Two Sentence Tuesday

I've had a pretty darn good writing month (so far) in January. I’m happily stuck in the 1880s with my anti-hero Cash Laramie and his partner, Gideon Miles. The following two lines are from my just finished short story titled "Cash Laramie and the Painted Ladies."

Cash snaked back, kicked in the remnants of the door with both feet, and fired off a flurry of lead from his Colt. One slug opened a dark hole in Dice's forehead, slamming the would-be assassin back against the bed where he remained draped over the edge.

I am working on a few other Cash & Miles adventures with other writers and once they're done I will have twelve of these in the can. Now I am dedicated to finishing the novel tentatively titled SHOWDOWN AT LARK’S PASS.

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In 2011 I have decided to read some classics that until now have escaped me. I'm halfway through THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde. Two lines:

"The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."

For more Two Sentence fun click over to my good friends at Women of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday: Bugs

Two sentences from Richard Stark's The Jugger (1965):

The voice was a centipede, a long twisty bug with needle-sharp feet running back and forth on the left side of his face, driving its needle feet into the bone beside his eye and into his cheekbone and into the bone above his ear. His face hurt like fury; it hurt every time the voice sounded, and the voice sounded all the time.

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In keeping with the creepy crawler theme. Here are two three lines from my short story, "The Wind Scorpion."

Cash looked down at the black-and-tan creature with its slender body and multiple long legs. Beady eyes centered on the top of a large head stared straight up at him and large pincher-like jaws opened and closed tightly on the twig that Mary had thrust in front of it. "Is it venomous?"

For more Two Sentence fun click over to my good friends at Women of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I have previously mentioned my short story titled "Justice Served" and my reluctance to let it go. Well, yesterday, I did just that and it will be appearing in the outstanding Dark Valentine's Winter issue. Two lines:

A word from Cash to the saloon owner had gotten Misun the job and the much-needed money to keep his family from starving. He was an honorable man who didn’t deserve to be shot in the back by a hateful, rich kid like Brant Macy.

This story is pithy clocking in at 1,200 plus words but is pivotal in the Cash Laramie canon. Why? Well, you will have to check out the DV issue. I'll keep you informed when it has been released. Thanks to Charlie Whipple, Scott D. Parker, and Little d on this one. Special thanks to Katherine Tomlinson.

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As soon as I arrived back in the states, I picked up a copy of Chris F. Holm's 8 Pounds: Eight Tales of Crime, Horror, & Suspense. Mr. Holm is one of the finest writers around and this short story collection deserves a huge following. Here's a paragraph from "The Toll Collectors."

As he walked, though, he began to sense something, something at the periphery of his awareness. Elusive, disquieting. The trees gathered tight to the road, splitting the edges of the pavement and encroaching on the night sky above. And from somewhere within them, he sensed... attention.

I've had a hell of a time with jet lag this past week and 8 Pounds kept me going with its edge of the proverbial seat tales. C'mon check it out. It is only $0.99! You will not be disappointed.

And head over to check out the Women of Mystery and more TwoFers.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I have a western coming up this weekend at BEAT to a PULP with these lines:

A fur trader with his hand lassoed around a saloon girl clamored for a refill and Knox excused himself to oblige. Miles sipped his whiskey, enjoying his last bit of peace before his manhunt for Van Jones began.

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Here are two from the Hard Case Crime I'm reading called The Corpse Wore Pasties by Jonny Porkpie.

"Porky, honey, baby, sweetheart, be careful what you accuse me of, especially in here," she whispered. "You could be on the sidewalk and bleeding in five seconds..."

On some more blatant self promotion, I'm very pleased to say BTAP will be publishing a short story from Hard Case guru, Charles Ardai, titled "A Free Man." His tale will be one of twenty seven in the upcoming anthology BEAT to a PULP: Round 1.

For more TwoFers, click on the Women Of Mystery.

Btw, what are you reading?

Two Sentence Tuesday

THE WATER ROOM by Christopher Fowler contains these two horror tinged lines:

By the time she was able to gently lift it free, the cat was dead. Kallie glanced back at the little terraced house, its interior darkened, its brickwork retreating from sight under cover of rainfall, as if the property was disassociating itself from her palpable distress.

This is my first Bryant & May mystery but it won't be the last. Top read.

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My short story, "The Wind Scorpion," featuring Cash Laramie is coming up later this year.

There was no way of knowing how far he’d have to wander to find a stream, and, in his weakened condition, without a gun, he’d be no match for the treacherous Wyoming terrain and wildlife. He knew he must stick to the road that eventually would lead to Vermillion, water, and, hopefully, the men who left him to die.

For more TwoFers, click on the Women Of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday

From one of my favorite novels, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES:

To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

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My two are from "Joe's Girl" which I plan to post on EOPW soon.

I looked around at the cramped, unkempt cemetery—the tall grass, the tipped over headstones—and it struck me as appropriate. It was cluttered, like the departed lives and the messes they left behind.

For more Two Sentence Tuesday, here's the Women Of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday

This week's TwoFer is the 'blows to the head' edition. My two in progress:

Grabbing the barrel of the Colt, Cash smashed the butt into his prisoner’s head. Shorty let out a shriek, his body lurched as he reached for his face with bound hands.

This rough draft has the working title Cash Laramie: Showdown At Lark's Pass. The current Laramie story can be found in A FISTFUL OF LEGENDS.

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A co-worker was reading Henning Mankel's BEFORE THE FROST and I asked to borrow it when he finished. It's the first in the series billed as a Kurt and Linda Wallander Novel. Two lines:

The blow to her face came with the force of a charging predator. She was plunged into a deep and bottomless darkness.

For more Two Sentence Tuesday, here's the Women Of Mystery.

TwoFer Tuesday

As I prepared for an extended boat ride, knowing I'd have plenty of time to read, I grabbed some old favorites off the bookshelf and packed them in my suitcase. I realized after lugging around an extra 10 pounds of paper that I should have followed in the footsteps of Clare2e, who has championed the new technology, by purchasing a Kindle. I'll keep it in mind for the next time, but for this trip, one book that proved it's worth in excess weight was Raymond Chandler's THE HIGH WINDOW. Here are two famous lines from this classic:

From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.

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And now from my short story "Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil," coming out soon, are two lines from a scene where Cash is examining the grisly remains of a fellow marshal:

The sword’s entry through the soft tissue of the neck and exit point through the mouth had ripped the tongue and left it dangling. The detached ear lay in the box next to the head.

For more Two Sentence Tuesday, here's the Women Of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I've been absent from the TwoFer posting for awhile but am now returning with some lines that will be published in print before year’s end. The title is Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil:

Drawing his Colt, Boland pulled back the hammer with a ratcheting click and fired three shots at the oncoming apparition. Then he pitched to the side, his hat tumbling away, as the legs of the ghostly white horse came crashing down beside him.

I had previously posted lines from this piece in June when it was still a work in progress.

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Cornell Woolrich remains a huge influence and since I've been traveling, I've taken the time to really savor the re-publication of Fright. I read just a chapter a day, often re-reading certain paragraphs to allow Woolrich's exceptional prose to really settle in.

He kept his face back beyond her reach. He had a longer arm-span than she, and her hands flickered help-lessly upon his arms, like wriggling snakes trying to clamber up a pair of fallen tree trunks.

The ladies at Women of Mystery can supply you with more Two Sentence Tuesday here.

Two Sentence Tuesday

Ernest Hemingway remains a strong source of inspiration for me and one of his greatest short stories, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, begins with these four lines:

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the "Ngaje Njai," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.

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I've written several flash fiction pieces in the style of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. This semi-autobiographical series follows the life of a man named Henry. Two Lines:

I placed my finger in the snow that had collected on the edge of the tree stand and ran my hand along the side watching the flurries drop to the ground. I waited in silence with my father.

The story is called "The Tree Stand" and can be read in its entirety here. And the engaging ladies at Women of Mystery can supply you with more TwoFers here.

Two Sentence Tuesday

Two lines from THE WAY SOME PEOPLE DIE, a Ross Macdonald story that I recently blogged about, keep coming back to me:

His skin was fresh and boyish, but there was something the matter with his eyes. They were brown and wet and protuberant, as if they had been dipped in muddy water and stuck on his face to dry.

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My two are from a western short (super rough) tentatively called Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil:

A horned figure with a dark crimson face and black flowing cape, theatrically waving a glimmering cutlass, barreled down on the trio of lawmen. Boland reached for his peacemaker.

The ladies at Women of Mystery can supply you with more Two Sentence Tuesday here.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I knew David Dodge wrote TO CATCH A THIEF but had read little else by him. Thanks to the fine folks at Hard Case Crime, I can now add THE LAST MATCH to my list. I do a fair amount of traveling and the protagonist’s wandering spirit--Monaco, Brazil, Tangier, Peru, etc--spoke to me as a fellow gypsy of sorts. Though, I'll stick to the on-the-level profession of writing and not turn to crime as Dodge’s character does. Two lines:

They wanted the cutter and its load, not prisoners or corpses they would have to account for. But they kept machine-guns chattering at us, and I could feel the cigarette cartons at my back jerk, flinch and wince, or thought I could, as the slugs went into them.

What great prose! And there’s also a really touching afterward from David Dodge’s daughter which led me to a website where I gathered a few more titles to be added to my collection in the near future. A really engaging writer and rip-roaring story.

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My two lines (plus a bonus line) are from “The Sins of Maynard Shipley.” The rough draft came together in less than a day which was a welcomed first for me.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and I’m pushing the book cart from one geriatric’s room to the next. Chekhov, Hemingway, Joyce? I mean, for the love of Pete, half of them can’t remember they’ve shit their pants and I’m offering them Ulysses.

I'm a natural stickler when it comes to my yarns so who knows when it will see the light of day as I polish, re-polish and then triple shine. Until then, check out more TwoFers at Women of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I keep a mental list of my top ten favorite dead authors (yes, folks I do) that keeps evolving over time. I mean, it started understandably with H.A. Rey and A.A. Milne in the number one and two spots respectively. Today, Ernest Hemingway holds #1 with Agatha Christie at #4. Spots #3 and #4 keep rotating between Raymond Chandler and Norbert Davis. Since I have no two lines of my own this week I will feature two sides of Davis’s gifted style. First, the humorous side that he’s famous for from 1943’s SALLY’S IN THE ALLEY:

She was wearing white linen slacks, and a white jacket trimmed with big brass buttons, and white open-toed pumps, and a red sash around her waist. She pulled all the life out of the lobby and focused it on herself, like a little boy sucking soda through a straw.

And since I can’t do this next passage (also from SALLY) justice with just two and April 18th being Norbert Davis’s 100th b-day here’s 2x2 and the reason he rivals Chandler in my humble opinion:

The Mojave Desert at sunset looks remarkably like a painting of a sunset on the Mojave Desert which, when you come to think of it, is really quite surprising. Except that the real article doesn’t show such good color sense as the average painting does. Yellows and purples and reds and various other violent subunits of the spectrum are splashed all over the sky, in a monumental exhibition of bad taste. They keep moving and blurring and changing around, like the color movies they show in insane asylums to keep the idiots quiet.

The Women of Mystery will have more awe-inspiring two-fers. On the 18th, I plan to re-run an old post to celebrate Norbert’s b-day.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I just finished The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block. This 1983 story features gentleman burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr. Two lines:

That charged-up sensation, that fire-in-the-blood, every-cell-alive feeling. I've had it ever since I first broke into a neighbor's house in my early teens, and all the intervening years, all the crimes and all the punishments, have not dulled or dimmed it in the slightest.

From a thief to a murderer. My two come from a short story I've been working on for several months titled "Vengeance on the 18th."

Truman raised the pick and brought it down hard into his friend’s temple. He wrestled the pick out of Jackson’s head and went back to digging with the bloody tool dripping specks of brain.

The ladies at WOM have more Tuesday thrills.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I just finished reading The Lawman by Robert J. Randisi, a western tale that clips right along at breakneck speed. I’ll be heading back to the store to pick up, the first title in this remarkable series, Double the Bounty, recently reviewed by Bookgasm.

Two thrilling lines from The Lawman:

He staggered back, clutching his throat as blood continued to pour from his mouth, and then he fell over. Decker picked up his gun and walked over to where Ramon was lying, Jose close behind him.

I'm reluctant to follow on the heels of Randisi with my two lines, but I'll couch it in the fact that it's a work in progress:

A black and blue goose-egg swelled on Shorty’s forehead and blood had begun to cake around it. He came to, mumbling, his body stiffened when he felt the hard steel of Laramie’s colt on his forehead.

The ladies at WOM have more Tuesday thrills.

*A friendly reminder that Wild West Monday is fast approaching. I will have western themed posts for the remainder of the week heading into WWM.

*Don’t forget to check out Short Barrel Fiction leading the way with some new yarns from Susan McQueen and Corinne J. Brown.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I’m reading Crime & Punishment, a graphic novel based on the Dostoevsky classic. Alain Korkos and David Zane Mairowitz vividly update this psychological thriller to present day Russia. Two lines:

You think I’m depraved. But there’s something eternal in depravity, a fire burning in the blood, which can’t be extinguished.

Straight from a rough draft of mine:

Only seconds before, her face glowed in deep pleasure, and now, it twisted into a grimace of pain as bullets plunged into her back. Ethan quickly cleared his weapon from its holster and pegged Doig in his left shoulder.

There are more 2-4-Tuesday thrills over at WOM.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I've been reading Thuglit Presents hardcore hardboiled edited by Todd Robinson. This collection features stories from Ken Bruen, Victor Gischler, and Duane Swierczynski among many others. Sean Chercover's "A Sleep Not Unlike Death" has been nominated for an Edgar and here are the first two lines from this fine story:

Gravedigger Peace was already sitting up when his eyes opened. It had been years since the nightmares, but his face and forearms were clammy with perspiration and his heart was racing, so he assumed there’d been one.

Todd himself will have next week’s punch at BTAP with the captivating title of "Caveat Venditor, Caveat Emptor."

I’m going to pass on my own two lines this week but no need to be faint of heart... the ladies at WOM will supply you with more two-fer Tuesday thrills.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I’ve been reading Robert B novels since 1984’s Valediction. I'm currently enjoying the Bostonian author's 2007 release, High Profile, featuring Paradise police chief, Jesse Stone. These two lines are from the opening chapter:

In the years since he’d come to Paradise he never remembered, from year to year, how pretty spring was in the Northeast. He stood now among the opening flowers and the new leaves, looking at a dead man, hanging by his neck from the limb of a tree in the park, on Indian Hill, overlooking the harbor.

My own two lines come from a short story I’m currently whipping into shape called "Stranglehold":

I had the strange sensation she was cheating on me. It made me wonder who was the bigger fool—her husband for sharing her or me for feeling jealous.

For more Two Sentence excitement, check out the Women of Mystery blog.

Two Sentence Tuesday

For the longest time, the only Graham Greene I'd ever been exposed to was the film version of The Third Man starring Orson Welles. But now I have another one of Greene's work under my belt. I just finished reading Our Man in Havana re-published in 2007 by Penguin with a very in depth introduction by Christopher Hitchens. Highly recommended. My two lines pick from this classic are:

The complaint was of a serious nature: she had set fire to a small boy called Thomas Earl Parkman, Jr. It was true, the Reverend Mother admitted, that Earl, as he was known in the school, had pulled Millie’s hair first, but this she considered in no way justified Millie’s action which might well have had serious results if another girl had not pushed Earl in a fountain.

I've already shared something from each of my in-progess pieces for Two for Tuesday, so I thought instead I'd plug my recent short story, "Blubber," published in OOTG #5:

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," she muttered, feeling a sudden jab of horror as she realized the loathsome implications of the ad she had posted on craigslist. She paused, debating whether or not she should walk away.

For more Two Sentence thrills, check out the Women of Mystery blog.

Two Sentence Tuesday

I recently read William P. McGivern's Odds Against Tomorrow. Two lines (ok, three) from this great pulp:

"You afraid of getting a ticket?" Earl's foot came down hard on Ingram's, pushing the accelerator flat against the floor boards. The car leaped ahead like an angry animal into the walls of rainwater, the motor snarling under the full load of power.

Has anyone seen the film based on this book? The stellar cast includes Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, and Ed Begley. The Wikipedia write-up claims it is the first noir of the classic period with an African-American protagonist.

My two lines come from a story with the original title of "The Education of a Pulp Writer" coming up in the April Issue of Cindy Rosmus's Yellow Mama.

“I’m not some sicko. I’m a pulp writer who has to think, occasionally, like a sicko to grab the attention of readers who enjoy perusing pages dedicated to the warped souls who walk amongst us.”

For more Two Sentence thrills, check out the Women of Mystery blog.