On the Road with Barry Eisler and J.A. Konrath

During the Thrillerfest conference held in Phoenix in July, M.G. Tarquini and I had the good fortune to escort Barry Eisler and J.A. Konrath for two days of their book signing tours. This Friday, Spinetingler will publish our co-written story about our trip featuring the authors’ approaches to marketing, their friendship and their great sense of humor.

During our journey, we interviewed both authors with the intent of putting together a classic interview article. But, as our trip evolved, we realized that an interview-style article couldn’t capture everything we wanted to portray. Instead, we wrote our article as a narrative feature story. And, as is so often the case with writing, we sacrificed some of our favorite quotes for the sake of the story. The excerpt below features one of my favorite conversations.

We asked both authors to tell us the story of their road to publishing. J.A. Konrath -- friends and family call him Joe -- labored for 12 years before he published his first book, and might have given up if not for his encouraging wife. Barry Eisler worked on his book for five years, and, on his 51st query, found an agent. Then, he spent another three years making extensive revisions before finally bringing his first book to market. Once the first rights to their books were sold, both authors became overnight success stories.

In the following excerpt, the authors discuss Barry’s experience working with his agent to revise his novel and bring it to market:

Barry: My agent was the first to really devote a lot of editorial effort to what I’d written. His message was pretty simple: he said ‘I think you have talent. I can see that in here. I don’t think this manuscript is commercial-grade yet, and I’ll tell you why. If you agree with me, then we should revise it and we can work together. And if you don’t agree with me, then I may not be the right agent for you. You have to make that decision for yourself.’

Though his comments were really extensive, and it was a little depressing to realize how far I was from the finish line when I thought I was pretty close. I recognized that his comments were good. The thing wasn’t what it needed to be.

Joe: How did you recognize that?

Barry: I don’t know.

Joe: Because it’s very hard to be objective when you’re looking at your own work.

M.G.: You never had a crit partner?

Barry: No, I was stupid that way. I could have gotten better a lot faster if I would have read how-to books or gone to certain writer’s conferences. In anything you’re trying to acquire, whether it’s a new language or a martial art or a musical instrument or writing a novel, there’s an optimum blend of theory and practice, and I didn't have anything remotely like that optimum blend. Mostly it was all practice and no theory, except in so far as you get theory inadvertently by reading a lot. And if I’d added just 10% theory to the mix, I’d have gotten better at writing much, much faster.

Since I published my first book, I’ve read a lot of how-to books and been to a lot of conferences, mostly in a teaching capacity, and I’ve realized there’s a ton of good information out there. I wish I’d known enough to go seek it when I was writing my novel.

I don’t know how I recognized that what my agent was telling me was right. It’s a mystery how I’ll work on a scene, and I think it’s good that day, and I write more. Then the next day I go back, and I look at what I wrote, and it’s not quite right, so I play with it some more. It could be anything – dialogue, description, setting, whatever. The third day, I go back, and it’s getting closer, but it’s not quite right. And then there is a day when I look at it, and it’s perfect. It’s perfect because there’s nothing more I can do to it. How do I know? Because to judge something like this, you must have some template by which you measure it, right? What is that template? I don’t know.

So when my agent told me there were problems in the manuscript, there must have been a template existing in my mind because I wasn’t flying blind. It wasn’t as though he was trying to guide me and my eyes were closed and he was saying ‘Trust me. I’ll get you there.’ It was more like he said ‘I think this is the way to go,’ and I could see it. It made sense to me.

It took me a long time to implement all those changes, quite a few series of revisions. Each time I’d send it to him, he’d write back and say, ‘Well you addressed this, this and this, but I still see this problem and that problem,’ and I’d say, ‘Damn he’s right again.’ And it hurt, because I just desperately wanted to be done at that point. I’d been working on this thing for years, a lot of extensive rewrites.

Finally, in the summer of 2000, I sent him a manuscript thinking again that it was finished. At this point I was inured. I thought, ‘I trust this guy. He’s giving me good advice. I can sense that.’ I fully expected him to come back and say, ‘It’s better, I can see you addressed these things, but we still need to get this or that aspect up to speed.’ I was braced for that, and I was fine with that because I was just not going to quit.

But instead his e-mail said, ‘Barry, this is a terrific rewrite. There are just a few problems we need to address, but I see no reason why we can’t take this out for auction.’ And I actually started to cry. I printed out the e-mail and just wordlessly took it into the kitchen and showed it to my wife, wiping tears from my face.

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Check out the soon-to-be-published Fall issue of Spinetingler for the rest of this story, and for many other features, interviews and thrilling short stories!


thriller fiction writing

Remembering September 11, 2001

September 11 American flag

The American Flag: Five Years After 9/11

Of all the visual images that define 9/11 and its aftermath, one grew so ubiquitous as to become symbolic: the American flag. The image pictured above zoomed around the country via e-mail and the internet in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Stores couldn't keep American flags in stock, and manufacturers couldn't make new flags fast enough. Car windows across the country sported miniature American flags flapping in the breeze of rush hour traffic. And remember New York’s Finest parading the tattered American flag around Yankee Stadium during the World Series? Even the burliest sports fans couldn’t restrain their tears.

Illustrating the iconic power of the flag as a symbol of this momentous event, the center spread of today’s New York Times bears two full-color ads from two competing networks, the Discovery Channel and ABC. Each ad advertises a show about 9/11 that will appear in the same time slot: 8 p.m. EDT tonight, the 5th anniversary of 9/11.

At first glance on a sleepy Sunday morning, I suspect many readers didn’t realize the ads came from competing television shows. I know I didn’t. They are nearly identical.

This weird juxtaposition poses a number of questions:

Did one network’s ad agency steal the idea of from the other? Darned unlikely. I worked on the creative side of advertising for many years where I learned that agency creatives want, perhaps more than life itself, to distinguish their work.

Did the two networks actually desire association with each other’s shows? With competing media ownership, competing time slots, and a firestorm of controversy surrounding ABC’s 9/11 docudrama, it’s highly doubtful that either network wants any association with the other.

What miscommunication within one of America's largest newspapers caused these two competing ads to face each other? On the center spread of the front section of the Sunday edition, no less? I can't even venture a guess; in fact, I suspect that at this moment frantic phone calls are crisscrossing the continent as television network, agency and newspaper executives attempt to unravel the bizarre coincidence.

Then again, was it a coincidence?

Now, this isn't a rhetorical question, nor do I pose it to imply conspiracy. One of the most intriguing aspects of creative thinking lies in how often ideas are replicated among people who have no conceivable contact with one another. For example, in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Josepth Campbell demonstrates that a version of the hero myth appears in almost every culture on earth.

The fact that that two separate sets of creative teams, who had no inkling of each other’s approach, came up with a nearly identical concept illustrates more clearly than any TV commentator or editorial writer could how far America has come as a nation since September 11, 2001.

The images in these ads transform 9/11's most noble symbol into a mask of subterfuge, and their replication poses one last set of questions: Editorial writers and TV commentators said 9/11 would change everything, and it certainly changed a lot of things in our country -- airport security, the war in Iraq and the skyline of New York City to name just a few. But did 9/11 change us as people? If so, how? Are we better, or just more suspicious? Do you think it changed you?


September 11 American flag media media criticism

How Many ___ Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

A light bulb burned out on the track lighting in my kitchen.

Since my ceilings are 14’ tall, changing a light bulb requires borrowing a gigantic ladder from my mother. Which requires arranging the calendars of a teenager, a retiree with too much to do, a working-class gal, a truck and a truck bed full of bungee cords.

Weeks later, we finally procure the ladder. The Teenager brings it into the kitchen, I climb up, twist out the old bulb, twist in the new. The new bulb doesn’t work.

Hm. Why?

I fiddle and futz and find an interesting little switch I think might be the “on” button. I switch it to the right.

Wrong.

It is the "attach" button. The entire light bulb fixture falls out of my hands and vaporizes on the ceramic tile 14' below.

I go to Ace Hardware and buy a new fixture. I climb up on my mother’s ladder to install it, but can’t make it fit.

Hmmm. Why?

Back to Ace Hardware. This time I bring the Teenager-Who-Is-Expert-In-All-Things-Mechanical. We learn that my track lighting system is obsolete. No one makes a light fixture to fit. No one.

We buy a brand new brush-metal track lighting system with halogen bulbs. VERY trendy.

We take down the old fixture and discover that the paint underneath it is lavender. Ick…but nothing a little touch-up won’t fix. Except my touch-up paint is dried out.

Back to Ace Hardware, hauling the Teenager-Turned-Helpful-Ace-Hardware-Man with me, where we learn that the base paint for the paint color of my 14’ tall, 325 sq. ft, kitchen/Arizona room ceiling is obsolete. The paint can’t be matched. Ever.

The Teenager disappears.

My mother leaves longing messages about her ladder on my voice mail.

I purchase gallons of new paint, furniture covers, painter’s tape, scrapers, rollers, a long handle and brushes. It takes me three weekends to repaint the ceiling. We have no light. I burn lots of dinners. The ladder becomes a permanent fixture in the center of our kitchen complete with a collection of coffee cups and unpaid bills.

The big day arrives. The Teenager and I turn off all the circuit breakers in the house. He installs the new track lighting system. Gently unwraps the halogen bulbs. Twists them in. We turn back on the electricity.

Eleven weeks, $253.16 and 19 burned dinners later...we have a fresh light bulb in our kitchen.