Category Archives: Writing

PREPARING TO RELAUNCH

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by

Zachary Klein

Those of you who read this column already know that Polis Books is publishing the original three Matt Jacob novels as e-books, individually and as a set, then my new one, TIES THAT BLIND, both as an e-book and paperback. What most people are less aware of is the preparation it takes to create a successful relaunch/launch, for both the publisher and me.

If you’ve been to this site before you’ve probably noticed some significant changes with more to come. First and foremost are all the new covers for each book. Soon there will be links to where they can be bought. And while I cherish Michael Paul Smith’s cover designs that I used when on my own, I also appreciate the care and concern that Jason Pinter, founder and publisher of Polis took to create each of the new ones.

One striking difference from now and my experience at traditional publishing houses was Jason’s desire to include me in the cover design process. A whale of a change from when I’d see the covers of my books only after they were published. That’s just how it worked. Instead, Jason sent me multiple mock-ups of each book’s cover. Not only was I given a choice of the different pictures, but also the opportunity to mix, match and discuss the results with him.

For those who never worked with legacy publishers, that sort of care and connection was (I can’t speak for the present) non-existent. To say I’ve been pleased to have embraced this new world of publishing would be a huge understatement.

But where the rubber really met the road was in working with Polis Books after I submitted TIES THAT BLIND. Again, I was used to editorial demands to change the novels’ main character. “How can anyone drive having taken a 5mg valium pill?” Or, “It’s time to place Matt into a 12-step program.” Or, “Change the ethnicity of a character in NO SAVING GRACE.” How about being told that a murder needn’t happen in the first forty pages, then getting thumped when I didn’t have a murder in the first 40 pages? And these were only a few. Each submission was the beginning of a fight. An ugly fight I came to despise.

So you can imagine my pleasure when I received well thought out comments from Jason. Comments that made sense and helped make Ties a better book. This was the first time I didn’t have to argue about Matt’s personality, a book’s interpersonal relationships, or engage in “comma wars.” He also appreciated that this novel doesn’t adhere to the traditional detective fiction framework. It’s been something that I was edging closer and closer to from STILL AMONG THE LIVING to TWO WAY TOLL, and finally NO SAVING GRACE. In fact, this is a wave that’s been happening with other detective fiction authors and one that fits with my work. As I’ve mentioned in other columns, I think detective fiction and jazz are related. Some musicians have broken through the boundaries of their time and redefined their contemporary music. They feel as if they can experiment with the form, create innovations and variations, but it’s all jazz nonetheless. I can’t claim I’ve done that with TIES—but I can say it’s an honest attempt to place all the characters’ relationships at the forefront and let them define and drive the drama.

Truth is, if it wasn’t for this new age in publishing I probably would never have written this book. Writing is difficult and this is a novel that occurs at much later point in time than the first three. Truth also is that I’m grateful in many ways. The book allowed me to maintain continuity, but also move beyond where Matt had been before. It forced me to look at the aging process in terms of Matt’s personhood, lifestyle, and listen to his older voice. And I’m extraordinarily happy that I did because it stretched my abilities. Something that I still enjoy.

There are a lot of people to thank for their support and encouragement along the way. Kent Ballard for covering the fort on alternate Monday columns while I finished my revisions. Sue for her encouragement, and Sherri Frank for holding my feet to the fire and providing insightful comments all the way through. It ain’t easy reading the same book twenty times or more to get it right. And getting it right feels harder than it had been—I don’t know whether that’s because I’m smarter now or just older. But whatever happens with TIES, I’m truly pleased that Polis Books helped make the book the best it could be. And, although it can stand on its own two feet, I really hope people take the time to read the first three e-books. It’s always richer to know how a character grows and changes. I think it’ll add to the enjoyment of this one.

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Death of a Cold Warrior

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BY

               Kent Ballard                

 For years, Stewart Alsop wrote the full back-page socio-political column for Newsweek magazine. In those days there wasn’t a bulier pulpit to be had. I started reading him while still a teenager and got hooked for some unknown reason. He was a great writer, one of the very first guys I ever saw who could shoot thunder and lightning from a page. He didn’t do it every week but he did it when he wanted to. Sometimes you would come to the end of his column and simply sit and stare at the page because you did not know what to think. I thought he was a Commie one week and a Nazi the next, but most of that might have been the mirror he held up to America in the last years of the 1960’s and the first few years of the 1970’s.

The guy had everything going for him. Vast audience, great writing, dinners with the President, luncheon meetings with Congressional leaders. Smart politicians courted him and smarter ones never crossed him. He was often a guest on Sunday afternoon TV political talk shows. He wasn’t handsome, kind of a plain-looking man. He knew this. He was bald and was the first one to point it out on panel shows and then laugh about it. No one laughed until he laughed. Then everyone laughed at once and stopped at once and watching their actions gave you the understanding this was a powerful man.

By then I had the habit–like many others–of reading Newsweek backwards. You opened the back cover of the magazine first to see what Alsop had to say about the previous week’s glory/horror/tragedy/amazement/bewilderment. Imagine a guy like that coming to his full power in the 1960’s. There were endless new things a columnist could write about but one week he wrote of surgeons and doctors and bad luck and closed his column by telling his readers that he had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and was given six months to live. He said he would stay at his typewriter as long as he possibly could.

And then the world gathered around to watch him die in inches, a little each week.

Sometimes he’d fool them. He’d go for three or four weeks, hammering and railing about this or that and we all wondered if he had forgotten he was supposed to be a dying man. Then he would write a column that haunted your soul and told you precisely what it felt like to be in his shoes and it was not a pleasant feeling. If memory serves, he said one surprising thing that bothered him were ticking clocks. He could wrap himself in his work and usually stay busy enough to distract himself. But…ticking clocks. They were another thing that came out of nowhere to trouble him. He wrote about how silly that was. He joked that he’d watched Alfred Hitchcock too often and followed that with what Hitchcock said to him just the other day about the matter. And why he suddenly felt sorry for Hitchcock. And then how everything hit him at once like a locomotive. He’d made a sad and terrible mistake. Hitchcock was not dying. He was. He said moments like that we becoming more frequent and harder to shake.

We all stepped inside his hospital room. He said he’d made his peace with God and was as prepared as he could make himself. But now the cancer had advanced to the point he had to schedule his writing around medication times. And he described how badly it hurt and we all felt the pain in his words as if we were there.

And that’s when he wrote the column, one of his last, that said something unexpected from an old Cold Warrior.

He was dying in a time of ignorance, he said. Only morphine–or better yet–heroin could ease this level of pain. No amount of synthetic painkillers could touch it. He’d already had the conversations with his doctor and attending pharmacologist. He knew this time would come. But knowing that and bracing himself against it had done no good. He had hoped and prayed they were wrong, like all terminal patients do, but they were not.

President Nixon had been wrong too, Alsop wrote. He’d been wrong on one count with his new declaration of war on drugs. The new-found DEA had been set loose with the wrong sense of direction. They should have been tasked to beat away the terrible man-made street drugs, to wipe America clean from them indeed. But not opiates. Not heroin. You could almost hear the man struggling to breathe at this point.

No, he said, not them. They should be reclassified. They should never have been classed with other street drugs that were dangerous and highly addictive because they were more than that. They held the final glimmer of peace in this world for the dying, the freedom from pain. They alone were all that man had at the very end. Alsop said Nixon had done well when he rightfully championed billions of dollars into research and challenged America to find the illusive cure for his other highly publicized war, the one on cancer. But it would never come in time for Alsop or millions of other Americans every year and it has not arrived yet. Alsop pretty much called Nixon and Congress out of the saloon for one last showdown to rectify their mistake, but he would not live to reach for his pistol. I think this was his next-to-last or third from last column. They said he was lucid to the end but in unimaginable agony.

There remains to this day a controversy whether Alsop was provided heroin at the final stage of his life. Even under a doctor’s care that would have been illegal, both then and now. But he seemed to rally at the end, writing with his same power and grace. We may never know and, in my book, it’s best not to question such things. What is left for us all to question is how we will exit this world, and if the federal government will hound us to our very graves claiming that it is correct.

Today many doctors refuse to prescribe pain killers powerful enough to be worthy of the name. Others will not prescribe any. The curse of addiction and all its attendant evils needs to be fought, no question of it. It’s easy for an innocent person to become addicted to painkillers and narcotics prescribed for a variety of reasons. It would be easy for you, too, unless you are a superior life form which will never break a bone or succumb to a painful illness. But you might take a few moments to ponder, as Stewart Alsop did when faced with his eventual death, the risks and benefits of powerful drugs for those who will not live long enough to become a problem to society yet have nowhere else to turn.

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF…

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by Kent Ballard

No, I’m not a man of wealth and taste, nor did I hold a general’s rank when the Blitzkrieg raged. That title may have confused me with someone else. But you won’t confuse me with Zach.

When Zach first approached me with the idea of a joint blog, him taking it one week, me taking it the other, I naturally assumed, “Jeeze, he’s far more desperate than I thought…” Then I remembered his recent shoulder surgery and figured he tires easily while hanging upside down like a bat to type. That was understandable enough. If the eyebolts in his ceiling ever work loose, he’d crash face-first into his computer and that would be the tragic loss of a good laptop.

So after some emailing and yakking over the phone, I’ve agreed to take over Just Sayin’ every other week for six months. When that time is up, we’ll figure out if we want to continue this odd marriage or if we want a divorce. (I’m going to hold out for the house and the furniture if it comes to that.)

I’ve known Zach for thirty years. I only met him face to face once, and then for only seven hours at another writer’s house. I remember the food being good and the liquor flowing freely. I quit drinking in 1999, and was amazed to see his photo when he started Just Sayin’ because I always thought he was the Chinese guy at the party. Turns out I’d been wrong all these years. This explains the strange looks I got from the Chinese gentleman when I began a tirade against him and the city of Boston over the Big Dig.

I agree with Zachary on many things. With everything else, I am right and he is wrong. That’s the American Way on the Internet, and I’m a proud supporter of my own beliefs. Years ago, on another forum, I pointed out that he was to the left of Vladimir Lenin. He unkindly reminded me that I had once called for a nuclear first strike on Massachusetts to rid the nation of socialists and ne’er-do-wells. I had in fact made that statement, but of course was simply joking. Multiple hydrogen bombs landing on Boston would only cause the Department of Homeland Security to take away yet more of our civil rights. Hey, if they can do it with a kettle bomb powered by charcoal…

Mr. Klein and I live not only in different worlds, but in different centuries. He lives the easy city life, where you can flip open your cell phone and get a pizza or chop suey dinner delivered to your front door. The city plows the snow off his streets. He has limitless luxuries like a four-minute police response should he call them, a fire department, hell, even paved streets. I used to have such things myself, for I lived in Indianapolis for twenty-three years. I hated it.

I was born and raised on a small farm one county east of Indy. I got a job in Indianapolis, met a girl, got married, and soon was tripping over kids toys in my yard. Turns out I had married the wrong girl so a divorce followed ten years later. I kept the house, the major appliances, and got joint custody of the kids. I am one of the very few men you will ever meet who actually won a divorce. (The judge thought she was awful too. He was right.) I then set out on a quest to get to know the rest of the ladies in Indianapolis in the Biblical sense, and was about halfway through the project when I found a quiet, meek, shy beauty and fell head over heels in love. Twenty-eight years later we are still together, and living with me has had its effect on her. She can cuss, clean fish, shoot her 9mm with deadly accuracy, and fears no living thing.

When our kids were grown and gone, it was during our peak earning years. I wanted out of the city, and she was happy to follow me. It took three solid years of searching, but we found our new home.

I can’t tell you which town I live in, because the nearest thing that would pass for a town is fourteen miles away. My home is in far west-central Indiana, in the middle of what is known as a “geologic anomaly.” The great mile-high sheets of frozen ocean paused here during the last Ice Age and carved out some extremely weird topography. Then it covered itself with forest. I own 71 acres of that land, my home being in the middle of it. My driveway is a half-mile long, going back into what appears to be the Black Forest. Beyond that is my dead-end road. Beyond that, and you have the most wretched mud-and-dust roads imaginable to the nearest blacktop. A very peculiar location, as I have the telephone number of one county, the mailing address of a second, and my home is actually in a third.

It keeps the riff-raff away. I value my privacy. We supposedly have a sheriff’s department around here somewhere, but they’re never seen this far into the boonies. My insurance company charges me the maximum rate for fire insurance, because in the event of a fire—as my agent explained—there will be nothing left except for the basement. The deep forest starts twenty yards to my south and east, about twelve yards to my north, and all the storms, lightning and snow come from the west. You could literally become hopelessly lost and never set foot off my property. I know. I did that for a couple of years.

We love it here. This is the kind of land you see in picture books and winter holiday greeting cards. It will also probably kill me someday when I grow too old to care for the land properly. When I want to hunt, I go out the back door. When I want to fish, I go out the front. I couldn’t do that in any city.

I’m the Police Chief, Fire Marshal, Mayor, and Chief Engineer here. I can pee off my front porch and shoot out my back door. We skinny-dip in our largest pond. The only loud sounds here are the ones I make. It’s very different from Boston. There is no pizza delivery, no Chinese delivery, no sirens, no door-to-door unconstitutional searches by paramilitary SWAT teams. Indiana is the only state in the Union which has a law on the books allowing you to shoot a uniformed police officer if he breaks into your home. (And a very strange court case behind that.) In the winter when the power goes out we simply step back 150 years and carry on. Our ancestors made out pretty well with kerosene lamps and wood burning stoves. We can too. And I defy anyone on the planet to show me a more serene, peaceful, and meditative spot than my little four-inch deep creek that bubbles through the forest at my extreme northern boundary. If I could bottle that sound, Prozac would go bankrupt.

I registered to vote during the first year 18 year-olds got suffrage, 1971. I was and am a registered Independent, though very few Independents run for anything nowadays. I consider myself a Libertarian and often wonder why Zach and I have not strangled each other over these many years. It’s because he’s a great guy and I’m not too bad a soul either. We are both well educated, stay well informed, both listen carefully to other points of view, and both see in shades of gray—not black and white. And when he comes away with some ridiculous, half-wit idea of how this world should work, it ain’t my fault.

I hope you’ll find me acceptable for this while. At one time or another I have argued with everyone I know and yet if I have an enemy, I’m not aware of it. All I ask of you is a chance. You may grow to like me too if you’re not careful.

 

 

 

 

 

TWO DOWN NONE TO GO

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IMG_2949I knew there was a problem the moment it happened. First snowfall of the winter and the first winter without Jake’s young, brawny arms living with us. Sue was crystal clear: stay inside and she’d dig everything out.

I waited until she geared up, went downstairs and began digging before I dressed and followed. Sue started yelling as soon as she saw me, but I pretended not to hear. No way I was gonna let her do the porch, stairs, walks, and cars by herself.

I knew enough to protect my right shoulder from any heavy lifting given my surgeon’s warnings that the last operation was a “one and done” deal. But I was too dumb to protect my left shoulder from overcompensating.

By the time I was back upstairs my left was throbbing and I should have let her shovel alone because a steady diet of Advil reduced the pain, but never took it away.

You might think one dumb was enough. Not me. Why stick with one when there’s more on the table? Rather than going to my doctor as soon as I realized the hurt wasn’t about to vanish, I decided to just live with it until just before Sue and I went to Mexico in the spring. Then I paid a call to my doc and received a cortisone shot to be as pain-free as possible during the trip. I also really harbored a belief that the shot would clear up the problem once and for all.

Well, at least it worked for the trip but not the “once and for all.”

Still, I hesitated making another doctor’s appointment upon our return. My gut knew another doctor visit meant another operation.

I finally went and my “gut” came true. But what surprised me was the surgeon’s announcement that the surgery had to be done the following week. I had dreamed of delaying it for a year—or, at least until after November so I could introduce myself to my newly born twin granddaughters without looking like a monster movie poster. And be able to somewhat comfortably hold them.

Wasn’t happening. He made it absolutely clear that that any delay would cost too much range of motion in my arm.

Suddenly the operation became a no brainer.

"Stone walls do not a prison make"

“Stone walls do not a prison make.”

Nevertheless this “no brainer” filled my head with dread. I remembered all too well being stuck in a recliner, unable to get out on my own, for months and months. Remembered all the times I had to call Jake in the middle of the night to help me out so I could use the john. And this time there’d be no Jake to call.

Nor was it going to be six months. Turns out there’s a new way to do shoulder surgeries and while the recovery pain is the same, the recovery time has been greatly reduced. This recovery period was just gonna be around six weeks, but the pain will be much better than my other arm when all is healed. Which Jake reminds me of every time I start feeling sorry for myself.

And no, he hasn’t moved back into the house. He used brain, not brawn. He Craiglisted to find and buy a motorized recliner that allows me to get in and out by myself. It really has made this recovery a whole lot more tolerable.

Truth is, this is really just a 1st World problem. People throughout the globe live without doctors, painkillers, operations, and limbs.

Which, in some ways has made sitting in the house more difficult. Every morning coffee is filled with newspaper horror stories. Makes me sick while I sit around waiting to use my arm. And man, after reading the papers I really want to hit something.

But that’s a price you pay when living in the belly of the beast. The contradiction of a life comfortably lived—shoulder pain or not—while most of the world exists in squalor.

Only these days I’m much less focused on my own life contradictions and much more concerned about the lives of all the kids and twins. What goes around, comes around is never far from my mind. Fact is, we can’t be bogarting most of the world’s resources and imagine this can last forever. There will be a price.

So I mostly focus on my return to writing, try to be a decent partner, friend, and father. Which I’m sure, like the shoulder I fucked up, I’ll mess up more than once. Nonetheless, I’ll keep trying.

The world will take us where it wants despite our meat-headed grandiosity.

IMG_2958In any event, it’s good to be back writing Just sayin’ and once the meds actually wear off I hope to fill the columns with more outrage, reviews, hopes and Interviews with the Dead. In other words facts, fiction, and guest posts. In other words, I’m back.

I also want to thank Kent Ballard for the last column. I found it moving, thought provoking, and deeply personal. What I call “writing from the heart.” Thanks, friend.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ~ Mark Twain

LAST CALL

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As some of you already know, I’ve signed with Polis Books which will first repackage and reissue STILL AMONG THE LIVING, TWO WAY TOLL, and NO SAVING GRACE, then launch my 4th Matt Jacob novel, TIES THAT BLIND. I’m excited about working with Jason Pinter, founder and driving force behind this new Internet publishing house. TIES will be delivered to Jason by February 1st who, I’m pleased to say, will be its editor. The hope is that together we can cut through the Internet’s noise and bring the entire four book collection to a new generation of readers.

The only regret I had in making this commitment was the loss of Michael Paul Smith‘s current book covers. As part of my agreement, all current Matt Jacob novels (including the PDF version) will be withdrawn from sale within the next few weeks and remain so until Polis reissues them. So, if you love Michael’s covers, now is the time to buy these editions. They are available through my website, http://zacharykleinonline.com/matt-jacob-ebooks/, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and Smashwords, which provides the ability to download the series to other platforms including Apple devices.

The other goodbye or, at least so long, has to do with my Just sayin’ weekly column. This will be my last post until I get my feet on the ground working with Polis Books and Jason. I’m hopeful to return at some point in January but can’t promise. So, for those of you who’ve taken the time to read it, I want to thank you dearly. It’s been because of your support that Just sayin’ has been running since January 2011.

Of course, when I return I hope you come back with me. I can’t express the pleasure I’ve had speaking to you throughout these years.

I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me. Roland Barthes