By Mark Alpert

This summer my 16-year-old daughter volunteered to deliver meals to homebound senior citizens in our neighborhood (the Upper West Side of Manhattan). She usually does the route with her best friend — it’s a two-person job, because there are so many meals to deliver — but her friend was on vacation this week, so a few days ago my daughter asked me if I wanted to come along with her. I said yes, of course.

And the experience was an eye-opener. Although I’ve lived on the Upper West Side for most of my life — 32 of my 57 years — it turns out that I don’t know the neighborhood very well. Because the apartment prices and rents are so high here, I’d always assumed that the great majority of the residents range from comfortably well-off to appallingly wealthy. There aren’t any big housing projects on the West Side between 66th and 96th Streets, and most of the buildings are either glitzy high-rises or stately brownstones. What I failed to realize was that you can’t judge a building by its facade. You have to go inside and walk the hallways and ride the elevators to get a truer picture of the neighborhood’s diversity.

The church where the meals are prepared and packaged is on the corner of 86th Street and West End Avenue. The volunteers delivering the meals are assigned to routes that are identified by the names of popular musicians — the Springsteen route, the Madonna route, the Marley route, etc. (I’m not sure why.) On the day that I accompanied my daughter, she was assigned to the Joplin route. Because she studied piano for several years, she’d assumed that the musician being referenced was Scott Joplin, but I argued it was more likely to be Janis Joplin. She didn’t know who Janis Joplin was, so I proceeded to fill this woeful gap in her musical knowledge by belting out snatches of “Piece of My Heart” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” It was very embarrassing for her.

The Joplin route took us to several West Side buildings between 86^th and 90^th Streets. I pushed a shopping cart loaded with two big insulated bags, a blue bag filled with cold meals and a red bag filled with hot ones. My daughter carried the list of senior citizens and their addresses. Luckily, some of the apartment buildings we visited had more than one meal recipient, and that reduced the amount of walking we had to do. The concentration of seniors in certain buildings was no accident; landlords in New York City can get various government subsidies by reserving a certain percentage of their apartments for senior citizens and/or low-income residents, who generally pay much lower rents than the market-rate tenants.

This strategy helps to keep New York affordable for seniors on fixed incomes, but I discovered that it also triggers occasional flare-ups of class conflict. While delivering meals in one of the mixed-income buildings, my daughter and I had to squeeze into a slow, crowded elevator car filled with exasperated yuppies. A young upwardly mobile woman, obviously one of the building’s market-rate tenants (whom I will call Grace, for no real reason), stood in the corner of the car with her laptop open, trying to get a few extra seconds of work done on her way to the office. (Or maybe she was doing something else on the computer, I really don’t know.) Grace’s boyfriend or husband stood in the opposite corner, looking equally annoyed. I was very polite as I maneuvered the shopping cart into the elevator, but I don’t think anyone appreciated my courtesy. The elevator stopped again on the way down to the lobby, and an elderly woman stepped into the car. Grace let out an irritated sigh; I ignored it, but my daughter stared at her, amazed by Grace’s rudeness. Grace stared back at her and said, very loudly, like a challenge, “What?”

I was oblivious to the exchange, staring straight ahead, still trying to be polite. (For a writer, I’m an incredibly unobservant person.) I heard the rude “What?” but I thought Grace was addressing her boyfriend/husband, directing her irritation at him. Once we were out of the building, though, my daughter explained what had happened. As we continued delivering meals, we tried to figure out why Grace had focused her anger at us. Was it because we were helping the low-income seniors in her building? And perhaps Grace resented the fact that she paid the market rent (probably about $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment) and yet she had to rub shoulders with much poorer people who paid a small fraction of that rent for the same amount of space?

I didn’t fully understand it, but it was interesting. It’s one of the mysteries of my hometown, where millions of people are crammed onto a small island and spend most of their days ignoring, resenting, helping, and amusing one another.

Maybe I’ll work it into a novel.

Photo purchased from Shutterstock

Do you ever give yourself a reward or treat when you meet a major writing goal? Describe.

Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

I’ve been working diligently on getting my copyrights back from HarperCollins, HarlequinTeen, and Amazon Publishing (Kindle Worlds).

The Amazon Kindle Worlds novellas were simple. Amazon had discontinued their Kindle Worlds line and the stories reverted back to the authors in July. It left me with a number of stories where I had to tweak the covers and change the copyrights pages. Some of the host authors like Susan Stoker and Elle James started their own publishing companies and that made it easy to contract with them. Authors make great and fair partners. They are even making print formats for what were novellas only available in digital. As new publishers, they took on the traditional publishers’ roles and created the cover backs needed for print. That made everything smooth and easy for me to transition. I only had to indie pub two novellas.

When I got my YA book rights back from Harlequin Teen, that meant I had to do more. I had to create different covers and make any changes to the text and copyright page on the formatting. I’m in the middle of doing the book pages through my formatter – Kate at Wizards in Publishing. It was really fun to dive into my YAs and reread the books, but creating the covers from scratch (using only my opinion) really rocked. I got to tell the story through the art and the creative mind of my cover designer – Fiona Jayde Media.

This was my original cover from Harlequin Teen.

Here is the cover I created through Fiona Jayde Media for In the Arms of Stone Angels and will be issuing soon. These new covers make me want to read these books all over again. On the back cover, there is a dark cemetery with crosses on the headstones. That’s the shadow you see on her face.

Here is my 2nd YA original cover with Harlequin Teen – On a Dark Wing. (This cover always reminded me of the Village People. I didn’t think the guy looked like a teen, but the publisher liked it.)

Here is the recreated cover that I will be reissuing soon. On the back cover is a muted monochromatic image of Mount Denali in Alaska, where some of the story takes place.

I know that my house had been influenced by covers coming out at that time. These books were released in 2009-2010, but there is a story in the revised covers that’s told on the cover through the art that makes me want to buy the books again.

I’ve got a 2-book YA series called The Hunted that my designer is working on – Indigo Awakening and Crystal Fire. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with for those. Our process has been for me to share important images I’d like her to capture on the cover. I share anything that would make a compelling story on the cover and of course, share what will be in print on the cover and back copy. I often look through iStock images and share anything that I like (since I can be a little picky…shhh).

It’s been fun reinventing covers with my designer. For HarperCollins, I will have SEVEN novels to recreate and reissue my No One series and my Sweet Justice series. This can get costly, but it’s a labor of love to have control back.

For Discussion:

1.) How many of you have reissued your novels after you had copyrights reverted? Can you share your experiences? (This is my first time getting my rights back.)

2.) What are some good ways to kick start an older novel and promote it?

3.) Any funny cover design stories you want to share?

Editor’s note: This is Kris. I am in the weeds today proofing galleys, so my sister and co-author Kelly is taking the wheel. Besides, I had nothing interesting to say today and as you will see, she certainly does.  Enjoy.

By PJ Parrish

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who is telling a long, convoluted anecdote and when they get to the end, the punchline hangs in the air like stale cigar smoke with the audience looking bewildered? And in that uneasy silence, the story-teller will invariably add: “Well, maybe you had to be there.”

As novelists, we want the reader to be there. We want to take him or her into that sweltering swamp, or high on a cliff over some rocky canyon. Most important, we want to reader to walk in the shoes of our protagonist. We want to make the reader feel as if he sometimes IS that character, seeing and feeling what our character does.

Easy, you say. I can write about a detective’s daily life because I am one. Or I have unlimited access to someone who will share with me the techniques and processes of crime investigation, and if I’m really lucky, that person will open up to me and share his inner feelings and insecurities.

If that’s true, you do not need to read the rest of this post.

But the vast majority of new crime writers – and even veteran ones — do not have that unlimited source of cop info in the form of someone sitting next to them in their living room watching the Packers beat the Lions. They can’t just turn and shout: “Hey, Aunt June, you worked in Miami PD. What kind of gun would my bad guy use in this situation?” Or “Hey Pop, you worked homicide. How come my detective just can’t shoot the bad guy in the leg?”

If you are a dogged researcher, you can find some of this info by scouring the web for police discussion boards. Or you can read books like Kathryn Ramsland’s The Forensic Psychology of Criminal Minds or Lee Lofland’s Police Procedure & Investigation. Another resource is binge watching reality TV shows like the First 48, which offers a unique, realistic look at the officers as their investigation unfolds. My co-author, Kris and I have done all these things. We’re also lucky to have some cop-friends, like Jim, a retired Michigan State Police captain who helped us with our upcoming release The Damage Done.

But last week, I discovered that no matter how much we think we know about someone else’s profession, there is nothing quite like “being there.”

I got to attend the Writer’s Police Academy in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was founded ten years ago by Lee Lofland, a veteran police investigator who worked in Virginia’s prison system and later became a sheriff’s deputy, earning the highly-prized detective’s gold shield. He also writes a terrific cop-writer blog called The Graveyard Shift. 

Lee Lofland with Guest of Honor Jeffery Deaver.

Imagine how it feels to hold a real nightstick and jab at the belly of a 250-pound man who is approaching you in a menacing manner. Imagine how it feels to realize that your jabs are futile and you have to resort to using that baton in a more aggressive manner, all the while conscious of the laws and department procedures that guide your every thrust or wallop.

Imagine how it feels to drive a police cruiser and attempt what is called a Pit Maneuver by tapping the bad guy’s car on the rear and forcing him to spin out and stop. Imagine how it feels, as one of the students learned, to misread the tap angle at forty miles an hour and completely destroy the bad guy’s test car, all in front of your fellow writers and a team of seriously dedicated law enforcement officers.

Those are just two of the real life experiences we were privileged to enjoy while at the police academy. Others included a stint in the “Shoot, Don’t Shoot” simulator, where we walked through a house or business, looking for an active shooter or armed and violent spouse. We had to decide when — and if — to fire. Yes, we were working in a simulated scenario but the adrenalin rush was real.

Writers at the range

The Glock I shot was heavier than I remembered from my early days of target shooting and its kick was far more intense. The vests are also heavier than I thought they’d be and I learned while they are called ‘bullet proof,” in reality they are not. One officer called them “bullet resistant.”

We learned a little about the history of the taser and how it works. And let me tell you, it is nothing like you see on TV. One of my class members, a brave young lady who really wanted a true experience, volunteered to be tased. I admire her dedication to authenticity but I was very glad I was not on the receiving end of those two little barbs. They say the current only lasts five seconds but I bet the person getting tased would say it feels much longer.

We learned about undercover work and outlaw motorcycle gangs. We made a forced entry as a SWAT team. We watched firefighters don backbreaking equipment and enter a smoke filled building. We watched as the Green Bay dive team tried to recover a body from a murky river. We all knew the body was fake but still, we all stood there on the banks of the river with bated breath, for the diver to announce he had located the child.

Being there is what is was all about. To use one of Michael Connelly’s favorite words, it gives verisimilitude to your writing. Because once you have experienced it, once you have felt that fear, smelled the smoke, or trudged under the weight of Kevlar, you cannot help but carry those emotions over to your writing.

But best, the absolute best, were the rare and unscripted moments with the officers after the training.

In today’s climate, there was no doubt these men and women teaching us at the academy had strong feelings on the hot issues. But it was never in the fore front, never presented as a stated point of view. And to me, it was brought up one once.

The moment came after traffic stop training, where we learned how to safely approach a vehicle and more important, why to approach it that way. The officer and I were in the hot sun, sweaty and tired toward the end of the day and I was thanking him for taking the time to do this for us writers, to patiently explain procedures and offer insights into their job.

This officer, who was around thirty maybe, said to me: “We do it because we want you to understand. We want you to see things from our side and we want you to know more about us.”

Then he looked me in the eye and as he wiped sweat from his brow, he added, “I work with a hundred officers in my own department and dozens more in others. I don’t know anyone who sets out in the morning looking to hurt anyone.”

If you’d like to know more about Lee Lofland’s Writers Police Academy, CLICK HERE to check out his site. I encourage any writer who wants to experience what is really like for their protagonist, to attend WPA or participate in a local Citizen’s Police Academy in their town . And yes, continue to read the books by officers on procedure and investigations. They are pretty good, too. Which brings to mind, one I read many years ago. True Blue by Randy Sutton. When a book makes you cry, you tend to remember it.

Like I said, it’s all about being there.

Photo purchased from Shutterstock

Have you read any great books recently? Please share in the Comments.

By Elaine Viets

English is a constantly changing language, which is its delight and its difficulty. Old words are constantly being refurbished and given new uses.
One is troll, a word once associated mostly with fairy tales, as in “The evil troll lived under the bridge.”
Thanks to the internet and computers, troll has a whole new usage. As a noun, the Urban Dictionary says a troll is: “One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.”
As a verb, to troll means to fool someone. Sasha Baron Cohen is the current Troller in Chief. He pranked sheriff Joe Arpaio into saying he’d have oral sex with Donald Trump.

Unpacked is another refurbished word. Unpack used to be something you did with a suitcase. Now it means to analyze. How many times have you heard a radio host on NPR say,
“There’s a lot to unpack here in this story on . . . ”
What refurbished words are you seeing, TKZers?

Stock photo

I was thinking about the way people ask me where I get my story ideas. It’s a classic but awkward question, especially if my ideas are at a low ebb right then and I’m certain I’ll never have another idea for a story. It’s like when my son complains and complains that we never have anything interesting for dinner, and I ask him before I go to the grocery what he would like me to make. Usually he can’t think of anything right at that moment and gets frustrated. (The answer is, more often than not, tacos. Something I make frequently.)

There are times when I can’t come up with an idea to save my own life. It’s embarrassing to admit, especially because I also have to write all of my ideas down quickly or they’ll slip away and eventually find some other writer to express them.

A writer I admire once told me that if you can’t keep an idea alive in your head, then it’s not actually a good idea. While I can see a vague point to this–some ideas demand to be written immediately–I mostly disagree. People sometimes get obsessive even with bad ideas. I frequently consult my banked story ideas in both the fallow times and the flush. I find that I can pretty much make a story out of any of them. And that’s reassuring.

My usual answer to anyone who asks about where I get my ideas is:

“Oh, everywhere. I never know when I’m going to run across a crime story online or see something on the news.”

What’s going through my head:

“Dear God, do you know how much time I spend making notes on or bookmarking stories? There are crime and news websites that I stalk relentlessly.  Or I’ll be reading a book someone else has written and a character says something that catches my imagination, and I stop reading and start daydreaming. Then there’s my childhood. Someday that gorilla in the Pepto-Bismol pink bathroom I dreamed about when I was five is going to have its own kid’s book. And I was the proverbial little pitcher with big ears, soaking in the stories and gossip around the grown-ups card table. Throw in emotions, dreams, overheard personal dramas, the sociopath I went on two dates with before things got super weird and I eventually had to leave town for good. Don’t forget the divorce played out in my kid’s carpool line, and the woman with the severely bitten nails in the waiting area of the therapist’s office.”

Here’s one of my favorite character quotes. It’s from Ariadne Oliver, a writer who shows up in several Poirot stories.

“I mean, what does one say about how one writes books? You just think of an idea and force yourself to write it.”

Just think of an idea. No biggie.

Do you keep files or idea banks of ideas, or do you wing it? How do you approach the where do you get your ideas question?