Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

When your brain interferes with the writing process

John Dunning's about to tour for his latest Cliff Janeway novel, but as he tells the Arizona Republic, writing it -- and previous books -- is tough going because he has Attention Deficit Disorder:

All his life he has suffered from attention-deficit disorder, which led him to drop out of school in the 10th grade. His condition was diagnosed only eight years ago, when his teenage daughter received her diagnosis.

"When the doctor told us that it was a genetically loaded disorder, everyone in the room turned and looked at me. That’s when I knew."

Dunning says his condition, which is characterized by racing thoughts that jump from subject to subject, is severe enough that even today he has trouble paying attention to anyone or anything long enough to take in information. "I can go to someone’s house, be introduced, then be taken to the back yard to see their prize-winning roses. But by the time I get back in the house, I’ve forgotten why the heck I’m there or who I’m talking to."

Medication can help those suffering from ADD, but it’s off-limits to Dunning because he has high blood pressure. But he manages to muddle through — however slowly.

   "It takes me about an hour to write a single paragraph, and then it’s usually a terrible paragraph," he says.

"If you could see the first drafts of my books, they would scare you to death because they look like they were written by the village idiot. But when I start on the rewrites something happens. Still, because of the ADD, it takes me at least twice as long to write a book as it does anybody else."

Focusing on a project for long periods of time is often critical to producing a finished work, and no doubt having ADD hinders Dunning in this pursuit. But his story is about an otherwise able-bodied man making the most of a condition he's had all his life. Canadian mystery writer Howard Engel, however, is another story altogether, as I explain after the jump.

Scotland writers: too depressing for words?

Edinburgh-based literary agent Jenny Brown would like to see a few changes to the kind of books written by Scottish writers:

THE row over whether Scotland is a country populated by inward-looking people who celebrate failure and revel in a "culture of poverty" took another twist yesterday when a leading literary agent said Scottish writing was dour, dark and in need of sexing up.

Jenny Brown, a former director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said: "In an age where readers are looking for feel-good novels, Scotland excels at feel-bad books."

She said the black comedy of contemporary Scottish novels - when even sex was "dark, perverted" - could be one reason they don’t get made into films. "We would probably do well to cultivate other novelists with voices who are putting forward an alternative picture."

Naturally, such comments did not inspire shiny happy responses, one publishing honcho has a different take on things:

Bob McDevitt, who heads the new Scottish office of publishing giant Hodder Headline, said authors written off as "grim and gritty" are often very funny.

"Their characters are unemployed, dispossessed, drug-addicted, divorced, but there is still a modern sense of humour".

"I am sick of look-a-likes," he said. "What I keep seeing are Highland farces like Monarch of the Glen, Edinburgh detectives with a drink problem, or literary, druggy, Irvine Welsh-styled pastiches. What I want is original writing, not people saying Ian Rankin has done well, let’s copy him."

I'm especially interested to see what some folks have to say about this.

UPDATE: Charlie Williams had loads more to say about it, and is far more pointed.

LCC Hangovers

I'll update this thread as I get more information, so if there's a report I don't know about, or that you want to add, please do so in the comments section.

Lee Goldberg promises more, but he provided as-you-go reports as well as pictures. Although I want one of Gischler boogie-ing on the dance floor. That would have been something to see...

Bill Crider was there as well, and his report appears here.

Guest of Honor S.J. Rozan sent in a dispatch during the conference, commenting on what a strange place El Paso is. She may have more forthcoming.

King of the pulp

I can just imagine that Charles Ardai and Max Phillips have been bursting about this news for months, but now, it's official:

Stephen King, master of surprise and strange twists, is taking his writing in a new direction: pulp fiction.

The Colorado Kid, a paperback with a lurid, 1940s-style cover featuring a languid brunette (painted by Glen Orbik of Batman and Superman fame), comes out in October from publisher Hard Case Crime.

So how did this come about? Ardai and Phillips approached King to blurb a book...and he wrote one instead:

“Steve is an extraordinary writer, and as much a fan of classic paperback crime fiction as we are,” said Charles Ardai, Hard Case Crime’s editor. “We originally contacted him to see if he’d be willing to write a blurb for our line, and he decided that what he really wanted to do was write a book for us instead. We’re thrilled that he wanted to be part of Hard Case Crime and we’re very excited to get to introduce the world to the baffling mystery of The Colorado Kid.”

“This is an exciting line of books,” Stephen King commented, “and I'm delighted to be a part of it. Hard Case Crime presents good, clean, bare-knuckled storytelling, and even though The Colorado Kid is probably more bleu than outright noir, I think it has some of those old-fashioned kick-ass story-telling virtues. It ought to; this is where I started out, and I'm pleased to be back.”

And I gotta say, that cover looks freaking gorgeous.

Titles to follow after King's include reissues of Lawrence Block's THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART, a standalone suspense novel from Donald Hamilton and an early pulp piece by Ed McBain. And don't forget that Al Guthrie's KISS HER GOODBYE and Day Keene's HOME IS THE SAILOR are in stores now.

LCC Awards

The following awards were given out Saturday evening at Left Coast Crime in El Paso, Texas:

The Dilys Award (for the book Independent booksellers most enjoyed selling) was given to Jeff Lindsay for DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER.

The Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery was given to Sharan Newman for THE WITCH IN THE WELL.

The Lefty Award was a tie, given to Donna Andrews (WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARROTS) and Susan McBride (BLUE BLOOD.)

The Calavera award for best mystery in the LCC region was given to Rochelle Krich for GRAVE ENDINGS.

Congratulations to all the winners!

BTK and me

Well, that's a misnomer -- there's no personal connection between Dennis Rader and myself, though I did have the horrendous sense of deja vu when I stumbled across the cached version of his daughter's blog, as I'm fairly certain I've read it sporadically before. But that's not a real connection, nor should it be.

But as should be obvious over this weekend and from earlier writings, the case has held a deep fascination for me. I'd already contracted the true crime junkie bug in high school, collecting a vast array of cases, especially unsolved ones. But though answers to those seemed elusive, nothing would frustrate me and put my analytical skills into high gear like discovering the case history of BTK.

They got their man

(This was originally posted on Saturday, February 26 but will stay at the top of the blog throughout the weekend. Check back Sunday for new content appearing below.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, BTK (for "Bind, Torture, Kill") has been caught. A thirty-plus year reign of terror is over, and Dennis Rader is in custody. I never thought I'd see the resolution of this case during my lifetime, but I'm sure glad to be wrong.

The press conference announcing the arrest took place earlier today and I've never been so twitchy in my life.  Maybe because the first 45 minutes was devoted to back-patting and congratulations by various members of the task force without revealing any details. Maybe because Rader's name and picture weren't put in the public record until the conference was over an hour old. And it was almost amusing to see how frustrated media people were getting, even if I wanted to strangle CNN's Andrea Koppel for her interjections and airhead-like statements (honey, 1986 was not "25 years ago." Sorry.)

So who is Dennis Rader? He was a cipher, not surprisingly. President of the Lutheran Church in near his neighborhood of Park City.  A compliance officer for the government of Park City, responsible for Animal Control, Nuisances, Inoperable Vehicles and General Code Compliance, meaning that he often had easy and readily available access to people's homes. A graduate of Wichita State University in the late 1970s, studying Administrative Justice.

A family man, aged 59, married with two children, ages 26 and 29. One of whom may have been instrumental in breaking the case.

I'm still processing this, but suffice it to say I'll have more on this over the weekend, as more people report, weigh in, and make comments.

Unbelievable.

Well wishes for Donald Westlake

SF author Spider Robinson posted some very worrying news a few days ago to the newsgroup alt.callahans:

My favorite living writer, Donald E. Westlake, suffered a detached retina while in Hong Kong.  He's returning to the States for a series of 5 operations to reattach it.  The eye-patch reportedly makes him look more like a pirate than ever.

To say that this news absolutely sucks is an understatement. Here's hoping all the operations go well and that Westlake can swiftly return to doing what he does best -- writing books that entertain and delight the masses.

All the massive weekend update goodness you need

I'm still kind of in a BTK-obsessed place right now (with a long essay to come possibly later this afternoon, or tomorrow) but that doesn't mean I can't link to my new column, featuring reviews of the latest by Peter Robinson, Craig Holden, Richard Rayner, Michael Robotham and Megan Abbott.

And as for the update, well, here you go:

NYTBR: Gore Vidal is, shall we say, an interesting character, but he does sometimes write well and this essay about author James Purdy is evidence of such.

Otherwise, Sarah Vowell picks up on what makes Kelly Braffet's debut JOSIE AND JACK such a gripping novel; The "8th President in da House" gets his due in a slim biography;  and Jacob Heilbrunn wonders if Winston Churchill was actually -- gasp! -- a neocon.

How to use your column to solicit new deals

So Otto Penzler's been a very busy boy of late. Not only does he run his bookshop, put his head together with former publishing bigshot (and Random House UK consultant) Anthony Cheetham to create a new imprint with Hutchison, but he still has his weekly column at the New York Sun. Granted, hardly anyone reads the paper, but it does, on occasion, offer up some interesting items.

On February 16, Penzler waxed rhapsodic about Andrew Klavan and his current project, the Weiss & Bishop P.I. novels:

Those of us who read a lot of mystery fiction, not to mention people who watch cop shows on television and enjoy crime movies, have become very used to the notion of the odd pairing of partners, be they official members of a police force or private investigators.

In what passes for creativity, writers have matched disparate demographic types to the point that there is virtually no odd couple, no matter how far-fetched, one could imagine that hasn't been tried....

...It is the abundance of these cliched couples that makes Andrew Klavan's mismatched private investigators, Scott Weiss and Paul Bishop, such a rich reading experience. Fully realized, these fascinating tough guys have their strengths and, oh boy, do they ever have their failings. They made their debut in "Dynamite Road" and are, happily, up to their eyeballs in some really bad stuff again in "Shotgun Alley" (Forge, $24.95, 301 pages).

Although Mr. Klavan has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, made the bestseller list with "Don't Say a Word" and "True Crime" (both of which were filmed, the first with Michael Douglas and the second with Clint Eastwood), and been described by Stephen King as "the most original American novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich," he has not yet become a household name. Perhaps time will correct this injustice.

So it amused me to no end that barely one week later, this deal goes over the transom:

Author of DON'T SAY A WORD Andrew Klavan's two new suspense thrillers, the first continuing his Weiss and Bishop series, to Otto Penzler at Harcourt, by Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group (world English).

Can we say "full disclosure," boys and girls?

Never mind this other  bit from the Book Standard article I linked to:

In the future, Hutchinson will be seeking world rights to all books it publishes under the Otto Penzler name. In addition to publishing in the Commonwealth states, Hutchinson hopes to put in place relationships with international publishers to release the books in other countries, Cheetham says.

So if that's the case, why didn't Hutchinson get first crack at world rights instead of Harcourt? Oh, my brain is hurting so much right now...