Sweet Dreams

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League.
A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request, Steve Goodman (1983)

The scene in Cleveland last night was surreal, but not in the unreal sense the word is often employed to portray. It was more "dreamlike," every changing camera recording visages which said something profound about the outcome of a baseball game. Surreal.
 
A friend's favorite one word description of the fantastic - Epic! - was voiced in the giddy aftermath by a reporter to David Ross, a well-traveled catcher who had just played his last major league baseball game. Tears welled in Ross's eyes. Yeah, he agreed. It was epic.

When the Cubs moved out to a four-run start it seemed that the "Go, Cubs, Go" ending was only a matter of end game. Set them up, mow them down and start the celebration. Their starting pitcher, a guy who looked unruffled to the point of boredom, had things well in hand. He struck out a batter to end the fifth inning.

Or not. Plate umpire Sam Holbrook's evolving strike zone struck again. Ball four. Cubs manager Joe Maddon, an odd character even as baseball managers go, inexplicably pulled the starter. He was relieved by Jon Lester, a pitcher who comes with a personal catcher (Ross, since their days together in Boston) and who, remarkably, can pinpoint a 97 mile per hour fastball from sixty feet six inches but has a phobia about throwing to first. Lester, it must be repeated, is normally a starting pitcher. Several batters (and one Ross throwing error) later, a fifty-five foot pitch bounced up and struck Ross in the mask, careening wildly away and knocking the catcher on his ass. This allowed two runs. On one wild pitch.

Cubs baseball.

Lester rallied, Ross keeping him calm. Together, they got out of the jam and Ross hit a homer, a sort of atonement, he admitted later. They got the Cubs into the eighth. 

Of course Cleveland eventually tied it. Rajai Davis hit a pitch that rose perhaps fifteen feet above the grass as it rocketed into the left field seats. Bottom of the 8th. 6-6.

Then, disaster struck the Indians. The rains came, but instead of playing through it (as they had an inning before) the umpires sent for the tarp. The players retreated to their clubhouses. 

Cub Jason Heyward called a players only meeting. Channeling Winston Churchill, he reminded his teammates, in so many words, that they had not gotten to Game 7 of the World Series "Because we are made of sugar candy." They responded.

Years ago, working shifts that had me home during the day, daughter Beth and I watched the Cubs on WGN. She was barely two, but would remind everyone that she was a "Cub's fan, and a Bud man" in her best Harry Caray (the late Cubs announcer... But if you needed to be told that, perhaps this is the wrong blog for you). The 1984 Cubs were good, but faded in the playoffs. It was a magic summer. Last night her sister and I texted each other throughout the game, which ended just past eleven Mountain time.

The Cubs did not fade last night, playing an exceptionally good team that gave no quarter, and expected none. There was cheering and yelling. Thousands of fans poured onto the streets surrounding Wrigley Field, some not intending to do so...just drawn there. In Indiana, a man sat listening to the game at his father's grave. On an outside wall at the ballpark people wrote names with chalk - names of family and friends who had passed still dreaming of a Cub world championship, Steve Goodman being one of those.

 Asked what he had said to Lester after the game, Ross turned his back to the camera. He was crying. "I told him I loved him," he said finally.

Epic.

Reading Wild

Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks): "I made the decision."
Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise): "Must have been a tough one."
Apollo 13, (1995)

I read the email this morning, letting me know that publisher Wild Child was shutting down at the end of the year. This was not unexpected news - the publishing business is tough, competitive and (right now) awash in titles. Heck, anyone with Word and internet access can get something onto Amazon. Self-publishing firms are everywhere. A small house like WC (and sister Freya's Bower) jockeys for position with everyone else, trying to command attention. Readers seem in shrinking supply even as their reading options multiply. People who know the ropes, are attuned to trends, say this is a tough time to make a living in the writing business.

I'll say.

But, nobody needs to call the waaaambulance for me. Marci Baun, and her publishing company, have given me an opportunity I never thought I'd get. To read the email - "We like the manuscript you submitted. We want to discuss publishing it" was one of the most joyous moments in my writing life. 

It was a little after 0400...the proverbial "Oh-dark thirty." I was eating breakfast, reading emails and getting ready to drive to work for six AM roll call. Attempts to gain the attention of an agent or publisher had gone unavailing...for two years. Nearly a hundred submissions. In some cases, the publisher responded with "Not our genre." A couple thought the stories interesting, such as they were. Some never responded back, despite SASE. The bastards. My personal favorite was an email submission that required only six minutes to come back "Sorry." That was it!

A Parasol in a Hurricane evolved from a combination of conversations about how to address the brick wall I'd encountered. It represented a departure for me - a short story instead of a novel - being something bite-sized and, perhaps, tempting. Publisher Wild Child caught my eye. We had called one of our kids (need I mention who) the wild child. Enya's song of the same name was her ring tone. Fate?

Then I got their response. I went upstairs and woke up my wife. Did I mention it was 4 AM? We laughed, we cried. We hugged.

Over the next eight years the little shop in Culver City and I did the short story and two novels together. Neither of us got rich, obviously. But, I'll never forget the look on Pat's face when I told her I'd found a publisher.

For that, and a hundred other things... Thank you, Marci.

In Search of Honor

The week started with a sound bite - a man in his late middle age uttering crude comments about women. Having assiduously avoided reading them, I am not in a position to dissemble the madness. Suffice to say...what a jerk.

The week ended with the murder of 27 year old police woman Lesley Zerebny, who fell beside coworker Jose Vega in Palm Springs. She had returned recently from maternity leave, her child born four months ago.

Irony is for amateurs. I have been blessed to serve in the company of heroes who happen to be woman. We have fought together, bled together, laughed together. I have put my life in their hands - they in mine.

How does one respond to dishonor? 

By remembering heroes. By remembering the best our communities have to offer. By remembering a 4 month old who won't really be able to remember Mom.

It's Your Secret

Co-worker: "You talk like your characters are real."
Me: "They are."

What would Karen/Amy/Cici do. Or, in more contemporary terms, who would they vote for in the presidential race.

Pat and I have had this conversation. Seriously. The question came up as we were talking through plot lines for "Karen 3." 

None of them are really mine.

My first novel, born in naivete and nurtured through hours of earnest inexperience, featured Flatiron Valley police sergeant Amy Painter. I wanted her to wrestle with a variety of challenges - danger, death and the awful dilemma of options. Several good friends helped me mold her into 3D. She occupied hours of discussion with Pat, often during long beach walks or plane rides.

The "finished manuscript" in hand, I headed for Kinkos, to get copies printed for friends who would read my first attempt at publication. Getting out of the car proved a challenge, the emotions were so strong. Amy would no longer be mine.

She would belong to readers. They would have opinions - some good, some not - about who she is, what she cares about and whether she made the case for women in law enforcement. Some of the input would sting. But... Writers write, said William Forrester, so readers can read.

Karen Sorenson sprang to life at an airshow. The words poured out - lonely, emotionally abused and longing for someone to love, she set that all aside to solve a murder. The manuscript was enormous, unwieldy and a hot mess.

Two writer friends helped me trim it down.

But, writing for publication is a business. I took Karen to the home of a woman fleeing from an unacceptable past. The story concluded after a mere nine thousand words, but it got the attention of Marci Baun at Wild Child. We were off and running.

Cici. She started as a plot line, one dimensional. Drones, death and martial law. The story virtually wrote itself, but my main character had no depth. She wasn't real. Enter a coworker who would become a friend. And Cici took on a real personality.

So who would they vote for?

That's up to you, my loyal readers.

A Tale of Two Shootings

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision." Maimonides.

Maimonides was a philosopher born in the middle of the 12th Century. He studied the philosophies of we would now call "The Classics." Likely, he never served as a police officer.

Recently, two separate decisions by officers in Charlotte and Tulsa resulted in the use of deadly force. Two men died. Both situations seemed to begin relatively routinely, but did not end that way.

"Relatively routinely." There was a time when we could name on one hand the number of weapons calls to which officers were summoned. Now, they are commonplace. "We're actually getting pretty good at them," a friend said recently. "There are a couple every shift."

One night not long ago, officers responded to a gun call. They were confronted by a man with a shotgun, who fired several shots at them. He missed. Return fire struck the suspect, who retreated into an apartment (and later surrendered, with serious but survivable injuries).

Men and women who work in risky professions continually face critical situations in which lives hang in the balance - often, their own. Four Wilmington firefighters fell through a collapsed staircase last night. Two died. In Westminster (CO) police responded to a robbery. The confrontation ended in the death of one suspect. Douglas County deputies dealt with a suicidal person shooting randomly - the detective wounded in the exchange is just now regaining some semblence of consciousness.

Two years ago several of my coworkers responded to a welfare check. What could be more routine? Someone is acting in an unusual manner and it is law enforcement's role to assess their behavior. My friends came under sniper fire. Two were seriously wounded. 

What makes being a first responder unique - fire service, law enforcement, EMT, HAZMAT - is that we are rarely able to walk away from an unresolved situation. We have to engage. We have to make decisions. Sometimes, it involves people who may be armed. There is that moment, one critical blink of an eye, when the mind says "I"m about to be killed."

What happens next?

I have no firsthand knowledge of either the Tulsa or Charlotte incidents. One officer got to see his city in flames. The other has been arrested.

The risk of being wrong hangs as a dark cloud above. No matter how well trained a human being is, that is a risk we all live with. We saw, we perceived, we concluded. Officers must act.

And, we have to live, or die, with what we do next.

Cars, Bars and Cold Steel

Turk Malloy (Scott Caan): Saul, do you get out to Utah much?
Saul: (Carl Reiner) Not as often as I'd like.
Turk Malloy: Check it out. I think you'd dig Provo. You could do well there.
Saul: I'll look into it.
 Ocean's Eleven (2001).

Fresh from Action Target's four-day Law Enforcement Training Camp in Provo, Utah. Here are a few glimpses into a 9-5 world of shooting, shooting and more shooting.

• It is said that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. The only way to load two thousand rounds of pistol ammo is one at a time. I developed a hot spot on my right thumb, and a definite appreciation for a contraption my friend had that made loading those last few rounds spectacularly easier.
• There are a lot of great shooters in the LE community. There are people who almost never miss what they are shooting at. I met several who never miss.
• Shooting is 80% mental and 20% a well-trimmed beard.
• "You have to be hungry to eat a donut? I never heard of such a thing." Danny Devito (Other People's Money).
• The satisfaction derived from hearing a steel target ring when struck by a bullet you fired cannot be understated.
• Cold beer is an antidote for nearly any form of dehydration. Two cold beers is a hydration investment.
• The Rifleman's Creed - "This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine" was one of my favorite parts of Full Metal Jacket. It does not apply to the $8000 rifle I had the privilege of shooting. It was a .338 Lapua Magnum (If that makes no sense to you, wait until A More Perfect Union comes out). The barrel alone costs two grand. I fired five shots at an old clunker we were using for a class.
• Speaking of old clunkers, shooting out of a moving vehicle isn't easy... No, actually it is easy as can be. Hitting anything - that's the hard part.
• A Boston accent is still very pleasant to hear.
• Two long drives, four days of shooting and my coworkers are still my friends. That's something right there.

Contract Talks

"Do we have an accord? Drinks all around!" Captain Jack Sparrow.

The offer of a contract from a publisher to a writer...

The first was for A Parasol in a Hurricane. I had submitted the short story to Wild Child Publishing - our oldest daughter was our wild child and I thought "What the hell, perhaps that's a sign." It was. I received an email from the acquisition editor and, later, one from from Publisher (and now, friend) Marci Baun, that I would be assigned an editor and would receive a contract offer.

It was around 0415 - just past four in the morning - eating breakfast and getting ready for work. Heart pounding, huge grin, only one other person in the world needed to know, someone who had supported my writing "career" since my vast array of published works was a letter to the editor.

Yes, I woke up my non-morning person wife at zero-dark. 

Last weekend, Marci signaled that another contract would be forthcoming, for the manuscript A More Perfect Union. If all goes well, it will be my forth novel, fifth published work. But, there are no guarantees.

First, there is the contract to sign. For me, this is a formality. Marci sends me the document, I read it and sign it. Perhaps if I was Dan Brown (who sold millions of his novel Da Vinci Code) there would be something to talk about. There isn't. While I have a robust and growing readership, you'll know I've hit it big when I trade in my gun, badge and vest for a new job - porch watcher. I promised Pat I would guard the back porch while I write.

Each competent publisher has a guidebook containing their writing standards. WC is no different. The placement of commas, how many periods in a ..., whether body parts can move in a non-standard fashion (can one "cast an eye" without actually removing it?) It is amazing to ask Word to highlight every instance of just, to see how repetitively one writes even a polished, privately edited 99,000 word manuscript. After a main character has smiled 745 times, maybe we have her grin, smirk or turn her mouth up at the edges?

All of this before the editor goes to work. They are easy mistakes to make, and to fix. No one pays an editor to point those out.

The editor is there to wreak mayhem on your hours of blood and sweat. They lay waste to the very idea of the work, tear out your heart and, before your very eyes burn it to a cinder.

Okay, it's actually not like that at all. Learning how to be professional during the editing process generally separates those who write, and those who are authors. Accepting changes, even wholesale ones, is a skill that one masters in the spaces between "You have got to be fucking kidding me" and "I think I understand, (editor). Does this work better for you?" It's no fun to eliminate scenes, drop a character and/or rewrite dialogue that seemed inspired when written. 

It becomes a matter of trust. "Writers write so readers can read," said fictional novelist William Forrester. Editors edit so publishers will publish, and publishers have a keen sense of what readers will not just read, but what they will buy. "Don't fall in love with the words," I was once counseled. "Fall in love with release day." I have had the good fortune to be edited by people I trust.

Book covers matter. Finding just the right combination of strength, sincerity and allure in stock photos of police women has been challenging. Fortunately, friends to the rescue. On two occasions folks have dropped everything and agreed to an hour of photo shooting. Heather Leider at Leider Photography and Jen Rohling at Rohling Photography put together photo shoots that resulted in an impressive array of choices for the artist to massage. Allison Nishi, a University of Denver faculty member and director, and former LPD dispatcher Kim Authement were steadfast in getting the facial expressions just right. These were the results.

The final bit of typing to do is the acknowledgment page. Writing may be a solitary activity, but writing for publication takes a lot of help. More Perfect Union took a fairly large cast. I have the geopolitics down (don't let that scare you away - this is not a book about politics) but the characters, especially the main character, took a lot of time to develop. Thank goodness I knew who to turn to.

We made a toast to the next novel, sitting in the shade on my daughter's back porch. There were a few tears of joy shed - I won't lie, it's profoundly emotional even after the fifth work. There are long hours ahead, a lot of effort by a lot of people before release day.

But... Cici is one step closer to your Kindle or Nook. You'll love her.