Novel News -- Obsessica eBook is out!

Am all settled at the Rio where the first couple of Day 1 flights of the World Series of Poker Main Event have already played out. Already had some fun interviews and other items of interest -- will report soon.

Just a quick note to share that the eBook version of Obsessica is now available! It’s good for the Kindle and other devices. Those who buy a print version of the novel should also get access to the Kindle version for free, or so I understand it.

I was writing here not too long ago about how I still can’t quite think of “novels” as being something other than those physical objects with hard or soft covers and words printed on pages that we hold and look at for a few hours or days or weeks.

I know to say such things is to sound irrational (or just plain stubborn). It’s a silly thing to insist upon, something belonging in the category of useless complaints about how the present ain’t the past.

As I’ve mentioned before, Obsessica is a book set in the past -- an adult narrator looks back on something that happened when he was a kid in 1980 -- and so kind of exemplifies that same desire to go back and experience that time and all of the “old” things that marked it.

There’s even some talk about books in there, despite the fact that the narrator makes a point to say early on that he isn’t much of a reader (or writer, for that matter). The House of the Baskervilles and the Guinness Book of World Records turn out to be two important books, and also are meant to serve as extra-textual “secondary” sources for the novel, in a way, that point to certain themes.

Like I say, though, I’m fully aware that nostalgia for books is a kind of folly. And of the irony of my indulging in it while writing on a blog, and spending just about every other waking moment writing for online-only outlets.

Anyhow, you e-reader types -- go check out my novel. I’ve heard it’s kind of a page-turner. Or screen-scroller.

Pages and Screens

Busy times here on the farm. Getting hotter, with the daily afternoon storms not doing a whole lot to cool things down.

My trip westward to the World Series of Poker is fast approaching, as I leave on Friday. I’m looking forward to getting back to Las Vegas -- it has been four whole years since my last trip there. Doesn’t seem nearly so long, though, probably because I previously spent so much time in the Nevada desert so many summers in a row.

Indeed, it’s become out of the ordinary for me to take poker trips within the U.S., as most of my tourney journeys over recent years have been to Central and South America or Europe. That trip to New Jersey last fall for the first PokerStars Championship Festival was the first U.S. trip for me since late 2014 when I went to Florida.

Meanwhile I did want to let you know an eBook version of Obsessica is close to being available -- just a few more small things to take care of before it is ready to go. Was kind of a similar deal with Same Difference (my first novel), for which the ebook didn’t appear until well after the hard copy was first published.

I still can’t quite embrace the idea of reading books on the Kindle or some other device.

Obsessica is a book featuring a 12-year-old protagonist -- it isn’t quite “YA” fiction, I’d say, although I imagine younger readers might enjoy it. The story got me thinking about books I enjoyed as a teen, and after going down that road a while I decided I wanted to reread a couple of them -- Dune by Frank Herbert and The Stand by Stephen King -- both books I first read when I was around 13-14 or so.

I no longer had my copies of those two, and so went online to order new ones. I didn’t want Kindle versions, though, nor did I even want updated editions. I wanted the exact same paperbacks I’d read before, and so after hunting a little I was able to order exactly those.

Now there’s some sort of minor psychological tic in there somewhere that might be mildly interesting to explore, something related to the compulsion to repeat and/or a desire to go back and experience again something from one’s childhood.

But in the present context I’m more intrigued by the mental block I have regarding electronic versions of books, one that prevents me from feeling as though I’ve “really” read a novel if I read it on my Kindle or as a .pdf or listened to an audiobook version of it. For me the physical book is the thing, which is why (I suppose) I continue to think of the eBook version of my own novels as somehow secondary, even if I know many (most?) readers think differently.

Blogs are different, of course. Not books. Even the ones that go on and on for thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of words.

Curious about Obsessica? (Fair warning -- there’s no poker in it.) Find the hard copy here, and stay tuned for that eBook (coming soon).

Image: “Kindle Touch” (adapted), Luke Jones. CC BY 2.0.

It’s Getting Better All the Time: 50 Years of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

I was probably around 12 years old when I got my first copy of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP, perhaps just a little earlier.

That’s the age -- 12 -- of the protagonist in my new novel Obsessica. Have had some more readers and a couple of very nice reviews over on Amazon since the last time I brought it up over here. I’m actually in the middle of getting the ebook version together, and also have some other plans to promote it a little more going forward -- more on that soon.

I was chatting with someone about the book and stumbled into an observation about 12-year-olds. It’s an idea that might well have come from the narrator of Obsessica, who is writing as an adult about something he experienced when he was that age.

“We’re all 12, really, or thereabouts,” I said. “That is, there’s a point in there somewhere before we’ve grown up when we become who we end up being, and no matter how much we change after that we can’t really leave behind that first-finished-draft of ourselves.”

If that’s true, it matters that I was around 12 when I first listened to and loved Sgt. Pepper.

Later I would learn more about the Beatles, reading books and like many engaging in a kind of protracted study of every little detail of their history, including all things Sgt. Pepper. But well before that more intellectual engagement took place came the deep impression caused by many, many listenings back when I was a kid -- back when the record, like other things I experienced, inevitably became part of who I am.

I love the songs. All of them. And the idea. During their first few years of recording and performing, the Beatles provided a kind of template for the whole concept of a “band” (at least in the realm of popular music). Then with Sgt. Pepper they invented a fictional version of themselves to enable even greater experimentation.

They were already larger than life by then. But Sgt. Pepper was an even greater revelation -- about what the Beatles could do, and about what could be done by others, too.

In the title song, Sgt. Pepper is a character described as having “taught the band to play.” Like a mentor or muse or something. Which, of course, is what the album has served as for countless bands and musicians and people who yearn to be creative in other ways.

People talk about it being a “concept album” which it is. To me the analogue is a short story collection like Dubliners, Winesburg, Ohio, Nine Stories, or What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Different episodes, different characters, different moods, all connected by common thematic threads relating a particular ethos and vision emanating from the artist.

Sgt. Pepper features a variety of characters and voices and perspectives, complemented by the many different styles -- rock, blues, music hall, psychedelic, vaudeville, classical, traditional Indian, avant-garde -- all made to fit inside so-called “pop” formats.

The variety was more than enough to stimulate my still forming brain, with the record almost feeling like one “novelty” song after another. It’s rocking and relaxing, moving and melodramatic, catchy and complex, funny and frightening.

I suppose it’s true that an impressionable 12-year-old probably experiences these things more deeply than a cynical adult. But there I was, listening to Sgt. Pepper over and again on the stereo console, ensuring that decades later I’d still be thinking these thoughts and feeling these feelings when listening again.

I’ve written here about the Beatles many times before, including telling the story of my father playing the Red and Blue albums on eight-track player that came with an old Plymouth Valiant, and going with Vera to see the Cirque du Soleil show Love, and going to see Cheap Trick perform the whole of Sgt. Pepper, also in Las Vegas.

And (I must not omit) describing the card game I invented last year called “Sgt. Pepper,” a Badugi variant. Here are the complete rules:

Pulling out my Sgt. Pepper LP today, I’m finding tucked inside a copy of the fan mag The Beatles Monthly, dated June 1987. Yes, I’m old enough to remember when it was twenty years ago today the Beatles released their album that begins with the lyric “it was twenty years ago today.”

And now it’s fifty years ago today, the LP being released in the U.K. on June 1, 1967 and in the U.S. the next day. And everyone is listening to and talking about Sgt. Pepper and acting like kids again.

And I’m setting the needle down to listen -- again -- knowing even before the orchestra starts warming up that it’s guaranteed to raise a smile.

My New Novel, Obsessica

Finally... finally! I have a new novel, only seven years or so after the first one.

Back in 2009 I published Same Difference, a hard-boiled detective novel that served as both a kind of fiction-writing apprenticeship for me and a chance to explore that fun, page-turning, puzzle-creating-and-solving formula represented by that type of novel. The book is set in New York City in the mid-1970s, and while it necessarily incorporates a lot of my own experiences, it is mostly an invention, pieced together from my memory of the era and lots of other second-hand research.

I wrote the first draft of Same Difference several years before, rewriting it a couple of times including changing what had been a third-person narration into first-person. It then took me a while to do the extra work to get it ready for publication. I did spend some time shopping it around to publishers, by the way, a couple of whom were very positive with their feedback. But no one I was talking to seemed to eager to do anything in the detective subgenre and so I ended up proceeding with it on my own.

Really it was Vera who lit the fire under me, causing me to move forward and eventually get it out into the world, and I was so very grateful to her for doing so. It was satisfying to get to the end of such a project and see it through to publication, and to get nice feedback from those who’ve read it has been even more gratifying.

You can find Same Difference over on Amazon both in paperback and for the Kindle.

It wasn’t that long after Same Difference appeared that I began searching for new subjects. I didn’t really want to do a sequel or even another “hard-boiled” story. Nor was I interested in writing anything about poker, given how much I write about poker otherwise.

I began work on a new story, one based a little more closely on some of my own experiences as a kid growing up in North Carolina. It became another murder mystery of sorts, with the young hero of the book working with others trying to sort out “whodunit.” I liked the initial draft and a few of the characters, and kept reworking it until finally I began to have some friends read and offer feedback.

Then I did something similar to what happened with the first novel -- I waited. Like a couple of years. I’d bring it out from time to time, rereading and tinkering, but was mostly in a holding pattern with it until last summer when I finally tried again to see whether or not I could get the thing into a form I felt comfortable sharing with the world.

It kind of dovetailed on the curator-like stuff I performed with all of that music I’d made many years ago, an effort that culminated in my releasing seven albums all at once at the start of September. As was the case with that project, I found myself in a position where I finally decided I’d rather not just keep what I’d spent all that effort and time creating to myself any longer.

I revised some more, had others read and give feedback again, then came the formatting work and still more editing. Finally -- today -- I’ve approved the final final final final version of the thing (as my young nephew might say).

The book is called Obsessica, the title a reference to a character in the book but also in a way describing my own obsessive relationship with every tiny little detail. You can get a print copy right now over at Lulu, and in a few weeks it will start to turn up at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other places where you get get books online. Soon I plan also to have an ebook version available -- will let you know.

Here is a blurb, to entice further:

Eric Younger tells the story of his boyhood infatuation with a friend’s older sister, Jessica. An unexpected sequence of events finds Eric being suddenly enlisted by Jessica to help to solve a mystery, providing Eric a distraction from his parents’ impending divorce and a chance to get to know Jessica and her strangely obsessive ways.

Click on these cover images to see bigger versions of them. Like I say this one is certainly more autobiographical (also still a fiction), set as it is in 1980 and featuring a narrator-protagonist who was about my age then. But once again, don’t expect to find any card playing whatsoever -- just one fleeting reference to a “poker face,” included almost as a in-joke. Kind of like a lot of other thematic references and details in the book, all of which I would be delighted to discuss with anyone who reads the sucker.

Click here to order a copy from Lulu, and like I say I’ll be letting you know when it turns up elsewhere to purchase as well as when an ebook version becomes available.

(EDIT [added 2/7/16]: Obsessica is now available on Amazon!)

A Post About Posting

Just firing a short one here today both to wish everyone a Happy New Year and to make a short announcement regarding the blog and my posting schedule here in 2017 (and beyond).

For years I’ve been hinting here at slowing the pace of my posting, though somehow have kept up the same routine of sharing something every single weekday -- and weekends sometimes, too, such as when doing “travel reports” -- without exception.

Sometimes I’ve fallen behind a little and had to backdate things to fill in gaps. Typically what I’ve done (say, when on a trip) is to sketch a quick draft of a post and save it, then go back later to finish. That has been the case for a good while now.

I started Hard-Boiled Poker way back in April 2006, adding to the list of what was then a fast-growing crowd of other “poker blogs.” Full of enthusiasm about both playing the game and writing about it, it didn’t take me long to work up to that five-post-a-week pace by the start of 2008, which I’ve continued for nearly nine years.

I remember sometimes during the first few years when I’d make lists of topics about which to write each week, often having to whittle the list down to just five. Coming up on the 3,000th post here, which if you divide by 10-and-a-half years you can figure out what kind of pace that means.

Of course, once you’ve written about something once or twice or ten times, the urgency to write about it again diminishes. As I imagine does the desire to read about such things, too.

In any case, the plan going forward is to check in regularly -- at the very least once per week -- and as a result try to give a bit more substance to each post, perhaps making them more like features than journal entries.

That said, I won’t self-impose any sort of formal restrictions, other than the only one I’ve ever followed here which is to make every post have at least something to do with poker, even when it isn’t about poker at all.

Meanwhile, I’ll have much else to share in the coming weeks and months -- including a new novel that is already on its way (no shinola!) -- plus some other writing projects that are already well along. More about all of that soon.

Image: “Found Blur Motion,” ilouque. CC BY 2.0.

A Captive Audience

Did something kind of unusual on the plane ride back from Barcelona yesterday.

It was about a nine-hour flight, perhaps a little more, starting in the morning and ending around dinner time. Sleeping wasn’t an option, really, although I don’t ever do that well trying to sleep on planes. If it’s a redeye I’ll usually can at least rest my eyes for an hour or two, but in truth I never really zonk out, even if I happen to have a row on which to stretch.

I started out watching one movie -- David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence -- which I hadn’t seen before. I’m up on practically all early and mid-period Cronenberg, and also being a noir fan I ended up enjoying this one, even if it turned out to be a little awkward watching certain scenes there in an aisle seat where those behind me could watch as well, if they wished.

Against Cronenberg’s earlier stuff, of course, it played as a little more restrained. Meanwhile when compared to the noir tradition the story, situation, and characters followed, it read as a modern, more graphic update. Certain elements of the latter act (in particular William Hurt’s character) seemed over the top, but by then that fit well enough in the somewhat stylized world being presented.

Finishing that as well as the in-flight meal, I scrolled around and dialed up another movie to watch -- The French Connection (which I have seen, long ago) -- but within 10-15 minutes I couldn’t keep focused on it and switched it off, opting for some music instead. Then after sitting there a bit I pulled out my laptop.

During a conversation with Jack (my buddy and blogging partner) early in the two-week poker festival I’d brought up this draft of a novel I have. Same Difference had been essentially written well prior to my getting into poker (and starting this blog in 2006), and I only published it in 2009. Meanwhile this new novel was written subsequently, the first draft of which was completed around three years ago. I revised it a couple of times -- the file is marked “3rd draft” -- but hadn’t opened it back up since earlier this year.

I opened it there on the flight and began reading. Got through the first several chapters and kept going, then eventually was approaching the midpoint. Finally at some point I realized I was ready to read the whole sucker, and doing some math realized I’d be able to finish it before we landed which I did. Was perhaps seven hours of reading, I think -- the book’s novel-length but on the shorter side (around 70,000 words).

I don’t think I’d ever read it through in one sitting like that, and it was satisfying to do so. Like the first novel it’s essentially a murder mystery, although not a detective novel and draws much more on my own experiences than did Same Difference which is set in New York City in the mid-1970s. This one is also set in the past, with the story starting in 1979 and ending in 1980, but takes place in a setting essentially pattered after my hometown with a boy protagonist/narrator of my same age then.

I tinkered just a little as I went, but not much as the draft had been pored over many times already. I remembered certain sections I’d cut, glad they were gone in this version. A couple of plot points have been altered from the initial version, too, though a lot of it is still there.

The experience made me eager to begin the process of publishing it, something I’d like to before the year ends. In fact, I have another creative project of sorts I’m going to “publish” (so to speak) later this week, in fact, that falls under the same heading of me wanting to share something I’ve done rather than keep it to myself. For a couple of reasons, I’ve been feeling a lot of this “life-is-too-short-to-wait” pressure over the last few weeks, which is partly why I want to move ahead with these things.

Traveling will inspire that feeling sometimes. While in Barcelona I had a conversation with Brad (also my buddy and also my blogging partner) about watching movies on planes. On the surface, it seems less than ideal to watch these things on relatively small screes on the backs of passengers’ seats. But as Brad pointed out, the audience is uniquely captive, free from the endless distractions that mark our lives when we aren’t 30,000-plus feet in the air.

Coupled with being away from loved ones (if you’re traveling alone), that can make viewers especially receptive emotionally (we agreed), causing us to be more readily affected by certain films -- something both he and I have experienced before.

I can’t say A History of Violence moved me too deeply, although it had its moments. Meanwhile it might have been that being on the plane, all alone and in a relatively unique state of mind, affected me as I read through my novel again.

Doesn’t matter, I guess. Same difference, as they say.

Gonna get moving on this thing. More to come.

Image: “Plane” (adapted), Alper Çuğun. CC BY 2.0.

On Endings, Wished For and Otherwise

Over the last eight months or so, I’ve been gradually working my way through a draft of a new novel. Started with an idea back in May, something I originally thought might be just a short story. But the sucker gained momentum and by the time I made it to the World Series of Poker in mid-June I already knew it was a novel-length puzzle I had given myself to try to solve.

That trip, followed closely by another to LAPT Uruguay, introduced what amounted a two-month break from the fiction writing. But I got back to it and have steadily pushed through to where I am now looking at just a couple more scenes to go before I can say the draft is done and begin the work of revising.

I was realizing over the last few days how a small part of me doesn’t want to reach the end of the draft. That is to say, while I have known for some time how the story is going to end, not knowing precisely how I was going to get there allowed me to indulge in the fantasy of my novel having a kind of limitless potential -- that there was still time to include all sorts of scenes or characters or allusions or what have you.

But now that the end is nigh, I’ve started to accept that my options are becoming fewer as far as introducing new elements is concerned. Sure, when I revise I already know of a few new items that are going to have to be brought in as part of the story. But it’ll no longer be a “no-limit” game then, given the considerable constraints of the plotting already in place.

I used to play poker in a similar fashion, not wanting a session to end no matter how long I’d played, or even how the session was going. But more and more I’ve found myself cutting sessions short. In fact, it has gotten to the point sometimes that I find myself starting to think about leaving even during the first orbit of hands.

There are several reasons for this change of attitude or lessening of enthusiasm about playing or whatever you want to call it. One, in fact, is that I’ve often preferred to work on the novel than to play.

Also, being relegated to sites with fewer options for game selection, not to mention having to stick with the micros (thanks to my unwillingness to deposit), has made the idea of sitting down to play less inviting. This recent VIP Cash Rebate I earned on Carbon -- for two whole cents! -- is a good indicator of how little time and money I have been investing trying to build my small roll on the site.

Another factor may be simply that the novelty of playing online has long since worn off, too. The “stories” poker used to provide me on a regular basis have mostly gone away or become less interesting. There was a lengthy stretch when I’d play a decent number of hours every week and almost always be guaranteed to come away with some interesting anecdote or hand or something that I would subsequently write about here. But things that are happening at the tables these days just aren’t as inspiring, I’m afraid.

Which is why I go back to the novel. Like Same Difference, it’s a murder mystery, although the protagonist is not a detective. Nor is the story especially “hard-boiled” or as licentious as was the case in the first one. Oh, and again, no poker.

Like I say, the finish line is in sight as far as the draft goes, and I’m hoping to get through the revising and have it out into the world by the spring. At which time we’ll see what new games there are to play.

Novel Thinking

Like I imagine most folks who trip over here from time to time to read these poker-related scribblings, I usually spend a bit of time each day perusing various poker news sites, forums, and following the chatter on Twitter in an effort to keep track with what’s happening in the poker world.

As I’m sure you also notice when making such a virtual trek around the intertubes, there’s a lot of repeating of information happening online. Such is the case not just for poker but for just about any subject area. It’s as though as soon as something newsworthy happens or gets reported, dozens are sharing the exact same news within a short span of time, thus helping any item -- even examples of misreporting -- quickly proliferate around our little circle.

I remember once having a writing teacher explain to me the concept of “common knowledge.” In academic essays, one generally is required to document one’s sources whenever presenting ideas or words that are not one’s own. The one exception to this rule was the occasion of presenting so-called “common knowledge.” You know, like the Titanic went down in 1912 or John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

The teacher offered a rule of thumb for determining whether or not an idea or bit of information qualified as “common knowledge.” If you see the information in five different sources, the teacher explained, only then can you safely assume it is common knowledge and thus not in need of citation.

Back then we didn’t have the internet to assist us with our research. So finding something in five different sources meant putting in a lot of time amid the stacks in the library. Indeed, I sometimes thought the five-source minimum was intentionally established as a difficult-to-reach barrier so as to keep students from being too quick to think of something as “common knowledge” and thus more apt to cite sources whenever in doubt.

Today, of course, such advice is mostly meaningless. Moments after I publish this post, you’ll probably be able to find the words I am writing appear in five different other places, having been “scraped” and published by various web-page producing programs. It is almost as though everything that gets published somewhere online instantly becomes “common knowledge” and is regarded as such by many going forward -- i.e., as fair game for reporting without attribution.

Maybe it’s because I have occasionally been called on to write poker news articles myself that I find myself thinking about this phenomenon. Or because I write this blog every weekday, where I always try to avoid repeating what else is out there and provide something novel or at least a little bit different, even if it is only just to share a personal take on what everyone else is talking about.

Thanks in part to the way search engines work and the whole “SEO” thing, a distinction has developed in internet reporting between publishing something that is “new” and publishing something that is “original.” The fact is, it is much more valued to be first -- or perceived as first by the elusive algorithms employed by internet search engines -- than it is to be original. (I smile grimly at the post I wrote yesterday, today appearing on other sites as though published years ago.)

Writing and publishing original content is by definition going to mean producing something that is new. Readers will recognize this, but so will the search engines (which will help attract more readers).

But it is possible also to appear to write something new without necessarily writing something that is original. A quick summary of someone else’s reporting can accomplish as much quite efficiently, and depending on the site producing it, can effectively place a newly-published page way up or even at the top of searches for the item.

And speaking of efficiency, it is much less costly to come up with such “new” (but not original) content than it is to commission that which is truly original.

I’m conscious of the fact that my observation here is itself unoriginal. I nonetheless felt compelled to bring up the idea here as I’ve been lately seeing not just the usual examples of the phenomenon but also some others pointing out having seen the same, too.

Perhaps it was because of thinking about all of this -- coupled with a further bit of meditating on “viral” videos and marketing, cut-and-paste emails, “retweeting” on Twitter, etc. -- that I have come up with the first inklings of an idea for a new novel.

It may turn out to be a science fiction story, though the variety of sci-fi that serves to provide a commentary on the “real” world we inhabit. Perhaps even an original one.

Gonna file the idea away for now, though. I have another novel I need to finish first. Besides, I don’t want to get to carried away with explaining the idea here today only to see it a hundred times over elsewhere before I even begin writing.

Tournaments Are Like Short Stories, Cash Games Like Novels

Anybody here remember Squeeze? That cool pop/rock outfit who were part of the group of Beatlesque Brits including Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, XTC, and a few others?

Squeeze had a couple of great songwriters in the group -- Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford -- who often were listed as co-writers of most of their tunes, further encouraging the Beatles comparisons. Jools Holland, the well-known TV host of The Tube (in the 80s) and the long-running Later... with Jools Holland, was there early on, too, and came and went during the band’s career as it stretched out over a couple of decades.

Argybargy (1980) was always my fave Squeeze LP, with East Side Story (1981) a close second. The former is packed with memorable pop nuggets like “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” “Another Nail in My Heart,” “Separate Beds,” among others.

The tune kicking off the second side of my U.S. copy of the record is “If I Didn’t Love You.” (Not sure, but I think the U.K. version might have a different running order.) As the title suggests, the song kind of reflects on a difficult relationship, and includes a great little couplet that inspired the title of this post: “Singles remind me of kisses / Albums remind me of plans.”

Think I’m gonna have to write about Argybargy sometime on my music blog -- 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute -- if I can find the time to do so. Have been busy with a lot else of late, writing-wise, though, including writing more fiction than I have in a good while.

It was last fall that I got my first novel -- Same Difference -- out into the world, although it took a while after that for it finally to become available on Amazon and elsewhere. It’s a detective novel, set in mid-70s New York City, with the story carrying the detective-narrator Richard Owen through a number of different episodes and locales that betray my fascination with ’70s culture and film.

Since then I’ve begun working on a second novel -- not a sequel but a new story with a different set of characters and altogether new setting. Also, as was the case with Same Difference, I am not intending to involve poker in this one, either, although there will be some gambling, I think.

Has been a while since I’ve tried shorter fiction, although I did have a short story ready when Dr. Pauly called on me recently regarding his Truckin’ series. The story is called “Burial Detail” and it’s another hard-boiled-type mystery. If you’re curious, check out the October 2010 issue of Truckin’ and let me know what you think. For those on the fence about whether or not to commit to a whole novel by yr scribblin’ friend, read the story and perhaps that’ll help you decide.

It occurred to me that reading a short story is perhaps not unlike sitting down for a sit-n-go or even a multi-table tournament. That is, you know before you start what sort of time commitment -- often not too considerable -- you’re getting into. And you also pretty much know you will be taking it all of the way to the end, however the end happens to transpire.

Meanwhile, you probably aren’t going to be reading an entire novel at a single sitting. I’ve been told by some who’ve read Same Difference that it does succeed as a “page-turner,” with characters and plot twists that make you want to keep reading. But I doubt anyone would ever read it start to finish without taking a break at some point. In that way, novels might be compared to cash games, where you can come and go as you please.

I say Squeeze made me think of this analogy, but there’s an observation Alfred Hitchcock once made about film adaptation that probably suggested it to me as well. It comes up in Francois Truffaut’s interviews of Hitchcock, where the master of suspense compares the experience of watching a movie to reading.

“A film cannot be compared to a play or novel,” says Hitchcock. “It is closer to a short story, which, as a rule, sustains one idea that culminates when the action has reached the highest point of the dramatic curve. As you know, a short story is rarely put down in the middle, and in this sense it resembles a film. And it is because of this peculiarity that there must be a steady development of the plot and the creation of gripping situations....”

Think about it. A poker tournament “sustains one idea,” that is, the efforts of all to claim every last chip and be the winner. In other words, all of the action or “gripping situations” that happen -- while perhaps meaningful in different ways to the individual players -- necessarily also contribute to that single “point” of it all, i.e., to determine a winner. Thus is the tourney like a short story.

A cash game, meanwhile, might have lots of different “ideas” that interact in complicated ways, depending on the disparate approaches taken to the game by the players. A “theme” might well emerge (e.g., the game is especially “loose”) that perhaps gives some coherence to it all and helps one interpret the various scenes and characters. But in the end, there can be lots of different ideas that come into play before the “action has reached the highest point of the dramatic curve.”

And, importantly, you can always stop in the middle, if you like.

Destination Kiev... and the Book Is Out!

Sorry for the late post today. Was visiting family and grabbing some R & R as I ready for the Kiev trip. I fly on Sunday and arrive Monday.

Will be a lengthy trip, with two stops along the way -- something like 16 hrs. or so of traveling time. One nice aspect of the trip, though, will be that I’ll be flying with my partner in crime, FerricRamsium, who’ll be live blogging the sucker with me next week. Once we’re there, we’ll be meeting up with the rest of the PokerNews crew.

Not sure at the moment which events at EPT Kiev we’ll be covering. Still awaiting word on those specifics. We’ll certainly be covering the Main Event, a 4700 + 300 (EUR) event capped at 600 players. I imagine we might also be blogging the three-day High Rollers event, which sports a hefty 20,000 + 50 (EUR) entry fee. (No need to cap that one.) The full schedule can be seen over on the PokerStars’ EPT site. Also, be sure next week to check in over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page to see whassup.

I mentioned before that while I’ve done some traveling around Europe, and even lived in France for a full year, I’ve never been to Ukraine and thus have only a vague idea what to expect. Vera has been to Kiev before, though it was some time ago. In fact, it was the late 1980s, when Ukraine was part of the yet-to-be-dissolved U.S.S.R.

I know Kiev (or “Kyiv”) is a huge city with a population of more than 2.5 million or something (compares to Chicago). But I’ve still got some reading up to do between now and when I land Monday. I have a few informational items I’ve printed out over the last couple of days I’m taking with me, and may hit the bookstore tonight or tomorrow to see if there happens to be anything on the shelves that might be of use.

Speaking of books...

Big thanks to everyone for the many nice comments on yesterday’s post, esp. with regard to my novel. Actually got a physical copy of the book in the mail today, and it looks terrific. As I mentioned yesterday, I spent some time with the cover design and layout, and I have to say I couldn’t be more happy with it.

Pretty amazing world we live in, really. On Monday I was on here whimpering some about how books have become less and less a part of most peoples’ lives. Monday was also the day that I published my own book. And by Friday I’m holding a copy in my hands! On the one hand, advances in technology have certainly made books less central to how we experience the world. Yet on the other hand, some of those same advances have made it easier than ever to publish a book and make it available for worldwide distribution.

I have looked over the book and have now “approved” it for distribution, but it will apparently still take 6-8 weeks before it shows up over on Amazon (and on other retailers’ sites). You can, however, go ahead and buy a copy through Lulu, if you want, by clicking here. As I was saying yesterday, it is a work of hard-boiled detective fiction, and no there really isn’t any poker in it anywheres.

At some point down the road I might say more here about the novel and maybe even try to promote it a little more conspicuously, but am gonna wait for it to be available on Amazon and elsewhere before I do that. Meanwhile, if you have any questions about it feel free to write me at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

Talk to you again next week -- from the other side of the Atlantic!

The Writer’s Life

  Has been an interesting month here at Hard-Boiled Poker since
  my return home from helping cover the World Series of Poker.

  A couple of weeks ago, I had a regular freelancing gig suddenly
  evaporate. Of course, nothing in the world of freelance writing should be considered regular, so you might call the phrase “regular freelancing” an oxymoron.

Or, alternatively, you might just call the person who uses such a phrase a moron. Won’t hurt my feelings none.

But the fact was this had been a long-term, quite consistent -- not to mention highly enjoyable and productive -- stream of writing assignments that surprisingly went away when the client abruptly decided on a new direction (and some new and different writers). I’ll spare you further details, but I can’t help but share my disappointment both in the decision and (in some respects) how it all has played out.

In any event, all that wondering out loud last spring about possibly moving over into full-time freelancing has been pushed aside for now. Maybe even for good.

Meanwhile, a couple of other sideline jobs have come my way.

The most notable will be my going to Kiev, Ukraine next week to help cover the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour’s first stop of Season 6. No shinola!

You’ll recall how this event was moved to Kiev from Moscow following Russia’s having declassified poker’s status as a sport, thus making it subject to new anti-gambling legislation. Thus did all the poker rooms in Moscow swiftly close, and so Kiev it was.

Have spent considerable time in Europe before, though never made it as far east as Ukraine, so I expect it will all add up to quite an adventure. No idea at present what my access to the web will be like, so if there’s any interruption in the postings next week, you’ll know why.

I know already I will not be following the footsteps of some of my reporter colleagues and making the world traveling thing a primary occupation. But I am definitely looking forward to this trip and taste of what it is like to report on tourneys outside the U.S.

Secondly, once I get back home I’ll again be helping blog the World Championship of Online Poker for PokerStars come September, doing recaps and some live blogging of the WCOOP Main Event. Looking forward to that, too, as I enjoyed doing the same both last spring (for the inaugural SCOOP series) and for last year’s WCOOP.

Finally, I have one other bit of sideline business to report with regard to my writing career. This is kind of exciting, actually.

Some time ago I completed a novel -- a hard-boiled detective novel, natch. (I remember mentioning this in a post once a long time ago, which gives you some idea just how long ago this project has been going on.) Revised the sucker several times and sent it to a few publishers, a couple of whom expressed some interest but ended up not pursuing. Time passed, and after some encouragement from Vera Valmore I revisited the novel one last time, then decided to publish it myself. Went through and gave it a final edit, took some time with the formatting, designed front and back covers, and this week took the plunge and published it over on Lulu.

A review copy is being sent to me now, and I am going to wait until I see it and decide all is well before giving out any further details here about how to get the book. The story is set in New York City during the 1970s, and is pretty obviously influenced by the hard-boiled novels/authors I have listed in my profile here. And while I’m remembering one reference to a card trick in there, the novel has absolutely no poker in it whatsoever.

I realize I should thank everyone who has ever read Hard-Boiled Poker, especially the many who’ve sent along kind words and encouragement with regard to my writing, as that sort of thing certainly helped played a role in my decision to go ahead and push forward with the novel. Kind of satisfying to get it out there (and maybe just a little scary, too). Feel very good about doing so, though, not least because it further encourages me to get going on that second one.

So more on the novel to come. And Kiev. Stay tuned.