And the Bald-Faced Lie, er, Creative Writing Is...

Last week I took part in one of those internet things where you're supposed to tell some outrageous lies about yourself and slip in one true thing.

In my case the true thing would have stuck out too easily because I've never had anything really outrageous happen to me in my life so instead I listed six things that have happened in my books -- five which were based on actual incidents and one I completely made up.

In case you missed them, here they are:

1) Eight members of a motorcycle gang were murdered in one night on a farm northwest of Toronto.

2) An out of commission brewery just north of Toronto was turned into one of the world's biggest indoor marijuana grow ops with fifteen people working in it.

3) There is one golf course in Afghanistan and when the Taliban were driven out and it reopened a local shephard walked his flock on it for two weeks to make sure the land mines had all been removed before play resumed.

4) A Great Lakes freighter was turned into a giant, floating grow op and meth lab.

5) Eight senior members of the Toronto Police narcotics division were arrested on charges of corruption, drug dealing and violating witnesses' rights by RCMP officers brought in by the chief and after years of legal manouvering none were convicted of anything.

6) There really is a "Hobbyist Review Board" site online where men who visit prostitutes (which they refer to as "the hobby") review the women's services like restaurant reviews.


And the one that I completely made up is....



4) A Great Lakes freighter was turned into a giant, floating grow op and meth lab.

Although I shold say that while I was doing the research and finding out how much it would cost to leas a freighter, hire a captain and crew, get contracts to haul ore or salt around the lakes and fit out the cargo holds I started to wonder, is this a novel or a business plan?

I don't suppose if someone actually turns a freighter into a giant floating frow op and meth lab I could sue them, but if they get busted I might get some publicity.

Bald-Faced Liar - er, Creative Writer

Mike Dennis has pegged me to take part in the Bald-Faced Liar (no wait, “Creative Writer”) Blogger Award.

So, here it is:

• Thanks, Mike, for asking.
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate some more “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.


All right, but I'm going to change things up a little. The thing is, I live an uneventful, boring, very happy life so anything I wrote that was "outrageous" would be a lie and everyone who knows me would know that.

I've always been that way. When I was a kid I liked sports but I was never good enough to get in the game much so I spent a lot of time on the bench, honing my keen observational skills. It may be like that for a lot of writers, what we're good at is watching things, figuring them out and explaining them to other people.

So, what I'm going to do is list six things that happen in my books. Five of them will be based on true stories I got from the newspaper and one will be something I completely made up. Okay? Here we go:

1) Eight members of a motorcycle gang were murdered in one night on a farm northwest of Toronto.

2) An out of commission brewery just north of Toronto was turned into one of the world's biggest indoor marijuana grow ops with fifteen people working in it.

3) There is one golf course in Afghanistan and when the Taliban were driven out and it reopened a local shephard walked his flock on it for two weeks to make sure the land mines had all been removed before play resumed.

4) A Great Lakes freighter was turned into a giant, floating grow op and meth lab.

5) Eight senior members of the Toronto Police narcotics division were arrested on charges of corruption, drug dealing and violating witnesses' rights by RCMP officers brought in by the chief and after years of legal manouvering none were convicted of anything.

6) There really is a "Hobbyist Review Board" site online where men who visit prostitutes (which they refer to as "the hobby") review the women's services like restaurant reviews.


Okay, there you go. If even one of those was true I'd say we live in a bizarre world, but really five of them are true.

Now I'm going to tag:
Jay Stringer, Dana King, Scott Parker, Bryon Quertermous, Steve Weddle and Keith Rawson.

Let It Ride - Available Today in the USA

My third novel, Let It Ride (which is called Swap in Canada) is published today in the USA by St. Martins Press and I want to thank everyone who helped make it possible. My family, my friends, the folks at St. Martins and ECW - it really takes a lot of peope to get a book from vague idea to finished product.

As I've said before, if I listed everyone who helped on an acknowledgements "page" it would be as long as the book.

I posted a little from the first chapter on Do Some Damage today.

The Bridge - March 5th - 9:00

CTV announced yesterday that the two-hour premiere of The Bridge will air Friday, March 5th at 9:00 and the show will then run Fridays at 10:00.




From the CTV website:

The Bridge peels away the veneer of a big-city police force to reveal the political machinations underneath. After the rank and file unanimously vote street cop Frank Leo (Battlestar Galactica's Aaron Douglas) into office as union head, he begins his quest to put street cops first and clean up the force from the ground up. But the old boys' network running the police force and the city's self-serving politicians are not about to sit idly by while a former street cop makes up his own rules. Frank walks a thin blue line as he battles wiretaps and a concerted campaign to bring him down, letting nothing stop him from fulfilling his unwavering vow that when cops are in trouble, he will be there.


The show looks great. I think the episode that I co-wrote with Dannis Koromilas will be episode number 4 or 5 and the episode I wrote (crooked cops running hookers - it was ripped from the headlines, or like my stuff usually is, ripped from the weird news on page six) will be number eight or nine.

Still no news on USA air dates. Maybe this summer.

Hamilton Spectator Review

This review by Don Graves appeared in the Hamilton Spectator last week:

The raw rhythm of the dialogue is unpredictable; rapid fired and shaping Let It Ride's characters from their outer persona to their inner fears and reflections.

It's relentless, at times almost too much so, but it pushes you from character to character, cop to hooker, drug dealer to lesbian spa -- from dream to nightmare.

There's a pot at the end of the rainbow--the Saints of Hell biker gang's gold bars. The road to get there is littered with flawed redemption, and painful, self-serving arrogance.

The pacing is hell on wheels -- sharp and bloody, with dialogue to match.

I wanted to come up for air at times, couldn't find a spot and was swept up again by the undercurrent of the writing. The ending made me smile.

Authentic and riveting.

Here's the link.

I feel like I need to keep pointing out, though, that Swap and Let It Ride are the same book.