Interview with Lt. Del Carter, CPD

This was me at 6 AM
when my company
arrived!

Note: I apologize that this post was released before it was completed! That was an accident! It also speaks volumes about the day I had today!

Anyway, here is the final cut!
______________________________

Well, last week I explained how the people in January Moon showed up at my home one very early January morn and forced their way into my home and heart and changed my life forever.

That's no hyperbole; they changed my life in ways that are yet unfolding and which, I suspect, will unfold for quite sometime. It's extraordinary to have your life completely transformed at the awesome age of 59; 18 months later I am a different person in a different life -- and it is sweet. It took awhile to get here but I believe I am finally doing what I was born to do and all of my life's experiences (both wonderful and dreadful), as well as my education, were prelude to this point.

The person most responsible for changing my life is Del Carter. Del and I sat down this morning over coffee and discussed this, as well as other things.

MG: Del, I can't thank you enough for showing up at my door!

DC: Looking back, I think I need to thank you! It was a huge leap of faith to let us all descend on you as we did. Sorry about that; it wasn't very well thought out.

MG: Wiley would have asked "what are the odds that she'll let us in?"

DC: (Laughing) Oh, he said that a few times on the way over here. He still harps on it!

MG: I already know you rather well but let's get you introduced to everyone else. How 'bout we start with your full name and some bio info?

DC: My full name is Franklin Delano Carter. I've always been called Del. My dad, Mack, has always been a trucker. He and my mother, Marge, built up his one truck business into a successful trucking company. It was hard work and a struggle. They're still not on easy street. The economy has hammered them pretty badly but I'm hoping they can retire soon. They deserve it.

MG: You don't like talking about yourself, do you?  I've noticed before and now again you tend to go off and talk about someone else. Jess, your folks, your partner; that sort of thing.

DC: Hmmm.... I guess that's right. Yeah, maybe. Never thought about it before.

MG: Let's try to stick to you, OK?

DC: We can try.

MG: You had a rather meteoric rise on the Chicago Police Department; it was very impressive. In January Moon, however, you're very troubled about your career. You want to talk about that?

DC: (laughs) Well, actually no, but I will... I think everyone, if they're honest, has doubts about their choices in life. Probably the oddest thing about me is not that I went through a period of burn-out -- that just goes with the territory -- but that I ever became a cop. I never dreamed about being a cop as a kid but take my partner Tooch --  now there's a guy who knew he was going to be a cop from kindergarten. Me? I figured I'd drive a truck like my dad but my folks were hellbent on me going to college. They talked me into it in fact. I thank them for that but I don't think my dad figured he'd get a philosopher out of the deal! I think he was sort of hoping I'd major in business or become an accountant. They were barely adjusted to the idea that I had a degree in philosophy when I told them I'd been accepted into the Police Academy. One surprise after another I guess.

MG: So, how did you go from a degree in philosophy to becoming one of the most decorated police officers in Chicago's history? A degree in philosophy isn't the usual route.

DC: Probably not. But I had to eat. I considered law school but that didn't turn me on and I even considered the FBI. My senior year of college was sort of the Summer of My Discontent and I knew I had this great education, or so I was told, but I also knew I had no real skills and it was time to get real and get a job. I met a chick at a bar who was a cop and also in grad school to become a psychologist or something and I thought "hell, if she can do it, I can do it..." Honestly, it was just going to be a stepping stone. Get a job with benefits, maybe a schedule I could rotate around on so if I wanted to go back to school I had some wiggle room, and kill some time doing some interesting things. I wasn't interested in a desk job but I'm athletic, strong, never blink first, can handle a gun... so I figured if that little cutie who was a third my size could work the streets so could I. And, don't laugh, I'm serious, I actually thought I could make a contribution, be a real public servant. Seriously.

MG: Why would I laugh? I would hope all police feel that way.

DC: Some do, some don't. Anyway, I thought it would be a short term gig until I figured it out. I'm still trying to figure it out.  Plan B was playing sax in a jazz club but a guy has to know his limitations; that was never going to pay the bills for me.

MG: But you're very musical; you have an incredible voice. And you seem to have a remarkable memory for music and lyrics. Jess told me you literally know thousands of songs.

DC: Yeah, what's the TV show about knowing the lyrics? Maybe I should look into it, huh?

MG: What are some of  your favorite songs?

DC: Of course, you know I'm a whore for sax. Anything with alto sax just knocks me out. But I love rock & roll, country & western, Broadway show tunes. I'm pretty eclectic. It's hard to say what's a favorite but there's no doubt "Lady in Red" is up there at the top.

MG: Let's get back to your formal education. How did it help you as a cop?

DC: Philosophy teaches you to think outside the box; ask the questions no one else asks. I also went back to school and studied criminal justice. One degree is heavy in theory, the other in praxis. A yin/yang combination. It seems to work.

MG: Let's talk about love. You're very much in love with Jess Farrell. How has that changed you?

DC: Damn, it changes everything; absolutely everything. Men who say it doesn't are deluding themselves, at least if they really love. It makes you vulnerable. Suddenly you really know fear.

MG: You almost lost Jess.

DC: Yes. It still turns my blood to ice water thinking about it.

You know, bringing in the scum was just part of the job. Unless the SOB tried to kill me or my partner, I was happy to just throw his ass in jail and let the state take it from there. But I fell in love with Jess when I was on the United Nations Serial Killer case. My perspective changed after I was in love. Mommsen was probably never a threat to Jess; his victims were foreign tourists but nonetheless every victim became Jess in my eyes, every grieving lover was me. It's the first time in my life I understood paranoia and real fear.

MG: You could have killed Mommsen but you didn't. Do you still regret not taking the shot?

DC: Every day.

MG: But he's been put away for life.

DC: So they say. I won't relax until he's dead.

MG: And then there was Rae Hart. She was the real threat to Jess.

DC: Yeah, and I never saw it coming. It happened fast, it came out of the blue, my guard was down. She's at the heart of January Moon. The story opens with Mommsen in jail and Rae Hart out there in the wings. She was such a surprise. So unexpected. I never knew the likes of her. Don't think any of us did. She's one freaky scary bitch. I bumped into Mercer and Cole in the Federal Building in Chicago a few months ago. Remember them? They were the federal agents in charge of the raid on the cult. Apparently Rae Hart's a spooky legend with them too.

MG: How are you and Jess now?

DC: We're great. Living the dream.

MG: But the story continues...

DC: Yes, it continues in March Storm. You're writing it now so I guess we don't want to give too many spoilers.

MG: And Wolf? 

DC: Amazing as always. He's become a celebrity.

MG: Well, he's probably going to be the most famous dog in literature since either Lassie or White Fang.

DC: He's definitely more like White Fang. Don't you remember the ending in Jack London't great story when the grateful Weedon family name White Fang the "Blessed Wolf"?
MG: I never thought about it before but the you're absolutely right; there are parallels. The "Blessed Wolf." Amazing. Is Wolf going to end up living contentedly with a cute Border collie and siring lots of puppies like White Fang?

DC: So he hopes, right? We'll see.

MG: Would you mind if I told people they could ask you questions about January Moon or yourself? Would that be OK?

DC: Don't know why not. Sure. They can email you or leave questions here on your blog. If I can answer their questions, I will.

MG: Anything in particular you want to say before we end?

DC: Yeah, these are some delicious donuts. Mind if I grab another?

___________________________________________________

Some Ladies Sweat

Oh, baby, is it hot outside! We're in a scorcher here in the Kankakee River Valley south of Chicago. Of course, we're not alone. A killer heat wave is hovering over most of the contiguous U.S. like a suffocating death shroud. Yesterday I cooked an egg on my deck in 2 minutes.

A 2-minute egg: hardboiled. A Mickey Spillane kind of an egg.

Obviously, I'm getting bat-shit stir-crazy from being way too housebound but what can I do? Honest to God, I hate this kind of heat. There was a time when I was sixteen and could wear a bikini and practically lived at the Chicago beaches... and I don't remember hating severe heat too much back then... and there was the year I lived in Ft. Lauderdale when I was twenty (and also lived in a bikini or a halter top and jeans all the time) and I don't remember hating the heat too much then either ... but I think those years were flukes.

I was probably just too young to appreciate how miserable I was...

I think there's only one respectable place for a lady to sweat and that's in bed... but being a lady I won't elaborate further.

Which reminds me of one of the most truly obnoxious women I've ever known -- a woman who fancied herself a real lady.

In fact, she once took great pains to instruct me about ladies and perspiration… and a few other things too. Her name was Beverly.

I was living in a 2-bedroom apartment in Ft. Lauderdale with my girlfriend Pat and one night Pat brought this chick Beverly home. I was the baby at only twenty; Pat was twenty-two or twenty-three and Beverly was in her mid-to-late twenties. Beverly actually seemed old to me and the truth is I think I disliked her at first glance but Pat was very enamored with her; how they found one another eludes me but it doesn’t matter. Suffice to say, Pat seemed to think Beverly was pretty special.

Pat explained Beverly needed a temporary place to stay (having just been kicked out of her boyfriend's digs) but what Pat thought was really cool about the deal was that Beverly actually had some damn money. Pat and I were pretty much free spirits and although we both worked and were far from indigent we never had any REAL money -- not like Beverly anyway. Bev was loaded... or so it seemed from our vantage point.

She claimed to have been a Delta flight attendant (of course in 1971 she was called a “stewardess”) but decided she preferred to work as a cocktail waitress at one of Lauderdale's most high-falutin' tourist bars and restaurants, The Moonraker. It was a place where neither Pat nor I could afford to eat but it was a goldmine for Beverly who was pullin' down a staggering hundred+ big ones a night -- in 1971 dinero mind you – in tourist season.

So we agreed to provide temporary shelter for 1/3 the rent until she found her own place. Beverly was happy to pay her share of the rent and even though I never really liked her I appreciated that she loved to cook. She definitely had a thing for making big Southern breakfasts with biscuits and gravies and even steaks and ham and she liked to bake pies... which brings me to the part about her being a very Southern lady.

Beverly was a true Magnolia Blossom and when she spoke she was almost captivating... as I said: almost.

Although I was fascinated with her accent and her colloquialisms (and enjoyed her breakfasts) I always felt there was a thinly veiled condescension, a delicately hidden sense of superiority toward us. I'm not sure if it was borne of her geography or belief that she was a greater sophisticate than either of her younger Yankee roommates but it rubbed me the wrong way. Pat, however, blew it off and said I was too sensitive and too easily offended. Since I was the person who, in a moment of temporary insanity, had been talked into giving up my room to Beverly and was sleeping on the couch (I know, I know... I was an idiot) I don’t think being overly sensitive or easily offended was really my problem… know what I mean?

Anyway, as another measure of my insanity I decided our living room needed painting and cut a deal with the landlord who bought the paint and supplies. I went at it with relish, painting, painting, painting… until the A/C died... in the middle of August… in Florida. The apartment's heat and humidity soared to what we'd now call a Heat Index of about 457 degrees. It could boil lead. The Palmetto bugs vacated the premises.

The paint wouldn't dry and neither would I.

I've always had this horrible tendency to sweat like a man. It's true. Even at twenty when I weighed a trim and fit 105 pounds and was in perfect health I could sweat more than a couple of guys called Bubba roasting a pig at a 4th of July Picnic in a swamp. (You get the picture.) So, at sometime in the middle of this painting catastrophe I bitched I was “sweatin' like a pig."

To which Miss Magnolia Blossom sneered and corrected me: "Mah’reen dah’lin’,” Beverly cooed, “a lady nevah sweats. A hohse sweats and a man peh’spires but a lady gets slightly wa’hm.”

I should have killed her then.

Beverly had a passion for football – and football players. She heard about a lounge down in Miami where the Dolphins were said to gather. Beverly had a thing for Nick Buoniconti (I don’t think she ever met him so I’m not implying anything either; she just thought he was especially cool) and she heard he was often at this same watering hole. So, one evening Beverly blew off work and the three of us headed down to Miami.

Bev, who was the only one of us who owned a decent car, did the driving. Frankly, she wouldn’t have been caught dead in our cars. She drove a brand new convertible Corvette that was brilliant red with a cream interior. It was definitely tits. (Which makes me wonder in retrospect why she didn’t have her own place, since she had enough money for a great car and was really rolling in dough but I suppose she was saving her money to buy a resort or something in the Cayman’s and we were happy to oblige. There was a quid pro quo in our relationship somewhere.) Point being: Beverly drove.

We were young, we were pretty, and we were carefree and we were off to Miami.

And before you think too deeply about this – yes, I was underage but I had ID and in those days no one seemed to ask for proof of age… at least not unless it was Easter and you looked like you could tear up a hotel in a drunken psychosis -- and maybe not even then. (As an aside I find it curious as hell and a terrible testament to what’s happened to this country that when I was 20 and actually looked 16 no one gave a crap if I drank but now that I’m 60 and look every damn day of it I can’t buy wine coolers at my local grocery without showing ID because now everyone in this nation has no common sense, can’t make a discretionary call if their life depends on it, and all businesses have policies that come straight out of the Fascist Corporate Model for Morons… but that’s something for another post. )

So, where were we?  Oh yeah. The lounge in Miami.

I wasn’t in the lounge 15 minutes before I met an old friend, a guy named Joe, from Chicago. Actually, Joe was from Evanston. When I was in high school I worked as a checker at a local grocery story and Joe was a young butcher. He was a jovial guy with great jokes. Joe and his new wife were vacationing in Miami and it had been several years since we’d worked together at that grocery store on the northside of Chicago. It felt great to see a familiar face.
Joe and Mrs. Joe were sitting with a guy who was the size of a small whale whom they introduced as yet another Joe; Joe Greene to be exact.

Yes; Mr. “Mean” Joe Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Honestly, nothing seemed mean about him; in fact, I thought he was sort of a teddy bear. Pat and I squeezed alongside these two giant guys and the one wife (my friend Joe the butcher was a huge guy too) and the men were gentlemen and Mrs. Joe was quite lovely. The conversation was easy and very pleasant and I looked around the lounge for Beverly but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Where the hell’s Beverly?” I whispered to Pat but my friend hadn’t a clue.

So, the night wore on and Pat and I met more people who seemed to gravitate to our table and the men kept the drinks flowing and the waitress hovered obligingly nearby and the bartender sent over a few free rounds and it seemed everyone knew this guy Joe Greene… or wanted to know him. We found a few more Chicagoans in the crowd and an older guy who said he’d once played ball too… and there seemed to be an abundance of ball players or wannabees and the conversation was all about sports which, quite frankly, bores me to death… but I knew it was Beverly’s passion and so I kept asking Pat, “Where the hell’s Beverly?”

After all it was Beverly’s bright idea to drive down to Miami and scope out the scene at this particular lounge and, in fact, it seemed to be producing what I thought she hoped to find… God knows we were up to our cute mini-skirted butts in macho males who knew a thing or two about yard lines and pig skins.

“Where the hell’s Beverly?”

The party began to wind down and the bar crowd was seriously thinned out and it was now near closing -- which means we were staring at 2 AM -- and I was still wondering “Where the hell’s Beverly?”

Pat and I had a hundred opportunities to leave with any number of men but we didn’t; believe it or not we weren’t big players. Honestly, I’d had all the sports talk I needed for a lifetime and I think Pat felt the same and we wanted to call it a night.

But neither of us knew where the hell Beverly was and so finally Pat went into the parking lot and I swear to God when she came back to our table she was wearing one of the most genuinely dumbfounded looks I’ve ever seen on anyone’s face.

“Beverly’s car is gone.” 
Say what? Come again? Huh?


Pat and I were stranded in Miami which is one helluva long poke down the road from Ft. Lauderdale at 2 in the morning.

My friend Joe and his wife insisted on driving us home -- which I was very grateful for -- but I was also mortified that this had happened and thought about ways to strangle the woman all the way home. Pat was genuinely worried sick; she was afraid that Beverly had been abducted by a serial killer but I knew better: I figured the poor bastard would return her once he got to know her.

Nonetheless we agreed we’d call the police if she wasn’t home at a “reasonable hour” which seems absurd now but at the time we were willing to set that time at Noon the next day. Beverly had been known to be a pick-up and we figured that’s what had happened – but it still seemed hard to believe that she’d strand us in Miami.

Even for Beverly that seemed hard to imagine.

So anyway my friend Joe and his wife, who had flown into Miami early that morning, spent the day running around town, and had now been partying into the wee hours, graciously drove us home in their rented airport car. Those folks must have been totally exhausted. Naturally, we invited them in for coffee and also breakfast and even offered them Pat’s room so they could get some sleep but they declined; they wanted to do an immediate turnaround and get back to their hotel in Miami.

Imagine our surprise when Pat and I walked into our apartment and found Beverly waiting for us… imagine our surprise when we found a furious, frenzied, insane Beverly waiting for us. We weren’t in the door two seconds before she pounced with the rage and fury of a woman possessed. She screamed at the top of her lungs that we “humiliated her” by “fraternizing” with black people (only she didn’t call them “black people”). And maybe I need to mention here that she was right in the use of the plural because my friend Joe and his wife were black people. (I think I forgot to mention that.)

Pat looked even more dumbfounded than when she first reported Beverly’s car was missing from the parking lot. She stood slack jawed staring at Beverly spinning around the living room doing her version of the St. Vitus Day Dance for Klukkers and spewing a venomous screed of racist hate. I have to admit I was as stunned as Pat and shared her initial speechlessness. 

Beverly waived one of her Pepto Bismal pink nails in our faces and hissed malevolently: “The next thing ah know, ya’ll gonna’ be bringin’ Cath-oh-licks and damn Jews fuh dinnah!”

Which when you think about it is the comical high note in this story. Neither Pat nor I wore rosaries around our necks and we weren’t exactly dutiful daughters of the Catholic Church but c’mon already – what’s there to miss about names like Patricia Kelly and Maureen McDermott? Do they sound very Baptist to you?

We had a wonderful and hilarious Jewish lady in our building, a Mrs. Friedman, and she could do better schtick than Lainie Kazan playing Lainie Kazan. Pat and I loved her. She looked after us and always bitched we were much too thin – and nothing is more melodious to a young woman ear's than hearing she’s way too thin. Remarkably, Beverly didn't notice Mrs. Friedman’s obvious Jewishness, the mezuzah on her door frame or that her son, who visited quite dutifully, wore a Yarmulka. I thought her Yiddish was a dead giveaway but maybe not if, like Beverly, you grew up near Memphis. It would have been an obvious surprise to Beverly that she was already living with Catholics and Jews.

I don’t remember what actually happened next but shortly thereafter (read: in < 5 minutes) everything Beverly owned – including her damn Magnolia Blossom Ass – was tossed out onto the wet dewy Florida lawn.

We said nothing as we walked back into the apartment after tossing the last vestige of that damn woman’s crap onto the grass. Pat locked the door in silence, careful to also use the dead bolt.

The weirdest thing about this wasn’t that Beverly fled terrified in the night (she did) or that we never saw her again (this was no surprise because she said we were both “totally insane” which was reasonably accurate) but that Pat and I never discussed it – ever. I’m not really sure why we never spoke of it but I think there was just something about that night that was too painful, too shocking. We had exorcised a beast from our midst and maybe we thought talking about it would bring her back. Whatever it was, a part of  our innocence was lost; Pat and I had looked into the eyes of the kind of person we'd only heard about but had never personally known. I've often thought about how different my life would have been if I'd been raised to think like Beverly. I've also often thought about how it would be to have a person like Beverly in control.

Something in Kelly and McDermott died that hot night in Ft. Lauderdale back in 1971... but clearly something stronger had been born in both of us.
________________
This is dedicated to the young kid who wrote me an earnest and lengthy email asking me to tell him how a writer can become “inspired” to write great stories. Wow; what a question.

The truth is: I have no idea.

But I have a hunch that it's life itself that inspires all writers.

So, my advice is this: live a life -- and there will always be stories enough.

Good luck.

Maureen’s Musings on a Hot Summer Day

I’ve been inundated with requests for interviews lately and it’s all very nice but interviewers all seem to have the same generic questions. Of course, each and every request comes with a friendly statement that I should feel free to “speak” (write) about any topic I’d like and the questions are just suggestions. So, I usually try to give an interview that offers up a new angle (I hate repeating myself) and try to execute a clever end run around the same-old/same-old.

Nonetheless, I’m going to answer one of the most persistent questions right here & now (I’ve created a hybrid question that melds together all the possible variations on the same theme); to wit: “what was/is your inspiration; what inspires you when you write; where do you find your inspiration; how can writers find inspiration?” and yada yada yada ad nauseum.

Which reminds me of Stephen King’s great aphorism:  “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Writing is a job – and a damn hard one. Writers don’t wallow in inspiration; writers wallow in work… lots and lots of hard work.

By “writing” I refer to the art, technique, and maintenance required to call oneself an author – one who is still living, breathing and generating new works.

If you’re an author today, whether you’re highly successful or not, you’re an independent business person; you run a business and that business is you. The truth of it is also this: if you don’t think of yourself as a business you will most likely never stand a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming successful commercially.

All authors today are either small business owners (the ma’ and pa’ stores of the industry) or, if they’ve hit the career jackpot, they will either manage or direct the management of a vast enterprise that – guess what? – is still all about them. Before Rowling there was Disney… and between Rowling and the one-book-to-yet-be-discovered author there’s a great group of A-Listers: Grisham, Patterson, Evanovich, Meyer. They have turned their ma’ & pa’ stores, their small proprietorships, into large corporate endeavors but it’s still all about them.

YOU must make it all about YOU; no one else can do that for you.

Which is a nice segue into this next thought:

I continue to be amazed at the author-wannabees who disparage indies because they’d rather “wait for an agent.” They remind me of the desperate spinster thinking that if she catches the bridal bouquet she’ll be the next gal at the altar.

Yeah: we all know how that works. Look around you, sweetie; the girls who make it to the altar have been on the dance floor all night workin’ up a sweat -- while you sat at a table full of babushkas talking about all the women they know who died in child birth... 

Talk about fun...

Seriously, as someone I know once put it: Those who can, DO; those who can’t, TALK ABOUT IT.

Put another way: given the vagaries and realities of today’s marketplace, waiting for an agent to find you makes perfect sense only if you’re really sure you never want to get published.

And whatever gave these wannabees the idea that once they get an agent they don’t have to work to promote themselves? Aren’t they reading what everyone’s been writing? This is something I see all the time – it’s the wannabee mantra: “I don’t want to do all the stuff it takes to be an author today; an agent will handle that for me… so I’ll wait until I hook one.”

What are they smokin’? I guess that’s OK if you want to hang around for five or ten years…

Me? I have a life to live, baby!

Some more rambling musings:

·         You are an author when you actually author something; publication has nothing to do with it. So finish that damn book already and quit talking about it. And spare me your word count. Who the hell cares how many words you wrote today? That tells me nothing. It’s not about the damn word count, kid; it’s about the quality of your writing. A novel is not a novel because it has 110,000 words – the Chicago Yellow Pages probably has 10 million words but that doesn't make it a library.  

·         Perception really is everything: both for you and those you want to follow you. So please! Stop it already with the whiney Facebook pages, blogs saturated with angst and self-absorption and all those Twitter profiles that scream “author wannabee looking for a spouse.”  You know the ones: they say “aspiring novelist looking to have my self-worth and talent validated by a total stranger I haven’t even met yet.” (Think of the spinster: how many offers is she going to get with a sign around her neck that screams “Send me a man to give me an identity, make me feel pretty and loved, give me some babies, and help me avoid bankruptcy”?  Yeah: that’s sexy as hell; a lot of guys are gonna’ bite the bait on that one.)

·         As to the “inspiration” question: I never knew a “natural born” anyone who needed “inspiration” to be what came most naturally to them, especially in the creative arts. Inspiration is overrated and as a term seriously overused. The burning need to write, or paint or dance or make music is not borne of inspiration external to self – it is self. It emanates from within; it’s your soul crying out to be free as only you can be free, as only you are; it is a life force within you and if it is true and genuine it cannot be denied.

So where does the work come in? Ah, I knew we’d get back to that point: just because it’s your natural born talent doesn’t mean it’s not work. The need to express yourself through writing or dance or music is inborn – it comes from somewhere deep inside and takes us back to self. How successfully one may transform the inner need to write or dance or make music and become an author, a ballerina or a pianist hinges on discipline and the capacity for hard work.

In my opinion, anyone with a burning need to write or dance or sing can certainly do so and probably will do so – they will find some way to express that need. However, turning pro requires kicking it up a notch. It begins with first learning the tools of one’s expression; with the writer it is having a solid command of language, grammar, punctuation. (So, yes: I do believe if you want people to read and respect your writing you must write well – and that includes knowing the rules of the road.) Even Mozart took lessons (remember Salieri?). It was only after Mozart mastered scales that he could soar and become… well, Mozart.

Here’s my advice to anyone who wants to transform their inborn need to write into the business of being an author:

Maureen’s Rule #1: Master language – from the double negative to the dangling participle: get it down. Once you have it mastered then and only then can you decide how to creatively play with the rules and become an e.e. cummings or James Joyce. There’s a world of difference between breaking the rules for emphasis or to push the boundaries of literary license and just being an unlettered clod. 

Maureen’s Rule #2: Practice, practice, practice (if you really love to write, this is the easy part).

Maureen’s Rule #3: Draft, draft, draft (this is the part that requires serious discipline, if not carloads of humility).

Maureen’s Rule #4: Draft some more (this builds muscle and also confidence).

Maureen’s Rule #5: Don’t be the spinster at the wedding. Don’t wait for a date. Don’t wait for a lover. Don't wait for anyone; ever. It's your train, your schedule.

Maureen’s Rule #6: Love yourself. Dance with yourself. Hire yourself – Become Your Own Agent.

Maureen’s Rule #7: Did I mention you need to draft a lot?

Maureen’s Rule #8: Finish the damn book already.

I like this pic so much
I'm using it twice! Remember:
U can do this
baby!

Maureen’s Rule #9: Publish the damn book already (you can do this baby, you really can...).

Maureen’s Rule #10: Prepare for the wedding but while you’re waiting for the guests to arrive: write another book.

Note: Any sexist language in this article is purely for literary convenience. These comments and rules are applicable to both sexes and analogies can go either way... I'm sure you can figure it out, right? 

Final Comment:
Remember ---> Authors write; everyone else just talks about it. ~Maureen Gill

Another Sample Sunday

JANUARY MOON

Excerpt from Chapter Nine

There was nothing Tommy Lee Lattimore enjoyed more than masturbating while watching a woman on the toilet. Obviously, that wasn’t always easy to do. But his apartment met his needs nicely because its bathroom shared an inner wall with the bathroom in the apartment next door. The arrangement was all the more wonderful because his neighbor was a very pretty woman. He tried to make her acquaintance several times but she rebuffed his efforts. It didn’t matter; his peepholes made up for it.

Tommy Lee liked the routine he established for himself in Chicago. He found a job at a nearby video store and the perks were primo. He could take home all the pornography he wanted for free and sometimes he was able to steal microwave popcorn and Kit Kats. The apartment was actually far nicer than he could afford but he didn’t worry about money. His uncle Nelson covered most of his expenses so all Tommy Lee had to do was make a little pocket change and provide a nice place to stay for the occasional missionary his uncle’s church sent to Chicago. 

“It’s important that you have a job, son,” his uncle said. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

His uncle raised Tommy Lee since his lousy whore of a niece, Tommy Lee’s seventeen year old mother, dropped him off on Nelson on her way to Vegas twenty years earlier. The Reverend Nelson B. Wilbur was a widower and lived alone on 1600 acres in Montana just outside of Billings.

“You’re a man of God,” Roberta Ann said, “how come you can’t help us? It’ll just be ’til Ricky and me get on our feet in Vegas. Then we’ll come for the kid. And anyway, you ain’t got no kids and all this property is just perfect for little boys. He’ll even be able to help you some. Little kids can do a lot more than you think, you know.”

And so she deposited Tommy Lee on her uncle’s ranch and never returned.

Tommy Lee was only three and his uncle Nelson was still a relatively young man at thirty-six. Nelson actually became fond of the boy although it soon became obvious he was about as smart as a bag of hammers. Nelson never held it against him.

Nelson inherited his spread but never did any serious ranching. His passion was preaching and politics and in his mind they were one and the same. Like his daddy before him he studied at a Southern Baptist Bible College and returned to Montana to minister to the two hundred families between Otter Creek and Buffalo Falls which was halfway between Billings and Smokey Forge. Everyone in the area called him Pastor Nelson and whenever possible they attended his Arm of God Bible Church which was situated on the main road just north of his property. It was a pretty little church and its congregation and pastor were very determined to preserve its fundamentalist bent which, everyone fervently believed, was exactly why the Constitution of the United State was written.

Nelson gravitated to the wonders of the internet; he immediately understood it was the most powerful communication tool in history. It motivated him to sell off 1500 prime acres and his small herd of cattle to his nearest neighbor. Nelson invested his considerable profits wisely. He also purchased the most powerful computer available and signed a contract with a satellite company specializing in internet service to rural areas.

Like all libraries of learning, cyberspace provides a world of brilliant ideas and intellectual opportunities and the Reverend Nelson B. Wilbur proved he was no different from other mortals when he chose to narrowly seek out only those ideas most compatible with his own religious beliefs and world views. The internet expanded on and reinforced his already flawed thinking as he hopped from one fulminating right wing web site to another. In due time, he was as knowledgeable about white supremacist, neo-Nazi, skinhead, KKK, and other lunatic fringe hate groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, and the F.B.I. combined.

The difference was, however, that Pastor Nelson didn’t want to monitor these groups to control or prosecute them. He wanted to study them and take from each the best of what he believed they had to offer. His intention was to remake those ideas into his own ideology, his own true faith.

The Arm of God Bible Church served the pastoral needs of the community but didn’t effectively speak to the wider political needs of the entire United States which Nelson, of course, believed he fully understood. He met significant resistance when he began to preach to his congregation that the Arm of God Bible Church was called by God to fight the battle that would return America to its white Christian roots during The End Times.

Merwyn Bermer at the feed store put it best when he said “Your sermons, Nelson, are, well I don’t know any other way to put it so I’ll just spit it out, kinda’ scary to some of the folks around here. All this talk about the New World Order, the Antichrist, and the need to overthrow the godless, socialist U.S. government is just too radical for church talk. Stuff like that don’t belong in the pulpit.”

Nelson also heard grumblings from others folks. Some started speaking up after Sunday service and others took him aside at the barber shop and grocery store. But when Howard J. Ridley, president and sole owner of the Otter Creek State Bank spoke to Nelson he knew he had to listen. Ridley was a right wing extremist himself and a man to reckon with and Ridley thought Nelson was “way over the top.”

“Nelson,” he said, “your sermons are sounding downright loony. You tone them down a bit, ya’ hear? You’re scaring the hell out of people.”

Ridley added, “Hell man, you’re going to get the damn government snoopin’ up our asses around here. You understand?”

Nelson understood and wisely chose to listen to the voices of his community. He returned to preaching simple Bible lessons and his friends and congregants relaxed and were grateful.

Bermer explained it this way: “A man’s entitled to get a little crazy so long as he don’t stay that way.”

The locals agreed and took satisfaction in knowing they were able to help Pastor Nelson get his head screwed on straight.

Nelson decided to express his virulent views under cover of the internet, in the infinite and unregulated world of cyberspace. He created an extension of the Arm of God Bible Church, a very special ministry called the Fist of God, or F.O.G. Right from the beginning, Nelson conceived of Fist of God as a sophisticated cyber church. He established a PayPal account to accept donations which he called “tithes.” He created F.O.G.’s website himself which was crude but effective; it contained 287 pages of his own writings, most of which were convoluted screeds against blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Moslems, Catholics (especially Jesuits), immigrants of all kinds, labor unions, liberalism, feminism, socialism, occultism, homosexuality, abortion, as well as the U.N., Illuminati, Masons, Rockefellers, Bilderberg Group, and the Mark of the Beast. He had a particular hair up his ass for Jim Harte and his American Jerusalem All Faith Church whom he pegged as a False Prophet, the Antichrist, and the leader of a group of intergalactic travelers called the Sons of Zod.

Nelson wasn’t sure what to expect but after F.O.G. received $25,000 in tithes in its first three weeks he realized he hit a nerve deep inside America. Naturally, he understood it to mean only one thing: that God had chosen him to save America from itself.

One of the first true believers to accept Nelson’s call to action to save America was Anders Matheson, a twenty-six year old ex-Army sharpshooter. Anders was raised by parents who were proud and active members of a white supremacist hate group known as the American Christian Resistance Effort or ACRE. ACRE was a hybrid combination of the KKK and the White Aryan Resistance, or WAR as it was called, but it was too tame for Matheson. Anders was fed up with talk; he wanted to belong to a group that understood actions speak louder than words. F.O.G. seemed to meet that need.

When Anders arrived at Tommy Lee Lattimore’s 2^nd floor apartment in Wrigleyville just before midnight that miserably cold night in mid-December he didn’t need to say “Your uncle sent me” or anything else. Anders wasn’t the first F.O.G. missionary Tommy Lee’s Uncle Nelson sent to Chicago and he knew the drill.

Providing a place to stay for his uncle’s missionaries was the main reason Tommy Lee was in Chicago but if he could have a little fun while doing it, Tommy Lee didn’t mind.

Facebook: My View from the Edge

I was on Facebook several years and, to be honest, I didn’t like it. OK, maybe I didn’t “get it” and that was the problem but I really thought it was lame. Well, it was lame – at least for me and I understand that now. For the other people it was wonderful and a lot of fun and also obviously speaking to whatever their needs were at the time but for me it wasn’t a good fit.

See, they were into things I had no interest in, stuff that left me cold, things that did not speak to my heart.

There was nothing inherently wrong or even weird about what those folks were doing on Facebook; for the most part they were playing games and yakking it up about their families and friends and what they planned for the weekend. It was harmless and pleasant but it just wasn’t me (not that I’m not harmless and pleasant exactly; hmmm…. maybe I should rephrase that… oh the hell with it, this is a blog, not my literary opus -- deal with it). 

Ah! Nothin' like a big meaty bone!



I was talked into trying Facebook again about ten months ago and rather grudgingly I did, but this time I went in with an entirely different attitude. I was looking for meat. Stuff I could sink my teeth into, bones I could suck the marrow out of, grizzle I could masticate to death. In short: substance, not fluff.

I wasn’t particularly looking for friends, new or long-lost, and I wasn’t particularly looking for acquaintances. I really wanted to use Facebook to help me follow the news -- track and monitor the great political divide in this country. Oh, I could find the news by myself; that wasn’t my problem.  I wanted to follow opinions about the news and possibly share in those discussions.

I’ve never bought what the right wing conservatives in the country are selling so it was a natural fit for me to align with groups and individuals sharing news links and opinions from a liberal left perspective. They’re not always 100% on the money but at least they don’t give me hives. The other side does.

What is it about some people that gives me the hives?

I need to watch the right wing, of course, because it’s what they’re doing that I think warrants watching but reading about it through the filter of left leaning analyses buffers it for me. I still get infuriated but the sense that I’m not alone mitigates against my despair.

Then I branched out and began to meet other writers, both of fiction and not, and also made a deliberate attempt to find people I could admire and learn from and this opened up even more doors. Before I’d friend request someone or accept their request I’d study their Info page on Facebook and/or their Wall and if we weren’t somehow compatible I’d move on. This could be a little problematic in cases where people block this information from people who aren’t yet their friends but I’d then consider who their other friends were; if we shared many in common I felt our relationship would work.

Today I really believe that I’ve found 1000 of the most absolutely fantastic human beings in the world on Facebook. How can you be friends with over 1000 people? I know it sounds absurd but you know what? You can. We all don’t communicate all the time about everything and some of us are far more connected than others but I have to tell you as a group I think those 1000-plus people could move mountains.

I know they’ve often moved me in the most unimaginable ways.

Facebook represents many things about where I am in life right now. For example, I’m not a gamer – in all the ways that is meant. I’ve never been a big game board or card player. I like chess but haven’t played it in years and given the chance to play it again I’d rather just sit and talk to my chess opponent.  If talk is not an option, then just give me a book or magazine.

See what I mean?

If you want to discuss politics I’m all in – but I don’t want to listen to the politics of hate and fear. Then I’m out. If you want to talk about your family and I already like you (because we don’t play games and we share a similar world view), then I’m all in. But you have to get to that point with me because I want reciprocity and if I don’t like you then there’s not much I’m going to share with you about my personal life and family (read that as: I will share nothing at all).

I don’t think I need to say I’m into kink or bungee jumping and I’m not looking for anyone to save me for the Lord on Facebook (and I resent anyone who tries).

I know that it’s absolutely mandatory that authors create a sophisticated social networking world; I’ve heard the mantra and I know how it works and when I waded into the Facebook waters this was certainly on my mind but it wasn’t at the top of my mind and that’s the truth. I thought that some day it could very well be a tool to promote myself as an author and my books but I wanted to become familiar with Facebook first and I definitely wanted a different way to collect and filter news and possibly connect with some like-minded people.

Let me explain something about my new life as a fiction writer. Writing fiction is very new to me. I mean really, really new – at least as an adult. I’ve been dreaming up stories since I could just about walk and that’s no joke… well, more truthfully, I was spinning tales before I could write them down but it worked out because I had the luxury of owning my very own scribe. His name was Roo and he was a man of color (ratty brown furry color to be exact – the kind that would cover the body of a stuffed kangaroo).



My Roo!



Family lore records I was about 2.5 years old when I started dictating my stories to Roo. My father was an attorney and my mother a legal secretary and sometimes she’d step in and help him (as when his secretary was on vacation). I was fascinated with my mother’s ability to take shorthand as she listened to my father. I mimicked this and began dictating to my beloved Roo. The thing was, as my astonished folks soon realized, I really was dictating a story, not just kiddy gibberish. My mother captured some of those stories but sadly they are now lost to me; I have no idea where they ended up although I know she kept them on a steno pad for years and years. She kept this pad with many of the things she cherished under the table pads in the 2^nd drawer of the dining room buffet (makes sense, right?). Roo is also no more. He fell apart in the washing machine (I still mourn his loss). 

Does this professor look like a guy who would appreciate
a good yarn? Not likely.
If you think so, just try explaining
how the boys at the frat party ate your thesis.



Life took me on various other trajectories and I ended up (among other things) as a historian. As you may well guess, one does not boast about an ability to draft good fiction while simultaneously trying to earn bona fides as a credible historian. At least this is how it was at the university I attended. The History Department at my alma mater frowns on flights of fancy and other inventions and I’m sure you can appreciate why (unless of course you’re Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck but let’s not go there now…).





(This man is NOT a historian.)

But I digress... so, anyway, yesterday an aspiring young author contacted me and asked how I used Facebook to promote myself as an author. The truth is, my friend, I don’t.

But what I think I’ve done – what I hope I’ve done – is promote myself as a person.

I look serious here don't I?

Maybe even find myself as a person.

I have not been able to separate myself as the historian and political commentarian (is that a word?) from the newer persona of the author of January Moon, the first book in the Del Carter Calendar Series. Many people would advise me that this is a mistake.

It may well be – for them; I think it’s not a mistake for me.

I know I could create a writer’s reader fan page on Facebook and I did begin to create a page for January Moon but haven’t completed it. My heart’s just not there; it’s really not. I don’t want to talk about my writing all the time or even my beloved books and I know that’s a problem, especially for an indie who needs to constantly hustle and promote.

How can I explain this? Sure, I use my Facebook Wall to promote this blog and other articles I write elsewhere (such as The Pragmatic Progressive Forum & Opednews) and I also discuss January Moon and my reviews and my upcoming books as well. The fact is, however, I love discussing history and politics and I love following the news and it’s very important for me to watch trends and try to understand the many conflicting currents that dance over the American landscape.

I think that will always be how I use Facebook and doing so is necessary for me as a writer of fiction because my fiction is heavily embedded with observations and critiques about the many hot-button issues permeating society. In January Moon I wrote about FGM and domestic terrorism, cults and religious extremism, racism and madness, as well as families and love and loss. In March Storm I’m carrying over many of those themes and also wandering into areas about animal abuse, human trafficking, gay rights, and even Mother Nature and climate change.

When I send out a request to my Facebook friends to keep their eyes open for news about dog fighting or sex trafficking or gay bashing or even alpaca farming, I will receive fantastic news items from all over the country, even the world, in hours.

In that way my Facebook friends contribute to my writing in a remarkable way and invest their time in my efforts and become a part of the process. I’ve been floating some cover designs for March Storm on my Facebook page and that’s been fun and created some helpful feedback. I cherish this connection and I suspect many of them do as well.

But the fiction is a sidebar to the larger picture which, and I think we’re getting back to that young author’s question, is all about defining me as a person and the joys of building relationships with others. There is absolutely no way I could interact with so many people on a daily basis were it not for Facebook. I find this amazing and I love it.

I can’t advise another writer how to mine the depths of social networking to help sell books but I’d like to suggest it’s possible to use social networking to help define yourself as a person.

BTW: This picture was taken August '09 and that's Trooper at 10.5 weeks. It's a lousy pic of both of us but it will have to do... it's the only one we took that day. I always take lousy pictures so for me this was nothing new but Trooper was gorgeous! He was naturally photogenic and liked to pose. Trooper came and had to leave so that Shadow could come and I could write about Wolf. Their story is at the top of this blog, titled "Trooper, Shadow & Wolf."

Take care.