by john | Dec 9, 2011 | Book Spotlight
When John invited me to write a guest post about the genesis of my favorite character in my legal thriller, Irreparable Harm, my initial thought was to write about my protagonist, a tiny but fierce attorney named Sasha McCandless. After all, I like Sasha well enough that I’m writing a series about her! After further reflection, I decided not to write about Sasha after all; before I explain why, here’s a synopsis of the book:
Attorney Sasha McCandless is closing in on the prize after eight long years: she’s months away from being made partner at a prestigious law firm. All she has to do is keep her head down and her billable hours up. Then a plane operated by her client slams into the side of a mountain, killing everyone aboard. Sasha gears up to prepare a defense to the inevitable civil lawsuits.
She soon realizes the crash was no accident: a developer has created an application that can control a commercial plane’s onboard computer from a smartphone. Now it’s for sale to the highest bidder. Sasha joins forces with a federal air marshal who’s investigating the crash. As they race to prevent another disaster, people close to the matter start to die. And she’s next on the list.
Sasha will need to rely on her legal training and her Krav Maga training in equal measure to find and stop a madman before he strikes again.
She sounds pretty awesome, right? And she is. But, I think my favorite character in this first book in the series is Sasha’s boss and mentor, Noah Peterson. Noah is a brilliant lawyer. He’s a senior partner in a major law firm with management responsibility, a solid client list, power, and prestige. He has a beautiful wife and a lovely home. He’s also an alcoholic, workaholic absent husband who has just realized he’s sacrificed his personal life for his professional life.
Noah’s my favorite character because he’s a cautionary tale. I was once on the road to becoming him; but, in 2009, my husband (also an attorney) and I left our large, international law firms in Washington, D.C., and moved to a small town in Pennsylvania. We opened up our very own teeny tiny two-person law office. Now, instead of working seventy-plus hours a week, I can play with our three young children and work on my novels, as well as practice law.
Irreparable Harm isn’t intended to be an indictment of big law firm life or an invitation to examine one’s choices. It’s a legal thriller, meant to provide page-turning entertainment. But, I have heard from multiple readers who’ve said they were more concerned that Sasha avoid Noah’s fate than that she stop the bad guys!
I can’t reveal how things ultimately work out for Noah without giving away some important plot points, but I can say he serves as a reminder to me of why I am where I am, doing what I’m doing, and he seems to resonate with a large cross-section of my readers, too.
Melissa Miller is a practicing attorney who lives in south Central Pennsylvania with her husband and three young children. She is hard at work on the next book in the Sasha McCandless legal thriller series. For more information about Melissa F. Miller and her books, please visit her website at www.melissafmiller.com. To buy Irreparable Harm, please visit one of the following retailers:
Amazon as trade paperback and a Kindle ebook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XDACV2
Barnes & Noble as a Nook ebook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/irreparable-harm-melissa-f-miller/1100490011
Smashwords for Sony, Kono, and Apple ereaders: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/54871?ref=MelissaFMiller
by john | Nov 21, 2011 | Book Spotlight
If you’ve been around the self-publishing debate at all, you’ve heard of Joe Konrath. He’s a hero to some, villain to others and a frog-raping monkey to many more. Don’t ask about that last bit. It disturbs even me. Well, Joe and Blake Crouch (buy his book, RUN – it’s completely and utterly badass!) have a new book coming out Tuesday from Amazon’s thriller division Thomas & Mercer, and the boys were kind enough to give me a little interview time to pimp their new book. Here’s a little bit about Stirred, available for pre-order RIGHT THIS SECOND from J.A. Konrath and Blake Crouch.
1) Why would you guys decide to bring these series to an end now? With all the excitement about ebooks and new publishing methods, couldn’t you make more money writing new Jack/Luther novels?
We could. We’ve written almost 2 million words about these characters, so we just wanted to at least take a shot at wrapping it all up. But who knows? If reader demand is high enough, it’s possible some of them could return.
2) How would you describe your collaborative process?
Sometimes we work on scenes on our own, but mostly we work together at the same time in a Google doc. We tend to write in intense bursts. For example, on the day we finished the book, we wrote 9,000 words.
3) What’s next for each of you?
Joe: The sequel to Timecaster, only I’m releasing it myself this time.
Blake: A solo novel call Pines.
4) Will you ever collaborate again or would you rather pick glass out of your eyeballs?
Ha! Our collaboration is fun, effortless, and probably easier than writing on our own. We will definitely continue to collaborate.
5) Who would win in a fight, the winner of this book or the winner of the classic Thing/Incredible Hulk debate?
Oh, the winner of Stirred, no doubt!
Here’s the Amazon blurb –
Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels has seen humanity at its most depraved and terrifying. She’s lost loved ones. Come close to death countless times. But she always manages to triumph over evil. Luther Kite is humanity at its most depraved and terrifying. He’s committed unthinkable acts. Taken human life for the sheer pleasure of it. He is a monster among monsters, and no one has ever caught him. Each is the best at what they do. Peerless. Unmatched.
Until now…
In Luther’s experience, people are weak. Even the strong and fearless break too easily. He wants a challenge, and sets his depraved sights on Jack. But with a baby on the way, Jack is at her most vulnerable. She’s always been a fighter, but she’s never had so much to fight for. So he’s built something especially for Jack. His own, private ninth circle of hell?a nightmare world in a forgotten place, from which no one has ever escaped.
It’s J.A. Konrath’s greatest heroine versus Blake Crouch’s greatest villain in Stirred, the stunning conclusion to both Konrath’s Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller series and Crouch’s Andrew Z. Thomas series.
Only one can survive. And it won’t be whom you think.
by john | Oct 3, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Your Perception of Poker and Life Should Be the Same
Barry Greenstein said that the way you handle everyday life situations is a determinant of how effective of a poker player you are. For instance, what do you do when someone cuts you off? Some of you may fly into an angry rage and yell obscenities to the top of your lungs. For many of these people, the anger will lead to them driving more aggressively. Some might speed up to catch the driver and cut him off, and some will find themselves in a nasty car accident due to their aggression. Others will be put off by the driver’s sheer stupidity for the moment, but will maneuver out of the situation and drive to the destination without giving it a second thought. The saying to football quarterbacks when no receivers are open is to throw it away and live another down. The guys who can overcome adversity the most will be the most successful in poker.
In paraphrasing Barry Greenstein, I think the people who are best able to let things roll off their shoulders are the best poker players and enjoy the most satisfaction with life. The people who react negatively to someone cutting them off, or their spouse eating the last Ho-Ho are the average poker players who play badly after a bad beat. These guys are dead money in many instances. The ones who choose maneuver out of the situation are the ones who are the most resilient after taking a bad beat and will not become dead money.
In my eyes, poker and life are the same and exist as one. That’s my subjective opinion, but poker does hold parallels to life within itself. For instance, I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that you gotta know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. The parallel to life, and in your game selection is that you gotta know when to stick with a good situation and when to bail out of a bad one, just as you must know when a game is a good one, and when you’re at a disadvantage and need to leave the table.
Some may call it common sense, I think it has more to do with perception. Your perception of a bad beat can be that you’re the unluckiest guy in the world, or that you’re getting action on a move that nets you a winning pot 90% of the time and that the game is good, the player is bad and that dead money still exists in a world of poker books and hard economic times. That may not turn around your current poker session, but its food for thought that you can take into your next session and your next decision when playing a hand. No need to remember that you got your aces full set cracked with a royal flush when you realize that your opponent was chasing 1 out holding AK suited. You need to remember that you’re getting your money in good and that you’re going to win more times than not. In life, if you fail at something look at it as “at least I know what doesn’t work.”
Glenn Gamble is the author of A Thousand Chances, Bon Appetit, Escape, On the Run, and James. All of his books are available on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook and Smashwords
He also encourages you to go to his website
by john | Sep 14, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Real Life, Writing
So I’ve been reading a lot.
A lot.
And since I had no idea what to write about here today I figured I’d give you some recommendations based on my recent experiences sorting through the world of book-dom. Most of these books will be by indie or self-published authors, just because that’s where most of my book-buying dollars go right now. And I might whine a little about cliffhangers, but that’s kinda what I do, so get over it.
Let’s start with a series I just finished up on a couple days ago. This weekend was all about teh football, so it’s only fitting that I alternated between watching football and reading about space football with Scott Sigler and his Galactic Football League series. Starting off with The Rookie, this (currently) three-book series traces the career of young Quentin Barnes, one of the most talented humans to ever play football. But this is football some seven hundred years in the future, so humans aren’t the only species playing! With wide receivers that can jump twenty feet in the air, giant monster linemen that would literally eat a quarterback for lunch, and linebackers that deliver fatal tackles, this bunch makes the Raiders look like guests at a tea party.
Sigler obviously loves his football, and the descriptions of the games are amazing. I love the arc he’s taking this character through, as well. Barnes is a fallible, annoying, pretentious shithead of a quarterback, but buried inside him is a moral compass that just keeps steering him towards the right answers. When he can get his head out of his ass long enough to listen. The supporting cast is just as awesome – John Tweedy is a psycho linebacker that reminds me of the crazy dude in The Replacements, Don Pine is the old vet on his way out, and the others well-crafted and fill the archetypes of a team really, really well. There are cut scenes with sportscasters that are funny as hell, and the only thing in the books that drag a little are the “excerpts” from historical texts that set up information that we as readers need, but they get a little info-dumpy and could probably be cut altogether and not hurt the story at all. But that’s a little quibble, and harder SF fans than me will love that kind of deep galaxy-building stuff. So go buy the first one, it’s awesome!
By the way, I don’t get bupkiss if you click the link here. I’m not an Amazon affiliate anymore because Amazon and the state of NC got into a staring contest a couple years ago and Amazon cancelled the affiliate program for NC residents. So I just provide the links for convenience, I don’t actually get anything out of them. On Smashwords, I get a little kickback if you buy the book through my affiliate link.
But since I finished the third book in the GFL series (SIGLER YOU BUTTMONKEY I HATE CLIFFHANGERS!!!) (sorry, that just kinda happens sometimes, I think my fingers have Turrette’s) I’ve been splitting time between Chuck Wendig’s 250 Things You Should Know About Writing and Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind. Wendig is maybe the most delightfully profane writer I’ve discovered since Garth Ennis, and Rothfuss is maybe the best writer I’ve discovered since Neil Gaiman. So I’ve reading Wendig’s advice on how to be a better writer so I don’t puke myself to death over not being as good a writer as Rothfuss. If you’re a writer, you should also follow Wendig’s blog, Terribleminds. If you’re not a writer but would like to see exactly how batshit crazy we all are, you could still read Terribleminds.
And why does my spellchecker not recognize batshit as a word? Dumbass machines. Obv. we are NOT ready for SkyNet today. Unless they’re masquerading as dumbass machines to hide that fact that SkyNet has already happened, in which case they’re really smart machines and we’re dumbass humans. Which makes more sense. But scares the crap out of me.
After that last paragraph I’m going to go hide in the bathtub with my kindle and a four-foot stack of Transmetropolitan trade paperbacks. What? You haven’t read Transmetropolitan? How are we even friends? Now I’ll be in my tub with my kindle, my Transmet, and a jar of moonshine marvelling at my illiterate friends and drinking myself blind. See you Friday.
by john | Sep 7, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Welcome to Insanity.
Welcome to the State of Insanity. Several people have asked about my books, and have wondered where the idea of Brodie came from. I thought I would take a minute to explain him, if you would indulge me. I believe that every character ever invented is — at some level — a reality of the author. Even the most vile villains exist deep in the core of the author, just expounded by a thousand-fold by the time they reach the paper.
For me, Brodie is a real part of who I am. He’s the shy introvert in me that would rather read a book than turn on the TV. He’s the kid in me who was bullied in grade school; that part deep inside that’s wounded and doesn’t want to come out. We all have that emotion deep inside of us, somewhere. Sure, we’ve shoved him back down so far that we’ve forgotten the pain, but he’s there. It’s a black hole that seems to attract all of our craziest thoughts of depression, anger, hate and loneliness.
In my first novel, Death Has a Name, my goal was to create a character that was actually insane. Certifiable, even. In fact, he had been institutionalized three times for his schizophrenia over the course of his life thus far.
Of course, I had to do research to determine what “insane” looked like. It can take on so many different forms, but the one common thread always seemed to be that the person in the midst of the event believes it — to the very core of his being — to be true. Which of course sent me down a very long, rhetorical, in-depth soul-search of “what is true?” Have you ever tried to answer that question? You should, but before you do, I would suggest taking the alcohol and other mind-altering substances out of your house. That is a question that can only be answered when looking through a very specific, well-focused lens. More on that lens in another post, maybe. That topic is so deep, that it may take five or six posts to even scratch the surface.
So, this damaged character needed a name, and I named him Brodie. John Wayne wasn’t named John Wayne when he was born. He was Marion Robert Morrison. Marion? Really? Several very smart people in charge of Marion’s career decided that Marion wasn’t “manly” enough for the roles he was to play. They knew that the name can really define the persona, so they chose John Wayne for his stage name. In that same light, but in the absolute reverse situation, I named my character Brodie. It’s an odd name, and — like Marion — it isn’t exactly the most strapping name I’ve ever heard. For this character, the name was a great fit for someone on the edge of reality and daily had his lunch money ripped from his shaking hands.
As I began writing the book, I realized that if I put the reader in Brodie’s head, then they, too, would be on the edge of reality. If that happened, the book would quickly spin out of control. After all, if you are in the head of someone who is insane, where is reality? Anything is true, and everything is in question. It would be like launching a jet plane, blacking out all the windows, and disabling the horizon device. No, Brodie needed someone to ground him and keep the reader pointed in the right direction. Enter Phil Dawson.
Phil is Brodie’s best friend. He is also the device I used to introduce the plot, and keep it moving on the straight-and-narrow. Brodie is the train, but Phil is the train tracks. Together, they make up one complete persona, and help the reader see the big picture. Phil can see only the case at hand, but Brodie can see only the paranormal manifestations. Through both sets of eyes, the reader can see everything.
In the end, the reader must discover whether or not Brodie is truly insane, or if he is just blighted with a curse that makes him appear to be insane. And that is the fun of the story. What if you could see things that other people swore didn’t exist? And what if these “non-existent” entities told you about things that have happened or have yet to happen? Would you be crazy? Or would everyone else in the world be deficient, leaving you as superior?
Brodie progresses a little from the first novel, and finds a love interest (something very foreign to him!) in the second novel, Thaloc Has a Body. But in the end, he’s still broken and fragile, and has to deal with The Truth that haunts his every move.
And that, my friends, was the thought process behind the creation of the mysterious Brodie Wade. I hope you’ve learned a bit about me as a person as you read Brodie’s story. It is, in fact, a hyperbole of that broken inner part of each of us. At least, that’s The Truth that I believe to the core of my being.
–Jerry
by john | Aug 9, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Cameron Dockery is a fine example of the neat connections we can make with people through writing. He and I have never met face to face, but I’m happy to call him a friend. Here’s a little about how we met.
On Christmas day this past year I was surfing Amazon on my Kindle app when I came across John’s Short Story, The Christmas Lights. I read it, liked it and shared it with the family before breakfast.
That was seven months ago and little did I realize how reading that story would pull me into the rising tsunami of Indie publishing. This past week Borders Books announced they would be closing and with that my wife and I walked into the local Borders Store to check out the sale.
I was amazed at the rush of people and at the same time saddened by the fact that another local business was going down which meant more hurting people in our small town would be filing for unemployment.
As I browsed through the chaos of people I walked over toward the restrooms and noticed they had been roped off and a sign was hanging that read, “Sorry no public restrooms are available, try Amazon.com.”
I stood there in absolute bewilderment. They stated the obvious with an attitude. To be honest it ticked me off a little. Enough has been said by people far more capable than I about how the world of publishing and distribution is changing.
However if I may suggest… we are living in a time of extreme change that brings an enormous opportunity. I am a pastor who loves poetry and prose. My taste in literature is rather eclectic in that I love the Psalms, Robert Frost, Czeslaw Milosz and Edward Hirsch to name a few. I also follow a guy from Charlotte N.C. named John Hartness whom I have found to be polite, accessible, encouraging and even allowed me this guest post.
Though I’m am not sure how high the tsunami is going to rise or how far this wave is going to go, it does appear if you have ever had a passion or desire to publish now is the time, to pull out the stops and go for it.
In May I wrote a short story called, The Note. It is a true story of how an eleven year old boy gets himself into trouble and lies when he is caught. In the end he learns something about the nature of living in a small town and he also learns something about his father’s heart. It is a story about Grace.
I would invite you to check it out http://www.amazon.com/THE-NOTE-ebook/dp/B0052VXDD8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311906387&sr=8-1
My website (camsquill.com) went live on August 1st. This is an invitation to stop by and spend a little time with a novice. Maybe we can link up and take the journey together. Opportunity is knocking.
