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| Interview with Richard Helms author of Joker Poker (publ. 2000) the first book in the Pat Gallegher mystery series. Feature by PJ Nunn. PJ NUNN - Tell us a little bit about JOKER POKER from your perspective (no spoilers!) RICHARD HELMS - Pat Gallegher is a guy who has failed at just about everything he's done. He dropped out of seminary because he couldn’t communicate with God. He quit working as a forensic psychologist after he killed a serial killer who had just murdered his detective partner. He quit teaching college after a co-ed accused him of sexual harassment. After drifting around the country, he ended up "where the road ended" in New Orleans. There, he realized he had a gambling addiction, and wound up deep in debt to a loanshark who forced him to be a collector to work off that debt. With more good years behind him than ahead, he finally found something he could do well. He could find people and things that others presumed lost. So, to salve his guilty conscience over his wasted life and his need to shake down other gambling addicts for overdue vigorish, he does these dangerous favors for friends. Gallegher is the prototypical hardboiled sleuth. He has a set of principles that guides his life. They may be kinda warped, but they're written in stone. He’s chosen to live in New Orleans, perhaps to challenge his code of ethics. If he can manage to live there, do his "favors", and not fall into the clutches of the evil and corruption that surrounds him, he'll be all right. My beliefs come closer to Buddhism than anything else, and Gallegher tends to embody those principles. He lives a life of denial with few possessions. He lives to play music, accepts the compromises he has made as his karma, and just tries to get from one moment to the next. Some moments are better than others. Gallegher tends to be rather appealing to Everyguy, since we all see ourselves sometimes as just floating with the tide, the flotsam of our own lives. Gallegher has no commitments, and for that reason he's free to challenge the evil he sees head-on. Most of us can't afford to do that, so we turn our backs on the evil we see. Gallegher doesn't have to, and that's his attraction. I think we all admire people who set their own boundaries and don't cross them, and there are damned few people like that left in the world. That's what JOKER POKER is about. What inspired you to write JOKER POKER? A dream. That sounds kind of silly, but I dream most of my stories before I write them. Maybe I have just read way too much pulp fiction over the years, but sometimes I go to sleep and I spend the whole night running a single story. If I'm quick and alert, I can write down some of the details before they fade away. Once in a while I dream something great, and I keep it to write later. Do you have another book in the works? Will you go to iUniverse for that one too? I've finished the second and third books in the Pat Gallegher series. The second book VOODOO THAT YOU DO involves Gallegher becoming ensnared in a conflict between the Sicilian and Vietnamese mobs in the Quarter. The third book JUICY WATUSI may upset some of the hardcore hardboiled fans, as it is a serial murder story. I promise, though that it is the only one I will ever write. I’ve also started a new series, set in San Francisco, involving a real PI named Eamon Gold. I hope to finish the first book in that series in about a year. Will I go to iUniverse? I don't know. Like anyone else, I'd love to get one of those big contracts with Random or Warner. I plan to market the second book heavily to anyone who'll read it, but if it comes down to it, I wouldn't mind working with iUniverse again. I have found them to be professional, courteous, helpful, prompt, and very supportive. How did you select iUniverse as your publisher of choice? I first wrote JOKER POKER around 1996, found an agent in 1997, then forgot it. Two years later, after I’d finished the second book in the series, JOKER POKER still hadn't sold, and my agent and I agreed to part ways. I rewrote parts of the book, retitled it and in November 1999, decided on the Writer's Showcase program at iUniverse to be assured of editorial services at least. If JOKER POKER was selected for publishing, it would be because someone thought it was marketable. The Writer's Showcase program really helps take the "taint" of self-publishing out of the mix. I submitted the book to iUniverse.com, and four weeks later it was accepted for the program. There's a lot of discussion on the Internet about POD publishing. How do you like it? One of the biggest drawbacks to POD is the problem with returning unsold stock. This is a really antiquated system, where the store takes almost no risk in ordering, and the publisher assumes all the risk. It's totally backward, and I am amazed that the publishers have allowed it to go on this long. As it is, Ingram can fulfill a POD order now as quickly as it can a warehoused order. The publishers will take their production budgets and stash some of it away, and use the rest to transform the promotion/publicity machine into a real behemoth. Titles will be touted for two to three months before they come out, including sample chapters. Bookstores will have to decide what to order based on sales potential because there will be no returns. POD is a great way for a new writer to get published. One of the main reasons I never self-published was because of the cost involved. POD offers a relatively risk-free way to produce a fairly high-quality trade paperback. Promotion becomes the job of the author. Is anyone going to sell a million copies of a POD book? Probably not. But the right people will get it. Who is the REAL Richard Helms, the writer? Kind of like Douglas Adams' Zaphod Beeblebrox. The real Richard Helms is just Rick to his friends, spent four years after high school as an actor/singer/dancer, did some radio announcing, taught learning disabled kids to read, washed dishes in a couple of restaurants, switched majors in college about eight times, drove racing cars for 28 years, is an amateur astronomer and astrophotograper, is learning how to make violins and guitars from scratch, is a specialist in the assessment and treatment of sex offenders, is a gourmet cook, loves classic jazz, adores old movies, reads everything he can get his hands on, and has incidentally, written nine books. He's also a bit of an insomniac, a romantic, and a bit of a chronic depressive. And if there wasn't this wonderful magic land called San Francisco out there he'd be content to spend the rest of his life in his rural North Carolina. What advice do you have for those who are still in the pre-publishing stages of writing? Never write a word on paper until it is able to write itself. Otherwise, it all sounds forced and unreal. Eavesdrop on conversations, and listen for the rhythms and cadence of real speech. Then, when it can write itself, sit down at the computer and let it fall out. If you are young, get a life. The best writing is a recapitulation of your own experience. Writing without understanding reads badly. You have to be at peace with yourself before you can express your feelings, beliefs, and attitudes on paper. To do that, you have to know yourself. That doesn't come easy. Sometimes, it doesn't come at all. The best writing I've read lately is coming from writers over the age of fifty. Why? They have this life to draw on that can only be gained by living it. By all means, write in the interim so you can learn the mechanics and find your voice, but don't plan to write anything interesting until you have more years behind you than ahead. Be ready and willing to leave your best stuff on the floor. Sometimes, you write a paragraph so brilliant that it has to be cut. Keep it in your personal admiration file, pull it out and read it from time to time to remind yourself that you can write incredible stuff, but don't leave it in the story. Finally, don't let tanyone get you down. Writing is tough. There aren't five people in a hundred who can do it well, and I'm not certain yet that I'm one of them. It doesn't help that there are bean counters out there who are all too willing to tell you that your writing isn't any good, when what they really mean is that it doesn't fit their marketing strategy. If you can't convince an editor somewhere to publish your masterpiece, then find some other way to get it into print. If what you have written is true and artful, and if you meant every word of it, then it will find an audience. The right people will like it. |
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