Ed Lynskey's Blog: Cracked Rearview Mirror - Posts Tagged "writers"

The email I got slugged me in the gut. A lady I'd worked beside for almost 20 years had died. Call her Trish. She'd battled cancer. She was in her mid-60s, still young with a lot of life ahead of her. I liked Trish, both as an office mate and a person. I'd left to take a different job, and she went on to retire. I was invited to her dinner. That evening she was so happy and relaxed, laughing, joking, and talking of her family and pets. Trish was a cats and dogs fan. This was all on my mind, as Patton would say, while I reread the sad email. The news sucked. Fiction writers are cautioned not to use the topic of cancer in their work. Cancer is too morbid, and it upsets readers. But then cancer is also a part of life, albeit a grim part. I'll miss Trish, but her family and friends, I'm certain, will feel it a lot more profoundly. She was that sort of a decent person.

For a few weeks now, I've tweeted. Mash a message into a 140 characters. Yeah, I can do that. I write in a laconic style. Learn arcane commands. Check. I'm an old UNIX user. I've yet to figure out just what to say. Retweets (RT) have given me some fits. Hash (#) marks are, I've come to believe, a separate art unto themselves. But I know the difference between the "followers" and the "following." I also grabbed my own handle: @edlynskey (in case anybody wishes to "follow" me). I read how some of the famous brand names didn't move fast enough to claim theirs. Snooze, you lose. During slow times, I scan the feeds. Some folks' tweets are creative, others are witty, while others are informative. That's cool. I put out reminders of my book giveaways, big reviews of my books, and pointers to my blogs like this one as well as other stuff. Anyway, I'm getting there. I think.

True story. I take off for Home Depot with my list in my hip pocket. I pull in and park. So far, so good. I find and buy what I need and go to drive off. On the straightaway, I mash the gas pedal and the engine revs but the transmission doesn't engage third gear.

Even the mechanically-challenged like me can tell this isn't good. The engine revs, but I can only get to 30 m.p.h. I'm cussing a blue streak. So, I limp home, leaving no accidents or enraged fellow motorists in my wake.

Then my wife follows me to the repair shop. The counter guy with a con man's face hears my complaint. They'll fix my car. I'm so going to get screwed, I figure.

Later I return to the repair shop. The tansmission fluid was too low, I'm told. The counter guy hands me the bill. I'm sweating, but everything is zeroes on the bill. I ask if there's been a mistake. He smiles. "No charge, sir."

When did that last happen to you?

By Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Satisfying."
The Rap Sheet/Kirkus Reviews

We lived in a rural county for two decades, and not once did I recieve a summons to report for jury duty. After our big move to fat city, I've gotten two summons in the mail within a five- year period. As a crime fiction writer, I've found both times to be fascinating.

The first instance I spent most of the morning and afternoon chilling in the bullpen lounge with the other prospective jurors. Everybody was pretty relaxed. Many of us read. My book was an early Bill Pronzini Nameless PI title. Love that series.

We got our numbers called, and we had to schlep upstairs to the big corridor of courtrooms. But I never made it into the courtroom. Leaving after we'd been dismissed by the deputy sheriff, I figured I'd never get another shot. My wife just smiled at my prediction.

The second time round, things turned more interesting. It was the same drill as the first time, but I made it inside the courtroom. The defendant was accused of exposing himself to an old lady. Jeez. Okay, whatever. Anyway, I waited as they waded through the jurors selection process. One lady asked to be excused, and she was after a sidebar. I didn't get picked, and the judge sent us home.

I've heard or read somewhere attorneys don't like to select the well-educated jurors. Maybe it's bunk. I don't know. Maybe I'll get a third call up and number three will be the charm. If so, I'll take along a good Ed Gorman or Megan Abbott title, or who knows? Maybe by them I'll own a Kindle to read from.

Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles and Quiet Anchorage

In 1973 I was a Boy Scout Honor Guard at Richard M. Nixon’s Inaugural Parade. "Tricky Dicky" was his not-so-flattering nickname. Every Inauguration I have a memory of in Washington, D.C. is a frigid cold ceremony befitting penguins, and Mr. Nixon's was no exception.

The inaugural parade was fun until the shaggy headed Vietnam War protesters yelled obscenities at us. I guess it was the uniform on thirteen-year-old kids. I also recall seeing the armed figures poised on the high rooftops of government office buildings.

Before long, the President approached on the parade route. Heart in my throat, I squeezed in between the sharp elbows for a better look. I was startled, then crestfallen. Gray and haggard, flashing his signature Victory signs and a lopsided smile from the passing open-air limo, Nixon appeared, to borrow my Aunt Isabel’s expression, like death eating a cracker.

The honor guard detail stayed in a warm government building, maybe a 30-second’s march from the Presidential Review Stand around the block. Our detail was to be relieved every few minutes so that every Boy Scout had their shot at brief shot at glory. A junior officer led a new foursome to the review stand and guided the old one back. The rest of us watched it the parade on a portable black-and-white TV.

Across the room, the Brigadier General in charge of us sat perched on a metal desk, his trenchcoat unbuttoned. His conversation offered a spirited defense for continuing to wage war in Southwest Asia. I wasn't so convinced. By the parade’s end, more than half of the Boy Scouts, myself included, hadn’t made it to Nixon's review stand.

Disappointed, I felt sorrier for the junior officer sitting in front of the TV and crying. Had the stress of that cold afternoon worn him down to an emotional wreck?

Ed Lynskey
twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles

Remember him during the 2008 presidential campaign? I have't kept up, I guess. My bad.

That set me to thinking of our "fifteen minutes of fame" occurring once in our lifetimes. Have you gotten to bask in your fifteen minutes under the limelights? If so, how was it? Or maybe you've cashed in your fifteen minutes and didn't even know it. Pity.

I've heard or read of other authors who worry about their literary legacy. They sweat over whether their words will live on after they die. Of course, the statistical answer stares them square in the face: NO!

Look it, every year the library systems cull out millions of books from their systems. They have no choice. Millions of more new books are getting published and distributed. Your and my books will get pulled. The next generations will ask WHO? if our names ever come up in converations.

Or maybe there's an eternal quality to cyberspace and our e-books will remain out there for the future readers to download, or ignore.


Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles

I can't define a writer's "voice." Maybe it's like pornography: you know it when you see it, or in the case of novels, when you read it.

For instance, I just finished up reading a Declan Hughes PI Ed Loy series title. Mr. Hughes projects a great voice. So does Daniel Woodrell, James Crumley, Walter Mosley, Megan Abbott...okay, you get the gist of my point.

It seems a writer's "voice" either hits or misses in its appeal to any reader. In other words, you're either hot or cold but rarely indifferent to writer's style of telling the story at hand.

From a personal standpoint, I can say reviewers and readers have either gone thumbs up and thumbs down with gusto on my novels. Fortunely, more have been the thumbs up. But it's (voice, I'm saying) mine. It's my distinctive brand, how I can stand out from other authors.

I don't lay claim to flying as high as the aforementioned writers. Not in a hundred years. But I can claim I like reading their books because their "voice" strikes a clear bell to chime inside me. It's one of the pleasures I get from engaging the printed page.

Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles

This week I was assigned a short story collection to review by an author I was familiar with, and I got a kick out of reading it. Sweet.

I started out writing my fiction in the short story form. Dozens of my short stories appeared online, and some may still be out there. In 2007, I published my debut novel, a private eye title, The Dirt-Brown Derby.

So, I've been thinking about short stories again. I wonder just who reads them anymore? I know I very seldom got any feedback, good or bad, from readers. Are short stories relevant any longer relevant?

The large publishers don't bring out short story collections anymore. I can only guess it's not a money-making (or maybe not enough money-making) proposition for them.

On the other hand, I suspect there's a hard-core (but silent) group of readers out there. I know my short story collection of Frank's capers, Out of Town a Few Days, out in Kindle still sells albeit not in big numbers.

Ed Lynskey
twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles

A number of years ago, I went on two business trips to Turkey. One weekend I left Ankara for a sightseeing jaunt to visit the underground cities located in Cappadocia. It has to stand as one of the most unusual if not striking places I've ever visited.

You might google "Cappadocia" to view the pictures if you're intrigued enough. My words sure can't do it enough justice. It's like a Marscape. The place left enough of an impression on me to set one of my PI Frank Johnson titles, Troglodytes there.

I'm a bit claustrophobic so being stooped over to scrabble down the tunnels and corridors chiseled into the underground stone left me a little queasy. (Frank doesn't enjoy the experience either.) That said, I loved Cappadocia. It has a marvelous beauty leaving you speechless and breathless. It has to qualify as one of Turkey's--no, make that the world's--jewels.

Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles

For me as an author (plus reader), the short answer is yes.

To be well-read in your preferred fiction genre is an essential. Time might be the big hang up. There isn't enough of it to dip into the dead authors' books. Or there's enough time to hit just the classics. Crime fiction would include Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald, Cain, Thompson, and the list goes on.

I'm rereading Dorothy Uhnak's The Bait, the Edgar winner for the Best First Novel in 1969. I like it, obviously. She died in 2006. Yesterday I checked our library's catalog. All but one of her novels have been culled from the stacks. Poof. Gone. No more. I'm told culling happens when the books haven't been checked out in a while. Makes sense but it bugs me when the old books disappear like hers.

On the other hand, fiction written in 2011 is for 2011 readers. Authors don't rely on or need to know what came before them. Tradition isn't important or relevant. Try as I might, I just can't buy into that line of thinking.

Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles