Fast Cars, Dark Bars, Me & Noir

My latest novel THE COLDEST MILE, follow-up to my Edgar Award-nominated THE COLD SPOT, officially streets today. Amazon.com has been shipping for the past week or so. Most stores should have it in stock, but if not, you can always special order it.

I hope that everyone who gives it a go really enjoys it. Feel free to drop me a line and send me a link if you blog about it (good or bad) or do a review on Amazon.com or B&N.com. Nowadays, novels live or die by word of mouth as much as by anything else.

Some blurbs:

"[Tom Piccirilli’s] prose has the visceral punch of the best pulp writers of the past century…."—Eddie Muller, San Francisco Chronicle

"Hard-boiled crime writing ... It’s pedal to the metal for 352 pages. Don’t miss it."—Booklist

"Prepare for a journey as thrilling as it is provocative." —James Rollins, author of The Judas Strain

"Blackest noir, the most minimal kind of minimalism, and at the same time deeply emotional: this is not easy to do."—Peter Abrahams, bestselling author of Nerve Damage

"The book roars off the line with all the force and forward velocity of two tons of Detroit muscle car and never lets up on the pace. Crime novels don't get faster or grittier than this one, and in Chase, Tom has created a character who'll stick with you for years to come."–Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore

Several folks have asked merecently about what kind of process I use when writing. Whether I outline in detail or just dive in and sink or swim on my own.

For me, the process is very organic. It needs to be a journey of surprise and discovery, otherwise I don’t really see the point of writing at all. I’m here to discover something about myself, my values, what I do think, what I do mean, what I do understand of life. The only way for that to happen is to start the story and then see what new places it leads me. Once I’m on some different ground, I have a different perspective. If my perspective wasn’t always shifting, I’d just be telling the same story over and over.

I’m not sure where the need to write comes from except to say that the need to fantasize has always been with me. We all need a mixture of the world as it is and the world as metaphor, as art. A fundamental part of the human condition is to take what we know of reality and reshape it, rethink it, reimagine it. And then reapply it somehow to our own lives. When the process stalls, I get it going again by any means necessary. I have to. I pray to the great god mortgage and the only way I can pay my bills is off what I produce. The responsibilities of my life can only be attended to through my art. I can only take care of my family through my work.

Some people think that writing for money is selling out. But I’m here to tell you, kids, it’s the opposite. It means walking the wire without a net. You gamble your fate on the possibility that you can grind out another book or story no matter what. It means you have to go out and track your inspiration down and wrestle it to the floor every single day. That’s not selling out your work. That’s putting the greatest amount of faith in it. The roof over your head is at stake. The food in your mouth is at stake. Your very life is at stake.