Moments In Crime

A world first?

It was day five of the tour, and I found myself in Houston, Texas.  Today’s event was at Murder By The Book, where David Thompson and his team showed that they also know how to run a first class event.  Not only did they manage to cram people into every available square inch of the store, they sold – and I’m still grinning as I type this – every single copy of EVEN they could lay their hands on.

            The theme of ‘firsts’ seems to have taken on a life of its own.  It was my first visit to the Lone Star State, which I liked very much.  A couple of people told me that EVEN was the first book they’d ever had signed, which made me feel very honoured.  And one of the questions from the audience raised a very intriguing possibility.  It was suggested that with EVEN and GONE TOMORROW both on the shelves, this is the first time that two brothers have ever been published separately but simultaneously in a fiction genre.  Is this true?  If it is, history is in the making.  If not, please let me know.  But either way, please check out our last few dates and if there’s a venue near you, come down and see us…

A day of firsts...

Today was the first time I’d been to Arizona.  My first visit to the legendary Poisoned Pen bookstore.  My first experience of signing over a hundred books in a day.  And my first book event with another author.  Which was very special for me, as that other author was none other than my brother.

            The event itself took place in the auditorium at the library in Scottsdale, and I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable evenings of my life.  The venue was excellent, our host – Barbara Peters – did a magnificent job, the audience was large and enthusiastic, and the questions they asked were diverse and interesting.

            It was a day of firsts for me.  And it also turned out to be the first book event that many of the audience members had attended, which got me thinking.  If you regularly attend this kind of event, what in particular do you like or dislike?  And if you’ve never been to one, what might make you change your mind?

Executive to Author...

The transition from the world of telecommunications to full-time writing took longer than I’d expected.  Naively, I’d thought I could hang up my suit on the Friday (after a suitably enthusiastic ‘retirement’ party,) pick up my laptop the following Monday and start banging out the chapters without breaking my stride.  It didn’t quite happen that way.  Getting Word fixed up the way I like it only took a few minutes – spelling checker switched off, grammar checker switched off, American Typewriter font switched on – but after that, the screen remained resolutely blank.  For a while there were more concerns in my head than words on the page.  Was I insane?  I’d quit a secure, well paid job with a car and a pension and private health for … what?  I had no manuscript.  No agent.  No contract.  No income.  No guarantees of any kind.

            In the end – after doing all the things that sensible people do when faced with almost certain financial extinction, like buying another car and subscribing to several new satellite TV channels – two things saved me.  Going to my local bookshop in Sheffield, finding the place on the Crime Fiction shelves where you’d find ‘Grant’ and visualising my book sitting there.  And then picturing what I’d be doing on the day it launched.

            I haven’t fulfilled the first part yet, because EVEN doesn’t launch in England until July 3^rd.  But happily, the second surpassed my wildest expectations.  The weather was beautiful in Chicago, where I now live half the time, so my girlfriend and I started the day with a walk by the lake.  Then we met her parents for a celebratory lunch at the magnificent Topolobampo restaurant.  Halfway through my third margarita my cell phone rang.  It was Janet Maslin from the New  York Times, calling to check some facts for a piece she was writing (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/books/14masl.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=arts.)  After the interview we finished eating, met my brother who flew in specially, and returned to our apartment for champagne.  The first part of the evening was spent in the very capable hands of Katey Schwartz at the Clybourn branch of Barnes & Noble, who very kindly hosted my launch event.  And the night finished with more champagne, this time at the Signature Lounge on the 96^th floor of the John Hancock Center – almost literally at the top of the world.

            The idea of visualising the outcome you want to achieve isn’t new, but it certainly helped me to get through some rough patches on the path from executive to author.  I’d love to know if anyone else has used the same method, or if you have any other suggestions that are proved to work when the going gets tough?

Into the wild...

My first book, EVEN, is in the wild. 

After all the countless hours of thinking, researching, writing, revising, editing, proofing, (drinking too much coffee, invoking the gods of inspiration, wondering if it’s too late to get my old job back…) it has finally flown the nest.  Seeing it out there on its own, in the bookshops, beyond my control, is an amazing experience.  I’d say euphoria and desperation, in pretty much equal parts.  In some ways it’s still a shock, as if it sneaked up on me very suddenly.  In others, it was s-l-o-w, like the final manuscript was carried by a glacier from one side of the world to the other.  So, to put things in perspective as my feet gradually approach the ground after the excitement of launch day, I’ve been looking back over the process that led me from the safety of my spare bedroom in Sheffield, England to Barnes & Noble in Clybourn, Chicago on May 12^th 2009…

Conception:  Working in telecoms, telling stories in my head and dreaming of escape from the corporate machine.  (Too many years to admit!)

Gestation:  Making it through the escape tunnel in June 2006; producing the first draft.

Fledging:  Working with my agent, the awe-inspiring Janet Reid, to turn it into something saleable (December 2007 – February 2008)

Learning to fly:  Working with my editor, the incomparable Pete Wolverton, to make it worthy of printing. (March – October 2008)

Now – the nest is empty.  Will the book thrive or starve?  That all depends on you…

Blogging this week: Andrew Grant

ANDREW GRANT lives in the UK and is a former telecommunications executive. He is the younger brother of Lee Child, author of the New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher novels.

David Trevellyan is a Royal Navy intelligence operative who usually works undercover, sometimes with the approval of his masters--and sometimes not. On a seemingly normal evening, he takes a lonely late-night walk between a restaurant and his New York City hotel. A familiar huddled shape in the mouth of an alley catches his eye--a homeless man has been shot to death. Trevellyan steps forward…and a cop car arrives.
A split second too late, Trevellyan realizes he’s been set up.
But Trevellyan isn’t worried. He’s a hard man from the shadowy world of Royal Navy Intelligence. He’s been in and out of trouble a thousand times before. But the NYPD quickly hands the problem to the FBI. Trevellyan is sucked deeper into the system. And the British Consulate tells him: You’re on your own now, pal.
Obliged to clear his name, he acts alone. With no idea who’s a friend and who’s a foe, he penetrates deep into a huge international conspiracy. The price of failure will be death, and the reward for success will be redemption, both for himself and the huddled corpse from the alley. The motivation will be his cherished life-long belief:
You don’t get mad – you get EVEN.

Books, Planes, and Automobiles

If you were unfortunate enough to be up and about in Sheffield at around 5.00am this morning you might have spotted me staggering the short distance from my apartment to my parking space, ready for the first leg of my journey from England to Chicago.  I’m not exactly happy about being awake at that sort of time, but I’m not unfamiliar with it.  Heathrow to O’Hare is a route I travel with alarming regularity.  And once I’m on the plane, I generally enjoy myself.  The destination is worth any inconvenience.  Eight hours with no internet, no phone, no email, no twitter, and no facebook is a luxury in itself.  I can’t remember a journey without some kind of amusing incident – the octogenarian from Romania who’d never been on a plane before, and consequently ‘shared’ his in-flight refreshments with his neighbours in a way that did nothing for their comfort; the ‘count’ from Kosovo who thought he could drape his cape on me without diplomatic repercussions; the flight steward who suggested I was more likely to be a terrorist than people in first class because I was sitting in coach, and who went on to ask if we’d heard of a little thing called 9/11 back in England.  But most of all when I’m traveling I like the long, uninterrupted blocks of time.  The opportunity to work.  To sit back and listed to music.  And best of all, to read.

            It was reading that led to what was for me the most thought-provoking of these plane-related incidents.  It happened a couple on months ago on an otherwise innocuous trans-Atlantic flight.  I was half way through an old cold-war spy thriller I’d thrown into my case the night before when I became aware of that uncomfortable, tingling feeling you get from someone staring at you.  It was the person sitting next to me.  She was openly gawping.  At first I tried to ignore her, but there are limits to even to the most ingrained of British reserve.  So, when I could contain myself no longer, I asked her what she was looking at?  She replied with a question of her own –

            “Why are you reading?”

            That was not what I was expecting.  For a moment I didn’t know what to say, so she filled the silence with an explanation.  It turned out that she’d grown up in a country where women weren’t allowed to read.  She’d only learned in her twenties after moving to the States, and by then it was too late to enjoy it.  She assumed everyone she saw with a book must be some kind of masochist.  This took me back for two reasons.  Firstly, I’d assumed that if someone came to reading later in life for whatever reason, it would be like a floodgate opening and they’d spend every waking moment with their nose in a novel.  And secondly, because I struggled to come up with a succinct answer.  I’d always taken the ability – the right – to read absolutely for granted.  Not to mention the pleasure that came with it.  So, since that day, I’ve done three things.  I’ve tried to read more books, to celebrate the freedom to do so.  I’ve tried to list all the reasons that I like reading.  And I’ve asked my friends why they enjoy it.  Some of the things they’ve come up with have really surprised me.

If anyone else has any to add, I’d love to hear them…