My Homage to John D MacDonald's Travis McGee

From time to time I get on a re-read kick and the last week it took me back to John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series (The one with a different color in each title, such as The Empty Copper Sea). Reread five in about that many days. We had a wonderful spell of weather here in KC and I could sit outside and read and sip--along with Travis--Boodles gin on ice.

That series was good. I had enough distance (and poor memory) to forget the details of many of the plots, but what I enjoy most is not the story, it's being with Travis again. Through Travis, MacDonald creates a reality for the reader easy to enter. Creating reality with words is my goal in fiction writing.

I wanted to create my own Travis type of character. His name is Phillip McGuire. Instead of a beach bum who lives on a houseboat in Florida and makes money doing various kinds of salvage work (and most of that salvage for Travis was healing people), my guy is a

burnt-out foreign correspondent who gives up journalism to return to his college town to buy and run a bar.

I have two books about McGuire published by Curiosity Quills: Tortured Truths and Heart Chants. If you are a Travis McGee fan, I hope you'll check them out and let me know what you think.

True story here: I was driving in the car and listening to the radio news when an AP report told me that:  "Travis McGee, the creator of the John D. MacDonald series, died today." I kid you not. My God, how both the creator and the created would have loved that.

Reduced Prices and One Free on Three Novels Published by Curiosity Quills

My publisher Curiosity Quills is using Black Friday through Cyber Monday to offer discounts on their books. They're offering Tortured Truths, the first in my Phillip McGuire mystery/suspense series for FREE. Two other works, Blow Up the Roses and SPILL, are discounted to 99 cents.

Time to get 'em if you want 'em!

Tortured Truths 

Blow Up the Roses

SPILL: Take That, Big Oil

Reporting in after Voice of Lawrence Interview

The March 28 interview experience was really very interesting and rewarding.

The Voice of Lawrence studios are on 8th street just off the main drag. They've only been operating about 11 weeks, but their servers show they are building a nice audience and they have several paid advertisers.

It was good finally to meet Marcia Epstein, the host of "Talk With Me." You can read more about her in the previous posting.

I was nervous. Very nervous. I don't know if it shows in my voice or not. A few years ago, I found it was almost impossible for me to stand in front of any crowd and talk. This is strange for someone who spent his life in journalism and public relations. Put me behind a podium and I just about freeze and my knees shake.

I had done another web radio interview, but that was over the phone. It went well. I really prepared for my interview with Marcia. Had things organized in a three ring binder. I didn't want to just gab off the cuff. I got a little shaky at times, and at one point reading a section from Heart Chants about the early history of Haskell Indian college, I got pretty emotional and almost lost it. I thought I was going to cry. I don't know what came over me.

It was amazing how fast the hour went. Excluding breaks and intro section, I guess the actual interview was about 50 minutes. It flew by. I thought I would have time to talk about more of my works, but that didn't happen. The works I discussed where Crazy About You, Tortured Truths and Heart Chants, published by Curiosity Quills, Then and Now, and Blow Up the Roses, also published by CQ.

I found it cathartic to discuss publicly for the first time the ups and many more downs of writing and trying to get published. I had never really admitted to anyone else just how I felt about my writing efforts and what writing has meant and means for me.

Here's the url if you want to hear the interview. If you want to get past the music and opening ads, you can scoot to the 5:46 mark. If you want to get past the intro, go to the 8:12 mark.

Voice of Lawrence 

Small Press Curiosity Quills Accepts SPILL

Email arrived last week:

Dear Randy,

 I've just joined Curiosity Quills and it was my great pleasure to read SPILL. I found it to be a fascinating and entertaining read. I am pleased to inform you Curiosity Quills would like to offer you a contract for SPILL. To capitalize on the marketing potential, we'll be looking to publish closer to the end of next summer, when the primary season is in full swing for the elections.

 Erika Galpin

SPILL is a political comedy, only comedy I've attempted. I wrote it out of deep frustration. Over many decades of writing fiction, with little publishing success to show for it, I thought: "Look, if you can write something that makes people laugh, you can't deny the writing is successful." SPILL—about a fired English teacher who scams the political system and gets the girl, the money, and a killer skateboard computer game—poured out of me in three months. Never written any novel that quickly. I laughed as I wrote it; many readers have laughed as they read it.

It got me an agent. We came close with traditional publishers. Here's the final rejection from an editor at Ecco, a highly respected imprint with Harper Collins. You make sense of it for me. I can't.

Thanks so much for thinking of me and of Ecco for Randy Attwood’s political satire, SPILL, which I enjoyed digging my teeth into. Fred and Zoe share a kind of chemistry on the page that goads the imagination and leads the reader to be genuinely interested in the outcome of their electoral shenanigans, and Attwood very capably lampoons contemporary aspects of America’s current political situation, like the oil industry, gun regulation, and unemployment. Unfortunately, as compelling as I found this read, in the end it just didn't capture my heart and attention to the degree where I would feel confident taking it on. Attwood has a sure command over language—my overarching issue, though, is that that language seems to be employed towards the end of being current; my instinct tells me SPILL exists less in and of itself and more for the audience it is fashioned to attract, and so I am sadly going to have to pass on this one. Attwood clearly has an accomplishment on his hands, and I wish you and him the best of luck finding a home for this debut elsewhere.

I self-published it in 2011 because editors at other traditional publishers advised my agent to encourage me to do so. It got me into this whole new business of epublishing and saved my creative life. I was really ready to just give up writing. Now I'm back at it. I haven't had huge self-publishing success, but I've got some wonderful reviews from people I don't know for my short stories, novellas and novels that are all over the genre map.

The small press Curiosity Quills picked up the dark suspense work Blow up the Roses." Then they accepted two works I have not self-published: Tortured Truths, released just this week, and Heart Chants, scheduled for Dec. 20. Both are part of a Phillip McGuire mystery/suspense series. And I was proud to be the only author to have two stories published in their recent anthology, PrimeTime.

Now they've acquired SPILL.

I have the contract on my desk to sign. When I do so, it means I have to un-publish SPILL from my self-publishing platforms.

So, if you want an early copy, here's the Amazon Kindle and paperback site.

And a favor. Although we are at least eight months away from SPILL being published by Curiosity Quills, it not too early for me to network and find nationally known political type folks who would read this comedy and, if enjoying it, provide a blurb endorsement. If you have a connection (or if you are such a person!), do please let me know. randyattwood@hotmail.com

Two Stories Included in Curiosity Quills Anthology of "Quirky" Tales

October 7 my publisher of Blow Up the Roses, Curiosity Quills, will release two anthologies of short story. Prime Time contains 19 stories. I'm the only author to have two included. After years of rejections my stories are finding homes and readers. They are The Notebook and Tell Us Everything. The folks at the small DC publishing house have been great to work with. They publish in all genres and have a stable of editors who do a superb job and a good group of cover designers. My fellow CQ authors are a helpful group and I enjoy our Facebook encounters.

CQ describes the collection this way:

"The anthology is not limited to one specific genre, but all of our novels are guaranteed to be quirky and paranormal, in some way or another.  We also guarantee 10% of every purchase will go straight to animals in need. The CQ team has selected humane societies on both the East and West coast that spend well and do not stray from the “no-kill” policies of their strays."

Quirky is a good description. Both of my stories are in my own collection called Very Quirky Tales as an paperback and 3 Very Quirky Tales, as an ebook.

Good to see that some of the revenues are going to a good cause, "no-kill" animal shelters.

Here's what the front and back covers look like for Prime Time.

Release Dates Set for First Two Phillip McGuire Mystery/Suspense Books

The first two novels in my Phillip McGuire mystery/suspense series now have release dates by my publisher Curiosity Quills, which published Blow Up the Roses last November. Phillip is a cynical, burnt-out foreign correspondent with a dark history who leaves journalism to buy and run a bar in his old university town of Lawrence, KS. Mysteries and adventures come his way as he tries to move beyond what has happened to him in his past and embrace his future, whatever that's going to be.

The team at Curiosity Quills has been wonderful to work with. Eugene Teplitsky, the publisher, has assembled a great team of acquisition folk, editors, designers and promoters. Tortured Truths will be released Oct. 22. Heart Chants comes out Dec. 20. More about these books later.

If you'd like to be notified when these are available, just subscribe to the mailing list up on top. If you're a reviewer and would be interested in an advanced reader copy, just leave a comment here with information how I can contact you.

Here are the cover reveals for the Phillip McGuire books.

Dog Days of Summer, but Reasons to Howl

I haven't done a general update in some time.

July was my worst month in selling books via Amazon and other platforms. No one knows what is really happening with the self-publish, ebook phenomenon. Certainly, the ease of self-publishing has brought an enormous number of books to the market, so the challenge how to gain attention increases. Noise level is very high.

My current marketing strategy is to get-my-mug-and-books in front of people. I'm searching for events where I can set up my stand, show my books, and talk to potential readers.

I joined about 50 other authors at an event at The Town Crier, an Indie bookstore in Emporia, KS. Sold three books. Stopped at a bar on the way out of town, had fun with the bartender, and sold two more. So I made gas money. Left some books at the Indie store and later got a check for almost $80. They must have sold those books.

I went to Pomona, KS for a book signing–read that hope-to-sell-books event. Pomona (Pop 832) is southwest of Kansas City. Its library is in a corner of its community center/city hall. There were about 10 other authors also hoping to sell their wares. I sold three books: gas money. But it was also worth the trip to see Pomona Lake and meet the folks who came by my display. But that evening, when I got home, I felt an incredible tiredness. It baffled me. It wasn't that long of a drive. I think I understand now.

I had eight books on display. To see another human being pick up a book you have, in some cases, spent years writing and now selling for $10, examine it, put it back down, and walk away from ... it just drains something from your spirit. But near closing, one lady, Jane, bought a book and asked if she could write me a check. Sure, I told her. Check in hand, I then told her I had donated to the library a different book so it was available. Jane said she would go over and reserve it. I saw her do so. Sleep revives one's spirits. I hope to gain an audience one precious reader at a time. I think instead of cashing Jane's check, I may frame it to hang over my desk.

On the creative positive side, I have now finished going through the edits and making changes on two novels, Tortured Truths and Heart Chants that Curiosity Quills, the publisher of Blow Up the Roses, will publish this fall. And the anthology they are publishing this month will contain The Notebook.

This cool thing happened today: I've had so many story rejections over the decades it's quite remarkable–certainly a first for me–to submit a story and have it accepted the same day. Here's to the digital age! There is a caveat: no money for the story. It's going in an anthology and profits will go to support ‪Cystic Fibrosis Trust, which helps patients and families. It's rather nice to think that writing It Was Me (I) may help someone else.

And a new work, Stop Time, progresses.

Two Novels Accepted by Curiosity Quills, But...

I am pumped that Curiosity Quills, the small press in the DC area that published the very dark/suspense work Blow Up the Roses has now accepted two more novels. But.

These two mystery/suspense novels feature the same protagonist: Philip McGuire. He is burnt-out foreign correspondent who had his hand mangled in torture by the Hezbollah and quits journalism to return to his college town to buy and run a bar. Adventures come his way.

The two works (may be more; I don't know) was a kind of homage to the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. I read that series not so much for the story, but because it meant I got to spend more time with Travis. His reflections on life, his mini editorials, his romances were wonderfully created by the master. I was hoping readers would want to spend time with Philip.

The first novel, Heal My Heart So I May Cry establishes his background and gives him a situation where he ends up encountering the torturer who mangled his hand when he was kidnapped in Beirut and gave up all the details he knew of the Marine compound that was later blown up with the loss of 237 soldiers.

In this novel, he has a bittersweet romance with a university journalism student that has an O. Henry ending (boy, does that date me).

Here's a taste from the beginning:

The car stopped. The hood was taken off my head. My good hand was untied from the interior car door handle. The bright sun of Beirut blinded me. My pupils squeezed tight. My eyes adjusted a little by the time they had the back door open and were pulling me out of the car so I could look again at the face of that son-of-a-bitch, the one they called Mohammed, who had taken so much joy looking into my eyes while the cutter had done his work on my hand, the hand now wrapped in the dirty napkin as I held it high against my heart. I looked at that motherfucker's face and felt the hope that hate gives. The hope that I'd see that face again and have a fair chance to get even. Fuck that. Have an unfair chance. Have any chance to get even. You and me someday, Mohammed. Give me that, God, I prayed. But God hadn't answered any of my prayers lately. Maybe I'd be due someday.

  

In the second novel, a half-Navajo and half-white character who believes he is a witch plays a major role. He calls himself "Koyoteh" (coyote). Both novels are set in Lawrence, KS, which is home to Haskell, a college for American Indians. Two Navajo girls have come up missing. Researching the Navajo culture led me to their creation story, which is as complicated and fascinating as Greek mythology. I think, and hope, I have created a full retelling of that story that is better than any that exists in any fiction work. I titled this work "A Heart to Understand." To make this novel even more complicated, the romance in this novel involves an illegal Chinese immigrant trying to sneak out of the US to go back to China and with an ulterior motive for contacting Philip.

Here's a taste of that work:

"Another Indian girl's missing, Phil."

"That's two now, isn't it."

"In two months. No bodies found. Yet. Officially, it's another missing person's case. The police still take the attitude that Indian students from Haskell run off all the time. But Navajo aren't solo runaways. Being in a group is too important to them, especially girls."

"Navajo?"

"Both have been Navajo. Could just be the odds. Highest percentage of students at Haskell are Navajo. Both had friends, left behind too many personal possessions to be runaways. Got to be kidnappings. When I was in law school I did a summer internship in a law office in Gallup. Did a lot of reading into Navajo culture and Native American sovereignty rights. Word gets around. I began to represent Native Americans around here. Some of them came to me asking if I could help them make the police investigate more. But, hell, there's not much they can do unless a body turns up. Shitty thing, isn't it, hoping a body will turn up? They're all upset and angry. Not a good combination. The Navajo believe in this cause and effect deal. They don't like having these ugly effects without understanding or knowing the cause. I'm afraid it could be a serial killer with a thing for Indian girls. And one of my clients has a daughter whose Navajo girlfriend is really spooked. I've talked to her and I've got a favor to ask."

"What's that?"

"I'd like to hide her out here."

"Out here?"

"Sure. The kidnapper must be prowling the Haskell area. He wouldn't be prowling around here. And she's really shaken. Something going on she won't tell me about. And you could use the help now that you're laid up. How about it?"

"Well, sure. If that's what you want," I said as I watched him walk to the window on the other side of the room that looked out over the drive up to the house.

"Phil?"

"Yeah."

"That Chinese girl. You said she had really long hair?"

"Down to her butt. And we're talking a tall girl here."

"Really beautiful?"

"Stunning. Even features. Sexy mouth. Full lips. High brow. Why?"

"She's walking up to your front door."

Okay, here's that but.

Editor doesn't like the titles and urges me to change them to something more consistent with the genre of mystery/suspense. I have to admit my titles, Heal My Heart So I May Cry and A Heart to Understand sound more like romance novels. I have lived with these titles so long it has become very hard for me to brainstorm within myself for new ones. But I have also learned that a writer should heed an editor's suggestion.

Friends: any ideas?

Happy to share manuscripts with anyone really interested in all of this. Guess if you're reached the end of this long blog, you may well be!

DC Small Press Releases Blow Up the Roses with label Dangerous Suspense/Thriller

A small press in D.C. has published this novel, what they call a "dangerous suspense/thriller." Blow Up the Roses is indeed that. Publisher Eugene Teplitsky at CQ described the book as "disturbingly brilliant."  Doing an interview about the novel, Sharon Bayliss at the publishing house asked me to send to her some of my favorite lines from the book. I was stumped. And it was strange. In any other story I could have found easily sentences I considered lyrical or interesting or funny. But the writing style for Roses has a different feel, almost as if I didn't want to get too close to what was going on. I was keeping it at arms length. I don't outline or plan out books. A scene comes to my mind, a character, a quote and I create those scenes and characters and see what they do. When I realized what one of them was doing I almost abandoned the book. But characters, once created, have a way of demanding they live out their lives. So many secrets to be revealed by the characters in this book. Why did the husband of the protagonist, Mrs. Keene, just abandon her and disappear? What is her renter in the other half of the duplex doing in his basement? Why does neighbor Mr. Califano have a recurring nightmare that he is in a rose garden and it is blowing up all around him?

The language of flowers can be terribly blunt.

Blow Up the Roses

Read Free Excerpt Here

How We Live in the Epublishing World Today

Seems a good idea, from time to time, to sit back and reflect on where I'm at with this whole epublishing business.

Curiosity Quills is at work getting Blow Up the Roses ready for ebook and POD publication. I hope that will happen in August or early September. I'm very anxious to see how they market a book. They're building an impressive community.

 It appears more of these operations are starting up. I've submitted Crazy About You to Jaffabooks in Australia.

Curiosity Quills has right of first refusal on my next two works so I've sent them Heal My Heart So I May Cry and A Heart to Understand. I've also submitted them to Paradon, which is also a new book publishing venture.

I've been very happy in my dealings with Curiosity Press so far. They seem to be reputable and talented people. I have no way to judge with Jaffa and Paradon. Just have to see if they are interested and offer a contract and then study the contract. If that bombs at both places, I'll self-publish. I have a growing list of Twitter friends who are Navajo and I'm most anxious to start marketing and getting reactions. Several have replied to the blog about book covers.

Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America has been professionally edited and proofed. I am always aghast at the errors I make. I've read each of my works dozens of times, and I still miss stupid things like waver for waiver. And trying to parse grammatically where commas go gives me a rash. Rabbletown is being formatted now so I can use Amazon's Createspace to produce a POD book. So that may be my first work actually available in print. Katy Sozaeva who did the edit and has become an ambassador has written on her blog that it's the best work she's EVER read. I kid you not.  Here is the comment.

If Jaffa doesn't respond soon regarding Crazy, I'll get that one in print next.

I'm tempted to bundle One More Victim, The Saltness of Time and The Strange Case of James Kirkland Pilley into one volume for a POD.

One More Victim got a really nice comment from a Goodreads reviewer, Anthea Carson:

"It is so rare to find a book you can't put down. That's why I am so happy I discovered this writer. I couldn't stop reading this and my only disappointment with it was that it ended. It is the intriguing story of kids discovering things that people throw away. A young romance develops between two kids rummaging through trash cans and discovering things. The things they discover in those trash cans would haunt them forever and change their whole lives. Amazing book. Can't wait to read the next one by this author."

This is a young writer worth keeping track of. She's already developed her own writing voice and putting it to good effect.

The Saltness of Time has also been professionally edited, so it is ready as we move forward on the Kickstarter project. I'm working with local artist/printmaker Nick Naughton, who teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute. W want to use his letter press to turn The Saltness of Time into a fine art book with great paper and locally bound. That is, if we can fund it through Kickstarter. Nick's been very busy this summer so this will probably be a fall project. He would also do etchings for illustrations and, wow, is that guy good, and he likes realism. Former KC television news photographer John Tygart has agreed to do the video work for the promo spot with Pete Wilkerson doing the sound and editing. Then if we get funded we'll include costs to use them to document the process so that backers can receive not only the book but a DVD about the process.

Haven't heard from my agents for a long time about SPILL: Big Oil + Sex = Game On. Always afraid to press them because the news may be bad. I still have hopes one of the traditional publishing houses will publish that book. They still have the big marketing connections that are so important in this whole game. I think the day is far down the road when you might see a self-published ebook reviewed in the New York Times.

An odd thing has happened with SPILL. Its Facebook page has received a lot of likes from some hotties in India. I know it has "Sex" in the title, but is that all it takes to get attention? And from women? I have no evidence that a single one of them has bought the book and read it. So what is going on? Some of them even post it on their info pages as books they like. The whole thing baffles me. But I enjoy looking at their profile photos. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spill-Big-Oil-Sex-Game-On/134440113311148

Best news is I've started writing again. I found a project I stalled on several years ago, but think I can move it forward. It's a science fiction work set in the near future here in KC on the Plaza. It's one of those stories where time stops for everyone except the protagonist. That's been done, but I think I have an interesting twist.