This is my end of the year post covering both my writing and my reading for 2004. It was a pretty good year for both.
Since 1980, I’ve been keeping a list of all the books I read, which makes it fairly easy to go back at the end of the year and pick out my favorites. Some people were posting Best of the Year lists a week or more ago, but I waited until the last minute in case something really good slipped in at the end. This Top Ten isn’t necessarily a “Best” list, although I think all of these are very fine books. They’re just the ones that I enjoyed reading the most, arranged alphabetically by author:
ASTRO CITY: LIFE IN THE BIG CITY, Kurt Busiek – The trade paperback collection of the first story arc from one of the best comic book series of the Nineties, by the best writer currently in comics.
BLOOD KIN, Henry Chappell – An excellent historical novel about the Texas Revolution and the decade or so afterward. I had a quibble or two about the ending, but the rest of the book makes up for it.
THE BLACK ECHO, Michael Connolly – The first Harry Bosch novel, featuring an intricate, fascinating plot, great characters, and fine writing. Any of the four Connolly novels I read this year could have made this list, but I held it to one.
THE KEEPER’S SON, Homer Hickam – Wonderful old-fashioned storytelling in a World War II novel that features compelling characters, plenty of action, and poignant scenes that stick in the memory.
PALE HORSE COMING, Stephen Hunter – The second Earl Swagger novel, also with an intricate plot and great action scenes. Hunter is probably the best pure thriller writer in the business right now, although the third book in this series, HAVANA, was a bit of a disappointment to me. Still not bad, though.
SCARLET RIDERS, Don Hutchison, editor – This collection of Mountie stories from the pulps is just pure fun, and a lot of it. It’s even prompted me to start checking eBay for issues of NORTH-WEST ROMANCES.
ANGRY MOON, Terrill Lankford – A funny, brutal, cross-genre, crime/horror novel that reads like one of the best B-movies you ever saw, with as emotionally satisfying an ending as you’re likely to find.
EARTHQUAKE WEATHER, Terrill Lankford – Dark and hilarious and complex, this has the pace of ANGRY MOON with even more fascinating characters. One of the best looks inside the movie business that I’ve ever read.
DOUBLE PLAY, Robert B. Parker – Baseball, gangsters, a World War II vet who’s wounded both physically and emotionally, and a vividly drawn Forties setting, along with some of Parker’s best writing in recent years. It’s nice to see him turn out something this good again.
FADE TO BLONDE, Max Phillips – One of the first books from the new Hardcase Crime line, and about as close to a pitch-perfect re-imagining of a Fifties Gold Medal novel as anybody could write.
My preliminary list was twice as long, and it wasn’t easy to trim it down to ten titles. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these books. As for my total, I read 137 books in 2004, which is about average for me. I haven’t been below a hundred in any year since I started keeping lists, and my high is 183 books. What can I say? I like to read.
On the writing front, I produced 4567 pages of fiction this year, which breaks down into twelve and a half books. Some of them were pretty long, too. If I’d been writing only series Western novels, that would translate into nineteen-plus books. I think this was probably my most productive year ever, although I came pretty close to those totals early on in my career, when I was young and full of energy. It’s a little harder when you’re an old guy.
When I started this blog, I worried a little about the time it would take. So far, the investment has been well worth it. I’ve made some new friends, such as Aldo and Terrill, and it’s also helped me keep in touch with old friends. It’s pretty cheap therapy, too. Thanks to all of you for reading these ramblings, and I hope all of us have a wonderful, healthy New Year.
I'm reading a novel by an author who's a fairly big name in his genre. This is also a book that won a major Best of the Year award. And it's one of the most sloppily-written things I've ever read. Early morning becomes night with no warning. One of the characters says he's never seen a black man before, when three pages earlier he was in a fairly small room with one. Other characters get up and prominently walk out of a scene, yet half a page later they're suddenly back with no explanation, taking part in the conversation, and then they get up and walk out again. I know it can come across as sour grapes when a writer criticizes a more successful writer, but somebody -- the writer, the editor, the copy editor -- really should have caught these mistakes. And I'm only a third of the way through the book, so I don't know what else I'll find. What's really frustrating is that except for the carelessness, this is a pretty enjoyable book with likable characters.
In looking through my records the other day before I posted about my first sale, I noticed that in the late Seventies I sold one story each to DAPPER and FLING (got paid on acceptance for both, a hundred bucks each), but I never saw the stories when they came out. I'm not sure I ever saw an issue of DAPPER or FLING, period. I just sent stuff out according to the listings in Writer's Market. So I don't know when those stories appeared or what pseudonym wound up on them. Likewise in the mid-Eighties, when I'd hit a dry spell selling novels, I sold half a dozen or so stories to the digest-sized, letters-oriented men's magazines, fifty or sixty dollars each, on acceptance. I don't think I ever saw any of them except maybe one.
The best men's magazine market for me was Dugent. The editor there, John Fox, liked my work and bought nearly everything I sent him. He even reprinted one of the stories in a DUDE ANNUAL or something like that and sent me a check for thirty-five dollars, which arrived out of the blue and came in very handy. Their payments were on publication, but they were prompt and even sent me author's copies of the magazines. My best sale there was a story in CAVALIER, their top magazine, for which I got $250.00. CAVALIER had been publishing Stephen King stories only a few years earlier. Most of the stories in his collection NIGHT SHIFT came from CAVALIER, I think. If there are any magazines like that left today, I'm not aware of them. But then, I don't check out that market very often, either.
Twenty-eight years ago, I was a newlywed, living in a small, shotgun-style apartment built onto the side of an older house, working for my father as the office manager of his television and appliance repair shop. Earlier, while I was in college, I had written a few short stories and tried to sell them to various mystery and men’s magazines, with a complete lack of success. I had just about given up on writing for a while, but even before we were married, Livia had encouraged me to try again if that was what I really wanted. So by the winter of 1976, I was writing madly in my spare time, still turning out stories aimed mostly at the mystery and men’s magazine markets. Still with no success. The only encouraging sign was that I had started writing movie reviews for the local weekly paper, so at least I got to see some of my words in print.
I also read every writer’s magazine I could find, and in one of them I ran across an article by a fellow named Bill Pippin. I have no idea what happened to Bill or where he is now, but I owe a debt to him. In his article, he suggested that a beginning writer could sell to the confession magazines and make a little money while honing his craft. I had no idea what confession magazines were. Livia had read a few of them that belonged to her mother, though, and she explained to me that the stories in them were anonymously written yarns about semi-hysterical women who managed to get themselves into bizarre, emotionally melodramatic situations. All supposedly true (hence the title of the oldest and most successful confession magazine, TRUE STORY), they were, of course, written by a horde of freelance fictioneers of the sort I aspired to become. (I found out years later that Harry Whittington, one of the best suspense novelists of the Fifties, wrote confession stories at one time.) Since I was trying to break in anywhere I could, I went out and bought a couple of confession magazines at the grocery store and read some of the stories. Then I sat down and wrote one myself, about a woman who starts getting obscene phone calls. The mystery writer in me even put in a little twist at the end of the story, when the identity of the caller is revealed. I titled it “The Voice on the Other End” and sent it off to a company in New York called Ideal Publishing, which put out the confession magazine INTIMATE STORY. I sent it there first because the company’s listing in WRITER’S MARKET said that they paid on acceptance, rather than on publication like most of the other confession magazines. Amateur though I was, I had already figured out that being paid on acceptance was better.
In those days, I was using my parents’ address on all my stories, and I would go by there every morning on my way to work to check the mail. When I stopped there on December 27, 1976, no one was home, so I got the mail out of the box myself. While walking into the house I noticed that there was an envelope addressed to me, and the return address said IDEAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. This wasn’t the usual manila SASE in which my stories always came back to me with rejection slips, either. It was a business-sized envelope, and you can bet my fingers were shaking a little when I got in the house and ripped it open.
Inside was a check in the amount of $167.50, with a notation that it was for my story “The Voice on the Other End”.
I don’t remember what I did. Jumped up and down and yelled, probably. I was a professional fiction writer, even if it was just one sale. It was a pretty good sale, too. In those days, $167.50 would pay for a month’s rent on our apartment plus a basketful of groceries.
Well, of course I thought that since my first confession story had sold I must have the formula down pat, so I started writing them as fast as I could. Over the next few months I must have written a dozen more of them. But, as you may have guessed, I was overconfident. Only one of the stories ever sold (although it earned me $175.00, being a little longer than the first one). Ideal Publishing bought it, too.
Meanwhile my first story was published, and for some reason the editors at INTIMATE STORY changed the title to “Forced to Listen to My Boss’s Dirty Phone Calls” and totally blew my twist ending. By the time I wrote the second story that sold, I thought I had a better handle on the types of titles the editors wanted, so I called it “I Paid My Husband’s Debts With My Body!” And of course, when it was published, the editors changed the title to the less-frantic sounding “Housewife Hooker”.
That was the end of my confession magazine career, because while all this was going on, Sam Merwin Jr., the editor at MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, bought a couple of my mystery stories and I abandoned the confessions for my first love, mysteries. I also started selling regularly to the men’s magazines, mostly CAVALIER, DUDE, and GENT, usually the same sort of mystery stories I was selling to MSMM, only with a sex scene added. Those markets kept me busy, plus I soon started writing Mike Shayne novellas for MSMM, and then in the fall of ’78 I decided I ought to try writing a novel . . .
I’m still at it, of course, but I’ve never forgotten Bill Pippin and my brief career as a confession magazine author. And I’ve certainly never forgotten what it felt like to open that envelope and see that first check as a professional writer, twenty-eight years ago today.
We had a low-key but very nice Christmas at home. Spent most of the morning leisurely unwrapping presents. Since the kids are older we don't have to do that at the crack of dawn anymore. An excellent turkey dinner later, and I even went out to my studio and wrote a little. I got some much appreciated functional gifts, like a new heavy coat to replace the one that's just about worn out, but I know what you want to hear about. You want to know about the fun stuff I got.
1. A boxed set of serials on DVD, twelve in all, including THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION, DICK TRACY, ACE DRUMMOND, UNDERSEA KINGDOM, THE LOST CITY, THE PHANTOM CREEPS, SOS COAST GUARD, THE CLUTCHING HAND, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, SHADOW OF THE EAGLE, and THE HURRICANE EXPRESS. I'm really looking forward to these.
2. UTOPIA PARKWAY, a CD by Fountains of Wayne
3. The Far Side Wall Calender
4. Get Fuzzy Day by Day Calender
Those last two are actually vital writing accessories for me. I've had a Get Fuzzy Day by Day calender right beside my computer this year, and there were a lot of days when I had to drag myself out to the studio, only to read that day's strip and break up laughing over it. I found writing easier after that. And I always need a good wall calender with plenty of room to write on it because that's where I keep track of my pages and figure out whether I need to pick up the pace. It can also come in handy for tax purposes because I can always tell what I was working on at a particular time.
I never really get into the Christmas spirit like I did when I was a kid, but this was a pretty darned good one. Not to be corny about it, but having the four of us together, all relatively happy and healthy, is always the best present of all.
There's still snow on the ground from the storm earlier in the week, so I'm officially declaring this a White Christmas, only the third or fourth I've seen in my lifetime. (In this part of Texas, you take your White Christmases when you can get them.)
Everyone have a great day.
A friend of mine sent this to a Western writers' group we both belong to, so I thought I'd pass it along. S. Omar Barker was a cowboy poet and wrote many articles and short stories for the Western pulps during a long career as an author. I never knew him, but I've read quite a bit of his work.
A COWBOY'S CHRISTMAS PRAYER
By S. Omar Barker (1894-1985)
I ain't much good at prayin', and You may not know me, Lord-
I ain't much seen in churches where they preach Thy Holy Word,
But you may have observed me out here on the lonely plains,
A-lookin' after cattle, feelin' thankful when it rains,
Admirin' Thy great handiwork, the miracle of grass,
Aware of Thy kind spirit in the way it comes to pass
That hired men on horseback and the livestock we tend
Can look up at the stars at night and know we've got a friend.
So here's ol' Christmas comin' on, remindin' us again
Of Him whose coming brought good will into the hearts of men.
A cowboy ain't no preacher, Lord, but if You'll hear my prayer,
I'll ask as good as we have got for all men everywhere.
Don't let no hearts be bitter, Lord.
Don't let no child be cold.
Make easy beds for them that's sick and them that's weak and old.
Let kindness bless the trail we ride, no matter what we're after,
And sorter keep us on Your side, in tears as well as laughter.
I've seen ol' cows a-starvin, and it ain't no happy sight:
Please don't leave no one hungry, Lord, on thy good Christmas night-
No man, no child, no woman, and no critter on four feet-
I'll aim to do my best to help You find 'em chuck to eat.
I'm just a sinful cowpoke, Lord-ain't got no business prayin'-
But still I hope You'll ketch a word or two of what I'm sayin':
We speak of Merry Christmas, Lord-I reckon you'll agree
There ain't no Merry Christmas for nobody that ain't free.
So one thing more I'll ask You, Lord: Just help us what you can
To save some seeds of freedom for the future sons of man.
Merry Christmas, everyone, and good night.
That's how I've thought of December 23 ever since I was a little kid, just one of those odd things that sticks in your mind from childhood. Today was a pretty good one, just colder than usual. We're recovering from a snowstorm that swept through the area yesterday. Now, those of you who live in more northern climes than Texas probably wouldn't consider two to three inches of snow and drifts twice that deep to be much of a snowstorm. But it was pretty white for around here and cold to boot, down in the upper teens. Supposed to be even colder tonight. I've seen the temperature here go below zero only once in my 51 years, and it's been down in the single digits maybe a dozen times. We were lucky yesterday and the roads didn't get very bad, for which I was quite thankful since I had to be out on them last night. The last two times I tried to drive on icy roads I got stuck, and I don't want to repeat that experience, thank you. That's a skill that I just don't have.
I finished Ian Rankin's KNOTS AND CROSSES. Frank Denton comments positively on Rankin lower on this page and hopes that I'll read more of his work. Based on this one, I certainly will, since I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'll admit that overall I like books set in the United States better than those set in England or Scotland (a reversal from my early days as a mystery fan, when I read all the Saint books and many Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and John Creasey novels). But these days I don't mind reading an occasional book set in the UK. While John Rebus doesn't seem quite as compelling a character as Harry Bosch, to compare him to another in the semi-burned-out cop genre, I liked him well enough. And KNOTS AND CROSSES is short and fairly fast-moving, always a plus as far as I'm concerned.
Who can resist a website with a name like that?
http://a23.com/babesinspace/contents.html
We spent most of the day replacing shingles and repairing some damage on our barns. We should have done this before now, but life's just been too busy. I'm pretty good at putting down shingles when I'm starting from scratch. Replacing and repairing is much more difficult. After climbing up and down ladders and hammering all day, I'm pretty sore and worn out tonight. Sure makes me glad I write books for a living instead of roofing.
I'm reading KNOTS AND CROSSES, the first Rebus novel by Ian Rankin. It's pretty good so far, and this might be a series that I continue reading.
