When I was young I was in a band. I know, I know, who wasn’t? I was the guy by the microphone stand, hitting A-chords and holding my right hand up in the air while I shouted the lyrics. The glory-whore in need of endless attention. I was also the principal songwriter in the group. It was supposedly my forte (‘cause God knows I could barely play that guitar.) Back then, people always said, “You’d make a great writer. Your songs can really tell a story.” Some of the time I believed them. Now, people say, “Com’on, Tom. You were a songwriter; it’s got to easy to write a book.”
I’m not sure why people have always assumed such a connection between the two. It’s a little like saying, “Hey, you’re a painter, you’ve got to be good a making pastries.” The two are mutually exclusive. There is a fundamental difference in how one approaches either task.
Music, lyrically speaking, is made up of word-play. Catchy phrasing that sounds somehow familiar to the ear. Lyrics that, when shadowed with a double entendre, can take a commonplace idiom and twist it to give it a profound relevance. Need examples? Look no further than any country song. Country music is rife with puns and word-play. Them good ol’ boys take it to the extreme. Thank you George Jones for lines like, “I’ve learned to stand on my own two knees,” or Charlie Pride’s more subtle, “She’s too good to be true.” You know who else is masterful at that stuff? Elvis Costello, a craftsman whose examples are too many to list. (Okay, just one, “I’d step on the brakes to get out of her clutches.”) Don’t get me started on puns for album names either, from Rubber Soul to Aladdin Sane, the examples are endless.
“I’ve never been smart enough to know when to quit.” – Terry Quinn
In my opinion, there’s only one thing more important to an artist than following your dream: the manner in which you go about it.
I may write books of no redeeming social value like my latest release, Bombshell. But I think crime fiction, even written with a sense of humor and some romance, should still be accurate. I’m always ‘investigating,’ attempting to learn something, anything, that will make my books a little more realistic. My books are all set in Minnesota, usually in my hometown of St. Paul. 
The past twelve months were a very busy reading and reviewing year for me. Though I’m sure a few slipped through the cracks and didn’t get counted, in looking back at my records it appears I read 192 books (novels, novellas, and collections) this year, and reviewed 116 of those.
During my early teens, I subsisted on a steady diet of noir. Apparently that’s what happens when you never get into video games. I knew where it came from and, more importantly, thought I knew what it was all about: gritty settings, hard stories, down-and-out characters, witty dialogue, cool guys in fedoras, and a dash of violence. Tough, hard-drinking men who punched hard, didn’t take lip from anyone, and weren’t afraid to pull their gun out were a sine qua non element of the books I devoured. A few years later, I didn’t know what noir was anymore. That’s when things got interesting. 
“Until the blood starts to flow, it’s always a people situation.” – Everett
“Have you ever wanted to burn down your own home?”
