Every now and then you run into the new writer who pisses you off. Here you’ve been churning out reliable thrillers on a reliable schedule, and this kid shows up who has it all: great characters, great plot, great pacing. He’s the punk who wanders into town with a pea shooter on his hip who can out-shoot every gunslinger in town.
I’ve only met a few of these wunderkinds in my time, and Brett Battles is one of them. We first ran into each other at the inaugural ThrillerFest in Scottsdale, Arizona. His reputation preceded him, and in spite of my heartfelt desire to hate him, he even turned out to be a nice guy. Dammit. He’s had his ups and downs in the blender that is the publishing industry, but he’s never lost his sense of humor, and he’s never lost his sense of who he is. In my book, praise doesn’t come higher than that. The fact that he’s as good a writer as he is continues to piss me off, but that’s just my curmudgeonly side talking. In reality, folks don’t come much better than Brett. I’m honored to dedicate my space in the Blogosphere to him today. By the way, Brett periodically posts on his blog The Independent Writer. For a limited time, Brett has put the Kindle and Nook versions of his novel LITTLE GIRL GONE on sale for only 99¢.
PICTURES OF WHO
By Brett Battles
The picture is of two people. The man in the center looks tall, maybe six feet. But the photograph cuts him off at the waist, so there’s no way to tell for sure. He’s smiling in a way that you know he’s not just putting it on for the camera. He Caucasian face looks even whiter than it probably is because of his dark hair and matching goatee. You can’t really tell what he’s wearing. A dark sweater that zips up in the front, perhaps, but the background is black, so his clothes quickly fade into it.
Standing next to him with an arm thrown loosely over his shoulder is a woman. She is impossibly beautiful. Not runway model beautiful, she is real and she is stunning. The smile on her face isn’t so much a smile as a knowing smirk. Her eyes, half closed, match her mischievous grin. She is of African descent, her skin darker than some, and lighter than others. Above the right corner of her lip is a dark mole Marilyn herself would have killed for. Her hair is straight, though it, too, blends into the background and gets lost. The only parts you can see are where it passes over her ear, and the strands that drape down her neck and onto her partially bare shoulder.
It’s a party, or a night at a club, or someplace similar. Wherever it is, it’s easy to see they are enjoying themselves. The rest of the photo is merely shadows on shadows in the background. Could be people, could be things, or could be stains that accumulated on the photo before I found it.
I don’t know these people. I’ve never seen them in my life. And yet, the photography—a Polaroid—hangs on my wall, protected now in a zip lock bag that’s held in place by a piece of tape.
I found the photo at least a year ago when I was out for one of my frequent walks. It was lying on the ground, half hidden by a few leaves at the edge of the sidewalk. I almost passed it by before I realized what it was.
How long it had been there? I don’t know. But Polaroids fade in the sun, and this one still had most of its color intact. Still, it’s life, post whoever had dropped it, hadn’t been an easy one. Some of the white on the frame in the upper left corner had flake off, revealing the silver backing below. The rest of the frame was smudged and dirty, like it had been kicked around for a while.
I stopped where I’d found it, and stared at the image while cars drove by on the street a dozen feet away. I didn’t care about the traffic, though, or the couple of people who walked passed. I only cared about the two people in the photo, the man and the woman.
There was a story there. A story I needed to tell. What I didn’t know yet was what that story was. So I carried the photo home, and I put it in that bag, and I taped it to my wall.
A few times every week I look at it. I study the faces. I try to listen in case they have something they want to say. There is a story here. A story I do need to tell. I don’t know what it is yet, but it will come.
It always comes.
Inspiration is out there for all of us, doesn’t matter if you’re a writer or not. So where have you found unexpected inspiration?
This is one of my favorite things about writing–the variety of unique places ideas pop up from.
Like an old dusty calendar, a newspaper article or report, or even just a stroll through a local museum. What a world full of inspiration!
BK Jackson
So, John, I guess your the one who stole Michelle’s guest blogger this week. Ha!
I just wrote a review of Brett’s story THE PULL OF GRAVITY. I also met Brett at Thrillerfest in Phoenix. He’s a great author, a writers’ writer, but one heck of a human being.I like him and I admire him. Gilstrap is not really jealous of him. John and Brett share the rare air.
Hi Brett!
Love Jonathan Quinn! and miss you over at “the other place”!
I too, think we can get inspiration from pretty much any place, but my favorite by far, is from people watching — the lone shopper, someone in a crowd, two people arguing and on it goes – the possibilities, as we all know, are endless
Christy
I walked around a big city block with Brett and Gilstrap in NYC once. Talk about getting inspiration–both of them are now male strippers in my new book (all characters subject to revision, of course).
I, too, am a member of the ‘Hate Brett Battles’ club. And for all the good reasons. It started after I read THE CLEANER.
Welcome to TKZ, Brett. You’re always welcome here.
Well, Jim, you know I have been working out . . .
And Miller, you’re a prince.
You’re absolutely right, BK. It’s everywhere.
Ah, Miller, you are a great friend and writer yourself. (Didn’t even know you read GRAVITY. So glad you enjoyed it. My parents think it’s my best book!)
Don’t worry Christy, more Quinn in the Spring. Not sure if you were aware or not, but I also released a Quinn novella last month. It’s his origin story: BECOMING QUINN.
Jim, as long as I get to be the one in the fireman outfit, I’m cool with it.
Thanks, Joe. You are one of the very good ones for sure.
And Gilstrap, thanks for having me!
In my opinion, THE PULL OF GRAVITY is Brett’s best work to date — and that’s saying a lot!
It’s a character-driven story, as the best stories always are, and there are several characters to care about.
Selfishly, I hope we see many more novels of this type from Brett.
Great to see you here, Brett. You class up the joint.
I’m saving up my dollar bills for that fireman pole dance.
Great to meet you Brett, saw your profile pic and trying my best not to imagine you or JG as strippers. But the fast moving imaginative mind of Basil beat logic and sensibility to the punch and I keep seeing the advert for you & John’s show….Battles & G-Strap Live at the Spunky Goose!
Damn!! Where’s those Brillo pads?
As far as inspiration, I like the the story of the random picture. It is often those random things that grab us. I too have an as of yet unknown story spawned from a cluster of white flowers jutting from a pile of rocks above 4000 feet in the mountains outside of Whittier Alaska. I picked several of them, and brought them down to my teenage niece, who pressed them in a book and took them back to Korea. A story gradually simmered over the following years without coming into its own reality. Four other stories not related came out, but that little cluster of flowers never left my mind. High in the mountains, growing out of rocks in a place where the snow gets twenty feet high and the winds can blow with hurricane force, these little flowers held on and jutted from crags and cracks, straining toward the short summer sky to force the passerby to notice their beauty.
Still not exactly certain of the story, but recently the image reluctantly put on a Crusader’s robe. Flashes of the Mongol horde, a Goryeo Princess, an Irish monk, and a skull flash occasionally in the background behind the flower now. Who knows what it will all come to be, or when.
Again welcome Brett.
Oh! Hey! I managed to scrub that Brett & John stripper poster image!
Dangit…mentioning the unspeakable brought it back….
Oh! “The Cleaner”–I don’t know how many other definitions that term has but if its the one I’m familiar with in the thriller arena, this is a book I need to read!
BK Jackson
Phil, my friend, thank you. I am definitely going to do more books like that in the future as the story strikes me.
Thanks, Jordan. If you’re short on ones, I’ll happily accept fives and tens, too. Wouldn’t even turn down a twenty.
Nice to meet you, too, Basil. I LOVE the image of the flowers. I’m sure that’ll make a great story once it finally fleshes out for you. (Wish I’d seen them!!)
Well, BK, it certainly doesn’t mean scrubbing kitchen floors…well, unless someone was killed there and Quinn needs to get rid of the evidence…which, in his case, means he’d probably just burn the house down.
I’ve read Little Girl Gone (in addition to everything else that Brett has written) and I heartily recommend it. I can hardly wait for the next Quinn novel- when is it coming out?
Michelle…next Quinn will be out in the Spring. At least that’s the plan right now.