Ricky Wilks's Blog

I’m going through the second half of my g-grandmother’s diaries… and oh, man, she can be wicked dramatic.

I didn’t know when I fixed Warrens lunch this morning that he would never eat that lunch and he didn’t know when he road off on the pony that he would be brought home in a car almost unconscious.

May 30, 1933

But, later that year, she was asked to be the lead in a play. Unfortunately, she doesn’t mention the name of the play… but it might have been the story of my quarantine-life…

Well I lost almost 2 wks work playing “that swelled up lady from Boston”.

July 2, 1933

When I have trouble with a plot-point, I go for a walk. Last February, I couldn’t figure out what to do with the bad guy in Murder Me, Please, so I went for a walk. I walked and walked and walked. I finally had a flash of the scene. I knew exactly what would happen and who would do it and why. Unfortunately, before inspiration struck, I’d walked more than nine miles.

Not wanting to be a wimp, I didn’t pull out my phone and Uber my way home. Instead, I loaded up on calories at a conveniently placed Taco Bell and walked back home.

None of that is important except for the February part and that my legs look awesome because of all the thinking/walking I do.

A few years ago, I wrote a long novel about Jack dealing with the Emilio issue. I brought Jack from the place you see him now to a much better place in his relationships and his turmoil—and then had nowhere to go with him.

Detective novels just don’t do that. The detective changes in increments over a series, never a huge turnaround in one novel. I’d goofed.

So, I decided it would be better for Jack (and me) if I write novellas about Jack taking other cases—with the Pachi family and Emilio stuff in the background, getting more and more prevalent and important as the series goes on. So I busted out Poison Me Slowly.

With my (pre-pandemic) writing schedule and process, I knew I’d be able to knock out a novella every three months while still having plenty of time to write on the second Barin book and keep churning out things under my pen names. In short, I was kicking ass.

With the climax/solution to Murder Me, Please in my head, it should have been released in March. But, like everyone else in the world, the isolation of Covid kicked me in the ass.

I’m sorry for the delay, and the third book, Played to Death, won’t take anywhere near as long.

I love, love, love detective pulp fiction. It’s dark and exciting.

I also love the titles. When I was mulling over titles, I happened to be reading Slit My Throat, Gently.

Then I remembered the episode of Mama’s Family (S06E15 The Big Nap) where she stayed up late every night for a week because of detective movie marathons. The names of the movies always cracked me up. There’s also a great segment in that episode where they spoof noir detective movies… 

I’m not sure how long I can keep up the naming convention… but I’m sure as hell going to try!

The next one centers around Boston’s Theater District, so I’ve tentatively decided on Played to Death. I see another book from 2015 with that name… but, what the hell?

Every time I think about writing (and keeping up with) a blog, I start wondering why the hell I’d even bother. Who the hell am I that people would seek out my words about my life and my thoughts about random bull shit?

Honestly, I know the answer to that–and the truth doesn’t really bother me. The only people who will probably seek out my blog (and there are about a million of my aborted blogs strewn across cyberspace) are prospective employers and my mother. Which leads to another issue. Should I be honest?

The answer is “Probably not.” Do these poor unsuspecting souls want to hear about the time I left my job and moved to Colorado because my boyfriend-at-the-time was in jail out there and I “just had to be there” for moral support? Do they want to know that everyone who’s ever fallen in love with me is dead? Probably not.

But, then I remember one of my father’s recurring statements–fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. So, in honor of you, Dad (not that you deserve it)–fuck ’em.

I’ve been re-reading a lot of the Piers Anthony books that I loved as a kid. Most of them hold up really well, by the way. In the back of a lot of them, he’d have author notes outlining everything that happened to him during the writing of that particular book. Most of it was stupid stuff. Stuff that if I were in a conversation with someone and they started talking about, I’d excuse myself and never return. Buying a strip of land abutting his property, building a porch on the back of his house, just all sorts of boring things–that I just loved reading.

Also, I’ve been going back over my great-grandmother’s diaries. Some of the things in there are amazing: her voting for the first time in 1920 and feeling awkward because that was man’s stuff, dealing with the Great Depression, etc. But, some of the best things are knowing how much money she got for her turkeys, because I knew she was saving for a Victrola she wanted more than just about anything in the world, so she could have music in her house. Turkey prices. Who knew?

So, if you are a prospective employer–good luck with this. If you are my mom, you probably stopped reading at the first curse word…