Author: terribleminds (page 384 of 464)

WORDMONKEY

August 8, 2012 / 13 Comments

Bait Dog Is Scratching At The Door, Waiting To Be Let In

Bait Dog is here.

After a successful Kickstarter, the book is out and ready to be gobbled up by everyone else. Right now, the price is $2.99, but that’s just for one week — next Wednesday, price goes up by a buck, maybe two.

Let’s just get your procurement options out on the table.

Amazon (US).

Amazon (UK).

Barnes & Noble.

Or, buy direct using the link below. I’ll send you the files directly if you buy in this fashion, and you’ll get all three versions — PDF, MOBI, and EPUB. I try to send quickly, but PayPal can be slow to send out notifications, so give me 24 hours before you come knocking at my digital door. (But, if you don’t get the files by then, do come knocking. Contact form above will do you right.)

…

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

The Book Itself

“If you like very human protagonists who kick ass, if you want to see true evil punished, if you love your pets, Bait Dog is for you. Know going in that it’s going to hurt. Remember that the hurt will be worth it. Take a deep breath, and dive in.” — from Josh Loomis’ review at his blog (click here to read the rest).

This book contains both the novella Shotgun Gravy as well as the follow-up novel, Bait Dog. Total size, if that’s a thing that matters to you, is around 90k — 25k for the novella, 65k for the novel.

The novel features the continuing adventures of our troubled teen protagonist — a little bit vigilante, a little bit detective — Atlanta Burns. It’s about how, by trying to avoid solving her friend’s murder, she runs head-first into it. It’s about how looking into the death of a sweet little dog she exposes a dog-fighting ring. It’s about companionship and sacrifice. It’s about the wrong way to a right thing.

It was a hard book to write.

Not hard in the day-to-day. In that, the words came fast and plentiful. But the subject matter is tough stuff. I don’t know much about the value of trigger warnings, but this book probably has ’em, so be warned.

It tackles rough stuff. Dog-fighting ain’t pretty. Bullying is awful. White supremacy is an epidemic. Gay rights and being a teen and being a girl and violence and abuse and —

Well. It’s a kettle set to boil over.

Though, I tried to find hope in here, too. And humor. Always humor. I think a book like this needs that lightness. Flinty humor and awkward situations. From Shane and his flea market katana to Atlanta’s mother trying to cook when she damn well shouldn’t to Whitey and his — well, I guess I’ll let you meet Whitey all on your own. But I love Whitey. I love Whitey with all my heart.

This is a book I love deeply, featuring characters I feel strongly about for good and for bad. I don’t know that it’s a good book but it’s the book I wrote and I’m damn glad I wrote it.

This is also my first attempt at putting novel-length fiction up in the self-publishing space. The book was, to my mind, a raging success on Kickstarter — it was 100% funded in under 10 hours, and ended up scoring over 200% in its funding by the end of its run. I hope it’ll do well out there. We’ll see, I guess.

Point is, I hope you’ll take a look.

If You’re Not Gonna Nab It

…then, no worries.

I’d still appreciate you boosting the signal a bit, letting people know.

Further, given that this is a book orbiting a lot of issues, maybe consider donating to an appropriate charity?

Maybe donate to your local animal shelter. Or a rescue group. Or the Humane Society or ASPCA. Or Dogs for the Deaf. Or Guide Dogs of America. Or HALO Animal Rescue. Or the Millan Foundation.

Or, if you prefer something a little more people-focused…

The It Gets Better Project, or the Trevor Project.

Bait Dog is a fictional tale, but it focuses on some very real issues. Charity helps.

At the very least, hug your pets and be good to your friends.

Thanks, everybody. Hope you check out the book and enjoy.

August 7, 2012 / 83 Comments

25 Ways To Survive As A Creative Person

1. Give Yourself The Gift Of Time

Creativity does not live in a cave inside your head. That shit’s gotta come out and play. It has to splash in rain puddles. It has to climb trees. It has to build a ground-to-air star-exploding laser out of Duplo blocks and a repurposed iPhone. You need to give yourself the time every day to do the thing that you want to do. Our days and nights get crowded as life bloats and swells to fill the spaces, so you have to — have to — push all that aside with a barbaric yawp and give yourself the time to be creative.This is both in the day-to-day and in the “scope of your entire life” sense — in the day to day, you need time with your creativity. And in the long term, your creativity needs that time to get bigger, get weirder, get more awesome. Plants need water. Alpacas need food. Creativity needs time. We’re all dying. Fuck stagnation. High-five creation.

2. Work Shit Jobs…

You will survive by working shit jobs. That’s the nature of the beast. You don’t start out a fruitful creative person sitting on a throne made of fat stacks of greenbacks earned from your artistic endeavors. Unlikely to happen. You’re going to push a broom, sling some coffee, type eye-blistering numbers into a mind-numbing, soul-melting spreadsheet. This is how you eat in the beginning. This is how you pay rent.

3. …But Always Keep Your Eye On The Prize

That shit job is also how you get the motivation to think, You know, I don’t want to be doing this when I’m 50, and so I’d better learn how my creativity starts earning out. It’s a necessary part of the equation. Always look forward. Always have that end game, that exit strategy. Know where you’ve hidden the seat ejector button. Work a shit job long enough, it’ll start to feel like second nature. It starts wearing the mask of a career instead of a temporary pit-stop where you do something shitty so as not to die hungry in your parents’ basement. You’ve gotta keep your eye of the tiger on… well, on the tiger, probably? Because the other tiger will eat you? So you have to be the bigger tiger? I don’t know. Shut up.

4. Make Your “Oh-Face” And Reach Project Climax

Creativity demands creation and creation is more than just a few blobs of clay smacked together into something resembling half-a-dick. (Or, for the ladies, a partial vagina.) You gotta go whole-dick. You gotta go full-vagina. Creation means completing that which you begin. Even if you don’t finish it as strongly as you hoped, completing a project has untold, unexpected rewards — both in terms of massaging the prostate of your soul and in terms of offering real concrete benefits (for instance, you will not make any money off an unfinished project). Start small. Easier in the beginning to bring smaller entities to fruition. But don’t stay small. Always go bigger. Always change the game. And always finish.

5. Pay Even One Bill With Creative Work

The true revelation of your creative career is paying even a single bill with the money earned from an artistic endeavor. Buy yourself a cup of coffee. A meal. A cell phone bill. Holy shit, a mortgage. That’s when it all starts to feel real. That’s when it feels like more than just a couple of ghosts fucking each other way up in the clouds, out of sight. Make it tangible, even in a tiny way. It’ll give you a bonafide Mind Boner.

6. A Little For You, A Little For Them

Not all creative work is a Fred Astaire dance routine with an umbrella. It isn’t all smiles and satisfaction. It can feel just as heart-destroying as that spreadsheet (and creative work can still involve spreadsheets). Here’s how you get through it: first, recognize that it’s better than cleaning up some kid’s puke at Wal-Mart, or waiting tables at Applebee’s, or harvesting centaur ovaries for your evil pharmaceutical masters. Second, for every one project you do for someone else, give yourself one. One just for you.

7. Understand The Nature Of Satisfaction

It’s critical to have a realistic picture of creative happiness, because an unrealistic one will skin you like an eel. Know this: every day is not a child-like romp through a twilit park with sparklers and giggles and a puppy running at your feet. Some days are you, punching yourself in the face. Some days are the equivalent of hot crotch-coffee. Some days are the opposite of an epiphany — they’re like giant creative nadirs, where everything runs downhill into the diseased mouth of a mangy raccoon. But the overall scope of one’s creative life should be one of satisfaction. If you can see yourself doing something other than the creative thing you’re doing: hey, fuck it, do that instead. Life ain’t getting longer, hoss.

8. Enjoy The Process And The Product

You hear once in awhile that some artists love the finished product but hate the process. Or love the process but hate the finished product. To which I say, fuck that right in its briny blowhole. To really survive — and, ideally, to thrive — it pays to enjoy both. Again, that doesn’t mean every day and every creation is an A++ jizzplosion of delight. It just means that both should overall be rewarding in some way.

9. Embrace Healthy Emotions

Learn to work through all the emotions. Some days you’ll be sad. Some days you’ll be so frustrated you want to headbutt a hole in the universe and let it all drain out. Some days are lazy, others are muddy. Headachey! Bemusement! Amusement! Giddiness! You can’t rely on feeling good to work. You have to learn to work under all the emotional conditions your body and mind and soul provide. (Note: this applies to healthy emotions. Sometimes creative people are beholden to unhealthy emotions. You need to deal with those on your own terms. Otherwise, your artistic faucet won’t offer anything but a quivering, syphilitic drip.)

10. The Many-Headed Hydra Of Creative Possibility

Explore multiple creative outlets. Your mind isn’t just one muscle — even the tongue appreciates many tastes upon its bumpy surface. Creativity doesn’t just want to make words, or paint canvases, or perform interpretive dances about the slash-fic love affair between Alf from Melmac and Worf from ST:TNG (oh, Alf-Worfers, your romantic due diligence never fails to impress). Creativity has many heads. Do other things. Cook. Write poetry. Take photos. Give yourself a paint enema and squat over a giant canvas.

11. But Pick A Goddamn Direction, Already

Exploring other creative outlets doesn’t mean you can do all of those at the same time. Organs and orifices tend to possess one primary purpose — we can’t eat with our assholes and ejaculate from our earholes (and thank the Dark Lord we don’t, because, ew). You can’t walk north, south, east, west all at the same. Pick a direction — a path — and walk. Words. Images. Songs. Whatever. That’s not to say you can’t change it up. You can walk north for a while. Then east. You can train your asshole to chew bubblegum if you’re so inclined. (At least, I can. What, you can’t?) Creative people can become scatter-brained and distracted, like an upended box of crack-addicted cats. So choose a fucking direction, mmkay?

12. Behold Other Creative Meatbags

Creative people who spend no time at all with other creative people will start to feel profoundly alone. Connect with like-minded weirdos. Online. In-person. You are not a sad friendless little tugboat.

13. Ensure A Robust Support System

We can surround ourselves with people who support us, or people who vacuum out our hopes and dreams through our bungholes. Friends and family should not want to see you fail. Ah, but here’s a trick about a robust support system — it doesn’t mean you need endless, unqualified support. You need some realistic voices in there, too — people who don’t just encourage you to sit in your gestational creative omphalos without consequence or ramification but rather, people who want you to get off your ass, who want you to set realistic goals, who want to help you achieve something instead of spinning your tires in a delusional rut. We all need cheerleaders. But we also need coaches.

14. ABL

Always. Be. Learning. Our creativity is beholden to technical skills, talents, and crafts. There comes a point when you have to actually know what you’re doing. Writing isn’t just smashing words together. You have to understand how they work in the same way a plumber needs to know how pipes fit together. Painters have to know how to use their paints, their brushes. Photographers have to know what an F-Stop is, and how best to capture the golden sunset light off a naked, oil-slick buttock. You always have more to learn. Improve yourself in a training montage. Up your game. Cultivate new pseudopods of ultimate power.

15. Test Your Limits, Take Those Risks

Man, that sounds like part of the chorus of a bad 80s song from a bad 80s movie. (Probably featuring the aforementioned training montage.) Whatever. Point is, sometimes upping your game isn’t just about increasing technical aptitude. It’s about throwing caution into a woodchipper and taking some risks. It’s about writing something everyone says is unpublishable, about building something that defies logic, about pushing your talents into places you never thought they could go. Set challenges that are the artistic equivalent of climbing Kilimanjaro, or taming the Mighty Humbaba, or forcing Karl Rove and Lady Gaga to breed and then turning their resultant hell-child into a crisp and refreshing soft drink.

16. A Room Of One’s Own

You need a place to work. A desk. A studio. A place to dance. A porta-potty (aka “honey bucket”) where you quietly masturbate. Maybe it won’t be big, maybe it won’t be top-shelf space, but every artist needs a room of his own. Preferably a place with a door. A Fortress of Solitude doesn’t work if everybody can come shuffling in and out, traipsing mud on your icy crystal Kryptonian carpets.

17. Live A Creative Life. . .

God, that sounds cheesy. But fuck it, there it is. Life a creative life. The hell does that even mean? It means: be open. Exist in a way where there’s no shame over being creative. It means walk around seeing everything as a potential component of your artistic existence. Material for a story, or a song, or a poem. Or maybe it’s physical material to be incorporated into a work — pine-cones and monkey blood and a hair-weave stolen off the head of that lady at the bank. Your antennae must be set to receive, and then to transmit. Living a creative life means just being who you are, and not giving one curly little hamster pube what anybody else thinks about it. (I bet hamster pubes are like, really cute. There’s probably a whole Japanese cartoon about them. Animated hamster pubes having adventures in a forest made of kitchen appliances!)

18. Uh, But Know When To Shut It Off

I know, didn’t I just say how important it was to live a creative life and now I’m saying to turn it off like it’s a goddamn desk lamp? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Suck it up, Squigglenuts. Sometimes you have to just… watch TV. Or pull weeds. Or sit on the beach staring at the ocean in a deep state of beer-drinking no-mind. Here’s the secret, though: our brains are slow-cookers. Sometimes you can set it and forget it. You turn off your creative brain, it’s still bubbling and broiling there in the background. The soup is still developing complex flavors while you watch squirrels fuck on your front lawn in a state of Zen-lacquered bliss.

19. Get Organized

We like to think that creativity is the product of chaos. And sometimes, it really is. Sometimes it’s about stepping on a butterfly or setting your hair on fire to see what will happen. But a lot of creativity comes out of the pragmatic. You can foster creativity and survive the rigors of a creative life by getting organized. Files. Bills. Desk drawers. Paint palette. Wine cellar. Whatever.

20. Learn To Love Failure

Failure. Never before has a thing gotten such a bad rap as failure. And why wouldn’t it? It’s failure. In a video game, failure means to fucking die, to drop into a pit of lava while the princess remains unsaved (oh, sexist video games, when will the lady plumber save the prince instead of the other way around?). You fail a class and it’s like — *poop noise* — you failed, you’re held back, time is wasted, money is lost, you suck, you stupid person. Hell with that. Failure is brilliant. Failure is how we learn. Every great success and every kick-ass creator is the product of a hundred failures, a thousand, some epic-big, some micro-tiny. We learn the right moves by taking the wrong turns. Failure should not drag you into the pits of personal despair but rather leave you empowered. Failure is an instructional manual written in scar tissue.

21. Murder Self-Doubt In Its Bed While It Sleeps

Self-doubt is unproductive. It’s heavy mud on your boots. Knock the soles against the curb, shake the mud free, and get running. Whenever you find self-doubt crawling up your pant leg and sinking its tick-like mandibles into the milky flesh of your inner thigh, don’t address it, don’t negotiate with it, don’t give it any more power than it’s worth. Just flick that little dickhead into the toilet, piss on it, then flush.

22. Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When To Fold ‘Em

Just the same, you have to know when to quit. Not the whole enchilada — I don’t mean, stop being a creative human. I mean, you have to develop the intuition to know when a project just isn’t ready to be born. This isn’t about self-doubt; it’s about the merciless, icy resolve necessary to say, “I’ve taken a long look at this one thing I’m doing and, right now, the fucker ain’t ready to fly, yet.” This doesn’t come easy. This doesn’t come early. If you’ve only been doing this for a year, you probably don’t know your ass from a muddy hole — but as you work harder and longer, you start to know when to set some projects aside so that you can return to them when they make more sense.

23. Quit Fuckin’ Around

Obliterate distractions. Our creation is one thing in a sea of other options, and most of those other options are fucking bullshit. That’s not to say you can’t spend time reading a book or playing a game or sorting your wampum collection. But it means that when the rubber hits the road, you have to make a choice: fuck around some more, or dive head-first into the primal waters of creation. I know my choice. Do you?

24. Art Harder, Motherfucker

The work is itself purifying. And work gets you to a lot of the other things on this list. The work solves so many of work’s own ills — it’s like a self-repairing machine. So: work hard. Then work harder. Make your fingers bleed. Make your brain explode. Develop an exoskeleton calluses. ART HARDER.

25. Middle Finger To All The Bastards With Boots On Your Neck

Final note: don’t let the bastards get you down. The world is chockablock with bastards. They’re like jungle vines, these bastards. Go at ’em with a machete. A rusted one, at that, so maybe they can get tetanus. You’ll encounter bastards who say you can’t do this. Who want you to do something else. Who failed at it themselves and cannot abide the success of others. Who want to tear you apart, drag you down, make you feel like what you do isn’t yours, isn’t special, doesn’t matter. Mmmnope. Don’t let ’em in your house or your head. At the end of the day it’s you and your creations and the audience outside. Just hammer up a sign that says: NO NAYSAYING RUBBERNECKING FUCKSTICKS ALLOWED. Then get back to work.

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING: $0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY: $4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

August 6, 2012 / 19 Comments

The Three-Headed Mockingbird: A Giveaway

You already know this, but Mockingbird drops at the end of the month. Available for preorder in at:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

In the time before release (nnngh), I want to deliver unto you a contest.

Except, I’m far too scatter-brained for one contest.

So, buckity-fuck it. Let’s do three.

Contest Numero Uno: Art For Art

Runs until: Wednesday, September 5th, 2012, noon EST.

I want to give you a full-size poster of either the Blackbirds or the Mockingbird cover.

Art by the ass-kicking Joey Hi-Fi.

(Full-size will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20″ x 30″ — probably semi-glossy)

How? I want to see some fan art.

Could be anything at all: fine art, graphic design, photography, music, video, crafts, food, whatever.

One exception: no written word. You can use words that are already written in Blackbirds or Mockingbird (for those who have rec’d an early copy), but I’m not looking for new writing.

It’s all about the art. Art for art, that’s the deal.

[EDIT: To be clear and to reiterate, I am looking for fan art. Meaning, not art from fans but art related to Miriam Black, Blackbirds, Mockingbird, something, anything tied to the story/character.]

Multiple entries okay, though you risk diluting your Original Awesomeness.

Send to me either at terribleminds at gmail, or post a link in the comments below.

If you need a mailing address, email me.

Note: I don’t own anything you do, but by submitting it to this contest you’re letting me have my way with it. I won’t sell it or anything, but I have permission to show it here and on social media.

Open to international, but if you’re not in the United States, you’ll have to pay shipping.

Contest Nummer Zwei: Books For Books

Runs until: [EDIT] Monday, August 27th, 2012, noon EST.

I want to give you a bundle of Wendigian books. All physical copies.

What physical copies, you ask?

Double Dead (trade pb). Blackbirds (mmpb). Dinocalypse Now (hardcover). Human Tales anthology (featuring my story,”The Toll”). Fireside Magazine #1 (featuring “Emerald Lakes” an Atlanta Burns story). And, finally, Bait Dog (softcover).

All devalued with my autograph, if you so choose.

How to win this?

You pre-order Mockingbird, is how.

Then you email me proof of said pre-order (a receipt of some ilk will do nicely) to terribleminds at gmail.

At noon on 8/29, I’ll pick a random winner from those who have emailed me pre-order proof.

Again: open to international participants. Those outside these 50 states will need to pay postage, however.

Contest Numbah Tree: Meat For Tweets

Runs until: Tomorrow (August 7th, 2012), noon EST.

This one is easy.

Tweet a tweet with a link to this blog post.

The Three-Headed Mockingbird: A Giveaway

Or shortened:

http://bit.ly/OKQhGJ

And make sure it has the hashtag:

#wickedpolly

The tweet can contain whatever else you want, long as it has those two things, link and hashtag.

One entry per person, if you please. Multiple tweets won’t help you.

I’ll pick three random winners tomorrow at noon to receive a free e-copy of the new Miriam Black book.

That’s it. Three things to win, three ways to win ’em.

Spread the word!

And, as always, thanks, folks. Without you guys, these books wouldn’t even exist.

August 6, 2012 / 0 Comments

Mockingbird Rustles Its Wings

Mockingbird excerpts begin at:

This Is How You Die.

Out August 28th.

Preorder:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

August 3, 2012 / 199 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: “The Opening Line, Part One Of Two”

Last week’s challenge: “Antag/Protag.”

This is a two-part challenge.

First part of the challenge is a part we’ve done here before: opening lines. I want you to write the opening sentence to a story. That’s it. Just the opening sentence. Can be suggestive of any genre. Should be no more than 50 words (and even that’s pretty long — you’re best keeping it roughly at “tweet” length).

A good opening line is punchy. It may have a question implicit — or, at least, is itself a hook that will snare the reader by the neck and drag them into the tale whether he likes it or not.

Write the opening line.

Post it below.

You get one entry.

Your due date is — note this change — Thursday at noon EST (8/9).

Because then by Friday I will have picked my three favorite opening lines.

And each of those three people will get an early e-copy of BAIT DOG, the Atlanta Burns sequel. Three formats available: PDF, ePub, and MOBI. Oh, but we ain’t done yet, my little squidlings.

Then, your next challenge will be to write a story using one of those three opening lines as, well, the opening line to a piece of 1000-word flash fiction. More details next week.

Good?

Let’s read some opening lines, then.

August 2, 2012 / 15 Comments

J.C. Carleson: The Terribleminds Interview

Normally, I’m the one in control of these interviews. But when someone yanks you out of your Hyundai, throws a black bag over your head and drives you out to the middle of the desert so that you may interview someone, well, you do it. Not least because they’ve got a gun shoved up into your gonads. So! Here, then, is my interview with CIA spy and new author, J.C. Carleson, whose debut novel, Cloaks and Veils, is out now. You can find her at her website — jccarleson.com.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

A true, slightly embarrassing story about the relativity of language.

I moved to Spain right after the birth of my first child, and right when I decided to get serious about writing. Between moving to a new country where I didn’t know anyone, learning how to be a parent, and writing full time, I was pretty isolated. Okay, very isolated. My interactions tended to be limited – the cashier at the grocery store, the janitor in my apartment building, the nannies watching the other children in the park, etc.. In Spain, these jobs are held primarily by immigrants from South America – and so it was that I learned to speak a Latin American form of Spanish even though I was living in Spain. (The difference is akin to the difference between British and American English.)

I was also fortunate to have a lovely woman from Ecuador as a house cleaner – to this day I swear that I learned most of my Spanish from the endlessly patient Dolores. We quickly developed a method of communicating that involved short words and lots of elaborate body language. My husband couldn’t understand a word of what either of us was saying, but Dolores and I understood each other perfectly.

Once I mastered the basic vocabulary I asked Dolores to teach me all of the bad words. She’d only whisper the really bad ones, and would shriek, giggle, and go red in the face when I repeated them back. She preferred milder words, so among others she taught me “joder” (pronounced ho-dare). She assured me that it was a benign invective – along the lines of “darn” or “dang”. It has a satisfying, slightly guttural sound to it, so I tossed it into my daily vocabulary. Couldn’t find the right change while the taxi driver was waiting for me to pay? “Joder!” I’d mutter while rooting through my wallet. Ancient elevator in our building creaking and groaning more than usual? “Joder!” I’d say to the neighbor riding up with me. Particularly hot day out? “Joder!” I’d say to the person next to me on the metro while fanning my face.

I used the word a lot.

And then one day I was pushing my baby in a stroller behind a slow-moving gaggle of pre-teens in my neighborhood. Unable to get by them on the sidewalk, I perdona’d and por favor’ed several times to no avail before finally saying “joder, niños!” in a fairly loud voice. Now, I thought that translated roughly into “geez, kids”, but the group went silent and turned on me with wide, shocked eyes. Several almost tripped in their hurry to get out of my way.

I began to suspect that joder did not mean what I thought it meant.

Later that day I asked a bilingual friend for help. Fuck. In Spain it basically translates into “Fuck” – both the act and the exclamation.

Dear Dolores hadn’t intentionally steered me wrong – in Ecuador and in some other South American countries, joder is apparently a mild term. Company appropriate, you could say. Not so in Spain. Which meant that I had spent more than a year generously tossing “fuck” into conversations with strangers, neighbors, my child’s daycare providers, my husband’s co-workers, etc…. Joder.

Lesson learned: The nuances of language matter. Sometimes a lot.

Why do you tell stories?

I got used to being paid to lie in my old career and I wanted the paychecks to continue.

More seriously, storytelling is a huge part of working undercover. Huge. You have to create a persona, live a cover story, and disguise your intentions – and you have to do it convincingly. I discovered that I was pretty good at storytelling while working for the CIA. I’m also a lifelong bookworm – a true book lover – so stepping into fiction after leaving the espionage business felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Finish something. A novel, a screenplay, whatever. But finish it. I could write opening chapters all day long. It’s only with the blood, sweat and tears of bringing something to The End, though, that you can truly learn about effective character development, plot coherence, and pacing.

Plus, everyone has an unfinished manuscript in their drawer. Harness your competitive streak and actually get yours done.

What’s the worst piece of writing/storytelling advice you’ve ever received?

You’ll never make it as a writer without an MFA. Bollocks.

What goes into writing a strong character? Bonus round: give an example of a strong character.

I may be the wrong person to ask, because I love a flawed character and I think that unreliable narrators tell the most interesting stories. Maybe I’m weird, but as a reader I’ve never felt the absolute need to side with or believe in the characters of books. I don’t even have to like them. I just want them to tell a damn good story, even if that story is full of lies. I am aware, however, that some editors don’t share this opinion. In fact, CLOAKS AND VEILS was rejected by several editors who felt that the protagonist of my book, a female CIA officer, was not convincing or likeable enough because she makes a few highly-consequential mistakes and has a tendency to let her personal life become intertwined with her professional life (to say more would be a spoiler). But as someone who spent nearly a decade as a CIA officer, I can tell you with absolute certainty that real-life spies are every bit as flawed as the rest of the world – and probably more so. They most certainly make mistakes, and they most certainly bring work problems home and personal problems to work. My protagonist is absolutely imperfect. She’s also absolutely realistic.

But if by “strong character” you mean “interesting, well-developed character”, then I think it’s all about the voice. I love a character who can tell me a story just in the unique way he or she walks down the street or reacts to a mundane situation. Does he pet the stray cat, or does he kick it? I want to like the character or hate the character by the end of the first page – even if that opinion changes later on. As long as I’m not indifferent, then character development is going well. A strong character transports readers in every scene just by walking and talking and reacting in a way that is intriguing, or different, or even shocking.

Bonus question: Gillian Flynn does an incredible job of telling a great story via a deeply flawed, highly unlikable character in DARK PLACES. Her protagonist, Libby Day, is lazy, selfish, mean-spirited…and utterly fascinating. As a reader you doubt half of what she says, but you can’t help but listen anyway. She may be weak in spirit and morals, but she’s sure as hell interesting. (Chuck do I get a bonus for my bonus question for coming up with a strongly written, weak character?)

You’re former CIA. What can you tell us about the CIA that most people don’t know or wouldn’t expect?

– There’s a Starbucks inside CIA headquarters. And a Dunkin’ Donuts.

– The CIA has a writers’ club. I was a member, but I traveled too much to make many of the meetings.

– The CIA has a dedicated publication review board. Like all CIA officers, I’m required to submit my writing to them prior to publication for the rest of my life. (They even reviewed this blog interview!)

– CIA officers hate being called spies. They’re not spies – spies are people who commit espionage against their own country. CIA officers RECRUIT spies.

– The overwhelming majority of CIA employees are not undercover.

How did “telling stories” come in handy while at the CIA?

There is a great deal of motivation to develop excellent storytelling skills when angry and heavily armed men are asking you questions like: “What are you doing with this top secret file from our prime minister’s office?” or “What were you doing meeting with the president’s top aide at 3:00 a.m. in a deserted park?” or “Why are you sneaking across our border with $200,000 in cash and passports in three different names?”

Storytelling is a survival skill in the CIA.

What kind of person becomes a spy?

May I let one of my characters from CLOAKS AND VEILS answer that question? Here’s Caitlin (she has good reason to be cynical), on page 53:

“You know, the people who recruit CIA officers think that they’re looking for Boy Scouts. The perfect patriot who speaks four languages, ties sailor knots, jumps out of airplanes, and goes to church on Sundays. But you know what they really want? They want people who can cheat and lie and steal—and then go to church on Sundays without the least bit of remorse. They need people with a hidden dark side.”

Do you have bad-ass spy gear? Will you share?

Of course I do. But I’m not sharing. I’m saving it all for the zombie apocalypse.

What’s the strangest place you’ve been, and why?

In Kabul, Afghanistan, in the back of a jeep driven by a chain-smoking Afghan man, with my feet propped up on a Stinger missile. The missile was just slightly too long to fit, so I was holding the unlatched door to keep it from flying open. Every time we hit a big bump the driver would turn around, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, laugh hysterically, and say “Boom!”.

Why? Business as usual.

Sell us on Cloak and Veils. First, the 140-character Twitter pitch…

CLOAKS AND VEILS: A disturbingly authentic spy thriller about one CIA officer’s fight to survive after an operation goes terribly wrong.

And then by telling us exactly how this is a book only you could’ve written.

ER was a popular TV show when I was in high school, but my father had to leave the room every time I watched it. He was a doctor, and he used to get so upset about the technical errors that he would end up yelling at the TV set. “You don’t do that during open heart surgery!” “What kind of an idiot would give those medications at the same time?” “An ER doctor would never do that!” These were things that most viewers would never notice, but were glaringly obvious to him.

I feel the same way about many spy thrillers — particularly when it comes to female protagonists. I just cannot bring myself to read a book in which the buxom stripper assassin pulls a throwing star from her cleavage and hurls it expertly at the Russian mafia thug at the same time as she detonates the explosive device hidden in her stiletto heel, all the while holding witty conversations in fluent Japanese and German. Just…no.

Please note that I’m not bashing the genre as a whole – there are many, many outstanding books, and I’m a huge fan of many authors in the field. But far too often, CIA officers are portrayed as invincible super-heroes. They have unlimited resources, they are experts at everything, and they never, ever screw up. Personally, I find this level of perfection boring. I wanted to write a spy thriller in which the protagonist, a CIA officer, is a real person who makes real mistakes within a real, flawed organization, and then and has to use real skills to survive. Trust me – there’s nothing boring about authenticity when it comes to the CIA!

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Jose Saramago’s BLINDNESS. (Do NOT judge it by the execrable movie.) It’s post-apocalyptic brought down to a personal level – everyone losing their vision, one person at a time. It shows the basest of human behavior right alongside the most heroic. It’s at times gruesome and at times poetic, and it makes you cringe and then turn the page anyway, over and over again. (It seriously makes you think about cleanliness and plumbing in a whole new way…not for the faint of heart.)

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Favorite word? Mistral. As in le mistral. (Come on, try it. It totally sounds better with a French accent.) It’s the name of the strong, Mediterranean wind that blows through the south of France. It just sounds romantic, and maybe a bit spooky. It’s a word that transports.

Favorite curse word? As you’ve probably already guessed, I’m a sucker for learning curse words in foreign languages. But I always come home to good, old-fashioned “fuck” as my favorite. It’s just so damn versatile.

**Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)**

I’m a red wine gal. Big, full-bodied, grab-you-by-the-throat reds – you’ll win my friendship forever if you serve me a Cabernet from Heitz Cellar, for example.

Don’t ever serve me anything pink. If I ran the world I would banish Rosé wines and pink cocktails. Blue cocktails too, come to think of it.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable war against the robots?

I worked for the CIA, remember? We’re the ones who built the evil robots. So I know where the secret off button is. (Note to tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists: I’m joking. There is no off button.)

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I’m taking a brief break from fiction for my next book, but storytelling is most definitely still involved. WORK LIKE A SPY: BUSINESS TIPS FROM THE CLANDESTINE WORLD is coming out in February 2013. It’s a leadership/management book in which I apply lessons learned from my CIA career to the business world. After that I think I’ll return to fiction, though I haven’t decided whether to write a sequel to CLOAKS AND VEILS or start something completely new.