MICKEY SPILLANE
I love detective stories. As a teenager I read everything in the genre that a small town library had to offer. One of my favorites was Mickey Spillane, creator of one of the great American hard-boiled detectives, Mike Hammer. I soaked up Spillane's gritty descriptions of the alleys and side streets of New York and the odd-ball low-life's who prowled them.
Spillane was big in the late 1940's and early 1950's. His last book came out in 2008 but the early stuff was his best stuff, with titles like "I, The Jury," "My Gun Is Quick," and "Vengeance Is Mine." The critics disparaged his writing. Meanwhile "I, the Jury" sold 6 million copies.
As a writer, Spillane had a distinctive approach to his craft. He would always write the opening and closing paragraphs first. He believed that the opening paragraph gets the reader to buy the book and the closing paragraph gets him to buy the next book, so that was what he wrote first. Maybe that's why I keep rewriting my own opening paragraphs.
Unlike me, Spillane said he never rewrote anything. That's probably why he only took a couple of weeks to write his books. "I the Jury" was done in 9 days. His preferred mode of writing was while floating in a swimming pool. I've seen a picture of him in one of those floating chairs in the middle of a pool, manual typewriter perched on his lap, a drink by his side.
My man!
December 6, 2009
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