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Chatting with Garry, Part II: How He Almost Killed Neil Young

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Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part IIIf you missed yesterday’s post, I’ve been chatting with my retired cop/coroner buddy, Garry Rodgers. Today, you’ll hear about all Garry’s shenanigans, including how he almost killed Neil Young and how his possessed kitchen was out to get him. Haha. Hard to explain. Just read the Q&A.

Sue: You chose indie publishing over traditional. So, how do you decide where to publish?

Garry: I was exclusive on Amazon, but my much more successful indie friends said I was leaving a lot on the table by not “going wide” with Kobo, Nook, Apple, Google, and other outlets. That’s now in progress. From the Shadows and the rest of the “based on true crime” series will be available on other eBook platforms and I’ll soon convert my other work.

Speaking of true crime, Sue, what’s happening with Pretty Evil New England?

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part IISue: Last I heard Pretty Evil New England was on the copy editor’s desk. The book releases September 1st, so it’s still a bit of a wait. Globe Pequot was planning a New England-wide book tour to coincide with the launch.

As a Connecticut publisher (next to New York, if you’re not familiar with Connecticut), once the pandemic hit, they had to temporarily close in accordance with the stay at home order. Books, apparently, aren’t considered essential, even though most of us would be lost without them. Don’t even get me started. 😉

But I digress.

What’s happening at your blog, DyingWords? Some writers believe blogging is a waste of time, but I don’t agree. If it weren’t for Murder Blog, I would’ve missed out on some amazing opportunities. Plus, I might never have met friends like you. Where do you stand on the “To blog or not to blog” issue? 

Garry: Blogging is the best writing move I ever made. I started DyingWords six years ago, and I’ve met more people and found more opportunities than I could have possibly imagined. Like you, for instance. I promote myself as a retired homicide cop and forensic coroner (never said I was any good at either) and I use the tagline “Provoking Thoughts on Life, Death and Writing”. There are about 400 posts now on DyingWords, ranging from author interviews to analyzing high-profile cases like JonBenet Ramsey, Natalie Wood, Princess Diana, Elvis, and even notorious killers like the Boston Strangler, Jack The Ripper, and Charles Manson. Posts go live every second Saturday morning at 8 am Pacific, 11 am Eastern.

Sue: It’s been a while since you released a novel. Is there a reason for the delay? Don’t mean to put you on the spot. Just curious.

Garry: No worries. There is, actually. My daughter developed her own writing agency, and I’ve been doing web content for her. What I thought would be a few months to help get her up and running ran on to two years. I’ve written hundreds of web pieces on topics from malignant mesothelioma to managing menopause, but it’s not as much fun as it sounds. In the meantime, I wrote the historical non-fiction piece Sundance — Why Custer Really Lost the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which was a rabbit hole of research. Then I cranked out From The Shadows in the past little while.

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part IISue: Loved Sundance — Why Custer Really Lost the Battle of the Little Bighorn! How you included the psychology behind Custer and Sitting Bull’s actions kept me glued to the pages.

How long does it usually take you to write a novel?

Garry: Checks journal Believe it or not, From The Shadows took 22 working days to write 51,543 words on the main draft. If my calculator’s right, that averages 2,343 words per day. My best word count (not necessarily my best work) was 5,720 words in one day. My worst, well, I don’t wanna say…

Sue: So, basically, you’re human, with good days and bad days. None of us like to talk about the bad days. 😉 What’s your writing process look like?

Garry: Goes like this. I need to get in the right place and headspace to do creative writing, so I have a spot in the nearby university library that I freeload at. I go there when the doors open at 8 am and I give ’er until I’m done. I don’t set a specific word count. Rather, I always try to complete entire chapters, and I let the word count fall where it may.

Before I start a manuscript, I layout the chapters/scenes on a timeline, so I have the whole thing framed with a decent idea of what each “block” must do to further the story. Then I just fill it in with exposition and dialogue.

Sue: Fascinating. I love hearing about writers’ process. We’re all so different in how we approach a blank page. What about your editing process?

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part IIGarry: What’s editing? 😉 Seriously, that’s huge. Seems to me we collaborated on an editing guide (Note from Sue: Larry Brooks also added his input to How To Self-Edit Deadly Crime Thrillers). If I can pass on two things I’ve learned from experience, it’s covers and proper editing are invaluable for the book’s success. That’s assuming the story is marketable to start with.

I write as I go… just let it flow… and then I do next-day rough editing. I’m an early riser, so I give the previous day’s work a once-over before I go on to write new content. I don’t worry about getting it polished right away. That comes later, but a next-day review keeps me in the story.

Once I hit “The End”, I hide the manuscript away for a week or a month. It’s amazing how time away lets you see things you’ve missed. I self-edit on the screen and with printouts, but I’m a big believer in software. I first use Grammarly to line-edit, then fine-tune with AutoCrit. Once I think it’s in the best shape possible, I ship it to a human proofreader who catches the smallest details.

Sue: You’re so right. Independent editing is a critical part of a book’s success.

Garry: Whether you’re indie or going after the traditional publishing market, the final product has to be as perfect as you can possibly make it. Paying for external services can often make authors cringe. I know it takes a lot of book sales to recoup the funds for covers and editing, but this is the cost of doing business. A serious writer can’t afford NOT to invest in editing and having their cover done by a pro. It’s like someone who defends themselves in court has a fool for a client.

Sue: Now for the fun stuff.

You’ve done some questionable outlandish downright insane crazy stunts over the years. I never know when another hilarious email will grace my inbox, complete with visual aids, but I always look forward to them. Name three peculiar “incidents” that you’ve been involved in.

Garry: Only three? Sue, it’s hard to shortlist. Number one: I won a mechanical bull riding competition. Number two: I’ve been struck by lightning. Number three: I was recently bitten by a venomous spider.

Sue: You can’t just rattle off a list like that with no explanation. C’mon, spill the juicy details.

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part II
What Garry wished he looked like. 🙂

Garry: More bravado than brains with the bull. It was at Teslin, Yukon, in Canada’s far north during their winter carnival. I was “nominated” by our team to win the buckle, and I was so shit-scared to get bucked off onto the frozen ground that I stayed on the bull for 8 secs all the way up to level 8. My ass, thighs, and crotch were purplish-black for two weeks.

Lightning… hmm… yes. I was outside during a storm when a bolt hit the house and energized the metal gutter system. I was leaning against a downpipe and the amps passed through my arm, into my torso, and shot out my foot. I’ve never been cattle-prodded or Tasered, but I imagine those things are duck soup compared to getting zapped by Zeus.

Sue: Wow. You do know you’re more likely to be hit by lightning a second time, right? They say once lightning finds you, you become a beacon of sorts.

I remember the spider bite story. Bob and I still crack up over it. But please tell it again.

Garry: Vancouver Island is Canada’s west-coast mecca and we capitalized on that near-perfect paradise 32 years ago. What we didn’t bargain for was a possessed kitchen.

Our kitchen is our home’s heart. We spend most of our waking time in our kitchen, despite having a second bedroom/home office and a plant-filled sunroom with a harbor view. There’s something about our kitchen and the table I hand-made nearly 40 years ago that should be safe, but something’s gone horribly wrong.

It started this spring. I’m glued to my laptop most of the time and I like to write at the kitchen table. I research, draft, proof and ship articles as well as draft my books in the kitchen, and it used to be good. That changed this spring when our kitchen became possessed.

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part II
Not Garry’s hand, but close enough.

It started with doing the dishes in the kitchen sink. Rita was on evening shift—she supervises a grocery store—and I was cleaning up. Slice. It’s hard to feel a serious laceration when your hand is in warm and dirty dishwater, but a snapped long-stemmed wine glass opened up my stinkin’ finger.

That should’ve had medical attention but, being a man, I waited till infection set in. So, a few evenings later, with a gauze-wrapped digit and Rita at work, I nodded off at the kitchen table. I went down hard and bounced the back of my head off a wood kitchen chair and opened up my scalp as if a little man with an ax came running through the door and whacked me.

Again, I should have had stitches but didn’t. I’m not a wuss when it comes to pain, but a sliced finger and lacerated scalp made codeine attractive—so I indulged. That wasn’t a good idea.

A few days later, Rita was on evenings and came home to find me groggily asleep at the kitchen table. The dear didn’t wake me. Rather, she reclined in her chair and turned on the news while I keeled over and hit the floor.

I cracked my neck and had the wickedest whiplash ever encountered, and it took three weeks to start mobility which is just coming back today. I couldn’t turn my neck to look at the kitchen sink—it required full shoulder rotation. I’m still a stiff-stick today.

Our kitchen possessor wasn’t finished. No, whatever demon from a hell-layer segment that surfaced from the kitchen drain still wanted its way with me, and it used my dear wife Rita to do it. Sympathetically, she bought an exotic succulent to sit on the kitchen table to cheer me up while I typed away and recovered. It’s supposed to be a succulent air purifier or a shamanic talisman or some hoodoo thing.

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part II
The deadly culprit.

The friggin’ plant imported a brown recluse spider that nailed me in the right elbow. My arm swelled like a horny baboon’s **bleep**, and I was in serious pain, along with my hand, neck, and back-of-the-head from what went down earlier. I’ve spent the last three weeks detoxifying from poison worse than a rattlesnake’s venom, and trying to massage mangled muscles.

This all happened in our kitchen—within a five-foot radius of the sink. I’m not big on ghosts, demons, spooks & stuff, but I seriously think our kitchen’s possessed and I have no idea what’s coming next. 🙂

Fortunately, I survived. Can’t say the same for the spider.

 

Sue: Only you, Garry. Only you.

Garry: Did I mention I almost killed Neil Young?

Sue: The singer? Umm, no.

Garry: Yeah, that guy. I was barreling my truck up a tree-canopied road when Neil came flying over the hill crest on a bicycle. I violently swerved and just missed bug-squashing the rocker on my grille. It was close. Real close, I’ll tell ya.

Sue:

Garry: Then there was the time I accidentally set my grandmother on fire.

Sue: OMG, before I totally lose control of this interview, tell us where can we get From The Shadows?

Garry: The ‘Zon, of course. It’s a new release at Amazon.com and other Amazon international sites as well as on Kobo. So far, just the eBook is out. Workin’ on print and audible. Thanks for hosting me, Sue!

Sue: Anytime, my friend. You’re always welcome here.

Well, folks, see what I have to deal with? Hahaha. Kidding. 😉 Be sure to check out From The Shadows as well as Garry’s other books in this series, like Under The Ground and In The Attic. If you’re not familiar with his bi-monthly blog, Dying Words, you’re in for a real treat. I always look forward to his articles. Score two free ebooks (pictured below) for joining his community.

Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part II Chatting with Garry Rodgers, Part IIGarry Rodgers is a retired homicide detective and forensic coroner. Now, Garry is an investigative crime writer and successful indie author. He’s also the host of a popular blog at DyingWords.net. His newest based-on-true-crime eBook From The Shadows is just released on Amazon and other digital outlets.

Garry Rodgers lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia at Canada’s west coast, where he spends his off-time around the water. Connect with Garry on Twitter and Facebook.

Sue Coletta is an award-winning crime writer and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Feedspot and Expertido.org named her Murder Blog as “Best 100 Crime Blogs on the Net.” She also blogs on the Kill Zone (Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers"), Writers Helping Writers, and StoryEmpire. Sue lives with her husband in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Her backlist includes psychological thrillers, the Mayhem Series (books 1-3) and Grafton County Series, and true crime/narrative nonfiction. Now, she exclusively writes eco-thrillers, Mayhem Series (books 4-9 and continuing). Sue's appeared on the Emmy award-winning true crime series, Storm of Suspicion, and three episodes of A Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery. When she's not writing, she loves spending time with her murder of crows, who live free but come when called by name. And nature feeds her soul.

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