JackBludis's Page

My ex-wife, who is now my very good friend, once called me a "Magnificent Hack." By that, I assumed that she was either damning me with feint praise of praising me to damnation.

After all these years, I finally agree with her. A hack I am, it seems, and I suppose a hack I will remain--unless my latest book, which has taken me almost a year to write does something big. (I usually finish a first and sometimes final draft in little more than a month. I have finished books that I sold in less than a week.)

My first ego booster came over 30 years ago when I was in college when my "Advanced Creative Writing" instructor said of our first efforts--and I have to paraphrase from memory. "A number of these pieces were good, but one ..." He shook his head and clicked his tongue, then read my first effort "Sunday on the Rhine" which became the springboard for my first Atlantic Monthly submission.

I'll share something here which I am sure many writers have experienced. (It's happened to me twice, once recently.) I was rejected, of course, what first efforts aren't? But the last line of the rejection, which they must have been using forever and probably still are, was, "You write with a facility that has held our attention." That's the kind of thing that kept me going until I sold my first book to an editor who said, "I like the book, but a need a cleaner manuscript." (Take heed new writers.)

Sometimes today, I will look at a line or a paragraph or a story or even an entire novel and think, "This is crap," or "This is terrific." There's never an in between. Ironically, I'll often think the same thing at different times about the same line, paragraph, etc.

Since this is a confession, I'll stop here and tell you that I've taken time out of my best writing day of the week, Saturday, to procrastinate again at the ending of my "Big Book," that one that I've been writing for almost a year.

Oh, yeah, about that hack thing: For while, I was publishing one piece of crap after another, and selling most of what I sent out. Unfortunately, for me, what I think is my best stuff never gets published, or hasn't so far.

The book I'm working on has been through several cycles in twenty years. Once, I even an agent even called me out of the shower on Sunday morning to tell me I had a bestseller on my hands--two weeks later, he decided not to handle it.

In a mid-90s reincarnation of the same book, an agent agreed to handle it. She sent out what I had sent her, the book minus 100 pages in the middle. She claimed she liked it. She seemed never to notice that it had continuity problems.

I've been nominated for The Shamus for my Paperback Original "Shadow of the Dahlia," and for both the Shamus and Anthony for my short story, "Munchies."

So far, they are my greatest claim to fame under my own name. I've even earned good reviews for my crap, almost all of which I wrote under names I'll never tell you about.

So much for procrastination.

As my escaped African Gray parrot used to say, "Time to Go to Work."

Jack Bludis, 3-24-07

P.S. I currently have a story "Blondes, Blondes, Blondes," at ThrillingDetective.com -- it's free to you, and I did get paid for it.