Cody McFadyen

(This is a reprint from a posting I did for another blog. It got quite a bit of favorable response, so I am re-posting it here.)

My first sale came after a long and what I like to think of (with writer's melodrama) as bloody series of events. Events that involved violence, soul searching and screaming at the moon. Events that tested friendships and nearly broke a marriage only to truly break it later.

What events?

Why, money-troubles of course. I'm flip about it as I write this now… but maybe not really. There's still a kind of haunting-uncomfortable-sickly feeling that comes over me when I really remember what that was like.

We'd had our own business, my wife and I, and it had been successful for some time. Unfortunately, we hadn't read the winds of change very well. Less and less people were in need of, or demanding, our services. We started to hemorrhage money and what began as bailing out the boat with a pail turned into bailing out the boat with a shot-glass. The long slide started leading to harder and harder decisions. We had to sell our home for one, which decimated us emotionally.

We bootstrapped it, though. Neither of us had grown up in the money, so we figured we could roll with the punches. We took a deep breath and moved into a rental house, which allowed our two large and destructive dogs (thank god!) and our roommate. We were in a three bedroom home with three adults, a teenager, 2 labs, and a cat. Everybody fit. Things could be worse.

The problem was, we still hadn't solved our financial quandaries. We were working eight to ten hours a day to keep that business going (it still produced our primary income, what there was of it) and another three or four starting a new business. We'd looked into other avenues - of course we had - but neither of us had gone the college route. We could temp or bag groceries or sell cars. We decided to keep that as the 'in case of/break glass' option.

I remember one of the worst moments for me in all of this. I had my office set up out in the garage. Not like it gets cold in California the way it does in, say, New York, but on this day it was cold enough to put some ice on the sidewalks. I could see my breath in the air as I worked. I had a space heater under the desk, and I would type on the computer until my fingers went numb. When I couldn't feel them enough to type, I'd stick them in front of the space heater to thaw out!

None of it did much for self-esteem. It's all well and good and even a little exciting to fight the 'keep the electricity on' war when you're twenty. When you're in your mid-thirties, you just feel like a loser. You're the 'path less travelled' guy who proved the establishment right. ("Should have gotten that college degree, young man, now you'll learn the truth of things!") Throw being a parent into this mix and 'loser' takes on whole new meaning. My best friend and I used to joke with each other about it, singing the refrain from the Beck song: "I'm a loser, baby... so why don't you kill me." Gallows humor at its finest.

I grew up poor till I was about ten, but I was well out of practice. Besides, I wasn't a father and a husband then. Being a screwup when you're single is much easier on the soul.

About a year and half before that moment in the garage, or almost two years, I had written a book called Shadow Man. Someone had been showing it around to agents on my behalf. We'd been through about five agents, I believe. Most had given me good comments, and one had even given me three major critiques, and was willing to look at the manuscript again three separate times before finally rejecting me (not 'it', 'me'. That's how we writers think, whatever else we say). I'd been hopeful, but everything had started crashing down not long after. A few more rejections had driven me into a semi-apathy about the book. I'd decided I was never going to get published, and that putting my attention and effort on that was just more irresponsible dreaming. The responsible thing to do would be to buckle down and figure a way out of this mess. I could get back to the fairy-tales later. It was a very grown-up moment for me. I was very proud of myself, and explained away the empty feeling inside as the last gasp of immaturity.

In December of 2004, the long fight had gotten to a point where we were considering either the temp/bag groceries/sell cars option or packing things up and moving in with my parents while we went back to college. My parents happen to be incredible, long suffering people who would have backed this play, so I had pretty much decided to slink on home with my family and dogs in tow unless something miraculous happened.

Since I was back in the dreaming business, and hoping for a miracle, I did two things: I bought a lottery ticket, and I emailed the person who had been submitting the manuscript to agents for me. I asked if she'd give it another try. She said she would. She sent the manuscript to Liza Dawson. Lottery day rolled by with no winning numbers, but that was okay. It was more a symbolic gesture than anything else.

And then... I got a phone call from Liza. She said she really enjoyed the book and that it needed to be fixed up a little. I kind of sighed inside, having been down that road before. I was appreciative, of course, and planned to take her notes to heart. But that last hail Mary had come up short. Then she said "and I'll send you an agreement, too, nothing major." "An agreement?" I asked her. "Yes,between us. I'm going to be your agent." I was momentarily speechless. I recovered and said something suave like: "You are?"

She was very nice about it all. I imagine she'd been down that road before. We hung up. I was sitting in the garage and it was freezing. I didn't notice. No winning numbers yet, but I was willing to be hopeful. I hoped we could sell the book. I hope we could maybe sell it for enough to finance the move to my parents and maybe pay for community college. No, I thought, warming my fingers in front of the space heater. That's jinx-talk. Knock on wood. Where's the salt shaker? I sent her the following email, carefully phrased so as not to anger the luck-gods.

"Liza,

I just wanted to drop you a quick note. The concept of someone liking my work enough to want to represent it is akin to winning the lottery on the scale of things for me. It was a bit overwhelming, and I hope I didn't lack enthusiasm in our phone call.

I am an optimist in all things except my own dreams. There, I tend to be a pessimistic realist. Better not to hope, etc. So I am approaching excitement about this with a lot of care.

That reservation has nothing to do with you, so if it came across - that's the genus of it. :)

I know it's a long road ahead, and one that doesn't necessarily end with a book deal. But - I am very thankful for how fast you got through the book, and your very kind words. They won't go to my head, trust me. I'll get to work on your great critique, and we'll see where it goes from there."

I fixed the manuscript as she'd asked, and got it back to her. She acknowledged receipt of it 28 January 2005. The first sale was to my wonderful publishers in Holland. They were there in New York and snatched it up. Liza called me with the news. Hallelujah! I thought. It's enough for the move to my parents AND community college! Then she told me we were just getting started. By the end of the month my life had changed completely.

I know this is supposed to be about my first sale, and technically that's a single thing. But for me, it was a lump thing. In a space of about ten days, the book sold to various publishers around the world. I cried. My wife cried. Hell, my parents cried. The dogs watched it all, mystified. Poverty had never touched their kibbles.

About five days into that ten day span, when I knew it was all real, and all really going to happen, I took a drive over to the house we'd had to sell. It was during the day, and no one was home. I stood on the sidewalk and looked at it, and I took a minute to curse myself up and down.

You see, I had decided to be a mature human being, and to put aside the dream of writing so I could save that house. If I'd hung onto the dreamer in me, and had persisted in finding that next agent, we would have been fine, and the house would still have been ours. I promised myself never to make the same mistake again.

I write almost every day now. I am thankful for it every time I sit down with my laptop and easy chair. If a day comes when no one wants to pay me to write, and I have to consider the temp/bag groceries/sell cars option again, I'll be much more at peace with it. I got one dream to come true. Why not another? It's not that the universe is stacked against you, see? It's just waiting for you to get it right.

That's what my first sale taught me, after all: dreams are always willing to come true as long as you're willing to keep chasing them.

(This is a posting I did for another blog about 'Writing the Bad Guys')

I get asked a lot about the process of writing about 'the bad guys' in my books. It's a fair question, as they're such a big part of what I do.

Coming up with the villain of the piece is, really, one of my favorite things. In the Smoky Barrett series, I've intentionally chosen to write about bad guys that are a cut above the norm. In other words, they're not just the bagger at the supermarket that's taken a shine to making women scream. They generally have long term plans driven by long term motives.

The first question, for me, is always 'what do they do?' What's their twist? What floats their boat, when it comes to killing? Serial murder is almost always a form of sexual substitution. It's a sexual act, in other words. I take a look at it from that perspective first. The next question becomes: why are they doing it? Do they come from an abusive childhood? If so, is there something specific in their history of abuse that drives them to perform murder in the way they do?

I approach the psychology of it from two directions. One is general. By that I mean, there are traits almost all serial killers have in common, a kind of 'mental bedrock.' For example, if you want to get a feeling for what a serial killer is like, you need to understand how a sociopath thinks. You need to understand that to a sociopath, you or I have as much spiritual significance as a hammer or a deck chair. We're things, not people. You really have to get a grip on the hugeness of that concept. On first blush, that seems obvious. 'Yeah, okay. Sure.' But give yourself time to really get your mind around it, and you start to see just how alien such a mindset is. The Sociopath Next Door, by Dr. Martha Stout, is an excellent reference. I also read 'Mind Hunter' by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker.

Along this same line, I acquired the textbook 'Practical Homicide Investigtion', which is really invaluable from a forensic standpoint for any crime or thriller writer, but is also absolutely horrifying to read. It's filled with graphic photographs and representations of actual homicides, and, again, it serves to demonstrate the gulf between most of us and those who kill for pleasure. I remember reading that book the first time and being filled with this incredible, visceral revulsion. Then I thought, 'wow, the guys I write about, a lot of them, are sexually aroused by this stuff.' It was a thought that literally gave me a sleepless night.

The next thing I look at as I'm crafting a killer is more specific. He likes to kill people, fine. But why? Really, why? What happened to him or her? Did anything happen? Was he just 'born bad?' This is a person, however twisted, and he has to be three-dimensional. One of things that's disturbing and fascinating when you research guys like Dahmer or Bundy is that you find out about the normal parts of their lives and not just the twisted sides. In many ways, it's more comfortable to keep them simple and black and white...

How does it all affect me? Writing about this kind of thing? Well, sometimes it gets to me. I'm human, and (yes it's true) I am not a serial killer! This stuff can be really disturbing, and I've certainly had my moments. But... it's fiction. I'm thankful I don't have to deal with this in reality. However many interviews I read, or photographs I see, I've never had to walk in on a crime scene, or deliver news to a grieving family, or listen to a cannibalistic serial killer (as I saw on a documentary, once) tell me that I'd taste good with some salt.

Anytime I'm feeling a little bit shook up, I remember that and I'm thankful.

Sorry for the long blog-absence. There are two reasons, really: one is that I've been buried in finishing my new book. The other is that I've been doing a lot of guest posts for other blogs.

I was reading over some of those posts, and thinking about it and decided 'hey, why shouldn't my blog benefit from those posts?' So, exceedingly lazy though it is, I'm going to spend the next week or so copying some of those guest posts to this blog. I'll get newly creative after that. I hope you enjoy.

The first one I'll put up is the most recent, one I did for Halloween:

Halloween approaches! I'm afraid I notice it less and less each year, partly because my daughter is grown, but also because I spend so much time with monsters in my day-to-day job. In the books I write, in many ways, every day is Halloween.

Serial killers are always in costume, you see? They dress as 'normal people', practice their smiles in the mirror, and only show their true faces to their victims or those who catch them. Ted Bundy was not the most prolific serial killer we've ever seen, not by far, but he became famous in large part because he looked like 'us', not 'them.' He wore the face of our friend, our boyfriend, our brother, our husband, our father, our grandfather. They eyes, it seems, are not always reliable windows to the soul.

I'll relate two stories from my own life, in honor of Halloween, and to demonstrate my point. One of the stories is funny (at least I thought it was), while the other still gives me the smallest shiver.

Some years back, after I sold my books and we bought a house, my next door neighbors found out that I wrote fiction books about serial killers. They immediately cooled towards us, which amazed me. They judged me because I thought about the subject at all, which I thought was vaguely superstitious and incredibly naive.

One Halloween, they tried to be nice. We met across the driveway and admired the weather, and then they asked me what costume I was planning to wear.

I gave them my best 'ain't it a great day' smile and said: "I'm already in costume. I'm planning to be a serial killer."

I thought it was hilarious. They did not. I don't think we ever really spoke again.

Some years back (farther back this time) I called up a business to order some of their products and got the wife of the business owner on the phone. One thing led to another (I have my chatty moments) and she ended up crying over the phone, telling me about how someone had come into their home at night a few months back and shot her husband in the head. He'd died, and she'd been left alone to raise their daughter and to try and run their business. She cried and cried. Eventually the tears petered off and she apologized for them. I told her, of course, that it was no problem. I admired her for her strength and sympathized with her loss.

It was almost twelve months later that she went to prison. It had been she, you see, who'd shot her husband dead. All those tears, the heart rending sobs, they'd all been an act. She was watching us carefully through her tears.

My point in the end? Don't be too scared, this Halloween, of the monsters in the masks. The real ones wear blue jeans and business suits and look like us.

Perhaps you'll meet one at your door as he takes his children around to get their candy.