You’re channeling James M. Cain, aren’t you?I’d like to think I’m carrying on a tradition of delving into aspects of the human psyche unfit for polite society. I particularly love Cain’s political incorrectness. I believe man is half animal, made in the image of God. Too often, the animal gets the upper hand.
I don't think I've ever read anything quite like "M-N-S (n) murder-necrophilia-suicide" before. Where did that come from? I have no idea either. Possibly a demon whispered it in my ear. He might have heard that performing a good deed for a struggling writer might help him out of Hell. I went through countless drafts and two rejections, and finally Anthony Neil Smith picked it up for
Plots With Guns and helped me finesse it. It got lots of attention—a Thriller Award nomination, which is pretty good for a little e-zine story up against some big guys in print, and my second
Spinetingler nom. Stuff like M-N-S has been done before. CS Lewis wrote
The Screwtape Letters back in the early sixties. My success with M-N-S showed me that people out there are reading and watching, including agents, editors and reviewers. Writers don't have to bash down doors to get attention. If I just put all my energy into writing good, better, best, it'll get noticed and rewarded, if it's worthy.
I was encouraged by your recent bio at BEAT to a PULP, that you take your time writing. From beginning to end, how long does a short story sit in your computer before it sees the light of day published.I don't like to take my time, I'd like to dash something off and see it in print the next day--that's in my dreams, of course. Unfortunately, I have this little voice in my head nagging that there's a loose end, or a comma out of place, and it keeps me working and working at it. I can get the basic structure of a story in an evening or three, but then it takes months of polishing.
Once all my "readers" who are (fellow-writers that I beg for feedback) can't find anything to criticize, and I'm happy with the story, the next stage is a very long process of never less than fifty drafts where I sound out each phrase and look at the cadence and rhythm of how the words connect to each other. I move commas around, change adjectives, until the eye speeds through the story uninterrupted, like it's a catchy song on iTunes. Then it's ready.
I think the fastest story I wrote was "
Claw Marks." I wrote the outline on the back of an envelope while waiting for a friend to show up at a restaurant. I finished it the next day, and then polished it for a couple of weeks and sent it off to D.Z. Allen’s Muzzle Flash. When DZ discontinued the site, Christopher Grant kindly reprinted it at
A Twist Of Noir.
The longest project was "
The Master Bedroom" written on and off for two years, 150 drafts and consultations with a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a family therapist. I still don't think it's perfect, but as Oscar Wilde said, "Books are never finished, they are merely abandoned." I also think Michael Crichton hit it when he said, "Books aren't written--they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it."
To tell you the truth, for the amount of work I put into my stuff, you'd think it would be better.
Tell us a little about A-9's childhood?I was raised in a sleepy little hamlet to doting, well-adjusted parents who stayed married forever and cared for me and nurtured me and kept me from harm. They said that one day a large bird with a long beak flew in and deposited me on the porch. Isn’t that where all crime writers come from?
How well do you accept criticism--the good, the bad and the ugly. When to listen and when not?Let’s put it this way: I accept it, whether I like it or not. I only accept criticism from others who know and love the genre. There’s no sense taking notes on a crime story from a romance writer, or a high school English teacher, it's the worst thing you can do to yourself. If they also happen to know and love crime, fine, then they qualify. And I mean those who read on a weekly basis. I’m not talking about somebody who read a Robert Ludlum novel last year and enjoyed it, and thinks they can critique crime. The only exception to that rule is my number one critic, the Gas Man. He’s a real gas man, with grease under his fingernails, testosterone in his veins, and a restless attention span. He rarely reads books, but he can do math in his head and fix anything under the sun. He reads all my stories first. If he’s not entertained or sold on the plot and the ending, there’s no getting around it. Back to the drawing board. If it passes the Gas Man, then I send it to my writing colleagues for further criticism. A story is ready when everybody disagrees on what needs to be changed. If two people come back with the same complaint, I take it seriously. Just like if two people tell you you’re drunk, you better sit down. But if everybody disagrees, then it’s coming down to taste, so I choose mine.
Do you think the majority of tomorrow's print writers will have found their start in ezines? I don’t know if a majority will, but some of them, for sure. I know a couple of e-zine writers, just regular people, that write great stuff and have been contacted by famous agents and asked if they have a novel manuscript yet. Get this: they’re not contacting the agent, the agent is tracking them down. I know from personal contact that million-selling writers and agents who represent them are trolling the e-zines looking for talent. They may be looking for ideas too, which is a whole other risk, but let’s stay on the bright side.
E-zines give a writers a start. You don’t have to know anybody, you don’t even have to buy a stamp. You can submit a story and based on the merit of your stuff, you either get published or you don’t. I don’t know how somebody like Patti Abbott does it. She writes great, quality stories and she runs a full-time blog, plus a full-time job and a family. Charles Gramlich is everywhere, leaving comments, encouraging others, and he writes novels and has a full-time teaching job and a family.
When I started from scratch three years ago, I was petrified. So many editors seemed menacingly judgmental. I was so intimidated that I submitted my first story to one site and waited five months, too scared to peep at them. I never heard back, ever. I’m pretty sure they just abandoned it and never checked emails. Finally Glenn Gray emailed and said, “For goodness sake, send it somewhere else!” So I tried ThugLit, and I immediately got an auto-response saying my story had been received and I only needed to wait 30 days and they gave me the date and everything. There and then, I decided never to submit to a site again that didn’t treat me nicely and at least tell me the story had been received. I am literally white-knuckled for weeks waiting to hear about acceptance or rejection, and writers deserve a little consideration. I almost wrote, Rude editors can go fuck themselves, but I thought the better of it. I’ve got a career to worry about.
My ultimate point is, nobody is writing in a vacuum online. Eyes and ears are watching and listening. I only send out my very best, because Murphy’s Law says the biggest agent will find my sloppiest story and judge me on it. My feeling is I risk everything on whatever story is my most recent. I use the fewest words possible to tell the best story possible. I don’t waste the Gas Man’s time; he’s tired and I bust my hump to keep his attention, just like he busts his out there on the gas lines of Los Angeles. Once I’m sure the story is right, I’m prepared to fight an editor and withdraw a story to preserve its integrity. But that’s never happened yet. Most of the time, comments are spot-on and I’m grateful for anybody caring that much to ask for a change.
What is your greatest fear?That I'll become a rich, successful writer and own a private island, surrounded by servants and adoring friends, but I'll never be as happy as I was at the Beetford Mall Hair Removal Kiosk.
I came up with the character Gideon Miles after reading the unsung adventures of Bass Reeves, one of the first, if not the first, African American U.S. Marshals of the Old West. As a matter of fact, the scene where Miles plays possum is my homage to the true life Reeves who pretended to be dead to get the drop on a wanted man he was tracking. 
