Confronting the Past

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Whodunnit? Is a classic question in crime fiction. It’s so classic that our books are often called whodunnits. But every mystery author will tell you—it’s not only the who. It’s the—all together now: Why. We write whydunnits, right? Because that’s what’s interesting and compelling. And in exploring the whydunnit for his new book—the talented/hilarious/adorable/surprising Simon Wood found out something about himself.

I Thought I was Fine

                  by Simon Wood

The emotional fuel that stokes my new book, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, is survivor guilt, which is one symptom of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For my research into this topic, I had a series of long meetings with a psychologist at the VA.  Like all my research projects, I entered the room with a bunch of preconceptions about a subject that got thoroughly turned on their head after a couple of minutes.

One symptom of survivor guilt is the desire to recreate the circumstances of the original trauma—either directly or indirectly.  The reasons for this behavior are two-fold.  One part is to get a second crack at that traumatic moment and hope for a better outcome.  The second part is more self-destructive.  Guilt is caused by surviving something others did not, so the survivor puts themselves back in the firing line with the subconscious hope that they won’t survive – since losing is the only penance they can make. 

Listening to the psychologist illustrate his points, a sense of unease washed over me.  It was all starting to sound eerily familiar.  Rather than stay quiet, I decided to share something personal.

Twenty years ago, I’d been in an incident where I’d walked away unscathed while someone else didn’t.  The event changed me, and my life.  I quit my steady job and took a less stable one, I bought a racecar, I learned to fly, I traveled to unsafe countries and I skydived—all in the space of a few months. 

In some ways, if it hadn’t been for that incident, I wouldn’t be in the US today and I never would have become a writer.  I explained all this to the psychologist and he asked me to explain the character change.  The incident had taught me a couple of lessons.  One, I was living a stressful life that I wasn’t particularly enjoying.  Two, life could end at any moment and I didn’t want regret not doing the things I wanted to do.  Essentially, I started living life like it was my last day.

It all seemed reasonable at the time, but as the psychologist pointed out, all the life changes I made were dangerous—the racecars, the flying, the skydiving, the travel, the job, etc.  Every one of them put me in harm’s way. In most cases, I involved myself in endeavors that could cost me my life at the very worst or ruin my financial stability at the very least.

That was a wakeup call, because I hadn’t ever thought of my behavior in those terms.  To me, everything I had done at the time had been justified.  I was following my dreams and passions and nothing else mattered.  I believed in what I was doing wholeheartedly, regardless of whether it met everyone else's norms. The psychologist asked me if I ever thought of what I was doing as dangerous and reckless.  I said no.  

Truly, I didn’t.  I was on a quest to discover what life held in store for me.  I was conscious of what had happened and that it was driving me, but I thought I was on a heroic journey–not a self-destructive one.  Looking back on it now, it was reckless and self-absorbed behavior.  Another aspect of PTSD.

This was quite a telling moment for me and the development of the book.  I had believed what I was doing after my incident was normal and justified.  I really felt that there was nothing wrong with me on a conscious level.    If that was true of me, then it was also true of my heroine, Zoë Sutton, and my villain, Marshal Beck.  Their behaviors are damaged.  The world sees it, but they don’t.  Both of them feel what they're doing is just. For me, that’s when the story took on a life of its own as I knew how to treat these characters.  We might not agree with their methods but hopefully we can see their struggles and understand them.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  It’s how our past creates our future, right? Who’s had PTSD experiences—on any level?  Simon’s in California, so he’ll be here when the time zone allows!

*****************

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

Graduate students Zoë and Holli only mean to blow off some steam on their road trip to Las Vegas. But something goes terribly wrong on their way home, and the last time Zoë sees her, Holli is in the clutches of a sadistic killer. Zoë flees with her life, changed forever.

A year later and still tortured with guilt, Zoë latches on to a police investigation where the crime eerily resembles her abduction. Along with a zealous detective, she retraces the steps of that fateful night in the desert, hoping that her memory will return and help them find justice for Holli. Her abductor—labeled the “Tally Man” by a fascinated media—lies in wait for Zoë. For him, she is not a survivor but simply the one that got away.

Simon Wood is a California transplant from England. He's a former competitive racecar driver, a licensed pilot, an endurance cyclist and an occasional PI. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and four cats. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper, Terminated, Asking For Trouble, We All Fall Down and the Aidy Westlake series. His latest thriller is THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY due out March '15. He also writes horror under the pen name of Simon Janus. Curious people can learn more at http://www.simonwood.net.

SIMON WOOD--AN OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Here at Jungle Red we are celebrating a

RED, white, and blue 4th of July with a few words from a chap from the other side of the Pond--those folks that, um, were the losers in the victory we're honoring with all those pop-pop-pop fireworks. But we're all the best of mates now, right?

Here's Jungle Red friend, award-winning author, and BRIT Simon Wood to give us--

An Outside Perspective

I’ve been living in the States for fifteen years and while I know how America works, I still consider myself an outsider. I have done my best to assimilate (in a futile attempt not to embarrass myself in public) but there's only so far I can go. The problem is although I’ve spent a third of my life in the US, my cultural touchstones, my social sensibilities and dare I say it, even my sense of humor is hardwired into where I was raised—Britain. Naturally, I‘m going to see things a little differently from the average American. Things you people might take for granted may take me a moment to adjust to. For example, the US is very security-conscious. Picture ID is required for just about everything. Nothing is taken on trust, which I miss. But when it comes to mail delivery, everyone is happy to have it shoved in a tin box on a wooden stick that anyone can gain access to, which is something I’m not okay with.

And being an English person in the US makes me somewhat of a rarity. I’m not the kind of foreigner that Americans expect to come across and that creates some interesting dynamics. Waitresses hang on my every word—much to my wife’s chagrin. But on a more serious note, my being English has diffused awkward situations as well as kicked off intense conversations on everything from politics to culture. I got into a long talk with a black guy about race in America where he told me I was “white” but not “white American”. My non-Americanness took the heat out of the discussion and he talked to me in a way I don’t think he could have had with anyone American born, because he saw me as an outsider. I’ve had conversations with people about politics, religion, sport and every other hot button topic you can imagine, but every time, the tone changes when they talk to me. Somehow, my being English makes me neutral, so people open up on neutral terms.
I’ll be honest. I like being an outsider because I see oddities that I’m not sure I would see if I had been born here. I used this sensibility for my first book, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN. I thought the practice of selling life insurance on the living was kind of hinky, but it was perfectly legal. But something I hadn’t done was to write a book from an outsider’s point of view—until now. My new book, NO SHOW, features Terry Sheffield, an Englishman on his first day in America. What should be the start of an amazing new life with his American wife goes immediately off the rails when she isn't at the airport to pick him up. When it becomes apparent that his wife is missing, he searches for her while navigating his way through a country he neither knows nor understands. The book is the first in a series featuring Terry, giving me the chance to explore crime in America seen through the eyes of an outsider. I think it’ll be eye-opening for Americans and non-Americans alike.

The only problem I see is the longer long I live in the States, the more I’ll lose my naivety of all things American, which means I’ll have move somewhere else. Sorry, rest of the world.

DEBS: A former racecar driver, licensed pilot, animal rescuer, endurance cyclist, and occasional private eye, Simon Wood is also an accomplished author with more than 150 published stories and articles under his belt. His mystery fiction, which has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, has earned him both the prestigious Anthony Award and a CWA Dagger Award nomination. In addition to No Show, his books include Accidents Waiting to Happen, Working Stiffs, Asking for Trouble, Paying the Piper, We All Fall Down, and Terminated. Originally from England, he lives in California with his wife, Julie. People can learn more at www.simonwood.net. and you can find No Show here.  

(I've already bought it... couldn't resist such a great premise!)

From all of us at JUNGLE RED, here's wishing you a safe and relaxing 4th of July, with a little time to read a good book.

And do drop in and say "hi" to Simon. We wouldn't want him to feel left out of the fun, now would we?

Is Simon Wood Completely Bonkers?

HANK: Okay, so listen to this.

Let's say you wanted to write a crime fiction novel. What would you do? Short version: You'd get a computer, or a pad of paper, think of a story, write it down somehow, and hope a publisher buys it.

But not our Simon.

He has an idea---and he: writes a book, called LOWLIFES. So far, so typical. But then with a collaborator, he also does a short film. And a blog. And a whole bunch of other stuff. And then readers/viewers are supopsed to read/view all of it in whatever order, getting different secrets and insights and viewpoints from different parts. Put it all together, and...

Okay, my head is hurting. But it's brilliant. And trust me, Reds, this is the future. And it's called Transmedia. Simon Wood is here to explain it all!

HANK: Whoa. Tell us about your new project. Most authors just..write a book…

SIMON WOOD: LOWLIFES is a collaboration between filmmaker, Robert Pratten, and me, where we tell a story from different character points of view using various media. The book tells the story from point of view of the protagonist, a San Francisco Police Inspector.


The short film gives the viewpoint of a PI investigating the cop.


The fictional blog catalogs the thoughts and feelings of the cop’s estranged wife.


In the print edition, there's a secret short story told from the point of a view of a street preacher which can be accessed QR codes and the story emailed to your cell phone. The trendy term for this new kind of storytelling is transmedia.

HANK: Like I said. Whoa. (What's a QR code? Anyone? Anyone? Am I incredibly OLD? Oh--quick response. Yay for research. ) Sounds like 3-d chess. How did you guys work all this out? Were you and Robert Pratten pals? How did it evolve?

SIMON: I met Robert in Phoenix in 2003 at a conference when he was screening his first film and we stayed in touch ever since. Robert approached me about a year ago with the idea for multimedia story set in San Francisco’s tenderloin district. He gave me brief character profiles for the principal characters and the initial scenario of a cop investigating himself and his possible involvement in the death of a homeless man.

HANK: . Which came first? Or did you build each part as it went along and finish all at the same time?

SIMON: I am one of those people who tries to do everything at once, but I wrote the book first, the movie script second and the blog third. However, I did outline all three storylines before I wrote anything so that I knew how all three stories would intersect. As I completed each part, I handed them off to Robert for comment and edit. So there were a few changes made and gave Robert free reign to interpret my movie script any way he wanted when it came to imagery and filming locations.

HANK: . Yikes. I mean, yikes. Does each part make sense without the other part? Do you read and see them serially, or all at the same time?

SIMON: Robert’s main instruction was that each individual piece could be read as a standalone piece, but when read/watched in conjunction, the combined pieces would give a much fuller telling of the story. Our primary aim was to avoid filming scenes directly lifted from the book or blog and vice versa.

HANK: Transmedia. I'm thinking about this. Did working this way change the way your brain works? (It's making my head hurt...)

SIMON: Yes, it changed how my brain worked. I’m used to writing multiple points of view in my novels, so having differing perspectives to tell a story wasn’t a problem. The brain stretching came when to telling the story for different media. This was the first time I’d written a script and I hadn’t appreciated telling a story visually. Even the dialog had to be written in a way that would inspire or assist Robert with the filming. The blog was different again because it’s written in a very conversation style and at the same time, there's a confessional quality to it. At times, it did make my head hurt. To make all the individual pieces work took a lot of planning.

HANK: Forgive me, but...how do people buy this? Talk a little about marketing and promotion.

SIMON: http://www.lowlifes.tv/ is a dedicated website where people can experience the various facets of the story. Right now, we’re releasing it as a serial for free. Each day, a chapter from the book, a movie episode and/or entry from the blog will come available. People can sign up to receive the excerpts. If people don’t want to wait, they can buy the book, the DVD or download the book from Amazon, etc. There are links on the website.

HANK: What's been the reaction?

SIMON: It’s early days, but good so far. A couple of publishers interested to see how the concept develops. Someone else expressed interest in putting Lowlifes out as a complete interactive book. Readers are just getting to grips with it. Robert and I hope people respond well to "the Lowlifes" because we have a bunch of storylines we’d like to explore featuring these characters.

HANK: So...here's a question with an answer I know I'll understand. Whats the basic story?








SIMON: Lowlifes centers on Larry Hayes, a San Francisco Police Detective. He's lost his family to divorce and he's clinging to his career by a thread. All this stems from a painkiller addiction he can’t kick that he picked up from an on-the-job injury. He thinks his life has already hit rock bottom, but there's another level for Hayes to fall as he finds out when he wakes up in an alley after a bad trip with no memory of the last four hours.


He thinks this is the wakeup call he needs to turn his life around, his problems intensify when he receives a call from a homicide inspector. Hayes' informant, a homeless man named Noble Jon, lies dead two blocks away, beaten and stabbed. The eerie pang of guilt seeps into Hayes. During his lost four hours, he's been in a fight. His knuckles are bruised and there's blood under his fingernails.


Is he Jon's killer? The mounting evidence says so. To add insult to injury, his wife has employed a PI to dig up dirt on him to ensure she gets sole custody of their daughter. Hayes mounts an off-the-books investigation and disappears amongst the city’s homeless community to stay one step ahead of a murder charge.


HANK: SO. A blog, a book and a movie. Amazing. And there's also an interactive Game! Click HERE to play....and remember. You heard it here first.

What do you mean that's not my sign?

JAN: Have you heard the latest? They've completely revised the astrological chart.

Apparently since the Babylonians plotted zodiac signs according to birthdate and which the constellation the sun was "in," our planet's alignment has altered. Over the years, the moon's gravitational pull has caused the Earth to wobble on its axis. This created about one month deviation in the stars' alignment. (this reported in StarTribune.Com)

In other words, when astrologers used to say the "sun" was "in" Pisces or Aries, they often were "off" by a couple of weeks. This could be just one reason why NOTHING they said was going to happen in my life actually happened.

But rest easy, corrections are being made. Dates have been changed, a new constellation has been employed, and a 13th sign of the zodiac created: Ophiuchus, or Serpentarious, the serpent holder, is now wedged in between the old Scorpio and Sagittarious signs.

My daughter, who alerted me to this important news development, was excited because she's no longer a Sagittarius but a Ophiuchus. She's happy about this because the new definition of traits (which if you reread carefully could be applied to anyone) predicts a career as doctor of medicine, and she just happens to be applying to medical school.

But I found myself really disturbed. I am no longer an Aries but a Pisces. What? I've spent my entire life trying to be headstrong and strident, and now I'm supposed to be wishy washy?

Sure its balderdash, but it's balderdash that I took pretty seriously when I was say, 13 or 14 and trying to figure out who I was. I was ruled by MARS that's who I was, a bullheaded ram not a freaking ideological FISH.

Plus the book my girlfriend had on the Zodiac, which became our eighth grade bible, was written by an author unabashedly biased in favor of fire signs. So of course, I liked being a "fire" sign, which helped explain why I wasn't such a great swimmer and helped to justify all my swearing at my brothers.

But even as a grownup, I took an odd satisfaction in the fact that both my children were fire signs (Leo and Sagitarious) as if that were critical to our relationship. Now that my daughterï has been redefined as a Ophiuchus, that's shot to hell.

So here's the link to check out your own birthdate and new Zodiac sign. http://the-red-thread.net/ophiuchus2.html Does s this shake anyone else's self image? Or if you can you adapt?

HALLIE: ACK! I've always been a happy swimmy Pisces, secure in the knowledge that I shared that sign with Elizabeth Taylor. Now it turns out I'm Aquarius? How can this be? I mean, that's patently absurd. Can you say: Nonsense!

JAN: Cheer up, Hallie, maybe Elizabeth Taylor has be reassigned, too.

ROBERTA: Oh no you don't...this is totally unacceptable! I've been a Capricorn all my life--stable, ambitious, dogged, a lover of the color brown--no way I can adjust to a new sign now! Some of my friendships are entirely based on sharing the Capricorn sign--just think what might happen if we all had to slide over to Sagitarious...

RHYS: Interesting. I've never felt myself to be a true Libra. That love of balance and seeing both sides.. you should have observed me during the healthcare debate. No Libra in evidence there. But I'm certainly not, pardon the expression, a Virgo. My daughter is one and is all sweetness and light and flowing garments. Maybe I could have drifted into Scorpio--yes, I do have a sting in my tail, I suspect.And my best friend, who can read my mind, is one. Ah, so maybe there's some truth after all. But I don't want my husband to stop being a Sagitarius and become an Ophi-whatsit. No way!

JAN: If I could get the flowing garments, I might consider switching to Virgo.

ROSEMARY: I don't know why I care...but I do. I am not Ophiuchus - which sounds like a skin disease - interpreter of dreams, vivid premonitions, tax assessor, snake charmer, highest fame and legend coming after death and worst of all -

wearer of plaid.

I am Sagittarius - straight shooter, strong thighs. OTOH I don't mind the part about attracting good luck and fruitful blessings, a seeker of peace and harmony, intuitive.

HANK: Oh, please, certainly, I'm probably a perfect Libra. I'm a reporter, right? Fair, balanced, searching for justice and truth, flexible, tolerant, mediator, peacemaker, able to see both sides of anything . You know, to the nth degree, to the degree of having to discuss everything up one side and down the other. And being able to see eerything as a possibility. It's a good thing, pretty much, well, most of the time. I've alwys been comfortable as really, the semi-predictably indecisively decisive Libra. (You know, pretty much. But I could see how it might happen another way...) But now they wanna make me a VIRGO? A perfectionist, prissy, critical Virgo? Well, okay, it could happen. But isn't that a perfect Libra response??

JAN: It is a perfect Libra response, Hank. Which makes it unanimous. We reject this new astrological chart on very practical, logical grounds. I predict an international ground swell of protest. A new quasi-political/or is it philosophical movement. Stick-in-the-Original-Signs Unite! Anyone else want to join us?

Please come back tomorrow, when I talk about robberies gone bad, and Wednesday, when Hank interviews Simon Wood.

Catching Stories That Fall Through The Cracks

By Simon Wood

I like basing my fiction on real events, but headline stories rarely inspire me. They're too public. Too visible. The public is keenly aware of them and by the time they make it into fiction they're blasé. I’m always mining for stories featuring life’s oddities that fly so low under the radar we miss them. The unusual business of buying and selling other people’s life insurance policies was the inspiration for ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN. The suicides of three coworkers sparked WE ALL FALL DOWN.

The odd and obscure play a part in my latest book, TERMINATED, which focuses on workplace violence. In the USA, twenty people will die this week at their place of work at the hands of a violent act. That’s right—twenty people. Some will die as the result of a killer entering a place of work while the others will fall prey to a violent coworker. Either way, that’s a scary statistic. I’m quite glad I work from home where the greatest threat to me is a green cheese sandwich at the back of the fridge that I’ve been too afraid to dispose of.

That statistic wasn’t the inspiration for the book. Instead, the precautions some firms are taking to combat workplace violence is what grabbed my attention. Some firms are employing private security companies to investigate, avert and defuse threats from violent employees. The reason for this is simple—the cost. When you tot up the cost of lawsuits, rehiring, loss of productivity, not to mention the harm done to employees, private security firms are quite a cost effective solution to a potentially dangerous outcome. I couldn’t ignore this wild situation. It had novel written all over it.

And because I’m a devious little so and so, I wasn’t interested in exploring how industry is involving private security firms in their daily affairs (and it has nothing to do with no one willing to talk to me about it). I’m sure I could make a fun story about private security operatives going all out to protect a threatened employee. No, I was more interested in how the best-laid plans can be meant to protect us, but at the end of the day, the only person who can save us is ourselves.

So in TERMINATED, Gwen is the rising star at her firm, but her employee, Stephen Tarbell resents her success along with everything else others achieve in this world. What makes Gwen the focus of Tarbell’s ire is a poor rating on his performance evaluation. The systems in place to protect Gwen fail, forcing her to take matters into her own hands. While this might seem like a minor thing to take umbrage over, it’s not. My research into workplace violence uncovered amazing motives why some coworkers have come to blows. All I can say is watch what you say to the person in the next cubicle. Think about that when you send a snotty email to the guy that snatched your tuna on rye from the staff lunchroom.

So TERMINATED is in the bag and I’m in search of another quirky news story for my next book—and I think I’ve found one. What would you do to keep a wayward spouse in line—and how much would you pay?

Yours with my arms out for the next story to fall,

Simon Wood

ROBERTA: Thanks for a look into your devious mind today Simon! Simon is the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. As Simon Janus, he's the author of The Scrubs and Road Rash. His latest thriller, Terminated, is out in mass paperback. He's standing by for comments and questions!

Another guest hunk, Simon Wood

Jungle Red: We are happy to introduce Friday's guest hunk, Simon Wood. He's an ex-racecar driver, a licensed pilot and an occasional private investigator. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and five cats. He's had over 150 stories and articles published. His stories have been included in "Best of" anthologies and he's a frequent contributor to Writer's Digest. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. As Simon Janus, he's the author of The Scrubs and the forthcoming, Road Rash. His latest book is a self-help called, Will Marry for Food, Sex and Laundry, written under the pen name, Simon Oaks. We asked him if he could try to explain the zigzags his path has taken and he agreed! Take it away Simon...

Simon: My latest book is WILL MARRY FOR FOOD, SEX AND LAUNDRY. It’s a love and relationship book which makes it a departure from my usual fare as a thriller and horror writer. Seeing as relationships can be a thrill ride and more than a little scary, it may not be that big a departure.

When it comes to writing, I’m quite gregarious (wrong word). I don’t write what I know. I write what I love and because of that, my writing taste is all over the place. I love writing mysteries, thrillers, horror, supernatural, humor and essays. It was my essays that led to me writing FOOD, SEX AND LAUNDRY. An editor Adam’s Media had been reading my weekly columns over at Murderati.com and contacted me. They'd been looking for someone to write a relationship book but they wanted a different perspective. They wanted someone with a quirky and down to earth viewpoint. I think these traits were supposed to be complementary. Together, we thrashed out an outline for the book and it was off to the races.

The book was a little daunting to write because unlike fiction, I couldn’t make stuff up. But I’m a very empirical person. I blame my engineering background. I needed to collect raw data to make an opinion, so I held a couple of parties for friends and interviewed them on their relationship experiences on various topics. One thing people have no problem discussing is their dating train wrecks. I also looked up a number of studies and surveys on various issues. This gave me everything I needed for the book. Naturally, the book gave me the opportunity to inject my brand of humor into it, something I don’t get to do in my fiction.

I wrote the book under the pen name Simon Oaks, because it doesn’t have a correlation to my novel career or my current readers. This isn’t the first time I’ve written under a pen name. My thrillers and mysteries have been written under my name Simon Wood and I now write horror and fantasy as Simon Janus. The reason for the pen names my writing taste is so far and wide, my readers tend to fall into distinct pockets where there isn’t much in the way of crossover. I don’t make a secret of my identities, but it’s very clear that if someone picks up a Simon Wood book or a Simon Oaks book, they know exactly what they're getting.

Because I love to write and love exploring different types of genres, I wouldn’t be surprised if I pick up a couple other identities along the way. My big hope is that FOOD, SEX AND LAUNDRY will be the platform that will allow me to write some quirky romantic comedies that have been bouncing around in my head.

Yours ever changing,
Simon Wood/Janus/Oaks (delete where applicable)

Jungle Red: Thank you Simon! And since all three of you are here:), we now welcome all kinds of questions--questions about writing mysteries or horror, and of course, marrying for laundry!