.jpg/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:1353,h:677)
Caleb Pirtle
Eulogy in Black and White
Eulogy in Black and White
What makes your stories unique?
Especially in my historical mysteries and thrillers, I believe each sentence, each paragraph, each book should have impact and hit with the force of an explosion.
Bam.
It’s short.
It grabs you.
It’s punchy.
It holds you.
It intrigues you.
It mystifies you.
Bam.
It’s over.
And you remember every haunting scene, every fascinating character, every twisted plot as though it were a lingering dream – always out of your reach but never out of your mind.
As August Wilson said, “The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.”
If you met one of your characters in person, who would it be, and what would you ask?
To me, Ambrose Lincoln is the most fascinating character I’ve written. It was back in the 1930s, and he was selected to undergo secret experiments, including shock treatments, so the government could control his mind and remap his brain. He is a secret agent, and the experiments erase his mind and remove his memories. The government believes that a man who can’t remember is a man unafraid of dying. He will go places where others would never dare go and accomplish things others are too frightened to achieve.
I would ask him: “When the electrodes touch your brain, where do you go? What do you see? Who do you meet? Is it a dark world, and is it more mysterious than the one in which we live? Do you visit with the dead, and what do they ask you to do for them? Or do you merely step off the edge of the earth and tumble into a dark abyss where you may fall forever.”
Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
Every author writes differently, and many of them have influenced me in many different ways. For example, I read Robert Parker for his short, punchy dialogue. I read Leonard Elmore to see if I can figure out how he brings such outlandish, warped, and dark humor to a story. I’m a fan of James Lee Burke because he taught me that you can write literary fiction in any genre, even hard-boiled mysteries. And I have long read Hemingway to learn that good writing is not simply a collection of words. It’s a collection of the right words. Don’t use a word unless it’s the best word you can find to create the vision, the emotion, and the impact you want to deliver in a sentence or in a story.
What is your secret guilty pleasure?
Watching my eleven-year-old grandson play soccer and baseball, and watching my nine-year-old granddaughter dance and then try to figure out how she’s going to rule the world, and I’m not betting against her.
They say ‘write what you know’. But do you reach a point where research is needed?
I’m bored with what I know. I’m fascinated with what I don’t know. As a result, I do as much research before writing fiction as I do writing nonfiction. Research, especially for us who prefer to write historical fiction, takes us to places we’ve never been, do things we’ve never done before, and meet intriguing people we never knew existed. I may have my character walk into a town with one story in mind, and by the time he walks out, he has told a better story than I originally had planned for him. Research makes the difference. Research can turn an ordinary story into an extraordinary piece of literature.
How do your family and/or friends feel about your books?
My friends and family pay as much attention to my books as they do the yard when I cut the grass. It’s what I do. When the family sits down at the dinner table, everyone talks about what they did that day. Made a presentation at work. Took Jackson to soccer practice. Carried Avery to dance. Finished a legal brief before court on Monday. And I say, “Lincoln met the dead man today. The dead man has been following him ever since the night Lincoln shot him in the alley.” I look up, and everyone has quietly eased out of the room.
How do you choose the books you read? By genre? Author?
I choose books by the author, primarily because the authors I like write the genres I like to read.
What advice would you give a new author?
I have one piece of advice for aspiring writers. Forget the rules for fiction. There are no rules that count. Simply write the story the way you want to write it, and tell it in the voice you want it told. Write as if you are sitting at a table and telling the story to a stranger, from one heart to another. But never tell the reader too many secrets too soon.
How do you feel about rewrites? Describe your process after the first draft is complete.
I’ve been told many times, don’t re-write until you’ve finished the book and have the story on paper. I can’t do it that way. I re-write as I go along. I may write six good pages today. Tomorrow, I will edit and re-write those six pages, and that puts me smack dab back in the middle of the story. Then I write another six pages and will re-write those tomorrow. It’s a drill that may not work for everyone, but it works for me. However, when I finish the manuscript, the real re-write begins, and I wind up cutting twenty pages and adding forty, or vice versa.
What project are you working on next?
I am presently working with J. Ronald Hardin on a narrative nonfiction book about the boomtown of Borger, Texas. The town did not exist until oil was discovered on a patch of isolated ground in the Panhandle in the 1920s. Borger was wild, a town of shanties and shacks crowded with gamblers, bootleggers, moonshiners, con artists, and outlaws. It was known as “the wickedest town in Texas.” Its first forty murders were never solved. It all exploded when the district attorney was murdered, and the governor declared Martial Law and sent in the Texas Rangers and National Guard to clean up the town.
Back in the 1950s, Ron Hardin worked for the Borger Herald and was fascinated with the town’s history. Night after night, he used an old manual typewriter to type the stories of Borger that appeared in newsprint from 1926 to 1929. It was a tumultuous time. He has turned those pages over to me, and I have created the newspaper as the narrator who tells the story of Last Dance at Sundown.
Eulogy in Black and White
Eulogy in Black and White
Eulogy in Black and White
Death Stalks a Small Town.
Magnolia Bluff waits.
With apprehension.
With dread.
With terror.
May twenty third is coming.
Somebody always dies on May twenty-third.
Why?
No one knows.
A killer walks in the shadows.
The killer is ready to strike again.
C.W. Hawes
Death Wears a Crimson Hat
Death Wears a Crimson Hat
What motivates you to write?
A friend of mine says, “You don’t choose writing, writing chooses you.”
The great German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, told the young poet to examine himself. Go into his deepest most innermost self and ask the question, must I write?
If the answer is yes, then structure your whole life so you may write.
I have to write. It is as simple as that. Writing chose me.
What makes your stories unique?
My stories come from me, and I am unique. No one has lived my life. No one has my life story. Which means only I can tell my stories.
An AI program may be able to write in my style. But it can’t get into my head. It can’t think my thoughts. Nothing can. No one can. Only I can.
According to Francis Ford Coppola, Balzac said much the same thing in an unpublished essay. Those who try to copy him ultimately fail, because even though they imitate him, they do so in their own style.
If you met one of your hero/heroines in person, what would be the first question you’d ask?
Why did you pick me to write your story?
Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
In a very real sense, all of life has influenced my writing. We are the sum total of all that has happened before now. And we write from ourselves, we write from that well.
More specifically, I see Anthony Trollope, the Victorian writing machine, as my mentor.
He advised writers to write in such a way as to emotionally move people. To tell a story that will make people laugh or cry. If the writer can do that, he has done his work well.
Trollope also saw writing as a business. There’s no other way to view it if one hopes to make any money at it.
He wrote to the clock: one page every 15 minutes. His writing session lasted 2 1/2 hours. Which meant he produced 10 pages, 250 words each, for a total of 2500 words per day. And he pretty much wrote every day.
According to Trollope, one should write every day, no matter the place or how one feels.
Anthony Trollope would get an idea for a story, and just start writing. There is no evidence he outlined any of his books (I suspect he’d see it as a waste of time), nor any that he re-wrote them. He wrote finished copy. No one saw the manuscript before he sent it to the publisher except his wife.
Anthony Trollope, though dead, is the best of mentors.
Do you absolutely love or hate rewrites? Describe your process after the first draft is complete.
I hate rewrites. To the point where I follow Anthony Trollope, H. Bedford-Jones, and Harlan Ellison: I do my best to get it right the first time. And for the most part, I do. Other than minor edits, the first draft is basically the same as the published story.
My writing process goes back to a system I developed in high school and refined in college to write papers at the last minute.
I write the story in longhand. There is a benefit to the creative process in the tactile nature of handwriting that is missing when one uses a keyboard, or dictates.
After the story is written, I type up the manuscript and conduct my first rounds of edits while typing.
Once typed, I read the typescript to make sure the story flows and there are no plot holes.
Then I run the story through ProWritingAid to clean up grammar, incorrect words, overused words, and the like.
After that, I send it off to my beta readers. When I get the story back, I make any needed changes.
Then I have the computer read the story to me while I follow along, and make any needed tweaks.
After all that, I give the story a final read.
Then I format and publish.
What is your secret guilty pleasure?
I am smiling here. After all, if I told you it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.
How do your family and/or friends feel about your books?
Aside from my sister and daughter, my family has no interest in my books. And the same goes for my friends, other than those who also write.
I am not alone in this. I see other writers on social media complain about the lack of support from those nearest and dearest.
I shrug it off and look for those who do like my work and try to form relationships with them. I have no time for naysayers.
Are you an avid reader? Are you drawn to the same or a different genre than your books?
I’ve always been a reader. I love books. I love stories. And the older I get, the more I’d rather read a good book than do anything else.
When I see a writer on social media complain they have no time to read, I would love to ask them why are they writing? It’s like a carpenter saying he has no time to learn about wood. Or a doctor saying he has no time to keep up with what’s new in the medical field.
I read most genres, although my favorites are private detective mysteries and horror. I don’t like horror that dwells on gore. I much prefer psychological horror and stories that produce that indefinable and uneasy feeling of dread or terror.
Because reading generates new ideas for me, when I’m writing I need to read pretty much in the same genre in which I am writing. If I don’t, I might find Cthulhu in my mystery novel. And that won’t do.
What advice would you give an author new to the publishing world?
1. Why are you writing? Are you writing because you have to? Or are you looking for a get rich quick scheme?
If the latter, then go find something else to do; because most writers don’t make much, if any, money.
If the former, keep in mind you will most likely be the writing for the love of it and the joy of seeing those few folks who tell you they love your stories. You probably won’t make a lot of money.
2. As a fiction writer, you are primarily an entertainer. If you entertain your readers, they will love you.
3. Build a mailing list. It is the only way to collect your fans in one place. And be sure you entertain them in each and every email.
4. Be creative. Over 3000 books are published every day. Amazon lists over 7 1/2 million on their site. That’s a lot of competition. Be creative in telling others you exist and why they will like your book.
5. Don’t give up. Quitters never win. It takes time to build an audience. In the beginning, you need to write lots and publish often in order to get noticed. Make sure you choose a popular genre in which to write, and make sure you write in a series. Doing so will help you gather readers, that you can turn into fans. And keep at it. Don’t give up. This writing business takes time.
Are you working on a new project?
I’m always working on a new project. :) I usually have too many irons in the fire.
But to answer your question more specifically, yes, I am. I am over halfway done with the ninth book in the Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations series. It’s something of a sequel to Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space”.
When the book is ready, I will release it through Kickstarter initially. This goes back to my previous comment about being creative. Writers and readers are discovering Kickstarter. Writers are making money and readers are getting good deals. Kickstarter may just turn out to be the new place for readers and writers to get together.
A couple months after the Kickstarter, I will make the book available on other platforms. At this point, I haven’t decided if I will go wide immediately, or enroll the book in Kindle Unlimited for three months and then go wide.
Thanks for having me on your blog!
Death Wears a Crimson Hat
Death Wears a Crimson Hat
Death Wears a Crimson Hat
.jpeg/:/cr=t:6.25%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:93.75%25/rs=w:600,h:800,cg:true)
Secrets, gossip, and a murder that could reveal all.
Harry Thurgood just wants a quiet life, and to leave his past in the past. And he thinks he’s found the perfect place in sleepy Magnolia bluff, Texas. Until the murder of a prominent citizen threatens to let the skeletons out of his closet.
Quiet and unassuming, the Reverend Ember Cole wants nothing more than to be a good pastor to her congregation. And when her friendship with Harry threatens her job, she has to choose between friendship and the church.
However, when the murder is pinned on Ember, Harry decides he and Ember have to find the real killer to keep Ember out of jail and Harry’s past in the past.
But when Harry and Ember are almost killed in a hit and run, they realize the killer will stop at nothing to avoid being found. Even if he has to kill again.
Death Wears a Crimson Hat by CW Hawes is the first book in the new multi-author crime series: The Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles. Each book in the series will be written by one of The Underground Authors and will feature action, suspense, humor, and, of course, murder.
Get in on the action today, and see if you can solve the mystery!