Five Things I'd Like To Tell My Coffee Server

I'm a coffee lover. Maybe even a coffee-holic. I admit it unabashedly, knowing that depending upon what study you choose to believe, drinking coffee is either good for you, provided you don't overdo it (I do), marginally bad for you, as long as you drink it in moderation (I don't), or worse for you than smoking crack while juggling steak knives in the middle of an LSD trip.

In any event, I'm not about to stop drinking coffee, which is why this web piece, titled "13 Things Baristas Won't Tell You," caught my eye. Now I have to be honest, where I get my coffee, the folks behind the counter probably don't know what baristas are, which is okay because neither do most of the people in front of the counter, including me. I drink old-fashioned black coffee, so what the hell do I need with a barista?

Anyway, the source for the information contained in the above piece is listed as "Baristas from Starbucks and independent cafes and coffee carts..." I have no problem with Starbucks, theoretically speaking, aside from the fact that most of the people who frequent the chain strike me as coffee snobs, looking down their noses at those of us who go to Dunkin' Donuts.

I'm not quite sure why that is, although I suppose when you pay the prices they charge at Starbucks, you should at least buy the right to feel superior to someone. Personally, I would rather pour used motor oil down my throat than drink the overpriced, bitter, overcooked stuff they serve there, but everyone's taste is different, and in any event, my purpose in writing this post is not to rag on any other coffee lovers. I prefer to be inclusive.

Reading the 13 Things My Barista Won't Tell Me convinced me that a rebuttal was in order, although I do agree with some of the points they made. Here, then, is my list of 5 Things I'd Like To Tell My Coffee Server:

1) I understand you have seven more hours in your shift before you can sprint to the parking lot and hurry away, but I actually have to get to work.

Putting the attention to my order somewhere below examining your fingernails and adjusting your underwear on your priority list isn't just annoying, it's downright rude. Also, shuffling around like you're walking the green mile to the electric chair isn't helping me make it to work on time, either.

2) I realize the person in front of me in line was a rude asshole, but I don't know him/her, I'm not in line with him/her, and treating me like a rude asshole as a result of his/her actions doesn't help anything.

Lots of people are rude. It's a fact of life. They are self-absorbed and seem to feel you are unworthy of their respect because you don't work a job they feel is important enough. None of that is my fault, and it chaps my ass when I'm polite and respectful and you treat me like I'm the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

3) I am more impressed by your ability to get my order right than your perceived ability to understand the entire order without writing it down.

I drink black coffee. It's hard to conceive of any order simpler than, "I'd like a large black coffee, please." Yet I can't tell you how many times I've walked into work with my coffee and opened it up, only to discover I will be drinking a large REGULAR coffee. Please, for the love of God, pay attention, and if that's asking too much, just WRITE DOWN MY ORDER!

4) Before you shuffle off like you're walking the green mile to the electric chair to begin filling my order, it would be nice if I was finished ordering.

I love enthusiastic service, but when you turn around and walk away after I say, "I'd like a large black coffee, please," assuming that I would ONLY like a black coffee, it is not just annoying and rude but slows down the entire process for the people in line behind me.

5) Rolling your eyes like I've just told you that you're grounded for the next month when I say I'd like something else after you shuffled away like you're walking the green mile to the electric chair when I ask for a large black coffee, please, does not constitute any kind of customer service.

That would seem to be self-evident, but apparently needs to be said.


There you have it; my response to the "13 Things Baristas Won't Tell You." I'm not saying that every time I get coffee it borders on an international incident, but every one of the things listed above has happened either to me or someone in line around me at one time or another.

Coffee deserves better. It's a an exciting, invigorating brew made from running hot water over ground beans, for crying out loud! Please, let's all come together and give coffee, as well as coffee lovers, the respect and attention they deserve.

Thank you.

Darkness Will Fall This September

Tom Piccirilli. Jeff Strand. Brian Keene. J.F. Gonzalez. Greg Gifune. Harry Shannon.

What do these outstanding horror authors have in common? They've all had work published by Delirium Books, one of the premier publishers in the horror collector's market. And, as of this coming September, so will I, when my novella, Darkness Falls, will be offered in a 150 copy limited edition hardcover release as part of Delirium's outstanding collectible novella series.

In Darkness Falls, former bestselling author Tyler Beckman returns to the tiny New Hampshire town he fled nearly twenty years ago after the brutal murder of his parents and sister by a scythe-wielding maniac. He landed in New York, writing a half-dozen bestselling gothic horror novels, earning riches and fame before losing it all in a blizzard of drugs, alcohol and women.

Now, in a desperate last-ditch effort to regain what he has lost, Tyler rents the home of his family's imprisoned killer, determined to confront demons best left buried. Immediately his writing flourishes, and in a frenzy of activity, Tyler begins pounding out the novel that will put him back atop the literary world.

But a malevolent force is at work in Darkness Falls, one which is timeless and evil and unstoppable. And it has Tyler Beckman in its sights.

September is the release date for Darkness Falls, and if you're not able to snag one of the 150 limited edition hardcovers, it will also be released in all ebook formats.

My Famous New Friend

If you're a genre reader like me, you undoubtedly recognize the name Lawrence Block. He's been making a living as a crime writer since the mid-1960's - since the 1950's if you take into account books he wrote under pen names - and has created the memorable characters, Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr and the amiable, introspective contract assassin Keller.

Yeah, that Lawrence Block. The legendary one, the guy the Mystery Writers of America selected as a Grand Master in recognition of his achievements in the field all the way back in 1994. The guy who, even a half-decade after publishing his first novel, will have new material hitting the bookshelves this year.

Lawrence Block friend-requested me a couple of days ago on Facebook.

I've been pretty aggressively expanding my social networking over the last year or so, hoping to use the tools of the electronic age to help publicize my debut thriller, Final Vector, and I have to say the experiment has been wildly successful, giving me the opportunity to network with fellow authors as well as potential readers.

I now consider people friends despite the fact I've never actually met them. I've renewed long-dormant relationships with people who in an earlier age would simply have faded out of my life. I've developed contacts with people I have then worked with in various aspects of promoting my work.

So the fact that another author would friend-request me is not all that surprising. It happens pretty frequently and I do the same thing quite a bit myself. But Lawrence Block? The guy is, literally, a legend in the crime fiction world.

Here's the background. Last week Blogcritics ran an interview with me which was picked up by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in which I was effusive in my praise of, you guessed it, Lawrence Block. You may not have noticed, but I'm a pretty big fan.

Well, apparently Lawrence Block reads either the Blogcritics web page or the Seattle newspaper, because late in the afternoon on Thursday I signed into Facebook and discovered a friend request waiting for me. From Lawrence Block. In it, he thanked me for the complimentary words I had for him in the interview.

I think that bears repeating. Lawrence Block thanked me for the kind words. To put that in context, I like to think of it like this: The guy who has written 61 novels (as far as I can tell) thanked the guy who has written one novel for some nice things he said.

That just blows me away. I understand he is just a person like you or me, but how easy would it be for someone as accomplished as he is to read the words of praise and nod sagely at another peasant recognizing the king's greatness? Instead, he took the time to seek me out, friend-request me, and add a personal note to the request.

My only regret is that there was no way of saving that note. Once I accepted the friend request, it disappeared. However, I sent Mr. Block a message on Facebook telling him what a huge fan I am - basically drooling like a lovesick teenager, sort of like I am now - and he was kind enough to answer my message with one of his own, which will remain in my Facebook messages forever, or until I accidentally destroy my account through my technological ignorance.

I'm not going to get into what was discussed, I'll only say this: I now know Keller's next target of assassination.

Just kidding, but I'm sure I'll know soon, now that Lawrence Block and I are, you know, practically best friends.

The Savior

The amazing Patti Abbott announced a flash fiction contest on her website a week or so ago and the moment I saw it I knew I had to enter. The guidelines? An eight hundred or so word story whose only requirement is that it must contain the phrase, "I really don't mind the scars."

The contest deadline is February 28, but since this is a day off for my FINAL VECTOR blog tour and the story is done, I figured I'd go ahead and post it tonight. So here ya go:


The Savior

I'm not a monster.

Sure, the newspapers paint me as one; so do the TV reporters. Those arrogant fucks from Nightline made me out to be the worst thing to hit the world since frigging Jack the Ripper. But they don't understand. I do what I do to save the girls, not to victimize them. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. I know I'm doing the right thing. So I keep doing it.

My latest project is a beauty, too. She's down on Washington Street, dressed in about six ounces of strategically positioned Spandex, stretched over her best body parts like Saran Wrap. Or spraypaint. She struts her stuff for the usual display of desperate losers cruising Washington while I watch from the shadows provided by the entrance to one of those welfare check-cashing places that seem to populate every corner of neighborhoods like this.

A steady drizzle blurs the scene, wrapping it in a translucent gauze but doing nothing to slow the parade. Middle-aged businessmen in family cruisers, old geezers in Buicks, young guys out for some strange; they're all there.

And my girl's working it for all she's worth.

Does it piss me off? You're goddamn right it does. She doesn't belong out here with the diseased, the addicts, the homeless. She's better than that; I can tell. Which is exactly why I'm here, uniformed ironed crisply, pounding the pavement on my night off.

Every so often a dirtbag wanders past my hiding place and jumps, startled by my presence, curious why I'm just standing here doing nothing. But their interest in my business wanes quickly when they get a good look at my blues and I flash my trusty flat-eyed cop stare.

That's one of the many reasons I love being a cop.

Another is that it gives me the freedom to save my girls, which, after all, is why I'm here. I decide it's time to stop observing and start saving. I step out of the shadows and approach the hooker at a brisk pace while her attention is diverted by a minivan full of teenagers hooting and hollering, whipping out my shield when she turns around and placing her under arrest for criminal solicitation.

She sputters and complains that I have no probable cause to make an arrest and of course she's right, but what the fuck do I care? It's not like I'm taking her to jail, anyway. The other pros scatter at my sudden appearance and the pimps melt into the background and the johns disappear like magic and suddenly it's just me and my girl.

Up close, she's even more striking than I had imagined - silky blonde hair, large, surprisingly clear blue eyes, delicate facial bone structure. She's exquisite. Her only visible flaw is a pair of thin ragged blood-red scars, one running diagonally across her forehead, the other winding its way down her right cheek, both undoubtedly the result of punishment from her pimp for some transgression.

But I don't really mind the scars, they stand in stark contrast to her natural beauty, bringing it out with their ugliness and emphasizing it.

I drag her around the corner and down the sidewalk and toss her into the specially customized back seat of my car. By the time she realizes she's not in a real police cruiser it's much too late for her to do anything about it. We're at my home within thirty minutes and I'm able to introduce my latest find to her new digs.

They're pretty comfortable, too, once you get past the iron bars and the grates on the windows, set high up on the concrete walls of my underground bunker. The space is divided into three separate units, giving me the luxury of saving three girls at a time.

Right now, though, my new friend - Crystal, she says is her name, which I know is one of those bogus hooker names but, again, what the fuck do I care? - is the only occupant. I find I'm going through the girls faster and faster; why that is, I'm not really sure. But it doesn't matter, there is an endless supply of girls to be saved.

At the moment Crystal is half angry and half afraid, not fully grasping the particulars of her new reality. I'll let her calm down and come back later. By then I'm sure she will be only too happy to show proper appreciation for being saved from a lifetime of prostitution.

I'll allow her to demonstrate that appreciation for a few days and then I'll use her up and dump her in the woods out back with the rest of the girls I've saved.

Then, in a few days, I'll go out and save another one.

FINAL VECTOR purchase links

They say life is all about the journey rather than the destination, don't they? I mean, that was a song lyric, right? So it's gotta be true.

If that's the case, it's been one hell of a memorable journey trying to reach this destination: publication of my first novel. But we're here now, sort of, and it's a feeling of excitement and satisfaction tinged with nervousness like I've never experienced before.

Why did I say, "we're here now, sort of?"

I'm glad you asked. FINAL VECTOR is out. It's been released. It's available at a number of retailers, including Amazon, Mobipocket and Ebooks.com.

It's also NOT available yet at some other retailers, such as Barnes and Noble and Borders. The distributor for Medallion Press, IPG, says that FINAL VECTOR will begin being available at these places soon, but exactly what - or when - that means, I'm not sure.

Also, if you go to Amazon and search "Final Vector," as I've done so many times I'm wearing the finish off those keys on my laptop, your result will include a bunch of stuff, none of which includes my book. I have an email into Amazon's tech folks asking about the problem, but I'm told it could take up to three days to get an answer.

So the upshot of all of this is that yes, FINAL VECTOR is released and available, and yes, I would love it if you'd give it a try, but if you own a Kindle and want to download it, you need to know the specific purchase link, for now at least. Again, this is the link which will bring you to Amazon's FINAL VECTOR page. Searching it on the site will get you nothing except frustration.

So, really, while we've arrived at our destination, the journey continues. Sort of.

This has been quite an adventure. I can't wait to do it again.

The Peasants are Revolting

Like all revolutions, the one currently shaking publishing to its core started innocently enough, with some changes that initially seemed harmless to the status quo and a few true believers carrying signs and shouting slogans.

E-books. Publishers scoffed at the notion that any but the most dedicated techno-geeks would shell out their hard-earned cash for an electronic tablet dedicated to nothing but words.

But people started buying them. Lots of them. And they began filling their hard drives up with books, plenty of them from big-time authors, but also a lot from authors they may not have been as familiar with. Folks who in the olden days would have been known as "mid-listers."

And then a mid-lister named Joe Konrath became the poster child for this revolution, which suddenly began gathering momentum like a locomotive careening down the side of a mountain. He released a bunch of backlist titles himself electronically, and then he released a brand-new novel electronically without a publisher, and he had the nerve to promise readers of his blog he would keep them informed of the results.

And the results were astonishing. The poster child began making money. Lots of it. More than he had ever made with his traditional mid-list publishing deals. And he huffed and puffed and boasted and proselytized and before long other authors began wondering if maybe they shouldn't follow suit.

And the revolution was on.

Two days ago The Authors Guild published a piece on their blog illustrating how the 75/25 royalty split (75% to the publisher, 25% to the author) of net proceeds in the traditional contract offered by most major New York publishing houses represents nothing more than a significant pay cut to the creator of the work - the author.

If you'd like to see the entire piece and learn how the numbers were generated, you can check it out here, but examples were given and numbers were crunched and one thing became clear - authors are taking a beating with the 75/25 split.

Now, on his blog just this morning, novelist Terrill Lee Lankford announced he had reached a difficult decision - he was ending discussions with a publishing house over the terms for his latest book and would publish it himself electronically. Why? The 75/25 split.

Despite the offer of an advance Lankford termed "very good money," he reasoned that "by the time I finished the book in question the cash would be gone. And by the time that book 'earned out' at a rate of 3-1 in the publisher's favor in e-book sales, the publisher would have seen a small fortune without noticeable expense. And we would be saddled with a deal that would probably haunt my family long after I was dead and gone."

The upshot, of course, is that another mid-lister has decided to follow Joe Konrath into the wilderness of electronic self-publishing. But here's the thing - for a wilderness, it's getting pretty damn crowded out there.

Blog Tour Date Tomorrow

I'd like to thank the good folks at Between the Pages for allowing me to interview my main character from FINAL VECTOR, Nick Jensen, today. Here's hoping he survives the standoff againt the terrorists; he seems like one hell of a nice guy.

It's back onto the blog tour bus now for the trek to The Story Behind the Book, where I will be guest blogging tomorrow. I hear the chicken wire is in place, just in case - like in The Blues Brothers - the natives get restless and start throwing stuff. I'd love to see you there.