Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Not that anyone has offered me an award...

...but wouldn't this be a great response if they did?

TO ALL THOSE AT MTV,

I WOULD LIKE TO START BY THANKING YOU ALL FOR THE SUPPORT YOU HAVE GIVEN ME OVER RECENT YEARS AND I AM BOTH GRATEFUL AND FLATTERED BY THE NOMINATIONS THAT I HAVE RECEIVED FOR BEST MALE ARTIST. THE AIR PLAY GIVEN TO BOTH THE KYLIE MINOGUE AND P. J. HARVEY DUETS FROM MY LATEST ALBUM MURDER BALLADS HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED AND HAS BEEN GREATLY APPRECIATED. SO AGAIN MY SINCERE THANKS.

HAVING SAID THAT, I FEEL THAT IT’S NECESSARY FOR ME TO REQUEST THAT MY NOMINATION FOR BEST MALE ARTIST BE WITHDRAWN AND FURTHERMORE ANY AWARDS OR NOMINATIONS FOR SUCH AWARDS THAT MAY ARISE IN LATER YEARS BE PRESENTED TO THOSE WHO FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THE COMPETITIVE NATURE OF THESE AWARD CEREMONIES. I MYSELF, DO NOT. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OF THE OPINION THAT MY MUSIC IS UNIQUE AND INDIVIDUAL AND EXISTS BEYOND THE REALMS INHABITED BY THOSE WHO WOULD REDUCE THINGS TO MERE MEASURING. I AM IN COMPETITION WITH NO-ONE.

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY MUSE IS A DELICATE ONE AT THE BEST OF TIMES AND I FEEL THAT IT IS MY DUTY TO PROTECT HER FROM INFLUENCES THAT MAY OFFEND HER FRAGILE NATURE.


SHE COMES TO ME WITH THE GIFT OF SONG AND IN RETURN I TREAT HER WITH THE RESPECT I FEEL SHE DESERVES - IN THIS CASE THIS MEANS NOT SUBJECTING HER TO THE INDIGNITIES OF JUDGEMENT AND COMPETITION. MY MUSE IS NOT A HORSE AND I AM IN NO HORSE RACE AND IF INDEED SHE WAS, STILL I WOULD NOT HARNESS HER TO THIS TUMBREL - THIS BLOODY CART OF SEVERED HEADS AND GLITTERING PRIZES. MY MUSE MAY SPOOK! MAY BOLT! MAY ABANDON ME COMPLETELY!

SO ONCE AGAIN, TO THE PEOPLE AT MTV, I APPRECIATE THE ZEAL AND ENERGY THAT WAS PUT BEHIND MY LAST RECORD, I TRULY DO AND SAY THANK YOU AND AGAIN I SAY THANK YOU BUT NO…NO THANK YOU.


YOURS SINCERELY, NICK CAVE 21 OCT 96.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Tacoma settings of A Matter of Life and Seth + sweet pea

My recently completed manuscript, A Matter of Life and Seth, is my most Tacoma-centric book to date. It's a young adult novel, but written in noir style. In the same way that noir master Raymond Chandler made 1930s Los Angeles into an almost-living character in his books, I wanted to get painterly in my chosen setting of Tacoma.

The following landmarks are featured in the story:


Frisko Freeze
King's Books
MSM Deli
Stadium High School
Pho Bac
Ruston Way
The grain silos
The brewery district
The Wedge neighborhood
Trinity Presbyterian Church
The North End
The Hilltop

There are also a number of other businesses that were used for inspiration, but whose names will be forever protected.

The book will also feature an important minor character who runs an independent bookstore. His name is sweet pea. I asked permission of The Man Himself and got it.

Give a little love to Kings Books.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Walter Mosley: Detectives, Blue Light and Futureland

One of my favorite writers in the universe is Walter Mosley, mostly known for his bestselling Easy Rawlins detective series, which adds a new twist to the hardboiled crime genre by making the lead character a black man in post-World War Two Los Angeles. More on the brilliance of this series later.

The thing I love about Mosley is that while his primary success has come from genre-writing—detective stories, he refuses to be pigeon-holed. He writes short stories, YA, nonfiction, and sci-fi. Blue Light and Futureland are his two science fiction works to date. Both have received middling reviews. Both might never have seen the light of day had Mosley not already been a marketable brand.

Personally, I couldn’t make it through Blue Light. I found it kind of lousy.  And I love me some Mosley.

But, I so respect Mosley for doing his thing. He’s an admitted science fiction fan, so he took a shot at writing science fiction. Because he wanted to.

Here’s an excerpt from a Bill Moyers PBS interview with Mosley:

"I didn't start off being a mystery writer. I became that. And when I wrote, DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, I didn't know it was going to be a mystery. It just was. I write mysteries. I'm also a science fiction writer. I'm also a writer of non fiction. I'm also a literary writer.
There's many things that I am. And all of those things come together at some point. If somebody wants to limit me, you know and they'll say, 'Well, this is Walter Mosley, the mystery writer.' I don't like that. Because I do many things. So why do you pick that one thing? And then it's always an economic reason. 'Well you sell more of these books than you those books.' Not a good reason."

Friday, August 26, 2011

Paper Man - a good/bad movie about writer struggles

As a dedicated insomniac, I spent tonight watching a movie with two of my favorite actors--Jeff Daniels and Emma Stone. The movie is called Paper Man and it's got all sorts of problems--cliches, sappiness, overdone quirkiness, but it's still totally worth watching.

Jeff Daniels plays a writer with (guess what?) writer's block. All writers in movies, from The Shining, to Barton Fink to Throw Momma From The Train, have writer's block. It's a rule. Writers in movies must stare at typewriters. Just like the rule about how a cough in real life means nothing, but a cough in a movie means you'll die soon. In real life, by the way, writers don't stare at typewriters. They stare at laptops. Anyway, Daniels has writer's block and an annoying imaginary friend, but he's still a joy to watch. Emma Stone plays her standard bitter-but-lovable teen role, but she's just so damn good that you put up with the cliches they loaded her character with. Kieran Kulkin is in it, too, but he's a weird-looking kid and I mostly just wish he'd stay off the screen so we could see more of Daniels and Stone. Same with Ryan Reynolds, who is occasionally a good actor, but his imaginary-friend role in this movie sucks.

The filmmakers seem to be going for a Lost In Translation vibe. Sometimes they get it, but they try too hard.

All that said, you should still watch this movie, because it's still a good examination of the sometimes-solitary job of writing. The distractions, the self-inflicted pressure, the obsessing over single words and names, the always-present self-doubt. And it's Jeff Daniels, whose never been bad in a movie.

If it sounds too full of problems to waste your time, then just watch him in Something Wild.

The movie is also set in the South Shore area near Boston, where my brother Dan lives. It's a lot nicer than they make it look in the movie.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Teen Noir Driver's Guide

What is teen noir? And why should I care?

My recently completed manuscript, A Matter of Life and Seth, takes great inspiration from the classic noir stories of the 1930s and 40s, then updates that style into present day, with a teenaged hero.

So let's spend a few minutes on a noir primer.

Film noir:

Most people associate the term noir with films, particularly the shadowy, pessimistic crime movies of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, such as Murder, My Sweet, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon and my favorite, The Big Sleep. What defines these movies as noir? As this is a style created by countless directors and actors, there's no truly accurate definition, but here are some typical characteristics of a noir movie:

  • Low lighting, with plenty of shadows
  • A bleak, urban setting
  • Characters who are world-weary, many of whom are corrupt
  • Crime, and usually a murder or two
  • Beautiful-but-deadly women
  • Great, snappy dialogue
Check out this list of Top 50 Film Noir titles, as selected by IMDB users:

Where did film noir come from?


It came from books, of course. When we move over to literature, the name changes. We call this style Hardboiled Crime Fiction.

Imagine you were a mystery fan in the 1920s. Most of your choices were in the style Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle--well-mannered murders that occurred in a conservatory with a candlestick. The murderers were ladies and gentlemen who always paused in their killing during afternoon tea.

American crime writers kicked this stuff out the @#$%ing window and began writing in a style that actually considered the kind of people involved. Murder is a desperate act, performed by desperate men and women. This new style reflected that. It wasn't polite.

Suddenly, you had Raymond Chandler a writing about criminals who packed heat, slept around, drank too much, shot up heroin and carried dirty pictures in their wallets. James M. Cain wrote about a drifter who murdered his landlord so he could make off with the guy's wife. Dashiell Hammett's characters threw around racial slurs, slapped women and left a wake of dead bodies.

The masters--like these three--wrote in a truly American style--with short, sharp sentences, language full of street slang, and a taste for violence. But they also wrote with a point. They had something to say. Amidst the killings, their characters talked about the human condition, about moral struggles, about love and mortality.

Hollywood noticed. Many of the best noir movies had their start as the best hardboiled crime novels.

That's enough for now.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I'm on a YA author panel for actual Young Adults - This Friday in Dupont

Hey all you YA readers: Come to Dupont Library this Friday night to hang with a bunch of really talented Young Adult authors. Eat pizza and cupcakes, play video games, go on a photo scavenger hunt, and listen to local YA authors speak at the DuPont’s Library’s first ever after hours party for teens! Authors include:
Kimberly Derting, "The Body Finder"
Gwen Hayes, "Falling Under"
Tom Llewellyn, "The Titlting House"
Megan Bostic, "Never Eighteen"
Danny Marks, "Velveteen"

Did you see my name up there? Yes, you did. I don't really know how this thing is going to work, but most of all I'm excited to hang out with some of these other authors. If some interested teen readers show up, bonus.

The event is open to teens from 12-18. Go here for more information.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Now this is casual furniture.


What I'm reading right now.

I’m blazing through the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. Right now I’m on the third book, A Storm of Swords. This is epic fantasy. Five books so far. Two more scheduled. Each book about 700 pages. Do the math. Each book is told from the point of view of dozens of characters. Each character is multi-faceted. You’ll find no shining-white Aragorns or Gandalfs here. The good guys commit treachery. The bad guys show mercy. Lots of violence. Lots of sex. Lots and lots of melancholy.

Martin is a beast. He’s a hardcore geek (and looks like one), loves attending Cons, loves teaching, writes sci-fi, scripts, exec produces (whatever that means) the HBO series based on his books, and doesn’t mind frustrating fans with six-year gaps between his novels. He’s also a masterful storyteller, in the sense of a campfire-style storyteller. He uses all the tricks. He gets you lathered up on a certain character’s storyline, swinging a sword at their bare neck, then he ends the chapter and jumps to another character. He speeds the pace of the plot up to a fever pitch, then slams on the brakes, creating frustration and suspense. Bait and switch, wild goose chases, trickery—he uses them all. Aaand, he’ll get you deeply invested in a character and then kill them off without mercy. This makes you realize that any character at any time could die (because they do), increasing the page-turning tension.

I’m about the millionth blogger to talk about these books, but who cares? It’s great stuff. Definitely not young adult, but o so compelling.

By the way, Martin is also a masterful self-promoter. He blogs almost daily on his blog, which is called “Not a blog.” He attends tons of cons, he is a generously-available teacher. Pretty amazing.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Your work.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
— Steve Jobs

Wayzgoose? What the @#$% is a wayzgoose?



On August 27, 2011, Beautiful Angle, a letterpress poster project cofounded by Lance Kagey and me, will be taking part in the 10th annual SVC Wayzgoose and Steamroller Smackdown.

A wayzgoose is a gathering of printers. This is your opportunity to check out some of the coolest letterpress talent in the Northwest, which, by the way, is a center of letterpress arts.

We’ll also be printing massive letterpress posters with a real-live steamroller (an idea SVC “borrowed” from the Tacoma Wayzgoose, who in turn “borrowed” it from a group in San Francisco). Beautiful Angle will be steamroller printing from one o’clock to 2:15, so that’s when you want to be there.

Join the fun from one to six at 500 Aurora Ave N. This event is put on by Seattle’s beloved School of Visual Concepts.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

How to pronounce noir

I've been writing about teen noir and film noir. Easy to write about. Harder to say.
So how do you pronounce noir?
Here are a few different opinions:

The talking dictionary at dictionarist.com says neu-whah (ch). Hear it here.

The famously undependable Yahoo Answers has at least a half dozen different suggestions: nwah, nwar, nu-whar, new-wahr, no-war, nu-whah (ch).

The very nice Pronunciation Book YouTube series covers this for Pinot Noir, and the second word comes out: new-whar.

And finally, howjsay.com says new-ahhhh and neu-awwch.

I like the Pronunciation book version. It sounds less snooty. That's all for today.


Friday, August 19, 2011

A Teen Noir visual aid

My agent, the esteemed Abigail Samoun, decribed my recently completed manuscript as teen noir. What does that mean?

Here's the short explanation: Imagine the shadowy, violent, atmospheric style of classic books or movies from the 1930s and 1940s, such as The Big Sleep or The Postman Always Rings Twice. Then imagine updating that style into modern day and making the protagonist a teenager. That's about it.

But if you want a more sensory explanation, just watch Brick. This great 2005 indie movie, written and directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is the best example I can think of.

Levitt finds the dead body of his ex-girlfriend. He sets out to find the killer and navigates his way through the violent underworld of a crime-ridden high school.

The movie grossed about $4 million. Not a lot. But it made back ten times its cost. Not bad. It's become a cult favorite along the way. Check it out.

Or, if you prefer to read, here's a good review.

By the way, others have described the TV series Veronica Mars as teen noir as well, but VM is about as noirish as a Clinique counter at Nordstrom.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

A Matter of Life and Seth

My teen noir novel, A Matter of Life and Seth, has been completed (at least by me) and sent to my agent, the esteemed Abigail Samoun. After three chapters, Abigail said she liked it. Hope she still feels that way at the end. She asked me to write a synopsis. Here's what I came up with:


The setting is the streets of Tacoma, Washington. The hero is sixteen-year-old Seth, a tough high school dropout who lives with his mom in an apartment above a boxing gym. Seth’s part-time job brings him into contact with wealthy teen femme fatale, Azura Lear, and her controlling father.
When his mother is discovered dead in her car one night, Seth finds himself alone in a dangerous world. The police put little effort into investigating the case, so Seth takes it upon himself to solve the murder on his own. His quest for the killer takes him on a vivid tour—with a view only available to an urban teenager, taking the reader from the jocks and rich kids at the local high school to the colorful hangouts and characters of the inner city, from the wealthy addresses of Azura’s North End to the violent streets of the notorious Hilltop.
Seth may be falling in love with Azura, but he wonders if it’s possible for their love to last in spite of their different backgrounds and neighborhoods—hers rich and sanitized, his poor and deadly. His world has never been as full of danger as it is now, as Seth’s investigation brings him into contact with cold-blooded killers and demanding questions about death, family and his own morality.
Combining a brazen noir style with a teenage narrator who is both hard-boiled and heartfelt, A Matter of Life and Seth is a fast-moving mystery that swings to a modern urban rhythm.
That's the end of the synopsis.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Interview with Abigail Samoun

My agent, the esteemed Abigail Samoun, recently conducted a nutty IM interview with me about my first two books, the Random House-published The Tilting House, and the complete but as-yet unpublished Letter Off Dead. We also talked about puppies armed with chain saws and sadistic school teachers. It was a surprisingly satisfying way to be interviewed. Check it out here.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Letter Off Dead - From Blog to Book to Blog to Book

Do you have time for a long, rollicking story? Back in September of 2009, I began publishing a book blog. It was called Letter Off Dead and was a correspondence between a 7th grade boy and his dead father. Trevor writes to his dad. Dad, who is dead, writes back. They both have issues, both need each others help.

It was good. In fact, good enough to get a contract from Tricycle Press, an imprint of Random House Kids. Unfortunately, soon after that, RH decided to shut down that imprint. I got to keep my advance, which was nice, but the book deal stopped dead.

But from the ashes, etc.

My Tricycle editor, the esteemed Abigail Samoun, decided to become an agent. Now, as part of Red Fox Literary, she represents me (and a number of really talented illustrators and authors). And right now, even as you read these very words (!), she is shopping Letter Off Dead around again.

I still really like this story. If you'd like a messy, unedited sneak peak into what it was all about, you can go check it out at the blog, which, as of this writing, is still live.

The Tilting House

Have you checked out my first book? It's called The Tilting House and it was published by Tricycle Press an imprint of Random House Kids.

Here's a few of the reviews by some of my favorite critics:

Review, Publishers Weekly, June 21, 2010:"Llewellyn's debut is inventive, gripping, and shot through with macabre details."

Review, Kirkus Reviews:
"...a genre-blending page-turner with plenty of room in its eaves for sequels. One to watch."

Review, Booklist, August 1, 2010:"Llewellyn’s first novel takes the classic family-in-a-new-house motif and mixes in just the right creaky touches of the macabre..."

Review, Lit Fest Magazine.com, June 21, 2010:"The Tilting House will tickle and entertain young readers and draw great appreciation from parents."

Review, The News Tribune, June 4, 2010: “Kids ages 7 and older will love this book—this reviewer’s own daughter did—because there’s exactly the right mix of magic, science, adventure, mystery, and heroic kids.”

Review, Book Trends, August 1, 2010:"In a book with a slanting house, The Tilting House is a slant in the right direction. I hope it entertains children, as it did me, for many more years to come." —Brandon, 7th grade student. Rating: 5 stars