Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, or: Here Comes Another Thompson Revival

I just learned that in 2010 we will see a new film adaptation of Jim Thompson's "The Killer Inside Me". I have several reactions. One, an anticipation to see the final product; two, a fear that the final product will be sludge; three, boy, I sure love that book.

I first read "Killer" back in 1998 when I had decided to abandon spy fiction (reading and writing, only to return to writing it recently) and take a whirl-wind tour through hard-boiled literature. What a great place to start! "Killer" is a love-it-or-hate-it novel but you can't argue with how authentic Thompson wrote the interior character of Lou Ford, giving us the ability to watch this man break down in a way that is almost like watching a house fall apart from neglect. And the twist at the end always makes me smile. Lou thinks he's pulling a fast one on everybody but not so fast. His "prayer" at the end, as I think Ed Gorman once mentioned, is moving and tragic at the same time, and speaks for a lot of us who feel like we started life with our own crooked cue (or were handed the crooked cue later in life).

I know nothing about the movie other than that Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba star. I'm not sure Casey Affleck is the best choice, but I didn't think Daniel Craig would make a good James Bond, either; now, I think Craig is a terrific Bond. Thompson described Lou Ford in such a specific way, though, that it's hard to see anybody step into that mental picture. I hear Stacey Keach played the role once, and if anybody could do it, he sure could, but having not scene the Keach film I cannot comment further.

Thompson is one of my favorites but I never did get around to reading all of the books when Black Lizard/Vintage Crime reprinted them twenty years ago. I have a few on the shelf along with "Killer", though. As for my second favorite Thompson, it's really a tie between "The Grifters" and "A Hell of a Woman" and "The Nothing Man" and I'll be hanged if I can decide which one belongs in the second slot. Oddly enough, I don't care much for "The Getaway" probably because the movie, I think, ruined the book; Thompson's writing wasn't terribly coherent, at least when I read it the first time; and his choice for an ending always leaves me scratching my head. If you have a comment on that ending, and I'm sure you do because how could you not, I'd appreciate your opinion. I think now that it's been a few years I can read the book again and not see Steve McQueen as Doc (forget that other version), but we'll see. Once my TBR stack gets lower, maybe I'll go back to it.

In the meantime I wish the participants in the new "Killer" movie the best and hope it brings Thompson more attention and puts his books back in stores so I can snatch 'em up. He's a writer who should be rediscovered every few years.

If you're interested in reading more about the new movie, here's the link on the IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0954947/

The Wisdom of Ian Fleming, or: The Best Writing Advice EVER

As I said in the previous post, I have finished the first draft of my spy novel, the working title of which is "The Lassen Agenda". I'm trying for a Ludlum-style title, but, frankly, I think my title bites and sucks rocks, but nothing else has come to mind other than a two- or three-word generic title like "Dead On Target" or "High Risk" which also don't do anything for me. But the title is not my concern right now.

With the first draft done, my mind is free to generate more material to flesh out the manuscript. I'm pleased with what's come to mind so far and a practice outline has proven that the new stuff works well with what's already in place, but the bad side to being done with a first draft is also coming into play, where I doubt every single word on the page. At times like this, I reach for the strongest bottle of rum I can find.... kidding! Actually, I pick up "Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond" by Andrew Lycett. On page 216 (of the hardcover version) there is a passage that I think all writers, at whatever stage of their career, should memorize and recall often, and I am grateful to Lycett for including it in the book:

You will be constantly depressed by the progress of the opus and feel it is all nonsense and that nobody will be interested. Those are the moments when you must all the more obstinately stick to your schedule and do your daily stint...Never mind about the brilliant phrase or the golden word, once the typescript is there you can fiddle, correct and embellish as much as you please. So don't be depressed if the first draft seems a bit raw, all first drafts do. Try and remember the weather and smells and sensations and pile in every kind of contemporary detail. Don't let anyone see the manuscript until you are very well on with it and above all don't allow anything to interfere with your routine. Don't worry about what you put in, it can always be cut out on re-reading....

This advice is righteous. With that in mind, to quote Harry Whittington again, I persist.

NaNoWriMo Done / James Reasoner

So NaNoWriMo ends at midnight. Luckily I finished my novel over the Thanksgiving weekend. However, calculations show I'm ten thousand words short of the 50k word goal; I'm also far short of the 80,000 words I imagined this ms. to be. But do not let your heart be troubled, I have ideas for extending and expanding the ms. and fleshing out the character relationships. More exposition may come in handy, too. The book may weigh in only at 65-70,000 words but I'll take that.

Anyway it was a fun exercise and got me back in the habit of writing every day. Now I'll move through December with revisions and second drafts and have three chapters ready to send out once 2010 begins. Once this is done I want to start on the outline of a novel that I've put off because it's terribly autobiographical, and something like that is always hard to write, yet has the potential, I think, of being a terrific crime story when all the pieces are put together.

Tonight I read a great short story by James Reasoner called "Graveyard Shift". It featured a character who works a convenience store at odd hours who comes up against a potential hold up man and the twist at the end will make your jaw drop. Very short, to-the-point, no wasted space. I enjoyed it a lot. Nice work, James.

NaNoWriMo Update #3

There's no way I'll be done with my NaNo manuscript before the end of the month, but I was never going to finish on time, anyway. The book is too long for 50,000 words; right now, it's looking more like 80,000 by the time I'll be done (30,000 words so far), and I want to be done by Christmas so I can have some clean chapters ready to send around after the first of 2010.

Today I wrote "the spy is captured" scene and it was hard not to fall back on the usual hokum in scenes like this, but I managed to keep it tongue-in-cheek with the villain doing his version of the "if that's you real name" joke from Dr. Strangelove. There's a lot of humor creeping into this otherwise two-fisted spy story. It's really become a fun romp instead of grim and dark, but it's not a change I'm totally comfortable with. The characters seems to like it, though. Give them their head, and they surprise you.

I'll have tomorrow to work some more, and then will have no production over the four-day weekend as I'll be suffering the holiday--I mean, celebrating--with my family.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Remember to be thankful for something, anything. I don't like how the holiday has become a celebration of gluttony and self-indulgence (in other words, just another day) rather than a true thanksgiving of life's blessings, even in tough times like we're going through now. Compared to a Chinese leper colony, we have it pretty good even when it's tough.

Chipmunk Go Home; or, California Leads the Way (Sorry, Bill)

Recently I read about a woman named Dixie Goldsby who had a problem: what to do with a chipmunk that had stowed away in her car after she wrapped up a camping trip in Utah. Apparently her camp site had a small population of chipmunks that, attracted by Ms. Goldsby's organic snacks, kept making daring daylight raids into her car to grab the food. When she packed up and left, one of the little critters remained trapped in the car and made the trip back to the lovely hot tub loving town of Marin, California.

Ms. Goldsby brought her new friend to the WildCare animal rehabilitation center in San Rafael, where they had the bright idea to fly the chipmunk back to the campsite where his friends and family would undoubtedly be happy to see him and ask, in their beautiful chipmunk language, what the heck he was doing in a state where the population likes actors so much they keep electing them to run the state. This had to be done, because, as Ms. Goldsby correctly opined, if it were anywhere other than Marin, the animal would be shot. I'd like to add that he'd also be smoked and slow-roasted and enjoyed with a cold glass of beer.

Karen Wilson, WildCare's executive director, explained why they were taking the time and expense of dropping the critter back on his home turf:

"We are trying to make the point of how each animal that comes through our center, we do our best for," Wilson told the Marin Independent Journal.

In other words, animals are people, too.

A Marin pilot donated his time and airplane to take the chipmunk back; Goldsby and a member of WildCare went along, and as of this writing the critter is back home and presumably happy, though I’m sure he misses the hot tubs that are a state requirement for every home in Marin. But what the article didn't say was whether or not they dropped the critter from the plane and expected him to open a parachute.

I’m trying really hard to come up with why this operation was a colossal waste of time, but deep down I understand why they did this. After all, don’t you remember those classic cartoon chipmunks known as Chip & Dale? Those two have seen to it that chipmunks everywhere get a little extra care and attention. This chipmunk had no name--he was christened “chipmunk 1344 from Utah”--which makes it sound like he was an undercover secret agent. That would actually make a pretty good movie. Imagine the whole car trip as the only way to insert Chipmunk 1344 into California to stop a great chipmunk criminal conspiracy involving Chip & Dale, who, tired of being on the shelf, are cooking up a scheme to murder Mickey Mouse and recapture the spotlight. Or something.

I’m sure a real writer can come up with a plot. And, perhaps, somebody already has.

Donald Hamilton is the BEST

If you have never read a book by Donald Hamilton, you have cheated yourself out of experiencing one of the best authors ever to put pen to paper.

I’ve been a Hamilton fan for years. I have most of the Helm set, a couple of his westerns, and the one-shot thrillers that set the stage for the Helm series. I reread the first Matt Helm book, Death of a Citizen, recently, and I’m currently working through the Deadfall novella, and Hamilton is amazing.

I don’t know how to describe how he sucks you in, but he does. There’s something hypnotic about his writing. Once you get started, you can’t look away. His characters, especially the heroes, are always well characterized and you feel like you are the hero. They’re drawn so well that you can’t help but identify with them, especially with Matt Helm and his first-person narration. Max Allan Collins says he wrote the Quarry character as somebody who might repel readers, but is compelling anyway, and Matt Helm is the same way. He’s ruthless as a secret agent, cold blooded like James Bond isn’t, yet Helm is totally human, with ideas and points of view that make him more than somebody who fights and *ucks and loves America. He’s as crusty and cranky as I am sometimes, and that’s why I stick with him before, during, and after the fight.

I think Line of Fire is my favorite Hamilton book, or maybe Assassins Have Starry Eyes. It’s impossible to choose. Maybe Assassins, after all, because who can beat those opening pages, which describe a hunter’s morning camp activity followed by his mistaken-identity shooting in a fashion that is just… wow. He really grabs you by the neck like nobody else. What about Hamilton’s westerns? Mad River. The Big Country. Amazing novels, both, involving heroes who go their own way despite the harsh criticisms others around them, and they’re never quite what you expect them to be, until the end when they’re up against a wall and have to grab the six-shooter or the long knife and then get ready for some action that is so subtly written it leaves you a little chilled afterwards. Hamilton’s violence is very matter-of-fact. A guy gets shot, he falls down bleeding. Nobody has ridiculous monologues before the guns go off. Hamilton’s heroes have no patience for that. Get the fight going, get it over with, move on. It feels like a real fight. Almost.

Everything Hamilton writes is worth reading, though I tend to shy away from the Helm novels written after The Terrorizers, which aren’t as good—they’re too long. Hamilton is an example of an author who is at his best when the story was written in 50,000 words or less. Everything is tight and to the point with shock and surprise and plot twists well done. When you double that length, everything suffers a little.

I haven’t finished Deadfall yet, but despite its Cold War plot it’s a winner all the way. It’s too bad that Hamilton left us. Every man’s life has an end, but what Donald Hamilton left us with is a body of writing that is ten times better than half a dozen other writers of his time—and today.

NaNoWriMo Update #2

I've given up going to the NaNoWriMo site to update my word count. Every time I go, I have to reset my password because, for some reason, it doesn't remember my password, so I'm just going to go on my own and forget the "support" of the site, which seems to consist of a bunch of pep talk emails and forums where writers in my area can piss and moan and share achievements. Sorry, guys, I'm too busy writing.

Anyway I hit 20,000 words this week, which is nice, but I discovered something. While I enjoy reading and watching action-packed spy stories and action shows, I don't necessarily like writing them. My crime fiction may have bursts of shoot-em-up action here and there, but not consistently, and this new novel requires consistent shoot-em-up action. Luckily I'm midway through the book where intrigue replaces gun play and I'm looking forward to spending more time with the characters interacting instead of blasting. Not that the action scenes aren't good but I like the character scenes in between much better.

I suppose saying the book "requires" shoot-em-up action is wrong, because I can always rewrite the damn thing, but I like the way it's going so I don't see a reason to alter it (plus, the action really does fit in with the plot; they're not a pointless exercise in blowing things up). But during the revisions, the action scenes will need more attention to make them better because right now, I feel like I'm rushing through them.

I'm also tired of the nomenclature of equipment and guns other action stories have a lot of. Does a reader really care if my hero is shooting a customized Colt Government Model .45 auto or if he carries an M-16A2 on an island assault (is the M-16A2 still being made???? See, I should know that). But I don't care. "Automatic rifle" is just as good, "pistol" is just as good. Saying a speed boat has a machine gun mounted on the bow is better than going into detail about it being a .50-caliber air-cooled Browning whats-it. I'll leave the technical details to Clancy (is he still alive?) and just tell the story. Heck, it worked for Robert Ludlum; of course, Ludlum also had characters screwing silencers onto revolvers, which makes no sense since you can't silence--or "suppress"-- a revolver, so maybe he's not the best role model in this case. Maybe it's better to say I'll emulate Jack Higgins in this matter, though his books, over the last fifteen years, have sucked royally. Former IRA man Sean Dillon working for British Intelligence? I don't believe it. Higgins never quite made Dillon's loyalty change work for me. (Sorry, Jack, love the pre-1990 books, really I do.)