INDIE SCENE: Jochem Vandersteen

Jochem Vandersteen writes very good private eye and noir fiction and is doing everything he can to get those books to a wider audience; to help a brother out, I thought we'd have a chat about what makes him tick.

 

You can check out his latest, The Death Business, on Amazon.

 

1) What is it about the private eye genre that you like? Is there something specific about that subject matter that fires your imagination more than others?

 

I like the fact you can often follow one man/woman during his investigation and life making you one with the story. I also like the fact the story doesn't get bogged down by too much procedural stuff. I like the idea of one man standing alone against crime. And I like the wisecracks so popular within the genre!

 

2) Have readers been enthusiastic about your work? How have they shared that?

 

I used to get some emails from time to time in the past from people digging my work. Now, a lot of positive comments can be found on Facebook and Goodreads which is awesome. They are the reason I write way more than the money.

 

3) What do you do to promote Noah Milano stories as well as your other work?

 

I use Facebook, some free promotions via Amazon, some interviews... But mainly I just hope people spread the word.

 

4) Tell us about one or two favorite authors who make you write better. 

 

Robert B Parker taught me how to write a fast-moving story with as little words as possible. Dennis Lehane taught me how to bring a special emotional edge to them.

 

5) What story-telling gaffes and cliches that you see other writers make do you try to avoid? 

 

I really hate over-describing stuff that will not interest the readers. I also dislike people who try to make their book 500 pages while the story could have been told in a 100. That's why I mostly write novellas.

 

6) If there is one question you'd like to be asked about your work that nobody has ever brought up, what would it be? 

 

Why do you love writing novellas instead of novels? And the answer can be found by looking at question number 5 ;-)

7) What's next for you?

Next up is a novella featuring Vance Custer, my new series character. He's a true crime writer who will investigate your case as long as he gets the book- and movie rights. It is a little less hardboiled than my Noah Milano series but still has some action and mystery as people expect from me.

Post-writing Panic

Now that I have finished the newest book, the first in a spy series under (probably) the Dean Breckenridge moniker, it is time to panic over the content of the next one, as I have no ideas right now.

Here's the part where I thrash around and decide that I can't plot my way out of a paper bag...

...think about plots I can steal from other sources and change....

....and wish I had become a dentist.

Yet in a week or so I'll have more ideas than I know what to do with.

I hope.

Interview with Mark Allen

Author Mark Allen and I have gotten to know each other through Facebook and we both have an interest in old men's adventure books. Since he is coming on strong with books of his own, not just in action/adventure but other genres, too, I thought you'd like to get a glimpse into what makes him tick and what he has in store for the future.

Brian Drake: What is it about the action genre that you like? Is there something specific about that subject matter that fires your imagination more than others?

Mark Allen: There is something visceral and primal in the action-adventure genre; violence channeled toward the causes of justice and vengeance and payback and the punishment of evil. Some people call these books “fairy tales for men,” and while that’s typically said in a derogatory fashion, there is some truth to it … though honestly, based on feedback for The Assassin’s Prayer, there are plenty of women who enjoy the genre as well, despite it often being labeled as a male-centric category.

BD: Of course, you have branched out with books like “Suck A Bus” and action/fantasy like “Resurrection Bullets” … have readers been as enthusiastic about those stories as they have The Assassin’s Prayer?

MA: While action remains my primary genre, I do dabble in horror, as evidenced by short stories like “Suck A Bus” and “Mudslingers.” I even took a stab at straight-up romance (“The Sweetheart Buck”) that was surprisingly well received. I published all my short fiction prior to releasing The Assassin’s Prayer and while reader response to the shorties was good, it pales in comparison to how well The Assassin’s Prayer has been received.

BD: What did you do to promote The Assassin’s Prayer to the point you’re selling, as you’ve mentioned elsewhere, 50 copies in one day?

MA: Honestly, I have no idea! I mean, sure, I know what I did, but it’s nothing that thousands of other indie authors aren’t doing as well, and traditional self-publishing wisdom would tell you that what I’m doing is not enough to generate these kinds of sales figures. My marketing routine is simple: I post at least once a day on my Facebook Page, send out at least one Tweet per day, interact on a few action-adventure Facebook Groups, network with other action authors, and post a blog entry at least 2-4 times a month. That’s it. No blog tours. No paid promotions. No website reviews. My wife and I joke that when it comes time to publish the next book, I won’t know how to replicate this success because I really don’t know what I did. I just wrote the best action-thriller I could, marketed it as best I knew how, and somehow it seems to have found an audience.

BD: Tell us about one or two favorite authors who make you write better.

MA: My favorite author is Stephen Hunter. That man can spin a guy-with-a-gun yarn better than anyone, but truthfully, I make no attempt to emulate his style. Early in my writing career—and by early I mean the formative, pre-publication years—it was Eric Van Lustbader who most directly impacted my writing. I remember reading The Ninja and being struck by how seamlessly Lustbader merged violent combat with rich, descriptive, poetic prose. Nobody had blended beauty and brutality so expertly and I began trying … well, not to mimic, but to juxtapose a similar lushness of language with the violence of the action genre. More recently, the rapid pacing and muscular prose of Lee Child and Vince Flynn have influenced me to write a bit leaner and strike a balance between poetry and rawness.

BD: What storytelling gaffes and clichés that you see other writers make do you try to avoid?

MA: Subpar characterization and rigid adherence to formula. I read a lot of action novels and far too often writers fail to create characters that readers give a crap about. An emotionless cipher gunning down cardboard terrorists just doesn't cut it. Granted, this is the action genre and the pace needs to be brisk, but too many writers spend six paragraphs describing a weapon in explicit, porn-like detail, but barely give you a sentence or two about the hero. One of my goals with The Assassin’s Prayer was to write a novel that featured all the hard-hitting action one expects—nay, demands—from the genre, but with a greater depth of emotion. I wanted you to get all the bullets and blood you could handle, but I wanted the bullets and blood to matter.

BD: If there is one question you’d like to be asked about your work that nobody has ever brought up, what would it be?

MA: The question I would most like to be asked is, “Would you accept this $1 million check in exchange for the rights to your book?” Hasn’t happened yet, but hey, dream big or go home, right?

BD: Tell us what’s next for you.

MA: I am currently working on my next novel. While not a direct sequel to The Assassin’s Prayer, it does take place in the same shadowy world of crime lords and assassins and a character or two from The Assassin’s Prayer may have cameos. While I don’t want to give too much of the plot away at this early stage, it features a virginal hit-man, a disgraced hooker, a defrocked priest turned CIA handler, an assassin named Jesus, a corrupt US Senator, and an absolutely ruthless villain. It’s everything you love about The Assassin’s Prayer—raw emotion and bloody action—ramped  up to the next level. No firm release date yet, but Summer/Fall is the target.

Brian Says: Give Mark's books a try. I've featured The Assassin's Prayer, The Killing Question, and Resurrection Bullets--they're all winners, but I have to admit a fondness for Resurrection Bullets, which is "inspired" by James O'Barr's THE CROW. I have a personal connection to the film made from O'Barr's comic, so it caught my attention right away, and it's a home run.

Writing Habits of a Sado-Masochist

I'm working on a new book for the Dean Breckenridge series, and I've gone back to an old habit I picked up ages ago: writing the manuscript by hand.

Armed with a pen and a 180-page spiral notebook, I have been diligently scribbling and following my outline for the last month, and I'm about halfway through the notebook. I'll need another to finish the story. My calculations say that, when typed, that 180 page notebook will equal 50 pages. This book, like my other Breckenridge titles, won't be very long.

But why would I make myself do twice the work? Right, I'm going to finish the ms. in the notebook and then take another month to retype it. While I'll be making some changes along the way, I've added a step to the process that seems to take up more time rather than saving time.

Who cares. The nice thing about writing in a notebook is that I don't have to lug the lap top all over the house, or anywhere else. I can write on the bus, in the park, on a plane, in jail, wherever I have a place to sit.

Does that make me a glutton for punishment? I suppose.

Interview with Dean Breckenridge

Dean Breckenridge has written, if I may say so myself, some very swift-moving action stories that feature a character called Wolf. He's an outlaw that is sort of a halfway house between the cops and the crooks; if you can find him, and need a square deal, he'll assist, and make the bad guys go away--usually with a .45 bullet to the skull. I caught up with Dean recently for a few questions.

Brian Drake: It's nice to sit and finally talk to you. We've been passing in the hallway for months now but this is the first chance we've had to talk.

Dean Breckenridge: I don't speak to the help.

BD: Well...I'm not exactly "the help", per se. Where do you get your story ideas?

DB: You're asking me that? Who asks that anymore? I'm calling my agent.

BD: You seem to know a lot about criminals.

DB: I read Mack Bolan books growing up. What did you read, Nancy Drew?

BD: I preferred the Hardy Boys, actually.

DB: You would, pansy.

BD: Now wait a minute...I don't understand the hostility here. This is supposed to be a friendly chat.

DB: I don't need this. Have you seen my sales lately?

BD: I see them every day, actually. Congratulations. You're doing very well.

DB: Would you say I'm doing better than you? THE ROGUE GENTLEMAN--what a joke. Nobody wants him. You suck.

BD: Actually, no I don't. I'm you. You're me. If people are buying your books, they're actually buying my books, so truthfully I don't suck at all.

DB: My head hurts.

BD: So where do you get your ideas, dummy?

DB: Newspapers.

BD: What's a newspaper?

DB: You know, the stuff birds poo on. 

BD: I don't have a bird.

DB: Yes you do.

BD: I'm pretty sure I don't. 

DB: You have a bird. Why else would I have newspapers here?

BD: There are no birds in my house. 

DB: Are you sure you're in the right house?

BD: Let's get back on track. Where did Wolf, your current series character, come from?

DB: He's Batman without the tights. Do you like Batman?

BD: I was always more of a Superman guy.

DB: Pansy.

BD: Are you always going to write about Wolf?

DB: I guess. But I'm also going to write about other guys, too. I got a spy series I'm working on that has lots of sex and violence. Or is that violence and sex? Or is the violence happening during the sex? 

BD: I don't know.

DB: Well, crap, I thought you knew this stuff.

BD: And I thought you told me you were going to concentrate more on urban action stories and let me do the spy stories.

DB: That was before I started outselling you.

BD: You don't outsell me.

DB: Shall we look at the numbers again, smarty pants?

BD: You sell more because you have more books out. I only have a few and none of them are part of a series yet. Once I get more Rogue Gentleman books out I'll sell better, too.

DB: If that helps you sleep at night. Look, are we done here? I got drinking to do.

BD: We haven't had a drink since July 12th of 1996.

DB: Maybe you haven't. I need a drink to tolerate your lousy questions.

BD: You know what, you're such a punk that I'm not going to link your books to this interview.

DB: Whatever.

BD: Hey, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't exist.

DB: If it weren't for me, you would't be driving a Corvette.

BD: My day job pays for the Corvette.

DB: And my money pays for the repair bills. $2000 in repairs for January alone. Are you nuts? If you want to piss away your money, give it to AIDS babies in Africa. Do you feel good that babies in Africa are dying so you can have a Corvette? And by the way, it's an old Corvette. Why don't get you a new one?

BD: You're just a sour puss, aren't you?

DB: I'm not sour at all.

BD: I've had enough of you. From now on, you stay on your side of the room and I'll stay on mind.

DB: Fine with me. My side is bigger than yours.

The Indie Scene: Eric Czuleger's IMMORTAL L.A.

I don't read fantasy stories at all; I have no interest whatsoever in the genre, but I had to read Immortal LA because the son of a dear friend wrote it. How's that for full disclosure? Anyway it's a good book, and I have to agree with one Amazon review that says it's like a mash-up of Neil Gaiman and Douglass Adams. Can't get a better recommendation than that.

I invited Eric to do an interview. I think you'll like his personality; I think you'll like his book, too.

1) Tell us about your new book.

Immortal L.A. is about vampires, and angels, and dead kids who skateboard and psychic self-help gurus and Freemasons and sea monsters. It's an urban fantasy about the gateway to hell (the San Andreas fault) and how the history of Los Angeles has been dictated by a battle between God and Satan.

2) What inspired the story idea?

Buy it at Amazon today!

I wrote the first story "The Vampire Andy," while I was living in Albania. I wrote it for a horror podcast called Pseudopod. At the same time I found myself researching a lot about the history of Los Angeles. I was terrified to return after living abroad for so long. So, I started looking for something to love about the city. I was surprised how much I didn't know about where I'm from, and also how much there was to appreciate.

The Pseudopod episode came out, I thought that was neat, and I went on my merry way. Then my mom and brother heard the episode. They ambushed me in the kitchen and said I should write a whole book. The wouldn't let me leave the kitchen until I said I would give it a try. They're usually right about things like this. So now it's a book. 

3) Have you always wanted to write a fantasy story, or did this one beg for attention? Will we see more of this kind of book from you?

You know, I never thought I would write fantasy. But I don't like being bored when I read and I really hate being bored when I write. I learned something great from an erotica writer at a reading series I was invited to once. The difference between porn and erotica is what you're talking about. Porn is sex for the sake of sex. Erotica is sex for the sake of discussion.  It can be a discussion of power, ethics, religion, purity--anything, really. A good story can be told in any style. Genre is the gun. The story is the bullet. I would rather have a magical gun forged by Satan and blessed by the Knights Templar, than a regular one.

I want to tell a cool story that people want to read to the end of. I would rather write about a zombie massacre or an angel's impression of Taco Bell than a couple of twenty-somethings wondering where they went wrong. Isn't it always more fun to exist in a world that is supernatural? 

My next books will be tending more towards magical realism and sci-fi- so yeah, more of the same. 

4) You spent a few years in the Peace Corps. working in Albania. How did that influence your writing?

I got to go on a pilgrimage to the top of the second highest mountain in Albania, I worked with some of the smartest students I've ever met, I illegally crossed the border of Kosovo and Serbia by hitchhiking on a Coca-Cola truck, I watched the kids outside of my apartment grow up, I got an elbow to the face and ended up with a bloody nose on New Years in a bar in Romania,  I got lost in a rain forest, and danced (very poorly) with fire dancers in Thailand. I don't really know how the Peace Corps has influenced my writing, but a whole lot of stuff happened in my life. I don't think it matters how it happens, but I think it's good for your writing when a whole lot of stuff happens in your life. 

5) Immortal LA is not your first trip to the rodeo. Some past work has you up for the O'Neill award this year, you've been featured as an emerging artist at the Disney Center's Redcat Theatre, and you run and write for LiveTheatreBlog which raises money for your Albanian Village. How do you manage juggle all of this activity?

Honestly most of my days are filled up working with special needs kids and teaching performing arts. I find that I'm generally uncomfortable if I'm not writing something. Nothing makes me stare into the void quite like not having a project to work on. I told my friends I would take a month off after the book was done because it was making me crazy. That lasted a weekend.

As far as Live Theatre Blog--our final show went to help fund the Mobile Library that I worked on in Albania (not a village exactly). We're now transitioning into working on shows about American subcultures. SPOILER ALERT: For research me and my team went out to Area 51 and to an Alien Abductee conference. "Our Crowded Skies", my new play, will be about the UFO subculture in America. So far research has been really fun. I apply for the O'Neil every year along with a bunch of other festivals. I've been super lucky to be short listed by them a couple of times. 

6) What's next for you?

What's next is I've got to finish my next novel, "Farnoosh," which is about a woman who escapes the Iranian Revolution. She has a Jinn (a genie) and it is the story of the three wishes that she makes in her between when she is twelve and living in Tehran and when she is living in West Los Angeles in her fifties.

I'm working on a sci-fi novella called "SkyCube" which I've been wanting to do for awhile. It's about the near future where we will all be followed around by hovering cubes that meet our every need and watch us constantly. I'll be honest, this one comes from a long running inside joke with my buddy Dave and my own discomfort with technology.

My play, "L.A. Lights Fire," which is loosely connected to "Immortal L.A." will also be available soon in audio.

At some point I am planning on having a social life too.

Here is the link to buy Immortal L.A.

http://getBook.at/ImmortalLA

This is a link to donate to the Tropoja Mobile Library! Give anything you can, it goes to support a book mobile that serves the most isolated villages in Albania. 

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/books-and-activities-for-1500-children-in-albania/

This is a link to a full story from Immortal L.A. This is the story that started everything.

http://pseudopod.org/2013/07/05/pseudopod-341-immortal-la/

Justified Sins Reprise

You may be a wee bit upset with me for this but there's a reason I'm doing it--"it" being re-releasing a book once written under my own name but now recycled as a Dean Breckenridge tale.

Back in 2010 when I joined the self-publishing revolution, my second entry was a book called "Justified Sins" featuring a vigilante hero named Pierce. Pierce worked outside the law, but had connections in the DA's office to smooth over all the mayhem he caused. Pierce was an orphan, his parents killed in a home invasion robbery, and after a successful career in the military Pierce returned to his home city to visit vengeance on baddies everywhere.

Problem is, the story was never supposed to be about a vigilante, certainly not one who was an orphan, and he was never meant to spend his first adventure protecting his foster sister from the Mafia. But those elements were added to the story at the suggestion of those who thought it would make the book more "commercial" and give it "broader appeal". As a rookie, I figured they were right. What happened was, I added those things, and then hated the book. I hated the book so much that I could not look at it on its own merits, nor could I acknowledge the positive comments the book received. Some readers asked for a sequel, but the thought of revisiting the characters made my stomach hurt. Ultimately I pulled the book from Amazon. I couldn't stand to see it on my list.

Pierce was supposed to be a shadowy figure, enigmatic. He would have police contacts, but also criminal contacts, and work both ends against each other when necessary. He'd pursue his own crime-busting activities but also be for hire if one could find him. But he was ruined because I followed suggestions that stole away my original vision.

I could have done a reboot. I probably could have done a lot of things, but I shelved the book instead.

When I began writing the Wolf stories under the Breckenridge name, it was basically a rewrite of Pierce--done right, this time. With a little more experience, a little more confidence, and a little more skill, I decided to hell with the advisors. I'm doing the book my way. Thus, "Justified Sins" has been rewritten and retooled as I originally intended. The Director's Cut, if you will. What's the lesson? Follow your gut. Ignore advice--unless it's painfully obvious that you need such advice. My instincts were correct. The enigmatic mystery hero is something audiences will respond to. The initial pack of Wolf stories proves this. They actually sell better than the books under my real name. I think I'm a little pissed about that.

What I'm doing is a bit unorthodox, I understand, but even if you don't buy the new version, I have to do this for my own sanity. I think it's a good book that deserves to be seen; now that I've brought it back to where it originally started, I can be proud of it again.