Good Writing Quotes from...?

These quotes came from The Creative Screenwriting Weekly Newsletter.

"The drudgery of being a professional writer comes in trying to make good days out of bad days and in squeezing out the words when they won't just flow."

- Benjamin Cavell

"No one is asking, let alone demanding, that you write. The world is not waiting with bated breath for your article or book. Whether or not you get a single word on paper, the sun will rise, the earth will spin, the universe will expand. Writing is forever and always a choice -- your choice."

- Beth Mende Conny

Caption This VI!

Say that I'm mailing it in...

...but not until you caption this.

Eric Beetner has posted the opening sentence of each story in Needle Magazine

Author Eric Beetner has posted the opening sentence of each story in the Premiere Issue of Needle Magazine.

Pop on over, relax and get tantalized by some fine crime fiction.

Borges and Doctorow for Writing Quotes

These quotes came from The Creative Screenwriting Weekly Newsletter.

"Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future."

- Jorge Luis Borges

"There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative."

- E.L. Doctorow

Chad Rohrbacher's Flash Fiction Contest

Chad Rohrbacher is having a Flash Fiction Contest! Check it out-


Since I’m such a nice guy and I love Gischler’s writing, I decided to do something out of character for me: give something away for free. Well, let me qualify that since it’s not quite free.

“Oh damn” there’s always a catch. Stupid infomercial.

Don’t change the channel yet, because all I’m looking for is to see some good writing. In a flash fiction crime or superhero piece, this means under 1500 words.

I will post a poll once all the entries are in and the winner will receive:

Victor Gischler’s work on Marvel Comics’ Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth and the newDeadpool Corps and The Deputy. This means prelude 1-5 and Issue #1 of the Deadpool series and the novel for a little emotional sweat in a flash fiction piece.




So if you are a fan of comics, this gives you an opportunity to check out his novel; or if you’re a novel reader and think comics have nothing to offer, this gives you a chance to check them out and see how wrong you are. The best thing is writers don’t get to have all the fun, because everyone who loves crime and comic writing gets to vote for the winning entry.

Rules:

1. Sign up by Monday, April 19th 5 pm in the comments.

2. You have 1 week to write and post your entry to your blog and share your link with us.

3. This entry must be posted and linked by Monday, April 26th at 5 pm EST.

4. Vote – The poll will remain open until Monday, May 3rd at 1 pm EST.


So spread the word and, more importantly, get writing.

Update: This is a hardcover copy of The Deputy. And those across the pond are free to join in — the book will be shipped directly from Amazon while the Deadpool series will come from me directly. Happy Writing.

How does a crime writer look at clouds?

Is it me...

...or do you see-

A Sig Sauer

And a bikini bottom, too?

Capote...WTF? And other Writing Quotes

These quotes came from The Creative Screenwriting Weekly Newsletter.

"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it."

- Truman Capote

"A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others."

- William Faulkner

"When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence."

- Samuel Butler

"Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we?"

- Terri Guillemets

And...

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh, via Chris.

Needle Magazine is here!

Well, the big day has arrived and it came much sooner than expected. The Premiere Issue of Needle Magazine is here!

Steve Weddle, Scott D. Parker, Naomi Johnson, Daniel O'Shea and John Hornor Jacobs have covered the crime fiction and noir spectrum from A to Z, literally. From Patti Abbott, to David Zeltserman.

We're talking Sandra Seamans, Paul D. Brazill, Christopher Grant, Eric Beetner, Keith Rawson, Chad Rohrbacher, Kieran Shea, Hilary Davidson, Jedidiah Ayers, Eric Nusbaum, Nathan Singer, Kent Gowran and yours truly.

Needle Magazine will be offered in a print only version on Lulu. Please click here for the details and buy your copy today!

David Cranmer interviews my "Dad!"

David Cranmer, Publisher of Beat To A Pulp Magazine, has seven questions for my "Dad!"*




That's right he interviews Christopher Grant, the very man who once said, "That's right, I'm pulling for my bastard son Cormac." Christopher runs one of the best sites for fresh and reprinted noir, crime fiction and mayhem.

David asks some great questions, covering Spaghetti Westerns, A Twist of Noir, Christopher Grant's character "The Deaf Guy," the future of ATON and desert island reads. Please, pop on over and read it.



*I'm twelve years older than him, but he is the most supportive parent when it comes to all of us writers of crime fiction.

"Mightier Than The Sword" -DSD Flash Challenge

The cats at Do Some Damage had a Flash Challenge revolving around The Recession. Et voilà-


"Oh shit, here it comes. Let’s kick off 'Bitch and Moan Fest 2010,'" whispers Carrie.

"Carrie, where's my pen? Have you seen my pen?" snaps Trent, like a Chihuahua that has had its favorite chew toy taken away.

Carrie quickly pulls the pen off of the counter and hands it to Trent before he can blow his top. Still, even this won't delay his inevitable lecture and her mind goes into an old-fashioned TV off-the-air pattern replete with a Technicolor Indian chief, as she tunes him out.

Carrie doesn't miss the "same shit, different day" of her old job, and she doesn't miss her cubicle, either. But she misses the pay...God, how she misses the pay. She misses her BMW Z3, too. It was the first thing she had to give up during the six months she was unemployed, after her layoff notice. She cried when she had to forfeit the lease on that rolling decompression chamber.

Now she drives a used Tercel, and the only decompressing that goes on with that is its leaky right front tire. Now she brings her lunch to work, and now even dinner at McDonald’s is a luxury. Same mortgage, micro pay scale. The nastiest part of this economic readjustment is not making 39% of what she used to earn. No, the worst aspect of this downturn is spending each and every underpaid day working with Trent. You can't spell "anal-retentive" without "T-r-e-n-t."

The owner of the card shop, Nikki, only agreed to hire Carrie on as assistant manager if she also did a clerk job as well…for just two dollars an hour more.

"Are you even listening to me?" he whines.

"It's just a pen."

"I've had the same pen for ten years now. I've changed the ink, but it's the exact same one. The grip is just right and the ink doesn't smear. You are right handed, and you can use any pen you want. We work in a greeting card store, for God sake; just take one from the shelves!"

"Yeah, so you can report me for theft to Nikki? Look...Trent, why don't you go home? I'll punch your card out."

"I don't want to-"

Carrie snaps back, "I cannot work with you for the remaining twenty minutes left in this day. Either you punch out, or I'll punch you out!"

With that, Trent harrumphs off...dropping his pen. Rather then saying anything, she pockets it.

***

Fifteen minutes later, Carrie locks the front door. She goes into the back and turns the lights off. Suddenly Carrie is grabbed and an arm closes around her neck. She can’t breathe as everything goes entirely too bright for her, and then it turns pitch dark.

***

She wakes up behind the counter and on her back. There is a strange man on top of her. He reeks of drugs and body odor, and he's pawing at her. She flinches as she feels something pricking her neck.

His bushy brows furl angrily over his distant and cold eyes. He shows her a long hunting knife and mutters, "the three of us are gonna have fun…me, you and my blade." He pokes the knife at her again and his free hand tugs at the button of her slacks.

"Carrie, why are all the lights out, and where is my fucking pen?"

Trent startles Carrie, but he startles the intruder even more. As her assailant wheels around, Trent grabs a crystal vase off the back counter and clubs the Intruder twice. The glass vase shatters with the second blow. Trent grabs another vase and hits him again, for good measure.

Trent helps her to her feet.

"Carrie, are you okay?"

Her lips tremble and her eyes water up. Trent offers her an arm as he dials 911 on the store's phone. As it rings, Carrie leans into Trent and he gives her a reassuring embrace.

"Uh, Carrie, I'm so, so sorry. If it's not too much to ask...uh, could I have my pen back?"

The End

Jay Stringer said-

On the other hand, it could be said that the subject matter of crime fiction is recession proof; many of the stories are already dealing with people in deprived situations. It’s already about grabbing social mobility with a fist and the pointy end of a gun. In that regard, crime fiction has long been waiting for the world to catch up.

And this element is timeless. It was as true a century ago as it is today.

This is a meaty subject to get into, and one that I’m sure all of you could write about far better than me. So here’s the thing, short and sweet this week. I believe if there’s a subject worth discussing, it’s a subject worth writing fiction about.

So this here is a DSD flash fiction challenge. And I’m giving you plenty of run up time on this; lets call the deadline Tuesday, April 6th. Just after we’ve all enjoyed the Easter weekend, that seems somehow fitting.

Let’s have your recession stories. The usual flash rules apply, length no more than 800-900 words (I’m looking at you, Weddle). Write about anything and everything, as long as it’s tied into the theme.

You can send your stories to us to put up here on the day, or you can just run them on your own blog and link to us.

Some good news

Finally, some good (solid) news! I'm sorry to be a tease, but you'll have to read Gerald So's interview with Steve Weddle over at Chatterfic, to find out.




Psst, don't forget...






How about that lineup? Thanks to Paul for the back cover.

Caption This V!

Let's be honest, some of you just come by this blog...

...to caption this.

"The House of Half A Hundred Cats" is up at A Twist of Noir!

Katherine Tomlinson's "The House of Half A Hundred Cats" is up at A Twist of Noir!

Think...

...then get amnesia, what is wrong with you? Forget about all that bad face painted, crappy leotard costumed and hackneyed musical nonsense! We're talking about Katherine Tomlinson, and we're talking about A Twist of Noir! Think...

...and you will be in the right frame of mind.

Scott Wolven at Plots With Guns

About once every six months, Scott Wolven materializes out of thin air and schools the crime writing world. Plots With Guns has "Everything Tastes Like Whiskey," and you should take a gander at how to write, pure, unadulterated crime fiction.

Like Raymond Chandler once said of Dashiell Hammett, "(he) gave murder back to the people who really committed it." Scott Wolven does exactly the same with crime fiction; he shows you the people that do wrong, for what they feel are the right reasons.

Crimefactory Issue #2 is here!

Looking for fine crime fiction?


You have no excuse now, because Issue #2 of Crimefactory is here! We have fiction from:

Ray Banks

David Zeltserman

Kieran Shea

Patti Abbott

Josh Converse

Stephen D. Rogers

Gerard Brennan

And it comes in three different formats-

In PDF

In Kindle

In Nook and Sony Reader

So no excuses, check out Crimefactory, today!

Stout and Faulkner for Writing Quotes

These quotes came from The Creative Screenwriting Weekly Newsletter.

"Measure your mind's height by the shadow it casts."

- Rex Stout

Image from http://www.russandreyn.com

"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does."

- William Faulkner

Whew, did you feel that? That chill going up and down your spine?

Why, it's Paul and Sandra being nominated for the Best Short Story On The Web!

And Alan Griffiths, too!

Not to mention, I understand that the magazine Beat To A Pulp (a.k.a. David Cranmer and Elaine Ash) has a bunch of nominations as well! Congratulations to all!

I'm feelin' mighty low...

I'm feeling a bit under water lately. There are some good things around the corner, but I'm skeptical that they will still be around when I get there.

The point is to focus, and to not just sit in one place with my wheels spinning.

"When Clementine Sings" is in Stormfists!

Stormfists Magazine is here! We're talking sci-fi, fantasy and hard-boiled pulp!


"Bridgette" by Francis J. Comando from Stormfists Magazine

Speaking of hard-boiled, my story "When Clementine Sings," was published in Stormfists this week. Even though it reads as a Prohibition gangster piece, you might recognize someone from Melniboné. Please, pop on over and take a look.

But don't just visit for my sake, because every week, FJ Comando publishes something new.

F. Scott Fitzgerald kicks off Writing Quotes

These quotes came from The Creative Screenwriting Weekly Newsletter.

"There was never a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn't be. He is too many people if he's any good."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it."

-Elizabeth Drew

R.I.P. Astonishing Adventures Magazine

This post has been sitting in my Draft box for over two weeks, so it's time to get this over with. First the good news, Issue #8 of Astonishing Adventures finally is in a print version.

And now the bad news. Well, it's official, Scarlet has danced her last tango...




John has pulled the plug on Astonishing Adventures Magazine. AAM had a pretty good run, and while it didn't change the literary world or set the publishing world on its ear, AAM filled the pulp niche admirably. Those eight issues were a good run that was chock full of a variety of stories. Unlike other magazines, AAM did not pigeon-hole itself into just one genre.

Rather than harp on those who couldn't take thirty seconds out of their lives to do a small mention in support, I would rather praise the people who did. Some of those people are friends, some of those people were fans, and some were virtual strangers. So (in alphabetical order) Bish's Beat, Bill Crider, BlogCritics.org, Bookgasm, TheNovelBlog.com, and TheShadowSanctum.net.

Hell, even The Rap Sheet mentioned the Premiere Issue of AAM.

With great friends like Paul D. Brazill, Sandra Seamans and Katie Schwartz bringing in hundreds of readers, Astonishing Adventures Magazine should have gone a lot further. Alas, it was not meant to be. So everyone who read or championed AAM? I toast you, sláinte!

Howl Is Live!

Prepare to be scared!

Howl Magazine is here, thirty-three tales of terror, mayhem and horror! Not only that, you have Erin Cole, Jason Michel, Angel Zapata and the most terrifying author of them all, Paul D. Brazill!

Oscars '10

Ante Scriptum: Sure, this maybe Ben Stiller, but damn if he doesn't look like someone else that I used to work with.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...Gays, if The Oscars are truly your Superbowl, riot it up! I'm not saying that you should turn over cars, but if you don't at least mob up or set fire to some garbage cans? Then the saying doesn't hold true.

All right, I've been doing this since '06, and I actually used to watch movies back then. Not so much with '07 and by '08, I practically gave up on all things cinematic. By last year, I was phoning it in, but then again, so was Hollywood.

"Why does a prisoner drop soap?" Seriously? Somebody wrote that for Neil Patrick Harris? And he sung that on purpose? I told you that they're phoning it in. "No one wants to do it alone?"

They don't want to hear that song again, either.

Ever.

I spoke too soon, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are doing an admirable job, and they're winging those jokes faster than I can type.

Alec: And this can be a first Steve. Because they just don't give Oscars to stand up comedians, but nobody has to tell you that.

The first 3D glasses joke, and there should be plenty more, because apparently there are a lot of bad 3D movie scripts floating around Hollywood right now. They want to capitalize on "Avatar," and yeah, that's how logic works in the City of Angles (sic).

BTW, "The Hurt Locker" is not a film, it's what happens when I come home five minutes late and The Missus gives me what for, in the doorway.

Hey, Clooney, how can you not laugh at that Toyota joke?

Alec: Here's the inglorious bastards section...

Steve: And over here are the people that made the movie.

You gotta feel for Carey Mulligan...

...until she gets married or changes her surname? Bad golf jokes abound...amongst other unfavorable things.

I see that they've brought back the phrase, "And the winner is..." As many shafts as the Academy has wrought over the years, "And the award goes to," was and is, the most apropos.

On behalf of the sickly little mole people that Robert Downey Jr. was talking about, I'm happy for Mark Boal, and damn it Quentin, you should be too!

I like the films of John Hughes, though I don't love all of them. It took his passing for him to get a Lifetime Achievement Award, and you know that the Academy never would have given him one otherwise. It's not that I don't think that he didn't deserve it, it's just that when you compare the reluctance behind the ones for Alfred Hitchcock and Blake Edwards, John was never gonna get one any other way.

John Lassiter: You know the tools to make a film, are so readily accessible. Cameras, your lap top. My advice to young filmmakers about making a film; the tools never make a great the film, it's what you do with the tools. Telling a great story, entertaining an audience...that's what's going to win you an Academy Award. Then in the very same segment, "Logorama" wins..."Logorama?" How the hell can anyone beat Wallace and Grommet??? Re-fucking-count! I demand a fucking recount!

Is Geoffrey Fletcher the very first African American to win Best Adapted Screenplay? He is certainly the only Black screenwriter I've ever seen take to the Kodak Theatre stage.

The very day that The Missus saw "Precious," she accurately predicted that Mo'nique would win and with the clip that they showed, who could argue?

With the hum, the odd ambient noise and near feedback, whoever did the sound for this award show should be fired. Even banquet halls that serve rubber chicken, don't have such poor sound.

Twenty some odd minutes later? Here we go, interpretive modern break dancing ballet. It's The Academy's way of saying, "hey everybody, filler. Go to the bathroom while you can, make that phone call, make the beast with two backs, eat a pizza...do whatever you can get done in four minutes and thirty seconds."

As much as I loved "Star Trek," I would've been the first to scream bloody murder if "Avatar" didn't win for Best Special Effects.

Wow, Pedro Almadovar and Quentin Tarantino on the same stage? Everything that was good about 90's cinema.

Having their peers introduce them, is a wonderful addition to the Best Actor and Best Actress categories. Jeff Bridges is an acting god in this household, and yet, why does he get to do a five minute speech, when everyone else gets cut short? I think to rectify this, The Academy could have Catherine Zeta-Jones give a speech at my house for five minutes.

Kathyn Bigelow? C'mon, Hollywood, stop saying that women can't direct, and stop saying that women can't direct action films.

"The Hurt Locker" should've won, and did win. Congratulations!

Neil Gaiman kicks off Writing Quotes

These quotes came from The Creative Screenwriting Weekly Newsletter.

"Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."

- Neil Gaiman

"Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it."

- PD James

New Magazine "The Journal" features an interview with Paul D. Brazill

There's a new magazine in town, and it's called "The Journal."

So if you're going to start a new magazine, it's better to feature a writer of note, to kick things off. Enter one Mr. Paul D. Brazill, and they interviewed him right here. A choice writer, and a choice interview.