2010 March | Norman Green

Archive for March, 2010

Bad Santa

This writing project that I recently finished, the one my agent is looking at, which is currently a manuscript and not a book, has trod a long and tortured path. For most of my writing career I have taken the offender’s viewpoint, living in the heads of criminals, con artists, prostitutes, dope fiends and drunks. I’m not entirely sure why that is, maybe I find them more interesting than the good guys. Besides, there are plenty of cops and ex-cops writing who cover the white hat side of the street. (Check out Ed Dee, one of my favorites.) In any event, a few years ago I began to wonder how it felt to deal with the other side of the equation. I wasn’t thinking ‘victim,’ not really, I was thinking of the people who have to deal with the wreckage that some of us cause. If you went to the theater to see ‘Bad Santa,’ I was one of the guys laughing while the rest of you cringed when Billy Bob Thornton pissed in his Santa Claus pants. It struck me, after that movie, that it probably wasn’t so goddam funny if you were the guy who had to clean up the mess.

So to speak. I mean, there’s a lot more to it than just mopping the floor.

I came up with this character who I named Dexter, he’s a teenager whose parents are addicts. I made him fifteen, a smart kid with a good heart but questionable judgement. He has taken on, as such kids often do, the responsibility for his parents’ lives.

My agent hated it.

Well, okay, it happens. I put Dex in a drawer and I went to work on The Last Gig. I had a great time with TLG, I get so much enjoyment out of writing that it can hardly be called work, at least most of the time. Anyhow, when I finished it, I took Dex back out of the drawer and wrote another draft.

My agent hated it.

I couldn’t believe it! I argued with him about Dex, we went back and forth a little bit. He enumerated his reasons, and I thought, ‘He completely missed the point.’ I put Dex back in the drawer but after a while it occurred to me that if my agent didn’t get the point it was my fault, not his, and that I needed to take a harder look at whether or not the story was actually saying what I wanted it to say. I didn’t take Dex back out of the drawer, by then I was working on Sick Like That, which just came out. It is a sequel to The Last Gig, but while I was working on it I spent some time thinking about what I had been trying to do with Dex the first two times around.

Third time’s the charm? The jury is still out. I can say that I was much more focused, this time around, but I can’t say for sure that this isn’t another case of falling in love with something that everyone else is careful to step over… Anyhow, my agent is now reading this latest draft. I haven’t heard from him in a while, which isn’t a good sign, but the best thing for me at this point is to be patient and hope for the best.

All of which still leaves me with the problem of what to write next. I don’t know if there’s a market for a third book featuring Alessandra Martillo, the heroine from The Last Gig and Sick Like That, but there hasn’t been a huge market for the first two either and that didn’t stop me… I haven’t ever written a major character who is seriously evil. Con men and drug dealers are bad guys but the similarities between them and most other small businessmen have to be seen to be appreciated. No, man, I’m talking seriously twisted, here… Ought to be interesting.

But I still got high hopes for Dex.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 Norm's Thoughts No Comments

Anxiety…

I have a new book coming out this week, ‘Sick Like That.’ It is a sequel to ‘The Last Gig’ and features many of the same characters, primarily Alessandra Martillo, a Puerto Rican street kid from the Brooklyn projects. In the first book she was doing grunt work for a sleazy ex-cop turned private investigator. In the new story she is forced out on her own, she has to step up and be the big dog. I had a great time writing the book. I enjoy spending time in Alessandra’s company, possibly because she shares many of my favorite character flaws, and if I can excuse them in myself, why not in her?

In any event, I ought to be excited.

Really.

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Tags: allesandra martillo, anxiety, brooklyn projects, ex-cop, harlen coben, sequel, sick like that, sleazy, the last gig