Badass Writer of the Week: Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard

We're switching it up a little bit this week. Rather than provide you with a biography of Elmore Leonard, we’re recommending our favorite Leonard yarns.  The reason we picked him as our badass writer of the week should be pretty self-explanatory.   

Rum Punch

Sean Tuohy: Rum Punch is the first book that I thought really captured what living in South Florida is like. Elmore captured the vastness of the area and threw in some wicked, but oh-so real characters that leapt off the page. Leonard's characters always speak like real people and none of his prose feels forced. Rum Punch tells the story of a flight attendant stuck in the middle between gun runners, the FBI, and an honest bail bondsman Max Cherry. Cherry is one of the best characters to ever come from a Leonard book and brought to life on the silver screen by the great Robert Forster in Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown.” In the book, Cherry is a man who wants to do right by his pushy wife and an upstanding guy overall, but he is stuck working with scumbags who jump bail and ends up falling in love with the flight attendant. Drama, gunfire, and an ill-planned heist ensue. Rum Punch is a quick read that feels like an epic, which is why it’s one of Leonard’s best.

Pronto

Daniel Ford: I’ve read Riding the Rap, Fire in the Hole, and Raylan, but my favorite Raylan Givens story penned by Elmore Leonard will always be Pronto. Harry Arno gets in trouble with bad people (the man is a Leonard criminal through and through: dopey, desperate, and money hungry) and runs off to Italy to hide. Raylan takes a vacation to track him down and keep him safe from Tommy Bucks (who has one of the best villain nicknames of all time: the Zip). Like all Leonard novels, the plot is less important than the colorful characters spouting terrific dialogue at every turn. Raylan, as always, is constantly exasperated and is constantly foiled by Harry’s enemies and by Harry himself. The bad guys do Leonard bad guy things, and Raylan does Raylan things, and people are shot and bleeding at the end. The novel’s finale, in which Raylan warns the Zip to leave Miami in 24 hours or he’ll shoot him, provided the recently concluded television series with plenty of earthy source material for its pitch perfect pilot. Pronto also includes what could quite possibly be my favorite Elmore Leonard lines of all time: “Raylan shot him” and a paragraph of description later, “Raylan shot him again.” What more do you need?

My edition of Pronto also included an interview with Elmore Leonard from 1998, in which he was asked why he kept writing. Here was his response:

“It’s the most satisfying thing I can imagine doing. To write that scene and then read it and it works. I love the sound of it. There’s nothing better than that. The notoriety that comes later doesn’t compare to the doing of it. I’ve been doing it for almost 47 years, and I’m still trying to make it better.”

We should all strive for such work ethic and humility. 

Here are a few YouTube clips of Elmore Leonard that further prove he's much more of a badass writer than you are:

BADASS WRITERS OF THE WEEK ARCHIVE

Badass Writer of the Week: Bob Mayer

Bob Mayer

By Sean Tuohy

This is a first for Writer’s Bone (no, we did not learn what healthy diet means). We got to interview this Friday’s Badass Writer of the Week!

Bob Mayer is a former U.S. Army Green Beret, a best-selling author of the Green Beret and Area 51 series, and has started his own publishing company called Cool Gus Publishing. What makes Bob a true badass writer in the eyes of the Writer’s Bone crew—besides the fact he shares the same job as Rambo—is the fact that he is always looking ahead. Mayer embraced the new world of e-book publishing and proved it could be a successful market. Also, using the skills he learned while in the Special Forces, Mayer published Write It Forward, a guide for new authors who are interested in navigating the e-book publishing world.

We know, we know, we wanted him to teach authors how to shoot a bow and arrow too, but maybe we can convince him to do that for his next book.

Writer’s Bone: Did you always know you'd become a writer, or was it something you discovered later in life?  

Bob Mayer: I always read a lot. I think that’s the best preparation for becoming a writer. I lived in books as a child. I wrote a lot of technical stuff and orders in the military, but it was only when I moved to the Orient to study martial arts that I began writing. It was more out of a sense of wanting to tell a story than thinking about getting published.

Writer’s Bone: Besides the military background,  what do you and your hero David Riley have in common?

BM: We’re both from the Bronx and from lower-middle-class families. We both used the military as a way up and out. His mode of leadership also mimics what mine is.

Writer’s Bone: What are some misconceptions that people have about the new e-book market?  

BM: They think it’s easy. It’s gotten tougher with each passing month as more and more books get loaded. Also, there is so much more to it than just doing a cover and formatting and uploading a book. There’s an art to promoting books and gaining readers.

Writer’s Bone: What do you recommend to authors new to the e-book market?  

BM: Focus on series. And don’t worry about promoting until you have at least three books out there. That will also weed out a lot of your competition as most people will quit after one book if they don’t see immediate results.

Writer’s Bone: Where did the idea for Cool Gus Publishing come about and how has it evolved over time?  

BM: When Jen Talty approached me about bringing out my backlist, I realized we needed to think bigger than that. Once we established the capability to do this, we brought on other authors. However, we’re staying small because you can only focus on a handful of authors. We want to do right by a few authors, not try to make a little off a lot.

Writer’s Bone: What is one positive for standard publishing and one positive for e-book pubishing?

BM: Traditional publishing is almost always better for a new writer because you will get some exposure. Not much, but more than you can do on your own. However, unless you get extremely lucky, focus on moving past it down the line.

For publishing on your own, you have complete control, but you also have complete responsibility. Your success or failure rests on your shoulders. I look at that as a positive, but it can overwhelm some people.

Writer’s Bone: Tell us a little about Write it Forward. What kind of response have you gotten from writers who have read the book and followed your strategies?  

BM: I have taken the strategies we used to succeed in Special Forces and applied them to being an author. While authors tend to be creative, we also have to run a business and have a career plan. Most don’t. Those who do have a stronger chance to succeed. The number one thing required to succeed is to set a long term goal and doing whatever it takes to succeed. Most writers don’t even have that long term, or strategic goal. Thus the odds of succeeding are not very good.

Writer’s Bone: Is there anything you miss about being in the Army?  

BM: The camaraderie. In Special Forces, we had an elite and unique group of soldiers. It was great working with people you could trust with your life.

Writer’s Bone: Can you please tell us one random fact about yourself?

BM: I have two yellow labs: Gus and Becca. My company is named after Cool Gus (which is Gus when he wears his sunglasses).

You can learn more about Bob Mayer by visiting his official website, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @Bob_Mayer.

BADASS WRITERS OF THE WEEK ARCHIVE