Mark Shaiken's Blog: Head Talks! mark shaiken : : author blog

I was an attorney for a long time. Four decades. And four plus years ago I went to court for the last time, said goodnight to my legal assistant for the last time, and rode the elevator down twenty-four stories for the last time. I exited our building onto Denver’s 16th Street Mall and into whatever would come next.

When asked, “who am I?” I no longer respond by saying, “I’m a lawyer.” And that was never “who I was” anyway. That was always just “what I did.”

People often ask me to talk about how I came to be an attorney and how I moved on. I think people are looking for advice. But I’m not qualified to tell the world how to decide to become an attorney, how to be an attorney, or how to stop being an attorney. There are many such books for sale, and I’ve consumed more than a few of those in my decades as a practicing attorney. I just don’t find myself skilled enough to advise anyone to be – or avoid being – an attorney. I also challenge the notion that there’s cookie cutter, one size fits all, advice to give on those topics. What to do with a life, and when to move on are very personal decisions, different for each of us, and don’t lend themselves to convenient or useful rules of thumb.

I can just report my facts. Here are several.

Like so many things in my life, becoming an attorney just sort of happened. One day I went to college, graduated, needed money, drove a forklift for a while, and the next day I found myself in law school. And the next day I passed the bar exam, started clerking for a bankruptcy judge, and began life as an attorney. Just like that. Well, maybe not quite the very next day but after all the years of practicing bankruptcy law, time and space can sometimes get a little distorted and the continuum of the dimensions can warp.

Did I enjoy being an attorney? Not always. Sometimes I hated it, and the law firm world; sometimes I tolerated it, and sometimes I may have even liked it. But mostly, as is true for so many attorneys, “like” was not typically the first word that crossed my mind when I pondered each day of my law life. I liked my life as an attorney more when I learned to accept the parts of the practice of law that drove me crazy and that I couldn't change. For that, I can thank the life as an attorney for helping me learn that I can’t control everything, and, at times, I can control nothing.

At times, the practice of law frustrated me, and just as often, it energized me. Often, I made the people close to me miserable, and I believe I can attribute that unfortunate truth to the practice of law, rather than myself, although I can see how that’s debatable. I sometimes frustrated my partners in the law firm; I believe they may have occasionally enjoyed having me around, just a little... but they don’t have to admit it.

Now four years removed, I realize I didn’t always – perhaps even not often – really hate the practice of law. But, on balance, “like” was and still is a hard word for me to use in close proximity to the phrase “practice of law.”

Even when I was practicing law, I liked to dream. Maybe, I needed to dream. To dream: the transitive verb, to think of the possibilities. For me back them, possibilities other than a life in the law. But the law got in the way of dreaming. It resisted me and fought me. In my years of working in law firms, as I reserved the right to seek greener pastures, I saw things, felt things, laughed at things, cried at things, loved things, despised things, became resigned to things, and tried to set aside time to dream of other things besides trying cases in bankruptcy court.

Life as an attorney taught me to enjoy being busy, so in my law afterlife, I’m busy, but I no longer give out legal advice, write briefs, go to court, make oral arguments, call witnesses to the stand, cross-examine witnesses, and deal with my law partners on a day-to-day basis.

But I don’t feel like I retired. I don’t like the word “retire,” because there’s no “retirement” for me – rather, I chose to do many other things. For example, I smile a great deal. I swear less. I spent much of my law life not making the world a better place. Now I try to make the world a better place, little by little, day by day, person by person, project by project, cause by cause, and I hope I’m making up for lost time. As Vincent Van Gogh said, “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” In my law life, while I wasn’t bored, I lacked passion or at least if I had it, I eventually lost it. Now I have passion, and there’s no boredom in my afterlife.

And that afterlife? I’ve pivoted to a life of writing books (five since I hung up the wingtips. You can find them on Amazon and other booksellers), non-profit service, and music (I’m not great but I love it). But you write what you know. Right? So, my books of fiction are legal and financial thrillers.

Even in this next phase of my life, I still think about my journey away from the law life. I’ve concluded that for me, the law loomed, and it consumed, fumed, presumed, and at times entombed me. To this day, it lurks in the classroom, the conference room, the boardroom, and the courtroom; sometimes it assumes; it’s often the legendary professional jealous mistress, hiding within a law firm with a nom de plume that sounds austere, thoughtful, august, and distinguished... and sometimes, just sometimes, despite itself, it manages to bloom. It’s larger than life. It makes few concessions for dreamers, and perhaps dreamers have no right to expect concessions. It took me a long time to learn this: while there may be better ways to go through life, there are many, many worse ways to go through life. Really.

At some point, however, it’s time to part ways. And for me, it was time to move on. Turns out, it was a good decision for me. The law afterlife is good ... so far.

Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Another great Lincoln Lawyer. What an amazing tale Connelly spins. No spoilers here but I didn't see that ending coming at all.



View all my reviews

Book Description:

In Cram Down, Kansas City attorney Josephina Jillian Jones, 3J to her friends, has dealt with people perpetrating online disinformation, white supremacists, and clients hiding assets, so when a couple who heads up a company that builds inner city housing for marginalized communities comes to her for legal help because their longtime banking partner has shut off their funding, the case appears at first blush to be tame by comparison. But when the bank president disappears and his greed-driven brother seems the likely culprit, things heat up. And when it appears the Kansas City mob is involved, the race is on to save both the company and the bank president. Lives are at stake and the clock is ticking. 3J has a reputation for being fierce and determined, but she’s going to need both help and a little luck to save the day this time.

_________________________________________

Here is a sample of the Prologue for you to enjoy.

__________________________________________

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

The two brothers sat in the bank’s executive conference room. Archival black-and-white photos adorned the walls, each in an unpretentious brushed nickel frame and mounted with a simple off-white mat. They captured scenes of 1930s Kansas City and famous Black owned businesses of the time.
The Commonwealth Savings and Loan Bank was now at the intersection of East Armour Road and Cherry Street in Kansas City, Missouri, and the room where they sat was home to a large, oval, mahogany conference room table and eight chairs with embroidered seat cushions, three on each side and one at each end of the long table. Since 1901, the table had been a part of the bank. Back then, the bank sign read The Commonwealth Colored Penny Savings and Loan Bank.
It was the same table where the bank’s founders, the brothers’ great-great-grandparents, had discussed and approved loans for small, Kansas City, Black owned businesses and homeowners in the post Civil War era. It was the same table where their ancestors had fended off threats of assaults, lynchings, and hangings and strategized ways to advance the plight of Black families. Not every Kansas Citian believed the city needed a Black owned bank. Not back then and not in the present either. In the late 1970s, their parents had sat there and discussed expanding the bank’s lending reach to all minority customers throughout the metropolitan area.
There the brothers sat. Thanksgiving was approaching, but they were not there to give thanks.
Rather than sitting across from each other at the middle of the table, they sat at opposite ends, as far from each other as the table and room permitted. Amadi Washington Browne had been born moments before his fraternal twin, Jordan Lincoln Browne. They didn’t look like each other and they didn’t think alike. Their only commonality was the womb they had shared and the house in which their parents raised them. Nothing else bound them together. Nothing else about them was similar.
Five years earlier, they had inherited the bank from their parents, although in unequal shares. Under the will, Amadi was the majority owner. But this meeting would be different from past meetings. Things had changed.
The meeting’s agenda item was a single loan their parents had made to Abode LLC decades ago. Over the decades, the revolving line of credit had grown to a loan with a preset borrowing limit of twelve million dollars. Abode could tap in to the loan and draw money out as needed up to the limit. As Abode repaid, the loan balance went down and the amount Abode could tap in to went up. Abode had historically used the loan to buy land and pay contractors to build houses on the land.
They sat but made no eye contact. Amadi surveyed the photos on the walls while Jordan stared at his clasped hands. It was yet another in a long string of uncomfortable moments the pair had shared.
Recently, things had changed at the bank. While Amadi kept the title of bank president, he had recently sold a portion of his bank shares to his brother. Jordan was now the controlling, majority shareholder, which meant that the bank was now Jordan’s. And with that change, Amadi felt a new era of Commonwealth banking on the horizon. He didn’t like the feeling. He saw significant changes coming, and he didn’t like what he saw. New wasn’t always bad, but this new was no improvement — not for the bank customers, not for the community, not for the city, and not for Amadi. While Jordan called it state-of-the-art banking, Amadi called it a disaster waiting to happen.
The conference table was big enough for the ghosts of their ancestors to attend the meeting in spirit and occupy the empty chairs between the brothers. Perhaps the spirits could provide a measure of control from the great beyond. In the meeting, Amadi would learn if anyone, dead or living, could rein in Jordan.
The Abode line of credit had matured each December 4 over the years, and on each maturity anniversary, the bank had renewed it without fanfare and with minimal discussion. There would be three hundred sixty-five more days of Abode’s bank funded eleemosynary work. But if Jordan got his way, this time, the loan committee would have a different tone: One of nonrenewal. A tone of “Find another bank.” A tone of “We don’t want your business anymore.”
Amadi had prepared the usual loan renewal form for Jordan’s review. The form made the case for loan renewal and continued support for Abode. Jordan had the form, but he hadn’t read it. He didn’t need to. He knew his brother, he knew Abode, he knew what the form said, and he already knew what he wanted to do with the loan.
Amadi had just reminded Jordan of the bank’s simple obligation to the community and to Abode and its founders, Bella and James Franklin: to continue to fund Abode’s operations. “Bella and James are good folk. The best,” Amadi said. “We’ve gone to church with them, prayed with them, and gone to schools with their kids. We’ve mourned with them and we’ve marched with them.”
But his audience of one wasn’t hearing him.
“It’s just good business to put minorities in their first home,” Amadi argued, touching on Abode’s business model of building homes for lower middle-class families to provide access to the American dream — home ownership — for members of omitted groups that all shared the dubious honor of being on America’s historically long list of the shamefully treated. They were the invisibles, those left behind and marginalized in America. It was Abode’s vision to build homes in transitional neighborhoods and provide stability, not only to the families who bought the homes but to the neighborhoods as well. With Commonwealth’s help, Abode offered a piece of the American dream.
“Amadi, just this once, don’t lecture me. Listen to me. I don’t give two shits about dreams. People who dream have nightmares. I have no nightmares. I have data. I have a sense of where this bank is going now that I’m finally at the helm. I am a twenty-first century banker.” As he spoke, he unclasped his hands on the conference room table and, palms down, appeared to push as if he were attempting to lower the table and reduce its historical influence on the discussion.
“I give a shit about what I would do with the Abode collateral if I had to foreclose. The data is this: I can’t off-load the collateral. None of our banking partners have showed an interest in sharing the Abode loan. They won’t buy a participation in the loan. They won’t join in a lending syndicate. Why? They don’t want the collateral. They don’t want the prospect of foreclosing on collateral and owning houses in these kinds of neighborhoods with these kinds of proximate neighbors. And guess what? Neither do I.”
“We’ve never had a participant in the Abode loan before,” Amadi said. “We don’t need one now. Abode is a good loan. It’s good for Abode, it’s good for the bank, and it’s good for the community. A win-win-win. It’s a solid borrower. They’ve never missed a payment. Nothing has changed. Not Abode, not the Franklins, not their mission, not the collateral. Nothing. Same data it’s always been. And to handle things differently for ‘these kinds of neighbors’ and ‘these kinds of neighborhoods’ is wrong thinking. Not to mention illegal.”
“Right now, I don’t give a shit about the law. And you’re wrong,” Jordan yelled back decisively. “Everything has changed. Maybe you’ve forgotten. I control the bank now. I’m in charge, and I want out of the inner city. I want the bank to be everywhere. I want out of the Abode loan so I can use the capital to make more profitable loans. Profit is colorblind. Profit is not in it for social change. Profit is not part of a decades-long movement. Profit doesn’t march in the streets demanding its rights. It doesn’t care about any of that damn stuff. It’s just data: numbers; bottom line dollars and cents.” Jordan paused, slapped the conference room table with both hands, making a noise like a gunshot, and added forcefully, “Or s-e-n-s-e in your case.”
They had never been close. As adults, the two brothers had grown further apart, and they could no longer even agree to disagree. Such an agreement would be one too many accords in their lives of constant disunity. Amadi surveyed the chairs around the table. Empty they were; empty they remained. Apart from Amadi and Jordan, the room was silent. He looked for help from his ancestors but received none. He made his case to his brother alone.
Jordan had always been the emotional one and Amadi had been the calm, reasonable one. But now, Amadi couldn’t speak unemotionally. Not with Jordan yelling at him. Not about the direction Jordan wanted to take the bank and not about about Abode.
Amadi countered his brother’s voice by raising the volume of his own. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Jordan. You can’t change the DNA of this bank any more than you can change our family’s history or the color of your skin. No matter what we do, we’re still Black and always will be. That means we have an obligation to reach out and help our community. The community made this bank what it is. The Browne family builds hope one community member at a time. Abode builds hope one family, one nail, one board, and one house at a time. Building hope. Abode’s always done it. Commonwealth has always done it. I’ve always done it. And goddamn you, Jordan, this family has always done it. It’s our unique commodity.”
Amadi paused just long enough to see that Jordan wasn’t hearing him. “I’ll tell you what makes no sense: suddenly changing the relationship this bank has had with Abode for more profit. You don’t need more money, but this city needs Abode to fulfill its mission, and Abode needs this bank to partner with it to do so.” Amadi stopped. He had lost his cool. Sometimes pushback helped. Sometimes it made him feel better. Not this time.
“I don’t give a damn about Abode’s mission. I don’t give a damn about what you say this city needs. And most importantly, I don’t really give a damn what you, with your minority ownership interest in this bank, think. You hear this loud and clear: You will not be the minority shareholder of this bank with ninety-five percent of its mouth. Not out there and not in here at this table! Our commodity will now be crypto! Here’s the deal. you are either with me on my vision for the bank’s future or the future will get crammed down your throat. Either way, it’s happening.”
If Amadi was waiting for the ghosts of his parents to take charge and scream, “Enough, Jordan!” from the afterlife, he waited in vain. They didn’t and wouldn’t.
Jordan brought Amadi’s thoughts back to the living. “This bank has been taking care of the community for more than a hundred and thirty years. I don’t see the progress. I don’t see the profit. It’s time for this bank to take care of itself . . . and the Brownes. The hell with community commitments! I hate those words you throw around.”
“Not my words, Jordan. The words you so disdain are from our grandparents, uttered when they took over the bank, and they invoked those words every day thereafter. Our parents as well.”
“More irrelevant pearls of wisdom from a long gone past. Only you quote them. Only you remember them. Jesus, Amadi,” Jordan said shaking his head disapprovingly as he scanned the photos on the walls with a look of contempt, “sometimes I think you’ve got so much of the past roiling around in your brain that you don’t have enough gray matter left to appreciate the present and future sitting there right before your eyes. With all the history shit you spout, I worry you consult with the dead to make your decisions for the living. Well, not anymore. This bank, under myleadership, will no longer be captive to your version of history. It’s going to make history, and to do so, it must and will distance itself from its past.”
Jordan looked away and said nothing. He didn’t need to. Amadi had lost the bank to his brother, and he knew it. He had lost the debate, if it ever even was a fair exchange of ideas by advocates of different positions. And Amadi was about to lose Abode as a bank customer.
The history of the bank, once made sitting around the table, was slipping away. The table was no longer a symbol under Jordan’s reign. Now it was nothing more than wood, screws, glue, brass, and glass.
“Maybe so, Jordan. Maybe so,” Amadi said softly as he slowly shook his head in defeat.
Jordan’s face slowly curved into a victory smile. He had won. “Good. Then it’s settled. The loan committee hereby denies the renewal request. It’s your customer. Tell the Franklins to move the loan out of this bank. I’ll give them thirty days from maturity to do so.”
“And then?”
“And then this bank will do what a bank does when it wants its money back and a borrower doesn’t pay. I trust you know how that goes.”

Depending on your age and musical tastes, you may remember the 1966 Beatles’ song, “Paperback Writer,” penned by Paul McCartney. Beatles lore reports that McCartney’s Auntie ‘Lil challenged him about writing only love songs. She asked him why he didn’t write songs about more important things, suggesting a song about a horse, or a summit, or something else interesting. Later, McCartney saw Ringo Starr reading a book backstage, “Paperback Writer” came to be, and the rest is history—except for the usual controversies about which Beatle played which parts of the song and whether John Lennon contributed any of the lyrics.

The song tells us about a writer who sends a letter to an anonymous publisher (Dear Sir or Madam) hoping to convince the publisher simply to read the book. We presume it’s not the writer’s first letter to a publisher. We learn the book took years to write; the writer was desperate to find someone to publish the book; the book is roughly a thousand pages; the writer intends to write more pages shortly; the writer can change the story around; the publisher can have the rights; the writer thinks it would make the publisher a million overnight; and, sadly, the writer informs the publisher how to return the book, even as the writer says over and over that all he or she wants is to write paperback books.

And there you have it. In his own way, in the mid-1960s, Paul McCartney created a character who, to me, captured some of the angst of a modern day indie author. Turns out, the longing of a 1960s writer wasn’t all that different from the dreams of a twenty-first century indie author. Don’t all of us who write and self-publish just want to be that paperback writer? Don’t we just want people to read our books? And if they do, to leave a brief review? We may not say it, but don’t we dream every once in a while that a traditional publishing house will latch onto something we write? Don’t we long for thousands—no—tens of thousands of readers and reviews? Aren’t we willing to change our works around if that’s what it takes to fulfill our dreams?

As McCartney’s fictional author implored the letter’s addressee, I felt the desperation and related to the ask the writer made of the anonymous publisher: please, please, please just read the book.

How could Paul McCartney possibly have known how an unpublished, or in the modern era, an under-read, published indie author, might feel?

The answer I came up with is this: He already knew. John and Paul met in the 1950s, started writing original songs together in John’s aunt’s house, and performed for whomever would listen. They went to Hamburg hoping to find an audience and hone their skills. They looked for an agent who then looked for a record company. For years and years, no one important would listen to their works, but through it all, the duo kept writing and honing and dreaming. They never gave up the dream. They had resolve. And then one day, George Martin and Parlophone Records listened.

When I talk with other indie authors, I often hear that resolve as well: Keep writing. Never give up. Maybe we self-published writers aren’t that different from Lennon and McCartney. Now, to be sure, Lennon and McCartney’s teenage dream came true and then some, and they had boundless talent. Few writers I know have quite that kind of talent.

But the lesson is nevertheless clear to me: never lose faith. Write because that’s the calling. Put words down on paper because that’s what we’re driven to do. And slowly but surely, more people will read those words; maybe not throngs of people, at least not yet. Maybe the throngs will find the next book. Or the next.

After all, all we need is a break . . . because we are indie paperback writers.

Mark

http://markshaikenauthor.com

Early summer, 1976. They sat on the front porch of the small split-level house as the sun dipped below the horizon. The beginnings of another New England summer. The old man slowly inhaled his unfiltered Pall Mall, held the smoke in his lungs, and then purposefully exhaled. He shook his head and pondered the smoldering cigarette between his tobacco stained pointer and middle fingers. He would stop on Monday he vowed to himself for the millionth time.

“What’s on tap this week, buddy?” he asked the college kid.

“Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat, Dad.”

The old man nodded. After a few moments, he asked, “I was wondering. Senior year’s coming up. Have you given any thought to your future?”

“Oh, a little,” the college kid replied.

This topic had come up before sometimes leading to conflict. He didn’t want conflict this evening, but he also knew the day was fast approaching when college would be in his rear-view mirror and he needed a plan. To have a plan, he needed to plan. Not his strong suit. He knew the question was top of mind for the old man. He knew the old man saw it as the last parenting piece to ensure his son launched.

“And?” the old man prodded.

“I thought I’d take a year or two off after college.”

“To do what?”

“Write a novel,” the college kid replied cautiously.

The old man’s eyebrows raised, and he tilted his head in surprise. First time the old man had heard that plan. “A novel, eh? Hmmm. Maybe. Don’t know. Is there a Plan B?”

“Plan A’s good. It worked for Hemingway.”

“Did it? I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like a viable way to make a living.”

Perhaps not, the young man thought to himself. “Plan B?” the young adult asked as he sighed and capitulated in the conversation. “I guess I thought I’d get a master’s in literature.”

“Master’s degree, eh? To what end?”

“Teach. Maybe English in the inner city. And . . . write a novel in my spare time.”

As the young man explained Plan B, he broke eye contact and looked off into the distance, allowing himself to dream as he gazed off. To him, dreaming was synonymous with planning. But, the wistful look toward the horizon gave the old man the impression that Plan B was more of a pipedream than a plan.

“Yeah . . . . I don’t know, kiddo. Probably the same problem as Plan A. You have anything else in mind?”

“Well, I guess I could always go to law school.” The old man smiled and nodded his approval. The old man thought law school was the place to go to become a lawyer. The college kid thought it was the place to go to sort out what to do next. The old man did not pick up that there was no meeting of the minds. He was just glad that the novel diversion had ended.

The Next Few Decades. With no novel in the offing, law school it was, and it took the college kid more than four decades of meandering before returning to Plan A.

Along that journey, he often wondered, “why write?”

The Present. Forty-three years later, the college kid leaned back from his desk and his next novel coming to life on the computer screen and wondered aloud, “why write?”

He had come up with some answers to the question way back when but never shared his answers with the old man. He knew it probably wouldn’t have changed anything but in case the old man was listening from the great beyond, here is what he wished he had said.

Number 1: Writing is better than talking with someone. When you write, you say everything on your mind. No interruptions. No arguments. No debates. No one talking back to you. If you think it, write it. If you feel it, write it. If you believe it, write it. Let the world read it and if they agree with it, bravo. If they don’t, either listen and learn, or ignore. Either way, keep writing.

Number 2. When you write and put your work out there for all to read, you put yourself out there as well. For us wallflowers, it is the best way to get off the wall. Not without consequences, of course. Some will like what you wrote. Some will not. Those who liked it may compliment you. A five-star affirmation and license to continue writing. Some who did not like your work will review it and explain their negative reaction. Some of the criticism can help you grow as a writer and a person. Listen to them. They are the path to future affirmation. Some of the criticism will be downright mean. A function of the modern social media era, perhaps. But, it’s really a little like baseball. If the best hitters in the game are only successful at the plate thirty percent of the time, why do they risk the pain of making an out seventy percent of the time? The hit is worth the quest. As well, the compliment is worth the quest and the risk of the harsher criticism is just part of the game.

Number 3. When you write, looking off into the distance is not a sign of an ill-formed, life-altering, pipedream. No. When you write, gazing is working. It’s part of the process and if it means you are dreaming, or even formulating an unachievable pipedream, it’s all good because dreaming and even pipe dreaming is part of the writing process. If you are a gaze-off-into-the-distance type, then write.

Number 4. Do you write for fame and fortune? The New York Times bestseller’s list? A top ten new release on Amazon? Oprah’s recommended reading? An interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings? Movie rights? Sadly, not at all likely, so, no, that’s not why you write. Always remember that the difference between a pizza and a writer is that a pizza feeds a family of four. With that in mind, if you still want to write, then do it.

Number 5. So, why write? Simple. Why not?