I wrote this novel in 1993, sort of by accident. I was working on my doctoral dissertation (an exploratory sociological study of private investigators) and one of my advisers suggested I should consider including a chapter comparing the work of real life private investigators and fictional ones. I wasn’t a fan of mystery of detective fiction and didn’t see any value in such a chapter, but you don’t argue much with your dissertation advisers.

So off I went to the Literature Department, where I tracked down a professor who taught a course in mystery and detective fiction. We set up an independent study program, she gave me a reading list, and I spent a semester reading detective novels. They all seemed a bit silly to me; the characters might be interesting, but most of the cases and the investigative approaches were pretty loopy. With each book I picked up, I found myself thinking “Hell, I could write something like this.”

So I did. I think it took me a couple of months, while still working on my graduate studies. I sent off the manuscript and St. Martin’s Press bought it. I still had to write a paper for my independent study, but when I showed the book contract to the professor, she just laughed and gave me an A. It’s hard to argue against a good grade and an advance. I began to grow fond of the detective genre.

My editor at St. Martin’s asked for another novel with the same characters. So I started working on a second novel. But the format (alternating First Person narratives) felt forced and awkward a second time. I decided the characters would work better in short fiction. I wrote some short stories and published them mostly in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (some of which can be found in Dog on Fire). I suggested a short story collection to SMP, and my editor seemed receptive to the idea. But then she decided to go to law school and her replacement wanted to develop her own stable of writers. The project became ‘orphaned,’ as they say in the publishing biz.

And that was that. The first run of Lightning in the Blood sold well and I earned a bit more than the advance. But I had no desire to write a second novel with the same characters.

After I published Dog on Fire I decided to revamp LitB and release it as an e-book. At first, it was something of a painful experience. It was like the literary version of looking at your high school yearbook photo.

But since I hadn’t read the book since it was published (nearly two decades ago) I found I was able to read it as a reader. Normally I dislike reading anything I’ve written; I tend to see only the flaws. But I found myself actually enjoying parts of the book.

In the end, I decided to update LitB a bit. I removed references to outdated technology (it was written in an era when there were relatively few cell phones, most of which were about the size of extra large bean burrito, and were carried either by doctors or assholes who wanted people to know they could afford cell phones) and examples of 1990s slang. Other than that, it’s the same book.

And hey, considering I wrote it in my spare time, it ain’t bad. It should be available for the Nook and the Kindle by the end of the week, and for other formats at some point in the near future.

(Also…the new cover art features a photo by our own Lynn Longos.)

So Dog on Fire is done and out there (although I’m still waiting for it to appear in the Apple and Sony stores). I ought to be doing promotional stuff—and I intend to—but what I really want to do is get engaged with the next project.

The question is, which next project? I have four possibilities. 1) A novel that’s been published already and needs to be converted to e-publishing formats. 2) Another set of short stories. 3) A sort of police procedural/zombie novel. 4) A fantasy novel.

The most logical choice would be #1. I wrote Lightning in the Blood while I was doing the research for my doctoral dissertation. It was published by Saint Martin’s Press. The novel got generally good reviews, sold a few thousand copies, then disappeared—which is the fate of most novels.

But when I look at it now, all I can see are the flaws. It’s about the same two characters who appear in Dog on Fire. Each alternating chapter is narrated by the other character. That works pretty well in short fiction, I think, but not so much in a novel format. That’s exactly why I scrapped the second novel SMP asked for and began to use those characters in short stories.

If I undertake this project—and it would be stupid of me not to—I’ll want to update the novel, both to reflect modern PI tech and to improve bits of it. It would be dull grunt work, but this plan makes the most sense. Which doesn’t seem to weigh much in its favor.

A second book of short detective stories has its appeal. I’ve got maybe half a dozen scenarios sort of semi-sketched out. It would be fun and fairly easy, though time consuming (but then all of these possible projects would be time consuming). I know there’s interest in the characters, so there’s that. And I could probably sell some of the stories for print publication and bring in some extra jing that way. That’s an attractive aspect.

But then there’s the police procedural/zombie idea that’s been banging around in my head for a couple of years. It’s not a traditional zombie ‘must eat brains’ idea. It’s actually more of a civil rights story. Here (and other writers will probably think I’m nuts for putting this out in public) is the basic premise of the story.

Some unknown environment circumstance triggers a viral event which causes a person’s body to effectively meet the legal criteria for death: the heart stops, the circulatory system stops, respiration stops, brain activity stops. Many hours later, the patient revives—after a fashion. The heart doesn’t start beating, but it sort of vibrates; blood no longer circulates through the body, but it sort of quivers like jelly; respiration doesn’t take place, but the virus simulates hemoglobin so closely it deceives the body into behaving as if was receiving oxygenated blood; electrical brain activity resumes but not in any way recognizable by an EEG. The patient’s bodily functions fail to meet the legal criteria for life, but the patient still retains their ability to think, their identity, and a degree of mobility.

Naturally, fear of contagion means these people are quarantined. Over time it’s discovered the virus isn’t transmitted from person to person, but is triggered by some circumstance in the environment. One ‘zombie’ can’t create another ‘zombie.’ Something in nature does that, though most patients come from a very large geographical region (the Southwest).

The story takes place a few years after the outbreak. There’s a population of a few thousand ‘zombies’ who are being detained in one location—the town where the first patient died and revived. They’re confined to the hospital grounds, which has become overcrowded. An isolation zone of several square blocks of empty buildings, established during the early months of the outbreak, surrounds the hospital. Because each ‘zombie’ was declared legally dead, they have extremely limited civil rights. The courts are beginning to hear lawsuits by ‘zombies’ seeking relief from what they consider unlawful detention. It’s believed the courts will soon expand the limited rights of the ‘zombies,’ allowing them to occupy what has been the isolation zone. The community is opposed to the idea. During all this, a living hospital worker is murdered.

Somebody has to investigate the crime, but it appears the killer may be a ‘zombie.’ If so, can a person who is legally dead be arrested and charged with a crime? How could that person possibly be given a trial by their peers? Could the State just dispose of the accused in the way they’d dispose of any other dead body? The investigator has to deal with the political and cultural issues while trying to solve the murder. This stuff fascinates me.

Finally, I’ve been kicking around a fantasy novel for some time. I like the idea of the genre, but not much of the genre itself. I simply haven’t read much fantasy that wasn’t painfully formulaic. Magical swords, potboys who are rightfully the king of the realm, an evil force bent on world domination. That crap bores the hell out of me.

I have an idea for what’s essentially an adventure story that takes place in a border region between two hostile cultures. Again, it’s the clash of cultures that intrigues me. Nothing fancy about it, but it appeals to me.

So I have all these ideas. I just have to make a decision and focus on one of them. It ain’t easy. I’ve already written the novel, so there’s nothing new for me there–but it’s the logical next step. I enjoy writing short stories, but I’ve just finished a collection of them. The zombie market is flooded, and I’m not sure my idea is marketable even though it’s different and I’m sort of jazzed by it. There’s always a huge fantasy market, so that direction would also make sense and maybe be amusing.

The writing life—she is complicated.

At some point in the next 24-72 hours Dog on Fire will be for sale as an e-book through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. At least that’s the plan.

I’ve published a bit in the analog world; a novel, a few non-fiction books, several short stories. I’ve been included in a few anthologies (including Otto Penzler’s Best American Mystery Stories 1999 and Alfred Hitchcock’s 50th anniversary anthology). I’ve ghosted a number of books for other people. I’ve put out a buttload of words in actual print. But this is the first thing I’ve done specifically for e-publication. (To be accurate, some of the stories in Dog on Fire have already appeared in print, but the stories presented as a collection is something new.)

I think of this as indie publishing. A lot of other folks think of it as self-publishing—which is generally seen as a sort of lower species of publishing. What’s odd is that many of those same folks regard independent cinema as very cool, and they see indie music releases as bold and ballsy. But putting your own writing out there seems to spark a bit of skepticism. There’s that silent but underlying question “What…you can’t get a real publisher to release your work?”

My initial response to this is “Yes, I can, but fuck you very much.”

I have to admit, there’s basis in reality for that skepticism. Technology has made it possible for a LOT of people who couldn’t get published in a traditional venue (and let’s face it, people whose work doesn’t really merit broad publication) to bang out something and put it up for sale on B&N.com and Amazon.com. And a lot of ‘real’ writers will complain—with some justification—that the amount of noise emitted by those folks makes it more difficult for their own work to find an audience.

My initial response to them is “Yes, you’re right, but also fuck you very much.”

The democratization of publishing is a good thing, even if it makes it harder for the rest of us to earn a buck. Some people will claim good work will always find an audience—which is completely delusional. A lot of good work will get lost in the noise. The odds are that’ll happen to Dog on Fire too. It’s just the reality of the situation.

And then there are the folks who say something like “But you’re not really doing this for the money anyway.” Want to guess what my initial response is? “I am most certainly doing this for the money, and fuck you very much.” If I sell a short story, I get paid once. If that story gets anthologized, I get paid again. And that’s it. With an ebook collection of short stories, I get paid every time somebody buys it. I get paid less, of course, but the idea is that volume will make up for it. If the ebook gets lost in the noise, that may not work out. But if that happens, the fault doesn’t lie with the noise.

So I consider this something of an experiment. Experiments sometimes fail. Often fail. If this one fails—well, what the hell, I’ll probably try it again. I may be in this for the money, but if money were the primary consideration I’d have a straight job.