It has been my great pleasure to work with screenwriter turned crime fiction author Mike McCrary on a couple of projects. The first manuscript I edited for him, Remo Went Rogue, is a powerhouse story that revolves around an attorney who decides to steal from a couple of his clients, figuring he could get away with it if they “ended up” in jail. Yeah…that doesn’t exactly go as planned, much to Remo’s misfortune and the reader’s pleasure. I thought it was fantastic, and had a lot of fun working on it with him.
While Mike was waiting to hear back on submissions for Remo, we tackled a balls-out actioner called Getting Ugly, in which a slew of badass people are all trying to get the man known as Big Ugly. Easier said than done, as you don’t get the moniker “Big Ugly” because you have a charming personality. This one Mike decided to go ahead and release on his own, and I encourage you to give it a whirl.
Along the way, Mike has dropped in here for a couple of guest posts. In the first, “How’s the Writing Going?,” Mike tackled that dreaded question writers face from well-meaning friends and family, and why you can’t really give the real answer: “It’s like sucking on a horrific, angst-ridden, self-mutilation cocktail with a sweaty, toothless whacko at the end of the bar winking her good eye at me.”
He followed that up with “Clowns, Aimless Babble and Snot-Slinging Drunk,” in which he mercilessly skewers that old writing chestnut, write what you know. As he points out:
If you were raised by wolves, kicked a smack habit at age seven, roamed the globe as a circus clown, then graduated Yale before serving as a SEAL, then yes, absolutely, write what you know. If you’re like a lot of us, raised in a lower to upper middle class home, stumbled through life before ending up in a shitty job?
Do. Not. Write. What. You. Know.
Give his guest posts a read and you’ll see that Mike’s undeniably a very talented guy, with a great sense of humor and perspective on the writing process.
So, I was extremely happy for Mike when I received an email from him a couple of months ago informing me that Remo Went Rogue had been picked up by Gutter Books (ISBN: 978-0615922157), and I enthusiastically point you in the direction of picking up a copy now that it is officially out. I am biased, however, I admit. So you don’t have to take my word for it, these guys sure know what the hell they’re talking about:
“Remo Went Rogue is a fast-paced, cinematic, and viciously dark novel that caught me completely off guard and left me wanting more. Mike McCrary is definitely a writer to watch.” – John Rector (Out of the Black)
“Either somebody set Chuck Palahniuk and Elmore Leonard up on a blind date or we have a new mad genius on our hands. Mike McCrary delivers a mini-pulp masterpiece with prose that pounds with the best of ’em, and a character in Remo Cobb so wickedly lovable you’ll want to name your first born after him. As far as I’m concerned, crime fiction just got kicked in the balls.” – Peter Farris (Last Call for the Living)
Congratulations, Mike!
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