A Process of Discovery: Mixing Genres in 'Murder by Moonlight'

I'm not known as an experimental writer.

In fact, I'm often accused of being a throwback to the very old days of Dash Hammett or even the more recent old days of the now, sadly late, Robert B. Parker and Jim Crumley. Not that I write as well as the aforementioned hard-boiled masters, but I am still trying to improve my skills on a daily basis, and that entails going out on a limb at times. In a word, it entails experimentation.

I think it was Jim Harrison who said, 'Life should be a process of discovery or else it's not life at all.' Or maybe it was Hemingway. In any case, in my newest release, Murder by Moonlight which is based on the true story of Bethlehem, New York axe murderer/attempted axe murderer, Chris Porco, I might have chosen to write a true crime novel. All the information on the case has already been published in the papers so it would have been a matter of putting it all together and telling the story, like it happened or supposedly happened.

But that's not me.

While conducting my research, I found a lot of discrepancies in the case, not the least of which is that, in my mind, it's impossible for one skinny young man to take a heavy fireman's axe to both his parents in the middle of the night, and not get at least some amount of blood spatter on his skin and clothing. I get spatter on my clothes just cooking a steak. It's because of inconsistencies in evidence like this that I decided to write a fictional truth about about the Porco murder in which I am able to dramatize what might have happened on that cold moonlight night back not too long ago.

I did something else too.

I normally write in a sparse, hard-boiled, noir style. But in this novel, because of the axe element, I added in a bit of horror as well. It's not a horror novel say in the vein of JA Konrath or Blake Crouch, nor would I attempt to even think about walking onto their territory with my limited skill set, but I can say this: "Murder" was a fun book to write simply because as an artist, I was presented the perfect canvass for mixing styles, and I think I pulled it off. That is, judging by the many great reviews received thus far, not to mention the very good sales.
 
How about you? Do you mix your genres? Have you ever attempted re-writing a true story in order to get at more possible truths?

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You Wanna Be in Film?

I've always wanted to be in the movies.

When I was a kid I acted out every action/adventure role you can imagine. From cowboys and Indians, to WWII solider, to swashbuckling adventurer. I even set up the scene of Christ's crucifixion once which gave my parents pause to say the least. "Oh dear God he's building a cross!"

These days I write novels that get considered by the movies as possible full-length feature productions for either cable TV or the silver screen. I've been read by Clooney, Spielberg, DeNiro, Pacino, and more. While a lot of my books have come close, none of them thus far have been produced. But hey, that's Hollywood.

However, now, with the advent of book trailers, my books are coming alive on digital film if only for a minute or two at a time. Some of these trailers can be quite the professional productions. In fact, Amazon studios is sponsoring a new contest for my newest release Murder by Moonlight. They are inviting any film maker from around the globe to produce a book trailer for "Murder." The winner takes away $3,000 and there are also cash prizes and signed books for the runner ups. Thus far there have been entries coming in from around the globe. The last time Amazon Studios ran a contest like this for the suspense novel SEED, the winning entry led to major motion picture deal. How sweet is that?

There's still time for you to make your mark in the film world. Here's how:
http://studios.amazon.com/projects/16983

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What's Old is Hot

"As a kid, I used to stare at the Apple spinning on the turntable for hours and hours..."

Remember the feeling of buying a new album?
Not a compact disk, but a real vinyl LP. If you still didn't have you drivers license your mother or father carted you to the record store and you dropped the five bucks you earned from delivering papers or babysitting, and you stared at the cover art all the way home. Once insde the house, you shot up to your room, peeled away the plastic, smelled the good smell of the cardboard sleeve that somehow combined with the smell of the vinyl record to create a fragrance that in my life anyway, has never been replicated. You slipped the record onto the turntable praying it wouldn't be warped, and then you gently set the needle onto the record. You sat yourself down on your bed with the album cover gripped in your hands and you listened for the first pops and hisses and scratches that can only come from vinyl, until the music kicked in and transported you a million miles away.

That experience has never been duplicated for me in the modern age of music downloads and internet radio stations. Music has gone from being a very personal emotional event to something more like a plastic backdrop. Instead of enjoying a one on one with the music artist, we now create for ourselves, our own particular brand of Muzac. The loss of the personal music experience that could only come from vinyl is almost like losing a language or even a religion.

But now vinyl is back. In a big way. This holiday season, one of the bestsellers is, and will continue to be, newly remixed and repackaged albums from some of the bands we have loved the most for decades. The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, and more...Now I need to go out and buy a new turntable. What's old is hot again, proving it's not the technology we're after, but the experience. The personal experience.

Look for the same thing to occur in the books. While E-Books, Kindles, Nooks and other digitized versions of books will continue to take off and even dominate the market for years to come, there will come, sooner than later, a resurgence not only of paper books, but beautifully bound rich paper volumes. What's old will be hot.

It's one thing to keep up with technology and always be moving forward. But it's another to abandon entirely the personal experience we once shared only with ourselves when we cracked open a brand new novel, or when we gently, hopefully, placed that diamond needle down onto a new album

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