It's always fun to receive fan letters. Although "fun" is a pretty frivolous word for what an author really feels -- at least this author. As has been noted by many, being a novelist is a lonely business. It is only rarely a collaborative art, and then often with only one other. And unlike a playwright, even film artists on occasion, a novelist can never be with an audience when they are responding to his or her work in real time. It fact, there is usually no gathered audience at all, just your words and the characters and situations and thoughts those words in combination create, flowing into individual brains separated by rooms and houses and neighborhoods and cities and countries. A novelist speaks to the far away and to the scattered, never quite sure where they are or even if they exist. Maybe they also are just figments of his imagination.
So when you get a letter of appreciation for your work, a nice, solid grounding-in-reality takes place. And a little less lonely you become. It's a good feeling. It can even be a deep feeling. And, yet, it's fun!
Here's the fun that arrived the other day from Brooke Jones, a reader from Oregon. It was about my two satiric Hollywood thrillers featuring The Fixxer.
It came via email with the subject line, "I may never sleep again!
Steve
I suppose I can blame Ray Richmond for my having found your Fixxer. (I'll deal with him shortly).
Gobbled up the first, then dove into the 2nd. While I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, the politics of The Enclave at THIS moment in America's ...what?...crisis?....dismantling??..."trumpified torture???...caused knots in my stomach...and my heart, that may take ages to untie!
It's now nearly midnight. The bruised and bandaged hero has just followed the lovely Anne to bed. I would like to believe that I will find sleep awaiting me on my pillow, but I fear visions of a Trumpian Enclave will haunt me til long after dawn.
I thank you for the pleasure of your Fixxex's company, but I am now in need of a Petey Remedy. Perhaps Fixxer III will ease my savaged soul. (A girl can dream, can't she?).
In hopes of a swift and fitting Fixxer end to our national Trumpian nightmare I remain,
(from one writer to another, your most recent fan...
Brooke Jones
The Enclave is the villainous organization The Fixxer goes up against in his second adventure, Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army and Petey is one of The Fixxer's crew, a rather weird, but wonderful, I hope, character.
I swiftly responded for you don't let such a fan get away!
Hello, Brooke!
I opened your email this morning -- what a great way to start the week!
I truly do appreciate your enthusiastic words, especially as they come from a fellow writer (you must tell me about that, of course - what you write, etc.)
I’m glad you like the Fixxer & Co. And I would like to say that I’m sorry I gave you those knots in your stomach and heart, but that’s exactly why I created the Enclave. Although Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army wasn’t published until 2011, I wrote it, I think between 1996 and 1997. But the fact that the “...21st Century is going to be a bitch,” as my villain says, was quite evident as the 20th was winding down. The Haves vs. the Have-nots, Concentrated wealth vs. non-wealthy masses, the North vs. the South, white vs. dark -- it was such an old story here and there, now and then, but with globalization, it’s now everywhere at once. Just thought I would send up a warning flare.
Sad to say, Fixxer 3 will not ease you as there is not, nor will there be. a Fixxer 3. The Fixxer books were written to serve a need I had to write something that might put me in the neighborhood of James Bond (the books, not the movies) and to satirically deal with my experiences in Hollywood. But, being me, I had to include some core, interesting (to me) concept to write about. In Blood is Pretty it’s how our brains work and how they can easily be manipulated. And in Hollywood, of course, it’s what I have discussed above. I’ve done the Bond territory now, and 20 years out of Hollywood now gives me no need to look at it askance. Or at all, for that matter. However, ideas to write about are fresh and forthcoming. I do hope you’ll check out my other novels on Amazon.
In fact, I can offer some possible solace with my latest novel, IMP: A Political Fantasia. It's a very short novel that deals with a president, one not at all like Tronald Dump, but one who might be equally as dangerous. It ends on a hopeful note. Ah, if only I could manipulate reality as easily.
You must thank Ray Richmond for being the persuasive word-of-mouth for the Fixxer.
Very warm regards,
Steven
I'm deeply appreciative that Brooke, in writing her letter, made me aware of how timely my second Fixxer novel is. I may have to go back and read it!
If this has sparked your interest in my two Fixxer novels, please check them out. You can get to them, and all my books, via my Amazon Author's page at:
Cheers to all!
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