Did you get a Kindle for Xmas?

Get my book Murder in Ocean Hall for just 99 cents in this holiday offer exclusively for Kindle owners.

My novel is a murder-mystery set in Washington, DC. Inspired by my experience in the city, Murder in Ocean Hall follows a veteran detective as he investigates the death of the world’s most famous explorer.

My book takes you behind the scenes of our nation’s dysfunctional capital, revealing the real place beyond the monuments.

Amazon reviewers call it:

“a fun, quick read”

“a howdunit with some good research on the author’s part.”

Get Murder in Ocean Hall today!

This is a preview of my next novel, Don’t Mess Up My Block. It’s a parody of self-help books like Who Moved My Cheese. Look for it after the holidays!

Thematic Literary Magazine, Issue 3

My short story, The Really Real World, has been published in Thematic Literary Magazine. It was in the “smitten” issue and is a darkly comic look at how the quest for fame ruins a budding romance.

I wrote it after The Real World came to DC. They didn’t seem to belong here. We’re not sexy and, as ambivalent as I am about this city, at least it’s composed of people trying to accomplish things rather than just desperately seeking fame, like LA.

Fame distorts everyone, from the people in the spotlight to those in the wings.

Why do the great novels of our age emerge from New York and not DC? Washington is the capital of the country, except when it comes to fiction-writing.

I examine these questions in The Washington Literary Inferiority Complex, recently published by nthWORD Shorts. I think it’s time for the Great Washington Novel.

The DC Shorts Film Festival has returned! It’s my favorite time of year, when filmmakers from around the world come to Washington to share their cinematic visions.

This year, the festival features 145 films from 23 nations. The short films are organized into different screenings and shown at E Street Cinema, the Artisphere, the Atlas Performing Arts Center and the US Navy Memorial. The festival runs from September 8-18.

I’ve been a part of the festival for more than five years, as a judge, screenplay competition manager, photographer, volunteer wrangler and, this year, as a blogger-in-chief. What I like most about DC Shorts is that it’s a festival for filmmakers. They’re front and center, with the opportunity to receive recognition for their work. Lots of small touches make them feel welcome, like vouchers for food and a special filmmakers-only party.

This is not Hollywood. The films in the festival come from people doing it themselves. They’re not trying to win the attention of some fickle producer; instead, they go out and film the story they want to tell. This year’s DC Shorts features a slew of local films, including a film that cost only $500 to make. This is not atypical – you can do a lot with a camera and volunteer labor.

As someone who has written screenplays and self-published a novel, I identify with this DIY philosophy. It’s what makes our age so wonderful, that advances in technology allow anyone to communicate their vision with the world.

My short story, “The Happiest Man in Washington” has been published in eFiction Magazine. You can read it below. If you roll over the pages, you’ll see backward and forward arrows. Click on the page and it will become a full-screen view.

This story was inspired by a homeless man I used to see daily at 17th and Rhode Island in DC. He was a neighborhood fixture, a happy face greeting commuters every morning. I wondered how he got there and if he ever thought about leaving the streets.

Like this? Read more of my short fiction and my novel, Murder in Ocean Hall.

(For you WordPress geeks, eFiction is a magazine that was created using Issuu. You can embed and customize the viewer.  I used the Issuu “customize and embed” tool to get the code to paste into my site. I made the embedded viewer one page across (instead of two) and to start on p.67, where my story is, rather than at the beginning of the magazine. The WP Issuu plugin was also necessary to make all this work. It’s not difficult.)

In the age of the e-book, how will readers discover new authors? One possible way might be through journals like Digital Americana, the world’s first literary magazine for tablets. It’s like Esquire or The New Yorker but on an iPad.

And they just published my short story, “The City of the Dead.” My story is about a former Senator’s efforts to right a wrong in sunny Florida, as seen from the perspective of his imperious Egyptian wife.

Digital Americana is a gorgeous multimedia reading experience, featuring over 80 pages of fiction, poetry, interviews, book reviews, music videos and beautiful photos all in a format that you can scroll through on an iPad or iPhone. I’m biased, of course, but it’s one of the prettiest magazines I’ve ever seen.

To read “The City of the Dead”, buy the Digital Americana app for your iPad or iPhone. It costs all of 99 cents and includes the July Freedom issue. My story is on page 44.

Over the past few days, I’ve learned that three different short stories of mine will appear in three different online literary journals. Yea!

All of these stories are set in DC, at least in part, and feature the “beyond the monuments” knowledge of the city that I used in Murder in Ocean Hall. The three stories are all a little different:

The Really Real World - this is a dark and funny satire about the dangerous pursuit of fame. And, yes, the MTV series is involved.

The Happiest Man in Washington – I’m pretty much a realist, when it comes to fiction, but this is my attempt to write a parable like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (an essential read for every artist).

City of the Dead – inspired by a friend’s trip to Egypt, this is a story about mortality and the limits of American power.

Look for all three of these short stories soon! Follow me on @joeflood and I’ll tweet when and where they’re published, as well as update this blog.

With more than 40,000 words written, I think it’s safe to reveal that I’m working another another book.

It’s not a mystery like my previous novel, Murder in Ocean Hall.

Instead, it’s a satire called Don’t Mess Up My Block. My novel is a parody of self-help tomes like Who Moved My Cheese.

The story is told by Laurent Christ, a management consultant and life coach from the plains of North Dakota. A late-night encounter with a hooker (who tells him to get lost) becomes his core philosophy, one that he applies successfully to life and work.

Aren’t we all afflicted with people or situations that are “messing up our block”? Whether it’s a nagging spouse or an annoying boss, wouldn’t we be more effective without them?

From the swankiest of CEO sanctums to the bowels of government, Laurent leads us in a misfortune-plagued journey through the world of work in America today. A creature of his own invention, he always comes out ahead, while leaving his clients in misery.

The book was inspired by the self-help genre, this popular and peculiarly American phenomena. If Mark Twain were alive today, he’d probably be writing a book on getting organized.

Excerpts from this book have already been published, as stand-alone stories:

Don’t Mess Up My Block
Thirty First Bird Review
Laurent goes to Africa and destabilizes a whole country.

Boom and Bust
SPLIT Quarterly
Shareholders are angry and only Laurent can save a desperate executive.

I’m diligently working on the book right now. Look for it on a Nook or Kindle later this summer!

Everyone writes. In this digital age, we’re creating more words than ever. Whether it’s an email to a client, a persuasive blog post or the Great American E-Book, the ability to explain yourself in writing is the critical skill of the Internet era.

Despite this profusion of words, people often encounter writer’s block when attempting large or significant projects. They can fire off tweets and snarky Facebook comments all day long but their fingers stall when it comes to crafting something that really matters.

After I wrote my novel Murder in Ocean Hall, the question I got most was, “How?”

How did I muster up the patience to devote so much time to a single idea? How did I keep at it? How did I overcome the inertia of writer’s block to get started?

Writer’s block happens to everyone. But it can be overcome.

Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

I’ve met a lot of creative folks with ideas for books or blogs or screenplays. Yet, many of them fail to ever put pen to paper. Why? Because the idea is perfect in their head; the reality of the thing is never going to match their vision. They do nothing, preferring to keep their fantasies pristine rather than sullying them with reality. But isn’t it better to have something that actually exists, no matter how flawed, to an ephemeral vision? To write means to express your ideas, imperfectly.

Steven Pressfield calls this reluctance to get started, “Resistance” in his book on creativity and courage, Do the Work.

outline for this blog post

Outline

Would you go out into the wilderness without a map? Yet, many people will just dive into a project without a clue where they’re going. Once the rush of enthusiasm ends, they get stuck. It’s better to take some time and create an outline. An outline can be really simple – a list of chapter titles, points you want to make, things you want to mention. It’s something that you can turn to when you run out of steam.

No Editing

Don’t edit as you go. That can be done later. The purpose of the first draft is merely to get your ideas down on paper. It’s about collecting all the disparate thoughts you have and recording them, without judgement. You can clean them up and make them coherent when you edit. The first draft is more about collection than craft.

Reward Yourself

You can’t boss your mind around. It’s really adept at avoiding commands. In fact, telling yourself that you “must” do this or that virtually guarantees procrastination.

A better strategy is to reward yourself when accomplishing important milestones. When writing Murder in Ocean Hall, I gave myself a small present (a bottle of gin, a Wii game) for every 10,000 words I wrote. We all respond better to carrots instead of sticks.

Find a Quiet Place

One of the worst developments of the 20th century is the open office. Noisy and filled with distractions, these low-walled spaces are terrible for any type of work that requires concentration. Find some place quiet to write, like your favorite coffee shop, the neighborhood library or an empty conference room. And turn off the Internet.

Simple Tools Work Best

I like Pages by Apple. It’s a simple word processor that gets out of the way. If you must use Microsoft Word, turn off all of its autosaving, autocorrecting gimmickry – “features” that are designed to interrupt your concentration.

First Things First

I am not a morning person. Despite this, I do most of my writing first thing in the AM. Why? Zenhabits had the excellent advice to do your most important work at the beginning of the day, lest it get lost in the press of other demands.

writer’s block vs Writer’s Block

I was on a panel on with Claudia Myers, a professor who teaches screenwriting at American University. She made a distinction between writer’s block and Writer’s Block. The lower-case variety can be cured by the methods listed above; it’s largely a matter of getting started and keeping the momentum going.

However, Writer’s Block (upper-case variety) indicates a structural problem – perhaps there’s something wrong with the way that your communicating your idea. For her screenwriting students, she recommends explaining their script out loud to a friend. Sometimes by talking things out, you can identify what’s wrong with your story. If your audience seems puzzled or confused, then you’ve gone astray.

So, what do you do with an idea that’s not working out? You have three choices:

1. Press on, because it’s your idea, dammit.
2. Figure out what’s not working and fix it.
3. Quit and start something new.

Not sure which option to take? See the excellent The Dip by Seth Godin, a book about knowing when to quit.

When writing, nothing is ever really wasted. At the very least, working on a failed project is good practice. And that effort may come in handy later on. For example, I tried writing a novel about gentrification in DC. I got about fifty pages into it and got hopelessly stuck. A few years later, the characters and the story I worked on were the basis for my award-winning screenplay, Mount Pleasant.

Summary

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Writing is making a dream come true. It’s about taking your idea and communicating it successfully. Writer’s block is an inevitable part of the process, a difficulty you encounter along the way. But it can be overcome.