Sometimes Life and Fiction Are Equally Strange

(reprinted from my post at AuthorScoop.com)

Crime fiction seems to be the topic of the week, what with the flurry of blog commentary and newspaper response to Jessica Mann’s announcement of her intention to abandon the genre over misogyny.  Then there’s my friend, John Hart, taking the Silver Dagger at the CWA Awards.

And now this from CNN, crime-fiction star, Michael Connelly’s research trip to  Hong Kong overlaps a real life case with grim parallels -

…I prepared to publish and promote my latest detective novel, “Nine Dragons,” I learned of a true mystery with eerie similarities and connections to my story and my research. It has been a heart-tugging reminder that while crime novels may be entertaining thrill rides and puzzles, they also skirt the shores of reality for many.

For myself, I do not think we (and that ‘we’ is of the healthy, non-violent collective) feast on literary tragedy and look up from our books, our faces smeared in the grease and gore of a vulture’s banquet, even if the offerings were bloody and terrible.

When the cover closes at our train stop, or for the night, or at having achieved The End, we know ourselves a little better.  We’ve met a few new people and sorted them, and their troubles, into their proper slots — or not, if it’s complicated.  Either way, we have afforded ourselves an opportunity to learn from someone else’s mistakes and also from their triumphs.

But it’s good to be reminded that there is nothing glamorous about real murder or terror or heartbreaking loss.  Pat the wall between your empathy and your mind’s storehouse, with its shelves cluttered or ordered with what intrigues you, and thank God for the luxury of its protection.

The Circle of Life

What?  Blogging isn’t life?  Nuts.

Anyway, Dr. Christopher Johnson, who appeared here just one post ago, graciously invited me to comment on kids and medicine on his blog.  So I did.

Have opinion, will travel.

You can read it here, but definitely don’t stop at that.  Dr. Johnson’s blog is stacked to the roof with interesting and informative posts.  You’ll be smarter at cocktail (or tailgate) parties, but more importantly, someday it might be something you need to know.  Be prepared.  Impress your friends and co-workers.  You cannot lose.

Enjoy!

Dr. Chris Johnson makes a guest appearance…

An opportunity rolled my way on the wheels of Dr. Christopher Johnson’s momentum, as his third book runs the gauntlet to press next year.  I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Chris twice, once for Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death Choices Parents Must Face, and the again for its follow-up, How To Talk To Your Child’s Doctor.  He hosts a website and a blog that’s not to be missed by parents or by anyone with a curiosity for a closer look at modern medicine, doctor-patient relations, and all things current to healthcare in general.

And as if that weren’t sufficient, Chris is kind enough to stop by here today with a piece to explain the joys of not being a one-trick pony:

Cross-Writing, or How a Nonfiction Writer Came To Dabble in Fiction

by Christopher Johnson, MD

I’ve written nonfiction for decades. For twenty or so of them I wrote grant proposals to various agencies to do medical research, book chapters for medical texts, and an unending string of articles for scientific journals. When I finally hung up my lab coat I had over a hundred published notches on my professional curriculum vitae belt. I got good at explaining things. So, when I decided to take a whack at publishing a book, nonfiction was the obvious way for me to go.

A funny thing happened, though, on the way to nonfiction publication — I found that many of the things I needed to explain, to describe accurately, required interesting verbs and arresting modifiers to do it well. So what I was explaining and describing in my first two nonfiction books required me to use a good measure of creativity to do it.

My third book, coming out toward the middle of next year, goes even further down the road of nonfiction cross-dressing as fiction. You could call it fiction-y nonfiction. The book is a description of the inner workings of the body as seen by an observer the size of a blood cell. The whole project is couched in the terms of a play performed on a stage. It’s got cellular heroes and germ villains, as well as more complex cellular characters who are sometimes heroic and sometimes villainous.

From that book it was only a small step to writing actual fiction. My agent is currently shopping around a novel, a medical murder mystery. She hasn’t been able to sell it yet. Perhaps this means I can write fiction, but to sell it I need to pretend it’s not. The bottom line for me is that writing is writing, and there is no reason one cannot be bipartisan, competent at both.

AuthorScoop Launches AuthorCast with Masha Hamilton and ‘31 Hours’

AuthorScoop is pleased to announce the launch of its newest feature, AuthorCast, an audio/visual book preview series hosted by Jamie Mason, in association with PsychJourney.com.

The inaugural episode is an interview with Masha Hamilton, journalist and novelist, about the release of her upcoming book, ‘31 Hours’.

‘31 Hours’ glides through the thoughts of Jonas, a young man, a free man, in the thirty-one hours leading up the violent stand he’s become convinced he must make. Jonas’ narrative shows up the line between us and them for only a suggestion, an idea, just as fluid as any idea. His whispered prayers in preparation for the ultimate act of conviction recall to us that a mind can be changed, even to the very fundamentals of morality, in the crucible of our modern lives.

Jonas’ family realizes in these same thirty-one hours that their slow-lighting intuitions have allowed him to drift beyond their reach. As their fears take shape, New York City wakes up to the last ticks of the stopwatch, but only a handful can hear it in their hearts and race to the source before it’s too late.

AuthorCast at AuthorScoop – Masha Hamilton, ‘31 Hours’

‘31 Hours’ by Masha Hamilton is available at Amazon.com.

I just flew in from Nashville and, boy, are my…

… oh wait.  I didn’t fly.  I drove.  But as my insufficiently padded little car has about a four hour butt-limit, there’s a pair of tired spots (could actually be closer to pulverized) right in the vicinity of where I’ve been attacked by the driver’s seat.

I attended the Killer Nashville Literary Conference this past weekend and, as usual, it ended too soon.  Wonderful production, Killer Nashville.  Geared towards writers of mystery, crime, and thriller fiction, this annual event features scores of lectures and panel discussions on writing craft, the publishing business, and a string of presentations for source material presented by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and other experts.  This year there were classes on the art and science of surveillance, reconstructing shootings, poisons, real case studies, and an excellent primer on psychopathy, just to name a few.

The TBI also stages a crime scene contest each year, in a light version of the course they use to quiz professional law enforcement.  Yours truly got to help set up this time and it’s probably not hard to imagine how much fun it is playing go-fer for two career sleuths oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the realistic consistency of their secret-recipe fake blood.  See for yourself the fruits of our labor -

(photos courtesy of C.H. Valentino, because I’m simply too dumb to remember my camera)

I can’t decide if I should say what they used for brains.  You’ll never look at a child’s kitchen playset the same way if I do.

I gained new appreciation for my friend, Butch Wilson, over at www.tech4writers.com.  He’s an angel anyway, but his knowledge of how to get the best freeware/shareware/open source tools for writers easily filled the two presentations he gave during the weekend.  Need nifty technology?  Click above and you will not be sorry.

And finally there was me.  On Sunday morning, I gave a talk, Write What You Know – Learn What You Don’t, and if I was a little long-winded on the philosophical side of telling the truth in fiction, I did at least leave the attendees with a list of internet resources that is by no means complete.  It’s reprinted here, at Tech4Writers, and I hope more than anything, it sparks a notion of all the things we could get right, if only we’d ask.  My little group of Sunday morning diehards battled their (and my) party fatigue and made something quite fine of the whole affair.

Special thanks to a few people, out of a terrific group as a whole, who made the bruising to my tailbone more than worth it:  Beth Terrell; Clay Stafford; Philip Lacy; Butch Wilson; Special Agent Mike Breedlove, TBI; Special Agent Dan Royse, TBI; Addie King; C.H. Valentino; and Dr. Stephen Benning, Vanderbilt University.

Only three hundred and fifty-some days until next year’s Killer Nashville.  See you there!

Writers Digest Features ‘The Unbreakable Child’

My friend, Kim Michele Richardson, has to be pleased that the current issue of Writers Digest has included THE UNBREAKABLE CHILD in their Writer’s Workbook feature.  ‘Master The Memoir Basics: 5 Essentials’ references Kim’s story as a wonderful model of how to craft a hopeful ending.

“It’s a gut-wrenching book, but two things save it from being merely depressing… It delivers what the title promises…”

Excellent endorsement, and an helpful example to those in the throes of their own life’s story.  Way to go, my lovely.

Still breathing…

Been running silly, but I’m still here.  Sort of.

In truth, I’m 70% on cloud nine, 20% business-as-usual, and 10% asleep.  The contributing factors to this math are as follows: I accepted an offer of representation from an incredible agent for my manuscript, went to Ireland, the UK, and Washington, DC for nearly a month, and am trying to recapture a productive schedule after all that.

So, hello if you see this!  And here -

‘Life in Rewind’ and PsychJourney’s Podcast Interview Series

I wear a few hats.  When I can be bothered to dress from top to toes and make myself useful, that is.  Sometimes it’s just to tote my own shade with me wherever I go.  Sometimes, there’s actually a point to it.

I’ve been given the opportunity to do a little podcast journalism and commentary with PsychJourney.com. Mostly I read interesting books and get to pick the brains of the authors for my own enlightenment. But PsychJourney’s set-up means the whole deal is recorded and posted here, so everyone can hear what these authors had to say.

I’ve talked to some really interesting people.

Thanks to the PR department over at Harper Collins, I’ve been able to squeeze two interviews out of one book, Life in Rewind, the amazing story of one man’s triumph over one of the most profound cases of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ever documented.  Author Terry Weible Murphy and the subject himself, Ed Zine, spoke with me in two separate interviews on how a book about disaster is really a book about hope.

Have a look and a listen, if you’d like.

Doing a bit o’ blogging for Writer in Waiting…

Kimmi, over at Writer in Waiting, is busy busy promoting The Unbreakable Child and invited me to post a piece in her absence.

Luckily, something weird happened just in time and gave me an idea…

Interview With William F. McMurray on ‘The Unbreakable Child’

Kim Michele Richardson grants us greater access to the story behind her memoir, The Unbreakable Child, in an interview with attorney William F. McMurray.

Mr. McMurray has reclaimed ground-breaking progress for victims of clergy abuse and inspired thousands to the cause of breaching the protectionist walls of the Catholic Church’s policy to shield their ranks from justice.

He agreed to take questions from the readers themselves in this candid Q&A.