THE WILD AND WOOLY WEST

Darrell James

“It was Saturday, February 21, 1925 and in Tucson, Arizona, excitement was everywhere. This community of 34 thousand souls was getting ready for a thing called La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, the Celebration of the Cowboys. Thousands of visitors had arrived for the festivities and rooms were as scarce as snowdrifts. Cowpokes drifted in to pay their entrance fees, parade contestants turned up to register, and long lines of prospective spectators waited to buy tickets for the western show. The sun had just begun to peek through gray skies raising the mercury to a comfortable 68 degrees. An eager crowd lined the route and 300 persons waited to fall into procession. Gear was checked, horses calmed, hats adjusted, drumheads tightened. The signal was given promptly at 10:30 and the La Fiesta de los Vaqueros parade moved out onto Congress Street and headed east…”

Thus reads history.

It’s rodeo time in the Old Pueblo this week. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros. While modern Tucson is a city of close to one million inhabitants, it still celebrates, with honor, its grand tradition of rodeo. More than 200,000 fans will attend this week’s wild west eshow and rodeo.

Bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, calf roping--it’s rough and tough doings-- that mirrors the past, exemplifying the rugged nature of the men and women who first settled the territory.

I look forward to rodeo week each year. A chance to step back into the old west for a short time and relive the cowboy past. It’s a tradition that defines the area and, as in the past, defines the people who choose to live here.

As authors, we look for settings for our fiction that are rich in history and tradition, and that can serve to define the fictional characters that populate the stories. It was for this reason I made the decision to place my series protagonist, Del Shannon, in Tucson.

Coming this fall, book two in the series, SONORA CROSSING, will draw on setting in a big way, taking my female protagonist, Del Shannon, on a quest into the dangerous drug corridors along the Arizona/Mexico border near Tucson. An area that, in many ways, is as lawless, today, as the territory of old.

Great story settings define the characters that populate them. And Tucson, rich with a tough and rugged history, serves to define Del Shannon.

There will be more forthcoming on the book. But for now, I’m going to don my cowboy hat and head for the rodeo.

In what way, does setting work to define your character? What traditions work to define your setting?

Nazareth Child, the first novel in the Del Shannon series, has been nominated for the Left Coast Crime Eureka Award for Best First Novel. It is available at bookstores and online retailers in print and for all popular electronic reading devices.

INKSPOT NEWS - FEBRUARY 4, 2012

The nominees have been announced for the Left Coast Crime 2012 awards. Congratulations to:

• Jess Lourey on her nomination for The Lefty (best humorous mystery novel) for her Murder-by-the-Month mystery Octoberfest.

• Darrell James on his nomination for the Eureka! (best first mystery novel) for his first Del Shannon mystery Nazareth Child. 

MADE IN AMERICA (or How The Book Saved America)

Darrell James

All this past week, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer has been reporting on Made In America, a patriotic movement to encourage Americans to spend their Holiday dollars on products made in America. From renewing our infatuation with the Slinky, to rewrapping our fingers around a Louisville Slugger, all in an effort to inspire American jobs for American workers.

ABC World News website states: “The average American will spend $700 on holiday gifts and goodies this year, totaling more than $465 billion, the National Retail Federation estimates. If that money was spent entirely on US made products it would create 4.6 million jobs. But it doesn't even have to be that big. If each of us spent just $64 on American made goods during our holiday shopping, the result would be 200,000 new jobs. Now we want to know, are you in? If so, we want to hear from you. How are you planning on spending your $64?”

Well, here’s a thought: “Books” by American writers, published in America, are 100% American made. From the authors themselves, to the house that publishes them, to the printers, to the distributors, to the book retailers, paid reviewers, and even those who report on books, owe their job, all or in part, to the BOOK. American paper suppliers and lumberjacks also benefit when the book is released in print. UPS Drivers, Mail Carriers--they all get a piece of the action.

When a book winds up gift wrapped beneath the tree, it comes with America’s finger prints (figuratively, if not literally) all over it.

This, of course, is the economic view point. But consider what the gift of a book does for the recipient. It offers knowledge, entertainment, inspires imagination, and sometimes provides hope. Hope! How much closer to the spirit of the holidays can one gift be?

I often give books as presents. It’s one of my favorite things to give. But this year, I’m making a special effort to offer the gift of books to everyone I can. So, yes, count me in! A book is a wonderful, sometimes wondrous, thing.

What about you? Will you be giving books for the holidays? (Some bindery worker in Poughkeepsie may well be counting on it.)

Darrell James is an American author. His novel, Nazareth Child, was recently released by Midnight Ink, Llewellyn Worldwide, an American publisher. It is available from American bookstores and through American online retailers. “Come on America! Buy a book!”

Have I said enough?

To see the whole story and watch the video go to ABC World News with Diane Sawyer.

THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY (SORT OF)

by Darrell James

There’s been a lot of talk, of late, about the best way to market a book in today’s brave new world of book publishing. Social networking and use of the internet to get the word out certainly offers an economy of scale that’s hard to argue with. But (and you can call me old-fashioned here if you want) there is something marginally unfulfilling about selling a book online, particularly in eBook form where no physical matter has changed hands, and no engagement with the reader has taken place. The greatest thrill for me as a writer is being in the public, face to face with potential readers, getting that nod of agreement… “Yes, you can sign it for me.”

Wow! (Lots of Books To Sign, B&N Dayton)
Maybe it’s the salesman in me. But there’s nothing like it as far as I’m concerned.

When we launched my debut novel, Nazareth Child, in September we (wife/publicist and I) set out to meet as many potential readers as possible in the first ninety days of the books life. Our reasoning was based on the premise that “word of mouth” is still the number one influence in a book (or author’s) success. And that word of mouth is spread by either those that like the book or like you. (Preferably both.)

(A Hug Always Helps)

We had a saying in my sales days: “Buyers, by and large, buy from the sales person in front of them.” I still think it holds true to some extent to this day.

(Discussing Nazareth Child at Foul Play Books, Columbus, OH)

During the past eight weeks, I have maintained an almost daily schedule of speaking in libraries and before fraternal and social organizations. Meeting with book clubs and writers groups. Doing-meet-and-greet-signings in both independent and chain book stores. I’ve participated in one national conference and a regional book festival. And, in two locations, have thrown private book launch parties with close to a hundred people in attendance at each. Along the way there were casual venues, extending invitations to friends and readers to join me after one event or another for drinks and socializing. (Between events I would do drive-bys of the area Barnes & Nobles, meeting each of the staff members personally, and signing stock (which I was pleasantly surprised to find available at virtually every store). It was all part of connecting with people in a personal and meaningful way. The result of all this has been that I have had the chance to personally engage and sign books for literally hundreds of readers.

(Even This Little Cutie Joined In The Celebration)

Was technology involved?

Actually, I couldn’t have done without Facebook and email as a means to put the word out. But the real payoff (and the real surprise) has been the incredible involvement of others—friends, family (for sure) but also those I have met and signed books for along the way, those I have spent personal time with, those who have read the book and enjoyed it. It’s been a near symphony of positive support going on across the web for weeks now. And, it’s my belief that the level of buzz in the social media would have been far less fervent had it not been for the personal contact.

(Check Out The Del Shannon Rocks T-Shirts)

At any rate, however you might want to measure results, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve reconnected and spent time with wonderful old friends, and made hundreds of new ones that I hope to become old friends in time.

The photos are just a few glimpses of the many great moments along the way. I’m looking forward to many more.

(Friends Old and New Turned Out In Cincinnati)

Nazareth Child: A Del Shannon Novel is currently available from bookstores and from online retailers in both trade paperback and for all popular eReaders.
http://www.darrelljames.com/

AHH, THAT AIN’T WORKIN’…

Darrell James

Even the weather was perfect when I rolled into Bowling Green, Ohio, Wednesday—79 and sunny. I started by checking into the hotel and running through some notes I had made for the night’s event. See, I was scheduled to speak to a group at the Wood County Library at 7:00 pm, just one stop on the three month book tour I have planned.

The event was arranged and hosted by Mary Boone. Mary is a Sisters in Crime National Board member and Library Liaison for SinC. She’s also the librarian at the Wood County Library, a stunning facility that was recently remodeled to include a naturally lighted atrium reading area, that I found myself wishing I could make my permanent writing retreat.

Mary picked me up at the hotel, making me feel like a visiting head of state. I first got the walking tour of downtown Bowling Green. It’s quaint and traditional. The farmers market was alive with early evening shoppers, the booths filled with baskets of late corn, apples, and pumpkins. We had diner at Easy Street, a charming little eatery along the main drag. (For those who don’t know Mary, she’s charming, gracious, and fun. Everything you would hope for in your favorite librarian.)

At seven, we returned to the library where I had the opportunity to address a group gathered patiently to hear about my debut novel, Nazareth Child. To my delight a number of the attendees had already purchased and read the book, and were quick to add supportive comments. (It seems they loved it. And loved Del Shannon as well.)

Readers are the best. They’re knowledgeable of the genre and know what they like and dislike. Their questions are insightful, and they seem to have as much interest in how an author and a book came into being as in the book itself.

It was a great stop on my continuing book tour that started on September 9th in Pasadena, and will end roughly on November 19th back in California, at the Men of Mystery event in Irvine.

On Thursday, I met Craig, the Assistant Manager, at the Maumee, OH, Barnes & Noble. Nice guy! He immediately ordered in copies of Nazareth Child to be featured in their “new release” mystery section. (BTW: he would have been a nice guy even if he hadn’t ordered my books.)

As I write this post, I’m at the B & N coffee shop, drinking a root beer, and anticipating the signing I have later tonight, at Barnes & Noble Franklin Park, Toledo. The weekend will find me at B & N in Dayton, next week at Foul Play Books in Columbus, then Youngstown to speak to a writers group, and then to Cincinnati for a huge Midwest launch party with high school friends and family.

Many authors lament the trials of book promotion. I have to say, “If this is workin’, I’ll take it any day of the week.”
Now… on with the show.


Nazareth Child- A Del Shannon Novel has just been released from Midnight Ink, Llewellyn Worldwide. It is available through booksellers and online retailers and for download to all popular electronic readers.

Says The Mystery Reader: “The characters make this first mystery a stand out.”

AND INTRODUCING…

RANDALL WILLINGHAM’S first impression of Del Shannon, maybe a dancer from one of the clubs. She was slender in tight-fitting jeans and sandals, a halter top snugged down to a flat, bare midriff. She had a small gold ring pierced into her navel and a tiny, yellow crescent moon tattooed on the outside of her left wrist. She had attitude, this girl. What threw him, though, was the hair. It was cropped short like a boy’s. A blonde sprig of it had fallen across her eyes,that day she walked off the elevator and into his office…



There’s a new girl on the thriller scene. Her name is DEL SHANNON. She’s twenty-nine years old, lean and beautiful, comfortable in boots and jeans. She prefers beer to wine. Takes her meals at the bar, more often than not. And her love-life, to date, is mostly hit-and-run.

“Check this out!” guys might say. “Where’d she come from?” women might ask.

Del works for Desert Sands Covert, an investigative firm in Tucson, Arizona, that specializes in finding and recovering missing persons. And, as a young women in a man’s world, she’s starting to develop something of a reputation for being especially good at what she does.

Her weapon of choice is the Baby Eagle—.357 semi-automatic, narrow profile, slim grip to accommodate a woman’s hand. You’ll spot it tucked into the waistband at the small of her back.

She’s impetuous—something that her boss Randall fears will one day lead to her demise. But her instincts are quick and she’s determined to survive at all costs.

Her debut thriller, Nazareth Child, takes Del into the mountainous reaches of Kentucky, and into confrontation with the infamous faith healer, Silas Rule, in search of the mother she’s never known. This fist dangerous, and emotionally ravaging journey, serves to forge Del’s metal and prepare her for a long and prosperous investigative career.

Says Publisher’s Weekly…

“Del Shannon has the makings of a solid series character.”

I’ve fallen in love with this girl. I hope you all will too.

NAZARETH CHILD, is now available on Amazon.com. Stay tuned for Adventure Two , coming in September 2012.

YA KNOW, IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW!

Darrell James

I like learning new things. In fact, I’ve always thrilled to it. As an adolescent, I would spend much of my time, not on the playground (although there was plenty of that also), but on some excursion into the unknown in search of something new to learn.

I recall (at the age of eight) attending railroading classes at Cincinnati’s Union Terminal. It was a special learning series, just for kids. The seminars were held once a week, on Saturday mornings, and ran throughout the summer. I went alone (my parents trusted me). It took three buses to get me there, leaving early-morning from my small town of Crescent Springs, Kentucky. I had always been fascinated by trains and wanted to know more about them.

I learned a lot that summer, much of which I still retain. But the big pay-off (the real learning) came on the last day of class when we actually got to take a train ride. The trip was only about fifty miles round trip. But…Wow!... eight-years-old, on my own and riding the rails, feeling the rumble of the wheels beneath my feet, and feeling on top of the world!

On another summer, I took the same buses to attend a series of summer long, children’s theatre productions. The costuming, the lighting, the amplified sounds… not to mention the fairytale storytelling… filled me with delight. Live theatre still does that to me.

A lot of time has transpired since those childhood days, but my love of learning has never diminished. I’ve accumulated degrees in both Engineering and Business Administration (mostly for something new to learn). I’ve learned to play a number of musical instruments. And I’ve taken classes in acting, as well as writing and screenwriting. For something else new, I spent the past six months teaching myself HTML. I now build websites in addition to writing the next book. (You can see my handiwork at: http://www.darrelljames.com/ )

Did I mention I read a lot to learn?

I know I’m not alone in this regard. I have been on several author panels in the last year, speaking to senior groups whose programs are geared toward “learning for life”. (Exploritas is one such.) The audiences at these programs are among the most inquisitive and intuitive I’ve run across. And nearly all are avid readers.

When it comes to writing fiction, I go somewhat against the common wisdom of “write what you know.” Instead, I search for ideas that first teach me something I don’t know. And it’s my hope, that when readers read my work, many will come away feeling they’ve experienced something new, as well.

What about you? As a reader or a writer, what were some of your earliest learning experiences? Do you still have a lust for learning?

Darrell has had close to thirty short stories published in various mystery magazines and book anthologies. His debut novel, Nazareth Child, is forthcoming from Midnight Ink in September. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

SETTINGS AS CHARACTERS?

Darrell James

I was once asked, What’s the toughest part of writing a novel? Without thinking, my knee jerk answer was “Decision Making.”

Authors make decisions even before the writing begins. What to write about? Where to set the story? Where to begin the telling? And the decision making continues throughout the process until the very end, deciding on the minutia as well as the major plot and character elements.

One of the decisions an author must make early in the writing process (perhaps even early in their career) is: Will my story(s) have a fictional or real setting?

Some authors have made real settings part of their own storytelling brand, (Michael Connolley’s L.A., Dennis Lehane’s Boston) by using real places (restaurants, bars, hotels, buildings, streets, rivers, and landmarks) as the backdrop for their fictional characters. Others prefer to fully fictionalize their settings. While, still others, offer a mix of the real and fictional elements.

Stephen King has created towns so familiar and real to us that we can hardly think of them as fictional. Yet, the towns of Derry and Castle Rock are fully the fabric of King’s imagination, set topographically amid the greater (real) Maine landscape.

I personally like this approach. And, as an author, it offers a couple of advantages. The first is flexibility. Elements of the fictional setting can be decided (that word again), manipulated, and fully architected to support the plot. The other advantage (and this is the important part to me) is that the author can fully imagine the setting and breathe a personal life into it, treating it, in many ways, as a character in the story.

In my forthcoming novel, Nazareth Child, missing persons investigator, Del Shannon, goes in search of the mother she’s never known. Her quest leads her into the clannish hill country of southeastern Kentucky, to the town of Nazareth Church, where the infamous faith healer, Silas Rule, seems to hold the key to her mother’s past.

These hills (and it’s people) are my roots. It is the birthplace of my mother and father. The DNA of my existence. Take the mountain parkway southeast out of Winchester, and your journey will take you through the very real towns of Clay City, Stanton, and Bowen, all mentioned and used as real topographic anchors in the story. But, search as you might, you won’t find the town of Nazareth Church anywhere but between the pages of the novel.



From the giant cross that marks its entrance, to the old cemetery, and church without windows, it’s all fictional. And, yet, so very real to the possibilities and likelihoods that one will scarcely know the difference.

Nazareth Church has become real in my mind. It lives. It breathes. And it plays a very “real” role in the development and outcome of the story. Only in fictional form can it fulfill its role so completely.

What about you? As a writer, do you prefer to write real or fictional settings? As a reader, which do you prefer?


Nazareth Child, a Del Shannon Novel, is scheduled for release in September. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon

IT’S MAGIC!

Darrell James

Storytelling is an art. It’s also maybe a science. Stephen King has related the relationship between writer and reader as a kind of mental telepathy, where thoughts and ideas are exchanged through words and word pictures. A means of lifting imaginings from one psyche to imprint them emotionally on another.

It’s magic really. And awesomely wonderful to boot. It inspires questions from readers and aspiring writers alike about how the process of creating a story takes place. And what makes a story work? The most often asked question is “Where do you get your ideas?” The answer is always “anywhere” and “everywhere”. (A truthful but not very helpful response.) My answer is that I usually start with an idea that simply intrigues me. Something that I find personally fascinating, a tickle of curiosity. My goal, in starting, is to tell myself a “really great story”. And do so in a way that fills my imagination. My assumption is that if I can thrill myself beyond belief, then others will thrill as well.

From there, the work begins. Characters must be imagined and brought to life. Relationships are defined. Conflict must arise. (Good is almost always pit against evil.) And a hero or heroine, with much to lose, must emerge to right the wrong, and do so against all odds. (Or at least that’s my approach.)

My forthcoming novel, NAZARETH CHILD, was conceived in just this manner. An idea that has always fascinated me (the idea on which this book is founded) is the idea of charismatic power. That found in the likes of Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite (You remember, Do, the Haven’s Gate guy?), self-proclaimed prophets and messiahs. Who are these dominant types? From where does their power to influence come? What motivates them? What secret of life do they possess (or believe they possess)? And, why… seemingly against all reason… do thousands, sometimes millions, follow?

The story introduces Del Shannon, a young female investigator who works for Desert Sands Covert in Tucson, a firm that specializes in finding and recovering missing persons. She’s smart and tough, but mostly she’s determined. A woman in a man’s world. Del enters this debut novel already well acknowledged as being good at what she does. Ironically, despite a lifelong search, the one person Del has never been able to find is the mother she’s never known. Secrets surround her mother’s existence. And her father, Roy Shannon, has guarded those secrets with vengeful determination. Even the family Bible’s genealogy pages have been torn away to conceal the past.

Whatever became of Ella Shannon?

When a seemingly unrelated federal investigation, into the infamous, faith healer, Silas Rule, brings authorities to her door, Del learns of an abandoned property in the clannish hill community of Nazareth Church, Kentucky— surprisingly still owned by her father. There, Del’s quest takes her into confrontation with this charismatic leader, who seems to hold the key. Is her mother alive or dead? And what secrets does the healer work to conceal? Only through Silas will Del find the answers. But can she survive the truth?

It’s an emotionally charged tale of love and retribution. I thrilled to writing it. I hope you’ll thrill to reading it.

NAZARETH CHILD is scheduled for release, from Midnight Ink/Llewellyn Worldwide Publishing, in September. It is currently available for PRE-ORDER on Amazon.

"James cranks up the tension while spinning a classic tale of good versus evil.” —Paul Levine, author of Lassiter.

www.darrelljames.com