> If any of you have some ideas or things that you
> do to keep you motivated, would you please share them with me?

Greetings,

Before I go any further, please forgive me if the paragraphs seem disconnected. I’m answering this on the fly between working on other projects throughout the day as the thoughts come to me. Whenever my motivation has been low for whatever reason, I’ve always found it best to take it back old school: Write in baby steps. Set aside at LEAST 10 minutes a day to writing, whether it’s working on a manuscript, notes regarding parts of a manuscript, researching stuff for your manuscript, ideas for other stories, random thoughts, or even reading about writing as a craft and thinking about how to apply it to your manuscript. The beauty in setting aside this 10 minutes a day is that even if you’ve got a family and kids it can be done–just take a notebook or a book with you into the bathroom. The trick here is to come to terms with the fact that no matter how high your personal standards are, everything you write CANNOT be “Hemmingway” — so don’t try to make it as such. Some days you will write great stuff, other days it may come out garbage. Don’t be afraid to delete anything from a manuscript, whether it’s a single word, paragraph, or an entire chapter. The key is to just write like it’s a nervous habit. I’m constantly learning that the more you write and learn about the craft by reading about structure or analyzing other books and movies based on books, the better your writing will become.

Think of writing like acting, singing, or even weightlifting — it’s essentially a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Start with that consistent 10 minutes a day and you’ll be up to an hour a day and beyond pretty quick. Once you’re at that point, even on the days when you don’t physically write, your mind is still at work on the manuscript. For me it kinda feels like what I’d imagine how a Director visualizes shots while storyboarding a movie. Another thing that I’ve found that helps me is to take time out from writing prose to developing the characters that are going to be in the manuscript. I used to scribble character notes on index cards; now I just keep all that in a string of notes files. There are also programs floating around out there like “New Novelist” that can help with this fleshing out the dimensions of your characters. If you’re into the basics and writing something other than simple genre fiction, define your character’s Hopes, Dreams and Fears. Once you’ve got that, you’ll notice that your characters will come to life because now they have purpose beyond just names on a page. Once they have purpose you’ll probably find it harder to have “writer’s block” since even if you’re not working on the manuscript itself, you’ll be consciously and unconsciously digging up all sorts of things that will make your characters grow. One thing that has worked for me was putting together a Writer’s Kit. Mine has been “The Black Bag”, a Black leather [laptop] backpack. It contains the following:

• a digital notebook (used to be a laptop, now just a PocketPC),
• a digital recorder (the Olympus DM-1 with 10 hours of recording time has proven to be invaluable for on-the-spot interviews and taking mental notes when I’m unable to stop and write),
• a journal-style notebook with 3 or 4 pens (including a highlighter and red pen),
• a printed copy of my current manuscript for markup,
• an MP3 player (that also doubles as a portable data storage device),
• misc batteries and power adapters,
• and sometimes a digital camera (when traveling or for special occasions).

The Black Bag has enabled me to capture sights and sounds and write almost all of my manuscript away from home–in airports, trains, planes, bars, and restaurants from Virginia to California to New York to the Virgin Islands and everywhere between. I can’t say what will work for you, but this has enabled me to consistently work on my manuscript at *least* 2 hours a day, whether it’s writing, compiling info, or research. Anyway, hope some of those thoughts and ideas help.

Good luck with it.

– Max

> Does anyone have experience using voice activated software to write
> your books? I experimented with a program some years ago, but found it
> too slow. I imagine the software has improved since then.
>
> I would like to hear from anyone who has used it, and became more
> prolific using a program that writes down everything you say, instead
> of having to type out all of your work.

A few years ago, as part of a book project I experimented with using Dragon NaturallySpeaking package to transcribe dictation files recorded using my digital recorder. After training the software (I had to read a pre-set page to it a few times so it could learn my speaking patterns), I learned the following:

• Although the software is pretty accurate with it’s transcription (and steadily getting better), it’s not foolproof. Expect to edit your work thoroughly because many of the errors will also slip by the average spell checker (e.g. – read versus red, lead versus led, etc).
• Since it’s trained to your voice, it does a quirky job if you’re trying to transcribe a recorded interview or conversation with one or more people.
• Using this to help write a book would be handiest if you are writing a personal memoir or recording stories being told by an elderly person (or anyone else that has had to tell such tales many times).

Regardless of what you’re writing, the downside is that it will show you that we form spoken sentences and structure stories in a radically different fashion than how we write them. We tend to repeat ourselves, cut our words (depending on regional accent), rely heavily on cliches and colloquialisms, attempt to revise sentences on the fly to see what sounds better, and while we’re formulating sentences we tend to throw in unnecessary words and sounds like “uh”, “and-uhh”, “ummm”, “like”, “so”, “and so on”, and etc. The first time I saw my first transcribed story attempt on the screen I felt like I was reading the ramblings of a babbling idiot.

After all the editing and cleanup, I came to realize that this method sucked as a replacement for just typing everything into a word processor. I found that I was better off using this method for transcribing collections of dictated notes and thoughts, saved to files that I could print as references or cut pieces and insert into a manuscript.

Good luck with it…

Max

> Hi Everyone,
> … I’ve been working on my first story for almost two years now and almost
> finished with the rough draft (excluding re-writes, critiques, etc. to get to
> my final draft). Am I going to slow or what is the normal length of time for
> first-time authors to complete a story.

Outside of the classroom, there is no “normal” amount of time for writers to complete a story. Everyone has their own speeds and writing processes. If you’re new to writing fiction you might be better off focusing on craft versus just getting it done. The reason for this is simple: the need to write a quality story that flows well. You’re not training to run a 440 relay race. You’re striving to write good fiction.

> Also, I’ve had a real problem getting consistent friends to read portions of my
> story and give me specific, definitive feedback on the work–other than a
> nebulous thumbs up. Has anyone else experienced issues finding friends or
> people to read portions of their work and provide feedback? What are
> some options?

In my opinion, and please don’t take this wrong, you need to ask yourself whether it’s more important to write the story well or try to bask in some early praise before you get published? The reason I ask is that it’s tough to find prolific writers who also have the time to provide solid, constructive critiques. They’re either too busy writing or, quite candidly, they’re new to the game too. A hundred positive critiques is the same as a hundred negative critiques in that they are usually all very different and if you give people your manuscript and ask them to give a comment on what you’ve written they will give a comment, whether or not it is valid. Don’t waste your time using friends and family because more often than not you’ll get polite praise and accolades that are alot like eating a diet of cake icing — tasty yet full of nutritionally-useless empty calories that will ultimately slow you down when it comes to developing your story. Writing your story well shouldn’t be about feeding your ego; it’s about writing and revising your story along the way and refining your plot and characters to write the best story possible. Once you’ve got a grasp on it, you’ll have what you need to write novel after novel and know how to keep the readers happily sucked in.

There are critique group mailing lists like De Griot Space (used to be at degriotspace.com but the link wasn’t coming up) which are great places to start. The catch to that list is the fact that there are monthly quotas that all members must meet, both when it comes to the number of submissions as well as number of critiques of other members’ works. Depending on your schedule, keeping up with such requirements may slow you down as well.

Bottom line, from my own experiences I’ve found that unless you join or put together a very small critique group (less than 8 members seems to work best), your best bet is to spend time reading books on good fiction writing techniques and occasionally set aside some time to read and analyze works of fiction by authors you like — see how those authors put the stories together. Look at the plot conflicts. Understand the various character archetypes and techniques for telling the story while sticking to word economy.

Outside of that, the only way you’ll get solid feedback from a truly dedicated manuscript reader is to find a freelance editor and PAY that person. Keep in mind that a developmental/content editor can charge as much as $5.00 or $6.00USD per page to start. To find some freelancers, check out Editorial Freelance Association.

Best of luck on your quest…

When it comes to self-publishing, there are proverbially 1,001 rookie mistakes that can make it all the way to the final print run. Once in print, the problem is that they’re all expensive to fix and any of them are enough to get your book declined for review by major book reviewers, declined by the major chain bookstores, declined by distributors, and then some. Why? Because the various strata of the book publishing industry are FULL of elitists. Most of these people are in positions to review your book or cut a deal to sell/distribute it. When they spot one of those 1,001 amateur mistakes (usually visible between the cover and the first 10 pages) they often toss the book aside, not even bothering to read it.

How does a self-publisher reduce their chances of making those mistakes? Research. Expect to spend at least between $75 and $250 dollars on books to learn the basics. Buy these books and keep them in your library because you’re going to need to review them over and over again from manuscript preparation all the way to the marketplace. If you’re not willing to invest this money into preliminary research, do yourself a favor and forget about self-publishing altogether. Professional quality books just don’t happen by themselves — they come about through production experience, whether your own experience or someone else’s. Buying the following books are the cheapest way to get that experience:

• The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (this is a MUST have for anyone that’s serious about writing, editing and/or publishing). Costs about $60 dollars. The CMoS contains almost everything you could conceivably need to know about editing, the manuscript preparation process, and how to format every inch of a standard book.
• The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book by Dan Poynter (or some other book on the basics of self-publishing; there are several on the market and there’s no harm in reading more than one).

There are other books you’ll need but these will get you started. After reading the self-publishing stuff you’ll get a better fix on the process and know whether or not it’s truly for you. If after reading those you decide that you still want to pursue publishing your own book, here’s a real rough ballpark of how much you can expect to spend on production:

• Editing: up to $4.00 per page (there are different types of editors and some kinds of books will require more than one editor). Many freelance editors will charge you a flat rate that works out to be roughly $1 or $2 dollars a page. Typically I budget for at least $500 or $600 dollars (including manuscript printing and shipping).
• Cover Design: usually no less than $500 and no more than $3000 for a professional design with custom graphics and photographs and the rights to all of the above.
• Interior Design: around $2.00 per page (more for graphic-heavy pages), can be packaged with the cover design depending on the deal you work out with the graphic designer.
• ISBN numbers: Around $270 dollars. These come in a minimum block of 10. Buying them will also get you into the Bowker’s “Books in Print” database. No ISBN number means your book is not officially published, so don’t even think about skipping this step. Check with R.R. Bowker, the exclusive U.S. ISBN and SAN Agency for current prices.
• Bar code: Around $10 dollars, sometimes free depending on who you know. The bar code will contain the ISBN number and often the price, too. Most bookstores won’t even consider stocking your product without a bar code.
• BISAC Subject Heading: This category designation is usually on the top left of the back of the book or near the price. The official source is the Book Industry Study Group’s “BISAC Subject Heading Package”, sold for $25 dollars from their website. I’ve seen the complete listing online for free so the price is debatable, but you want to have your book’s category noted on the back cover so bookstore clerks know how to stock your title. I’ve had independent bookstore owners tell me if they receive book submission packages that don’t have a BISAC code on the back cover they won’t even open the book.

NOTE: These solely relate to production costs and does NOT cover the costs associated with printing or shipping.

So, all in all, to self-publish a professional-quality 224-page novel if you budget for $6000 you’ll probably cover your initial production costs. If you cut a deal with an experienced graphic designer you can easily cut that cost in half, meaning that the $6000 will also cover printing the first few hundred or so. The beauty is, once it’s paid off, it is paid off, and for every print run after that your major overhead is the cost of printing.

And before all the Author Mill and Lulu champions chime in to recommend those services, by self-publishing this way you have a much greater chance of having your title noticed by a major literary agency and possibly picked up by a major publisher. I know this from personal experience since one of the titles I recently published and packaged, NEXT STOP by Ivan Sanchez, was picked up by Levine Greenberg Literary Agency and recently sold to Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Bohemian Griot Publishing LLC and Ivan Sanchez also made the deal happen WITHOUT selling Touchstone the film/TV rights or the audio book rights, both of which they have joint ownership with in two other production companies. So, yeah, trust me when I say if you’re going to self-publish, this is the way to go.

Hope that helps put things into perspective.

As always, best of luck on your path.

– Max

“There’s nothing new under the Sun.”
– King Solomon

The short answer to your question is that spending alot of time worrying about how to protect your book concept is a waste of time.

It would be easy to recommend the use of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) or NDNCAs and having people sign them each time you share your book concept. It would make people liable if they shared or used your concept without your permission. On the real, I wouldn’t bother with that approach. You’ll probably come off like you’re suffering from delusions of grandeur if you did.

For what it’s worth, it seems like the lurking fear of the Dastardly Idea Snatcher is almost always connected to writers who either (1) have been writing (with the intention of getting published) for less than a year, (2) haven’t finished their first book/novel yet or (3) haven’t ever had their work picked up by a paying publisher. The times that I’ve had writers submit manuscripts for my review and they were rabidly paranoid about ‘theft’, more often than not their concept was structurally unusable, the story was a slice of their life thinly disguised as fiction, or their writing was straight up garbage and it’d be too expensive to pay some editors to fix it.

Here are some down-n-dirty truths about book concepts:

• No matter how fantastic you might think your book concept is, the reality is that 99.98% of the serious writers you tell about it won’t try to steal it. It’s not because everyone is honest and well-meaning. More often than not, it’s because they really don’t care. They might pretend to care or they’re listening only because they care about you and what you have to say. When it comes to book concepts, every seasoned writer has at least several of them swimming around in their heads that they plan to turn into a book one day, not including the concepts they’ve already started writing or put down in notes form. Whether they say so or not, most writers like to believe that their book ideas are better than almost everyone else’s. In their minds stealing your concept would be like a diamond miner trying to steal a cubic zirconia. Aside from that, on the occasions where writers seek to copy book concepts its usually due to the fact that a certain book or story type has enjoyed huge commercial success and they want to cash in on some of that money. The music industry does the same thing, hence the reason why it seems like everytime a Beyonce hits the scene and skyrockets up the charts, at least two or three Rhiannas and Ciarras will pop up with the same style songs and videos, all from competing record labels.
• Another reality is that if you’re spending alot of time describing very intimate details of your book concept to friends/family/other writers, you’re not spending enough time actually writing it. There’s a reason that writing is a very solitary kind of activity and it’s not because writers have to be anti-social. Writing a book is nowhere near as much fun as the emotional high of bragging about the story you’re writing. Also, talking about ideas over and over again have a way of taking the magic and creative steam out of your drive to put in the work to make it happen, especially if you’re discussing it with people that don’t believe in you or don’t really know what it is to write a book. When asked about a book you’re working on, unless you’re talking to an agent or acquisitions editor, keep the talk pretty general and minimal, no matter how much you want to tell the world about your master work in progress. Think about it like this — don’t spend much time talking about your book because it has no dollar value until the manuscript is finished.
• Your book concept is your vision. If you’re meant to write it, no one is going to write the story like you’re going to write it.
• “The Poor Man’s Copyright” (mailing a copy to yourself) does NOT work so don’t even bother doing it. When you finish your manuscript and it’s edited, go to http://www.copyright.gov, download Form TX, fill it out, put a copy of the manuscript along with the $45 dollar registration fee in an Express Mail envelope and send it in. The Copyright is legally binding as of the postmark of when it’s mailed; 4-6 weeks later you’ll get the copyright form back with a certification seal on it. Again, a complete waste of time to think about until you’ve FINISHED a manuscript because you can’t copyright or trademark a book concept.
• And as far as the worry about being sued because of inspiration, stop worrying about silly stuff — finish the book first. An editor can always help you go back in later to clean things up.

Good luck on the quest…

– Max Nomad

So I’m hangin’ out at a bar with my friend Roger, an old school player from way back. We’re catchin’ up on times when this sistah comes in. Tall, dark, lovely and built with curves I saw way before I actually saw her face, let’s call her ‘Dee’. Anyway, she sat down and we all begin talking, had a few drinks together, then it became apparent that she and I were really connecting. Feeling a bit like the odd man in the conversation, Roger decided to check out then noticed something on his tab. Before paying he spoke briefly with John, the bartender, then as he left he leaned over to me and whispered “Max, watch out — this chick is trying to get someone to pay for her dinner.”

I glanced at Roger and chuckled. “Cool… thanks for the heads up. I got this.”

Dee was quick to scoot over next to me. Smart, charming and beautiful, she had a phenomenal “Forever Young” essence about her although she was almost 40 and a mother of two young adults. Thoroughly enjoying the conversation, I bought her another drink and we continued chatting for a couple of hours. Finally the end of the night arrived and John presented a tab to me and a tab to her. Immediately she said “Oh, there must be some mistake — they’re all on his tab.”

“Ahh there’s the rub”, I thought. John looked at me and I said “No, I never agreed to that. I bought her a drink and that’s it.”

As if he expected my response, John nodded and let out one of those Dammit-not-again sighs as Dee claimed that she didn’t have any money.  She then went on a rant, explaining that she wouldn’t have spent all that time with me if she had known that I didn’t have her tab covered. Her con game then went into high gear, trying every conceivable twist and turn all the way down to the “When I asked you if it was okay if I got something to eat you said go ahead!”

“No, you didn’t ask me,” I replied then quietly said to her “We were having such a great time. Please don’t play this game.”

See, what Dee didn’t know was that Roger and I were regulars there and John had been a friend of ours for some years. If I’m paying for someone else’s drink or meal I make it clear — none of that “slip it in there” bullshit works on me. I could’ve easily paid her tab along with mine and, honestly, after a couple of hours of her charm and beauty part of me was willing to cover it — IF she was going to stop running her con and just ask me straight up. Also, with John and I being avid Poker players, we were the last two guys she needed to be trying to bluff.

The manager arrived, already apprised of the situation. Dee went round and round with him pleading her case until he finally said “Ma’am, if you can’t pay your tab I’ll have to call the police.”

“Call them!” she barked. The manager casually walked back into the kitchen.

“Please don’t do this,” I whispered to her. “These kinds of games never end well.”

“I don’t know you right now.” she replied with an expected chill in her voice. I took a long last look at her, a little saddened as I admired her beauty. It was apparent that she was going to ride her con game to the end like the Captain of the Titanic.

The game went to another level once the police officer arrived. The cop walked over to her, let out a Dammit-not-again sigh, then began to ask her about why she couldn’t pay and if she knew someone that could cover her. Her rants continued although her game got a case of speed wobbles. Suddenly she wasn’t from around here yet her ID was a current Virginia driver’s license. She had no one she could call because she was all alone in the cosmos (but she’d just finished telling me about her kids graduating from a local high school). She even claimed food poisoning and threatened a law suit and then once the cop actually read her tab she magically went from having one drink to having four, including the one I paid for. She even tried her best to rope me in as the bad guy, but the cop wasn’t buying it. By then, what sympathy I felt had faded away. The whole situation had evolved into a running joke with no punchline.

Tired of all the talk, the cop finally said “Ma’am, if you cannot pay this bill, you are going to jail.”

And without much ado, she went into her purse, pulled out a credit card and presented it to John who ran it through the card reader — and it WORKED.

Having paid her tab, she was free to go. Instead of quietly leaving, Dee continued with the snide remarks until the cop told her that she couldn’t leave until he said she could. She walked over to a nearby gas station, the cop followed her, and that was the last I saw of both of them. John and I had a good laugh after that.

“I gotta admit,” I said to John as he cleaned behind the bar, “if she had come clean and stopped tryin’ to run game I might have done the chivalrous thing and paid her tab.”

Without looking up, he simply chuckled. “Chivalry — What the fuck is that?”

####

> Chivalry — pulling out chairs to seat woman, rising when she excuses
> herself to the restroom, the art of clearing the way through a crowd
> with one arm while gently cradling the woman with the other, among
> other things — will go the way of the curtsy, rendered irrelevant by
> men who do not know how to accomplish it and women who do
> not appreciate it.

For what it’s worth, many of those “chivalrous” things men do (or did) for women like pulling out chairs and opening doors and such originally had nothing to do with some higher manhood code of conduct. Most of these originated in Europe and came to the Americas as the result of four words from the 16th through 19th centuries that most of us men have never heard of: Farthingales, Panniers, Crinolines, and Bustles. In plain English, “women were wearing huge frilly hoop dresses supported by undergarments that were often stiff and uncomfortable”.

Back then, the wealthier the woman, the bigger and more elaborate her dresses tended to be, especially when attending social functions. Because of the styles of dresses, women actually needed doors opened for them, assistance taking a seat or standing up from a table, or climbing in or out of stagecoaches. In those social settings, since all the women were dressed this way, it was a man nearby who would provide this assistance. This form of assistance somehow got labeled as a part of “chivalry” because the men in those high social settings had often had been raised with various etiquette protocols, college educated, and had social status and wealth (or they were servants working for such people). The wealth of the man also explains the “man pays for everything” aspect, too. Commoners (working class men and women) often didn’t readily know or do some of these “chivalrous” things for women because the women usually couldn’t afford those elaborate dresses, thus they didn’t need assistance.

Eventually the fashion trends faded away, the traditions continued and the “why” of these actions was lost and replaced with “this is what men are supposed to do”, especially after being adopted by minorities in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The traditions were socially perceived as part of what wealthy (or prosperous), culturally-refined men do. Fast forward to the introduction of social changes like Women’s Lib and current women’s fashions and many of these “chivalrous” activities seem archaic or completely useless, sometimes even a cause of static because some women are fiercely independent and consider it demeaning.

With all that said, I still open doors for women and sometimes for men, too, just to be polite. If I’m driving, I always open the passenger door for a woman that’s riding with me before I get in. I’ll pay for everything on a date only if I offer to do so — and she accepts my offer. And if I’m at a formal event with a woman I’ll pull her chair out once we arrive at the table. The thing I’ve learned is that if you’re a man and you don’t do these things consistently just because you’re a gentleman, don’t do them just to impress a woman you’re dating. Most women will see right through that sooner or later and it’ll make you look bad when you “stop being polite and start being real”. Even Saddam Hussein could look like Prince Charming by opening a door or two for a lady.

(more thoughts on issues I’ve run into while writing The Bamboo Chronicles)

As anyone that has ever run with musicians knows, there are many unwritten rules and truths but only a few that are somewhere between the two. One is that Crime and certain styles of Music seem to run hand in hand.

Prohibition-era Jazz and Blues bands played at Speakeasies run by mobsters. Crooners like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were buddy-buddy with mafiosi like Chicago boss Sam Giancana. Every major music legend with an addiction from Billie Holiday to Billy Idol always had a connection looming somewhere nearby like one of the many moons orbiting Jupiter. For decades, the tastes of the listening  public were secretly guided by rampant payola to get records on the charts.

The Crime and Music relationship has been such a convenient plot device in so many books and films that I’m not sure if it’s a case of Life imitating Art or vise versa.  While going through some of my journal entries and deciding what to include in The Bamboo Chronicles, I realized that both Crime and the Music had become characters unto themselves, almost sentient because their demands seem to have just as much of an affect on the ensemble as any other characters in the stories. I didn’t want to write a memoir but, instead, tout it as fiction “based on a true story”. I figured that changing some names and places would be enough to allow me to incorporate some events I witnessed without worrying about any repercussions — and then I learned otherwise…

In early 2006, shortly after I decided to take on the Next Stop manuscript as BGP’s second book project to publish, I met with the author, Ivan Sanchez, after work for a few drinks to discuss particulars that were going to affect which editor I paired him up with. My biggest concern was that he had used real names and street names for almost everyone in the book, including  some of the more nefarious characters. It was a toss up because by treating this book as a memoir we would have been within our legal rights to tell the stories as they happened, names and all. The trick would have been to make sure everything was 100% accurate but not disclosing so much that it would invade anyone’s privacy. Even with all that I knew we were still at risk of being sued. My thinking was that if anyone filed a lawsuit I’d simply start cranking out press releases using the shock value of the lawsuits as a means to drum up publicity for the book. On the other hand, there was at least nine months of editing and prepress work ahead of us; I figured we had plenty of time to change the names if necessary. Ivan and Jada (the editor) were so deep into the editing/revision process and I was busy with other design projects that the subject didn’t come up again. After reading the stories over and over again I even had a few nightmares about some of the murder victims, a sign that I might have grown too close to the project to maintain a pragmatic perspective. Against my normal business sense and tendency to avoid liabilities, the idea of changing all the names had become almost sacrilegious — some of the stories also served to memorialize those who were slain. It seemed like the right thing to do and worth the risk.

December 16th, 2006 arrived, the day of the Author’s Release party for Next Stop. The turnout was fantastic, everyone enjoyed themselves and we sold almost half of that first shipment of books, all of which made the event one of the greatest nights of my professional life. Once word of the book spread back to the Bronx, the next 15 days ushered in something neither of us had predicted — over a dozen phone calls with threats on Ivan’s life. The young fledgling gangsters in the stories had grown up. Some of them had been in and out of prison and still running the same criminal hustles they were doing over a decade earlier. Others had grown to become kingpins in their own rights. All were pissed that the book had hit the streets for a variety of reasons, including the fact that one or two of the stories connected some people to certain unsolved crimes with no Statute of Limitations.

The calls weren’t from some anonymous jerks. They were very real. They made sure Ivan knew who they were. We didn’t have to worry so much about the callers. They were all about his age and the ones that weren’t locked up for the next few decades were still on the street, deep in the game with too much to lose. The likelihood of one of them showing up to do a hit was slim. Instead, they would’ve handled it much like the older gangsters back in the day — scope out a couple of 14 year old kids tryin’ to get a rep, slap a wad of cash and a couple of burners in their hands, give them a map to the target and tell them don’t come back till it’s done. The big difference is that the kids today have things like Tom Toms, Mapquest, iPhones and Google; even Jimmy Hoffa could be tracked down with the right keywords.

With the intention of protecting himself and his family, it wasn’t until Ivan attempted to obtain a concealed weapons permit did things take another turn. Apparently there was still a case on his record that had been open for almost 17 years; all charges against him had been dropped but it was still on the books. Since he had recently made contact with the Virginia Beach Gang Unit with the intention of being part of a community outreach program, he mentioned about the need for protection and asked if they could help find out what was going on. Ivan gave a copy of Next Stop to each of the officers. One happened to let his supervisor take a look at it who, in turn, made some calls to the New York Police Department and the NYTF (New York’s equivalent of the DEA) to see if this stuff was real. Suddenly Ivan was under investigation again. Once the word got out that the cops were checking him out, all the death threats ceased. After a few weeks of nerve-wracking waiting and wondering if Ivan (and possibly myself) would end up in legal hot water, nothing came of the inquiries. In a roundabout way the cops proved the authenticity of Ivan’s book.

When I finally got back around to working on Bamboo, I realized that I had some more tough decisions to make.  My dilemma was that I had been privy to some illegal activities that were so outrageous they were better than anything I’d ever seen on television — reality far better than any fictitious spin that I could’ve written. Some of the gangsters I wrote about in my journal entries had been in and out of prison since I last saw them. In one case, when the DEA finally took down the Big Man, all the young guys he had on the street went to war over his territory and some of them became kingpins themselves. In all cases, my biggest concern wasn’t whether or not they would read Bamboo and see themselves. I never saw most with a book in their presence unless it was a ledger or an old family Bible on the table for show. The threat was from someone else reading the book, recognizing one or more gangsters and their crimes, then letting the rumor out about them being in my book. Some of them might have been flattered about being “famous” while others might have been ready to give me a one-way ticket to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.

I finally came to a conclusion: when it comes to a book — whether its a book I’m writing or a book BGP is publishing — Life is much easier as a writer if you treat Reality as a Choice and learn to walk the fine line between Defamation, Disclosure and Distortion. If you play it too safe, you lose the impact. If you play it the other way, the risks may not outweigh the gains. Either way, if you don’t play it smart there’s no telling how it will play out. Reluctantly, I started going back through everything I had already written, marking every illegal act that was harsher than smoking a joint. At times even today I’m still double-checking the liability factor behind some of the most interesting passages. It’s better than being an author whose book forced me to walk around strapped with a gun.

– Max Nomad

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