John Ramsey Miller

I was twelve years old, it was 1962, and the struggle for civil rights was gathering speed and the social fabric and traditions of the old South were undergoing enormous strains and stresses, and the threat of violence was thick in the air. My father was the minister of the First Methodist Church in Starkville, Mississippi. I remember that September on a warm evening standing on our front porch with my father and my brothers and watching a torch-lit parade of citizens came into view and marched past the church and parsonage en route to the courthouse where they hanged an effigy of James Merideth, a young black man who was registering at Ole Miss. My father was a Christian and spoke each Sunday in a loud voice from his pulpit, and during the week in softer tones, but always steadily on message. His message was that regardless of skin tone, all of God’s children deserved to live their lives as equals. It seems odd now that we lived under an established and traditional social and economic system of apartheid.

It was three months later, and the weather had turned cold enough so that there was ice on the ground. I remember that my brother, Rush, and I were passengers in the family station wagon that afternoon. We stopped at a light on the highway and watched as a group of black children, who had been standing on the corner, hurried across the highway in front of the car. I remember there were six or seven children and that they were shivering in the wind, and that they wore tattered clothes and that one of the children was shoeless, and I remember horns honking behind us and how my father stared at the group until they were on the porch of a hovel, and had gone inside.

Later that afternoon, or that night, I remember one of the few loud arguments I ever heard my parents have. After a while my mother came into the den and told us that Christmas was going to be a slim one because our father had spend our family’s main Christmas funds on the needy. I think we were not happy about it at the time, but we had Christmas as a family and if it was slimmer than usual I can’t say because I do not remember and it matters not at all. The only thing I can say is that there was a family that lived in a house where the wind found its way through the cracks, but that the family who lived there had new coats and shoes, and enough to eat that Christmas because my father made sure of it. I don’t know what other gifts I got that Christmas, but I have never forgotten the one Christmas gift that my father gave me that day. But for him I might not have understood what Christmas is really about. The spirit of Christmas is in showing our love and appreciation to our family, our friends and to reach out to touch as many of the people we can who are in need of our love, our understanding, and our compassion.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

What really popped out about this book video for me is this:

“…an author found himself deep in debt, and wrote this story in six weeks.”

A Christmas Carol, indeed!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

John Ramsey Miller

I have been so very fortunate in my careers and my personal life that when I realize I’m complaining, I feel like crap. I have been lucky, and my hard work has paid off in spades. True I’m not a Dan Brown, but I’ve made a very good living from my writing, and in fact I have not had to work at a non-writing job since the middle eighties. That may no longer be the case, but I’ve got few complaints about that. I’m pretty grateful for this great resume template I’ve always followed, as I have a feeling it’s been the reason behind a lot of my success, and it will be even more so now as I’m seriously considering looking for a day job again, after two decades of writing. I shudder to think about jobs that I would be qualified for and businesses that would have me. Every time I’ve been to Walmart, I see they have the same greeter, and standing at the doorway and the thought of saying, “Welcome to Walmart” thousands of times a day makes my feet and my throat hurt.

Realistically speaking I’m a dead man when it comes to a job application. And can you imagine how “Contemplative Storyteller or Professional Fiction Author from 1994-2009” will read to the HR people at the local Piggly Wiggly? Even bagboys need better creds than that.

I never finished college. I suck at math. I can’t dance. I couldn’t sell ice water in the Mojave. Most of my clothes as of late are Levis, T-shirts and flannel shirts and I’m shy unless I’ve had a couple of shots. Even if sixty is the new fifty, I’m middle aged.

I’m good with guns, so I could be a night watchman, except that I am usually asleep by eight-thirty. I have some other ideas, but I’m still writing books thinking if I don’t write, I might have to actually get a real job. If I did spend my days saying, “Welcome to Walmart” I might could steer shoppers to my books in the paperback section of the Literary department.

God, I need a vacation.

By John Ramsey Miller

My oldest grandson, Elijah, started it seven years ago. He had issues with his hearing due to a chronic gathering of fluid in his ears and when he heard his father calling me Pops, it sounded like “Dots.” Since then, each consecutive grand child added to the family has called me Dotz. My sole concession to having that tag for the remainder of my life was to butch up the name by replacing the “s” at the end with a “z.” Now even my children and my wife refer to me as Dotz. I’ve never minded it at all. In fact I sort a like it. The other grandfather is called grandpa Ed, and I bet he’d kill for an actual nickname like Dotz. You can choose a self-aggrandizing nickname for yourself, but those rarely stick.

The grand children love coming out to the place because we have dogs, chickens, frogs, lizards, bugs, a large fire-pit, art supplies, a large field, woods, a motor-driven wheelbarrow, several wagons, a four-wheeler, computers, a toy closet, and their grandmother is always cooking something tasty, which Dotz won’t be allowed to eat because his doctor says so. They can run and play out here without having to worry about traffic, or a lot of the perceived dangers of town. We do have sharp tools, ropes, barbed wire, thorns, grass stains, nettles, exposed tree roots, holes, poison oak and ivy, falling satellite debris, and the possibility of an occasional Copperhead, Black Widow spiders, and rabid animals wandering onto the property.

My 4-year-old granddaughter spent the weekend at our ten-acre mini-farm. There are always chores to perform out in the boonies, and I had dropped some trees a few weeks back so it was time to cut them up for winter fires since cold weather was fast approaching. Sasha was complaining because all we do is work, so I piled my chainsaw and splitting tools into my motor-driven wheelbarrow, and put her up into the bed and took off through the woods.

When we got to the trees, I trimmed the limbs off and started cutting the trunks into sections that would fit into the stove. Sasha loved the ride and as I started cutting, she watched from the wheelbarrow.

Then my wife asked me to cut kindling and I cut the limbs up. Then while I was cutting the trunk, my wife had Sasha help her load the wheelbarrow with smaller logs, and Sasha accompanied the wheelbarrow to where we were stacking wood and helped her grandmother stack it. Sasha helped until we were done, smiling all the while. I realized that my grandchildren all get involved with chores like gathering eggs and feeding chickens and a million little things we have to do to stay above the water, so to speak. And I thought about how mush they enjoy being with us and what they are learning. It’s giving them a boost to their self-images, and perhaps even more important than playing video games or watching TV.

So I’ve been setting aside part of my days to work on children’s stories based on my personal experiences with my grandchildren and the lessons we learn on this mini-farm. These stories are a bit different that the usual stories for children. These are a few of the “Farm Fun With Dotz” titles:

“Gathering Eggs With Dotz” or “Eggs are not baseballs, Little Rush.”

“Wild Creatures On Dotz’s Farm” or “This is why we never pick up snakes.”

“Being Gentle With The Farm Babies” or “Dotz is going to teach you how to use a shovel.”

“The Rooster Has Spurs” or “First Aid on the Farm.”

I like writing simple sentences and books that are just a few pages long. But writing for children isn’t as uncomplicated as you’d think since the lessons have to be positive, and it’s so easy to warp young minds. Telling children stories isn’t nearly as easy as writing thrillers. Don’t take my word for it, give it a try. You might just write the next CHARLIE AND THE UNFORTUNATE CHAINSAW INCIDENT.

Ever thought about going cross-genre into something totally different?

John Ramsey Miller

During my first six decades of life, I have learned know a lot about self-indulgence, image, illusion and self-delusion, and I’ve been trying to live a more honest, simpler, and more meaningful existence. I don’t mind telling you I am stunned and amazed by what I see on television. In the name of research I have been watching a few “reality” shows instead of my usual list of educational- purposes-only television shows: the CSIs, Law & Order, and its numerous spinoffs, Two and A Half Men, Big Bang Theory, and I started watching The Housewives of Orange County, New York City, and Atlanta, Bridezillas, Million-Dollar Deal, Flipping Out, and a couple whose names I can’t even recall. Anderson Cooper said he never misses Bridezillas, and I suspect a lot of otherwise serious people watch at least some of these reality shows. I have never watched So You Think You Can Be a Star, You Can Dance With the Stars, The Great Race for a Survivor, and Watch Ozzie Toddle and Drool. I think there may be substance to others, but I couldn’t say for sure. I only watch American Idol as long as they have the “unfortunate” talent performing. In fact I would watch “American Idol, The Painful Miserable Fail Tapes.”

A populace’s preoccupation with the superficial is a sure sign of a civilization in decline, (like we need another warning sign) and it appears that ours is on a super-slide toward an apocalyptical Mad Max existence. At that point the reality shows will take on a more life-and-death tone. Shooting Guns To Make The Stars Dance, Cooking Road Kill, and Beevis & Butthead re-runs. We’d still have Bridezillas, but each segment will end with the offensive and self-absorbed brides being bitch-slapped by show fans. If the delusional, hissy-fit-throwing brides I saw on that TV show had actual political power to go with an over-inflated self-importance they’d be what we call elected representatives.

What gets me is how superficial the lives of the people on these shows can be, and that watching it is funny, but it is also terribly sad. Who exactly are the producers catering to? The idea that there is such a demand for this kind of reality programming that targets unhappy, cloying, unbalanced, and emotionally cripple people is frightening. Yes, I laugh at the Housewives who spend their days sipping wine, attending daily parties and luncheons, building a delusional wall, purchasing clothes and accessories, gossiping, and biting each other’s backs. Lord, it’s a hell of a mess. And, I say this guiltily; it’s utterly fascinating. I think that watching other people behaving badly helps us feel better about ourselves, and superior to those who are mistreating their maids of honor, or buying twenty thousand dollar watches to toss in a drawer after they’ve worn them once or twice. I have to admit I feel dirty after watching most of these shows, but I’m giggling while I shower.

It makes you wonder what the American dream has become, what these people imagine it to be, or are the producers merely capturing the worst moments, perhaps egging the participants on to cater to the worst in each of us? And why we are more fascinated with the false reality shows on TV than what is happening in the actual world. Do we want to be treated like children after we’re grown, or do we want to be grownups and act like mature individuals and take responsibility for our actions? The worst is the thought that my own reality show would be so boring that nobody could watch it.

By John Gilstrap
A few weeks ago, we enjoyed an interesting discussion here in The Killzone about branding. The consensus seemed to be that because books are products, they need to be marketed accordingly. That means a unified message across all avenues of communication. We said that the author’s website should invoke the cover. Ditto business cards, post cards, etc. As I recall, I was one hundred percent on board with the consensus.

At least in principle. Last week, reality invaded my theoretical agreement.

My editor sent me an email telling me that I should consider a new author photograph—one that more appropriately invokes the aura of a thriller. Specifically, she thought that I should get a photo that makes me look like more of a—and this is her word—badass.

Do me a favor and scroll over to the right, to the Killzone mug shots. The one of me is my current author photo. Now go to the dictionary and look up “white bread nice guy”. My picture is there, too.

Folks, there is not a single cell of badass blood in my body. According to my wife, I barely have an ass at all; but I think she’ll agree that what’s there is definitely not bad—at least not in this context.

Having talked the talk, though, it’s time for me to walk the walk. I’ve scheduled the photo shoot for Monday, November 30. The photographer seems to have confidence that she can pull off this remarkable transformation, but can she do it in a way that will not trigger gales of laughter from people who know me? Lord, I hope so. I hang with a pretty unforgiving, ballbusting crowd.

Here’s my question for you folks: Does the author photo in any way enter into your purchase decision for a book? I think it’s clear that the front cover is an important part of the shopping experience, but what about the back cover?

If you go to an author event expecting to find a guy whose photo makes him look to be from the same mold as his badass character, and instead find Mr. Suburban America, will the surprise disappoint you? Anger you, maybe?

Or does everybody know that this is just the way the game is played?