? Did you do it?

Are you still going to do it? When?

Someday? Maybe?

Oh, when you retire.

That’s nice. Let me know when it’s available.

So I retired a decade ago.  Truthfully, I’ve never been busier.  You know, the post retirement job, the kids through college, the mortgage. It’s quite a list. Life has a way of filling in the blanks with so-called important issues, and without our own personal intervention in our own personal futures, that tendency fills up our personal 24 hours a day quite succinctly.

So you want to write a book.  I’m presuming you do as you’re still reading.  That’s a good sign.  If you’re like me, you’ve got a knack for writing or story-telling. People have told you that before, and not just to be nice. You know it’s true.

My issue was not only that I could never find the time. It was that I didn’t know what I would do if I did find or make the time.  The only thing I could envision myself doing was sitting in front of a computer screen or with a notebook in hand contemplating what I should be writing, but couldn’t because I only had an hour anyway. I understand a lot of writers spend a lot of time doing this. I didn’t have a process or a guide or a friend who could tell me what to do. And I didn’t want to join a writers group…I don’t know. Just because.

I’m one of the fortunate who found employment in my chosen field of study: communications.  So, I feel pretty lucky.  But for years. Decades, if I’m honest, I put off bringing any focus to the writing projects I started when I attended the university.

I’m an avid reader and a professional communicator, and most of my time, when I wasn’t working or sleeping, I was reading. While I had the talent and the means to write a book, I never considered it because I just didn’t know how. There, I said it again. I didn’t know how. How long are chapters? Who would even publish my book? What if I wrote it and couldn’t get it published? Would I invent my own publishing company no one had ever hear of, vanity press some copies of my book, the play it off like I was tired of the whole idea? Actually, not a bad idea, but not really my style. Had I had author friends, my life might have taken a different turn, but it didn’t.  So here, I offer you, my new friend, friendship with an author and a method for writing that book you’ve talked about with yourself. Seemingly forever.

No, I can’t make you a great writer.  No, I won’t read your manuscript.  That’s not what this is about.

This is about understanding the art of the possible. It’s a roadmap that can help you, in a few months, take your idea and put it into a manuscript form.  Think it’s impossible? That’s what I thought, too. So stick around. Do what I do (or don’t do what I did, depending on the case), it’s in the key of E. Watch me for the changes.

You want to be a writer? You have to give up something.

Part of this is, of course, the fact you need time to write.  At this point, if you’re not writing already, that potential time is being taken up by some other activity.  Facebook. Hockey. Vodka. TV. Xbox. Take your pick. It doesn’t much matter, but it’s something.  You get to fill in the blank. And you don’t need a lot of time, but if you’re serious about it, you’ll block out an hour each day. If you’re smart, to start with at least, you’ll schedule it at about the same time of day and in the same location.  Later you can work on becoming more of a writer and less of a (you fill in the blank here).

But that’s only part of it.  The other part of it is motivation.  You can’t want to be a writer, you must be one or not be one.  Think about writing all the time? Good. You’re not a writer yet, you’re a thinker.  If you’re finding opportunities during your normal day to jot down ideas, and steal moments to write dialogue or blog or whatever comes to mind.  Yes, you’re a writer. You just need a bit of focus and a bit of discipline.

Where does that come from?  It’s a business lesson.  Say for instance I give you $50 if you write for an hour straight. Check it out.  Nice isn’t it? Yes, you don’t see those bills very often.  I got it from a ATM.  No, you have to take out more than $40 to get one of these.  Nice, eh? Go on. Write something. No, I don’t care what. No, I’m not going to read it. I just gave you $50. What the hell do you want from me?

Good, you’re done. Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

Now, for the next hour, you’re going to write, but if you don’t reach 1,000 words, you’re going to lose $50. You need to pay me. Now that sucks. You just came face to face with intrinsic human nature.  While we appreciate winning, we hate losing.  For whatever reason.  If we lose $50, we thing there’s something seriously wrong with ourselves.  So you need discipline and motivation?  You need to give up something. And don’t make it something you don’t care about. I had a friend whose father always swore off Eskimo women for Lent.  Not really a motivating factor.  But what about Xbox? Or a poker game? Or one of those other things you listed when you were listing things that weren’t writing.  If you’re serious about it, you’ll give up something you really care about.

That way when you sit down at the keyboard, you’ll be motivated to not waste your time.  What will you do? We’ll talk about that a bit later.  But just like the guy who dropped fifty cents in the outhouse and then promptly tossed his wallet in after it. He wasn’t going down there just for fifty cents!

So this is a two-fer.  Rule one: Make time. Rule two: Make it worth your time. Sometimes tricking our own minds into doing something can pay some serious dividends.

Yes, thanks. I’ll take the $50 back.

Yes, I do think you’re getting it now.

So, what worked for me? I gave up playing music. Once in a while I hear my guitars calling me.  It’s difficult to ignore, but I’ve made some remarkable progress.  When I do sit down to write, I have a greater sense of what that time is worth and do my best to use it appropriately.

But here’s the cool thing. It didn’t take that long before mentally, that new habit took hold.  As the story developed on the page and the characters came to life, they motivated me.  The more I got into the manuscript, the more I got into the manuscript.  I no longer needed to trick myself.  I’d done it. I’d switched addictions. There’s a woman in front of me this morning playing some virtual candy game. The guy across the aisle is snoring.  Not me. I’m creating.  And there’s something magic about it. I can’t explain it to you, but you’ll know when it happens, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.