June 7 2014: Writing, health, happiness—and lifestyle (we’re crazy).

“People find themselves in ruts all the time. You're in a complacent lifestyle where you work 9 to 5 and then you add a mortgage and kids. You feel trapped, but guess what, brother? You constructed that life. If you're OK with it, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you've got unease, then you've got to make a change.”

Jeremy Renner

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Photo by my talented sister, Lucy Ayettey

HEALTH EQUALS MIND + BODY. I was going to write: “Writing is not a healthy activity,” but then realized that I was missing out on the decidedly positive effects of writing on the mind (at least as far as I am concerned). So, if you regard your health in a holistic way—which you certainly should—then writing has many positive aspects even if you ignore the negative physical aspects. It’s a great and wonderful thing to love what you do and to look forward to each waking day. Research indicates that is not the case where most of us are concerned.

Bluntly, most of us don’t enjoy our jobs—and don’t buy into what we do. We are not engaged—which means we don’t work nearly as well as we might. That’s quite an indictment of our current corporate way of life—but that’s a topic for another day.

But reflect on that thought. To quote the title of a recent book on the matter, THE WAY WE’RE WORKING ISN’T WORKING. It’s by Tony Schwarz—and I cannot recommend it too highly.

EXCESSIVE SITTING IS NOT A GOOD THING. Back to writing and health. Here, what I’m trying to say is that any job, which means that you are sitting in front of a computer for eight to twelve hour a day (which I do voluntarily), has to be regarded as physically something one should be concerned about. That raises the question as to what one should do about it.

DAILY EXERCISE IS NOT ENOUGH. Until relatively recently, I thought one could work all day, but compensate by exercising in the evening. However, the latest information says that such exercise—while good in itself—fails to compensate for being sedentary for extended periods. Simply put, unless you move around relatively frequently—for some minutes every hour—you are still putting your health at risk.

Corporate line dancing every hour on the hour? The mind boggles—but we’ve got to do something. Maybe sex in the office is a good idea after all. It is certainly exercise—and could do wonders for morale. Add in the number of extra sex workers you would need, and it would do wonders for unemployment. .

DEATH MEANS NO WRITING—WHO KNEW? “Health at risk” sounds sobering, but since one’s health is always at risk  from something or other (life is goddam dangerous) it also sound like the kind of issue one can compartmentalize and procrastinate about. However, if re-thought as: “A sedentary life will do you in prematurely—and writing when dead is problematic”—even an ace compartmentalizer, such as myself, starts to pay serious attention.

Hell is not being able to write.

To my deep regret, I have never consciously paid great attention to my health, but I have still done a few things which have served me well.

• I have walked a great deal throughout my life—and have driven as little as possible. You see less when you walk, but the intensity of the experience is vastly superior.
• I don’t smoke.
• I steer clear of the medical profession as far as possible—except when there is no other choice.
• I don’t do illegal drugs. I’m not being noble here. I just haven’t been tempted.
• I rarely take legal drugs (meds) unless in considerable pain—and then minimally.
• I work at something I love.
• I eat in moderation—and very little meat.
• I don’t snack.

On the negative side:

• I have drunk wine every day—pretty much for the last fifty plus years. Whether that has been negative or not is a moot point. It certainly is if I drink it to excess, but I believe there are considerable benefits from wine if drunk in relative moderation. That said, I don’t regard a glass of wine a day as moderation. I regard it as ridiculous.
• Like many creative people, whose income is both uncertain and irregular, I lead an extremely stressful life.
• Leaving aside the stress resulting from financial uncertainty, I have a tendency to undertake projects which are innately stressful in themselves. Why do I do that? It’s my nature. I am an adventurer and iconoclast at heart.

But what do I do about my sedentary lifestyle? Not as much as I should yet—but I’m making progress.

• I now get up as often as I think about it—multiple times an hour—and do something physical. This can be as simple as standing and stretching—or spending ten minutes taking a short walk or doing some chore. Such behavior makes me feel much better and has not affected my output (somewhat to my surprise).
• I used light weights before to resolve a hand-cramp issue—with great success—so now I’m using them as an exercise aid.
• I now eat only one meal a day—which works wonders.
• I have started juicing again. I can’t praise juicing too highly.
• I make a point of sitting very upright. It is all too easy to slump when writing. Posture is extraordinarily important.
• I have a new chair with good back support.
• I’m planning a treadclimber.

Consider me a work in progress. However, the success of what little I have done really makes me think that the way many of us work at present is crazy—and, along with many other lifestyle choices, explains why Americans live three years or so less than the citizens of other developed nations—and while we live, we are sicker.

We need to think about this stuff. It is all of a piece.

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June 6 2014: What an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous photo! The photographer—yet again—is my youngest sister, Lucy Ayettey Lyons. She is in Facebook and lives in London. You know once I considered photography as a career—and combat photography at that.

“The negative effects of combat were nightmares, and I'd get jumpy around certain noises and stuff, but you'd have that after a car accident or a bad divorce. Life's filled with trauma. You don't need to go to war to find it; it's going to find you. We all deal with it, and the effects go away after awhile. At least they did for me.”

Sebastian Junger

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ACTION AND RECTION. I though seriously of becoming a professional photographer—and a combat photographer at that—and did a few assignments which I thoroughly enjoyed. In the process I nearly got killed on several occasions—which was educational. I found that the periods of danger I handled myself pretty well—but afterwards a stress reaction would set in. The nature of the reaction varied with the most extreme being uncontrollable shaking after a policeman was shot dead beside me in Belfast. At the time, I scarcely reacted and I stayed out for hours to experience the gunfight. .

I got the shakes the following day when  BBC played some audio if the previous night’s gunfight in the bar. The whole thing came back to me—and though I was safe and sound in the Europa Hotel with an Old Fashioned at hand, I was suddenly terrified.Incidentally, the Europa then had the distinction of being the most bombed hotel in Belfast.  When I stayed in it, something like 28 attempts had been made on it.

FIRST LOVE. But it wasn’t the danger that made me choose another path. It was the realization that if I was going to be creative, writing was my first love. Beyond that, I figured it would take all my effort to become a proficient writer so there wouldn’t be time to combine the two. How right I was.

WRITING DEMAND EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT—AND MORE. Book writing is not a trivial business. It can take years to get a book right—insofar as you ever do—and if those years are at the beginning, that means you don’t have any income. Later, if you are lucky enough to get published, there is no guarantee you’ll continue to get published. Publishers—subject to a few exceptions—have about the same amount of integrity as bankers. No, maybe not as much.

INDEPENDENCE IS A WONDERFUL THING. The fact that writers can now bypass traditional publishers—and self-publish independently—is a great and wonderful thing. It complicates a writer’s life in many ways because there are so many extra skills to master—but at least you get a chance to control your own destiny (insofar as one ever can).

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June 5 2014: Whether you are religious or not, hard not to be touched by this. My talented photographer youngest sister, Lucy, posted it. Well, she may be the youngest, but she is the emotional rock of the family—and has a heart of gold. And she is smart—in an immensely practical and useful way.

You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.

Erica Jong

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SPEAKING OF WOMEN. When I was researching RULES OF THE HUNT, my second Fitzduane thriller, I deliberately sought out a strong Japanese woman to give me some inspiration for the character of Chifune. I’m not sure whether my motives were suspect or not, but my translators turned up two—and the whole experience was extremely helpful.

I met one, who ran a department of some government agency only in her office—but I had dinner with the second on several occasions and was quite taken with her. She gave no sign that she was similarly impressed—our relationship was entirely professional—albeit very friendly—but subsequently she contacted me and suggested we meet up in New York. I didn’t accept the invitation, because I was otherwise committed at the time, but I have always regretted not doing so. She was a singularly impressive woman—not to mention attractive—and went on to fame and fortune in her own right. I rather thought she would. She was intelligent, courageous, fiercely independent, and needed no encouragement to defy convention.

THE LUCE OF THE CHASE. Currently, I am looking for a guide (and perhaps more than one) for the project I have codenamed Amber. I’d be more specific but then you would know all about my story before it is written—which would never do. Suffice to say that the kind of person I want to find, does not want to be found. If she did, she wouldn’t be the right person.

Will I find her? It will be difficult—a matter of persuasion—but I suspect I will—and the challenge is appealing in itself.

BUT WHO SHOULD YOU TALK TO? There is more to this writing game than one might think, you know. Finding the right people to talk to can make a “"vast difference when doing research—though when you start you might not know enough to know who the right people are.

I’ve said this before, but it is worth repeating. The more you know before you talk to someone, the more they are likely to tell you. There are a number of reasons for this.

• Doing your homework always engenders respect.
• If you have a good base of knowledge, you’ll be more likely to know what questions to ask.
• You’ll have a better sense of when to prompt your interviewee. The art of what I call ‘The Second Question’ deserves a book unto itself. Essentially, I’m talking about follow-up questions in pursuit of a goal.
• The fact that you have been interested enough to find out a great deal tends to imply to your interviewee that you share a common interest—and people always tend to talk under such circumstances.

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June 4 2014: Modern piracy and other threats to big ships from small boats containing bad people—and what to do about them. Introducing WatchStander, which tracks and deters small boats autonomously. Kind of creepy—but better than walking the plank.

“There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.”

Dave Barry

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THE IMPORTANCE OF A BASE OF KNOWLEDGE. I spend a couple of hours every day—and more at weekends—keeping myself relatively well informed. You can debate whether that time could be better spent—but I have found that if I know what’s going on in the areas that interest me, I’ll write with much greater ease. I don’t have to stop and research. I’ll just know—or know where to look—so write with greater fluidity. When I’m writing, I don’t like to stop writing to do research. I prefer to have that set up in advance. Then I like to get into the zone—which I can now do almost immediately (all it takes is decades of practice) —and just write.

MASTURBATION VERSUS REAL SEX. Is this approach right for all writers? Probably not—it’s a great deal of work. All I can say is that I’m comfortable with it—even though I know that most of the data I collect, I will never use. But, I never forget that the primary task of a writer is to do just that—to write. Research is more like masturbation. Enjoyable enough—but no substitute for the real thing.

Let me re-phrase—I won’t use it in a manner that will make you consciously aware of it. But, it will give me confidence and lend authority to my writing to really know what is possible. 

PIRACY. I have given a great deal of thought to incorporating piracy into one of my books. I read a great deal about piracy in my early reading days—but never thought it would endure into the 21st century. The truth is, of course, that it never went away. In fact, it has never been more common.

RADAR. Today’s ships all have radar, of course, but though that is excellent for spotting other ships, land, and—where the military are concerned—aircraft (including incoming missiles) it is not so good at spotting small   boats, and particularly small boats with hostile intent. Besides, even if you do see them, how do you know they are hostile?

YOU TOO CAN BE A TERRORIST. Who uses such small boats? Today’s pirates—and hostile nations such as Iran—and really any terrorist with  a nautical cast of mind. You don’t need to be a nation to acquire small craft. In fact, you can steal the damn things if necessary. Given the right mental attitude, terrorism doesn’t have to be a high overhead business.

SUCH CRAFT ARE DANGEROUS. If appropriately configured, such small boats are relatively inexpensive, fast, easy to conceal in the swell of a sea, very hard to spot—especially in darkness and adverse weather—and are potentially quite lethal (especially if laden with explosives). In short, they are a very real threat—even quite far out to sea. A ship can be hundreds of miles off the nearest coast—and still be vulnerable.

BIGGER SHIPS, SMALLER CREWS. Parallel with this, cost factors are making merchant ships every bigger and crews ever smaller. This is possible because technology is evolving at a truly phenomenal rate. However, it also means that fewer and fewer crew are available to keep watch.

Naval ships are not necessarily getting larger—that depends upon the  type—but costs are driving crew sizes ever smaller so they also have severe limitations on the numbers available to stand watch.

The security implications of these developments are self evident. The situation is actually worse than it seems because ships have to be guarded 24/7 and crews need rest.

AUTONYMOUS AND AUTOMATED. WatchStander is, in effect, an autonomous solution to the small boat threat. It uses shorter radio wavelengths than a ship's standard radar system, which is what allows it to detect smaller watercraft that are up to 2 miles (3.2 km) away. Using artificial intelligence software developed at Penn State University's Applied Research Laboratory, it then tracks those boats and watches to see if any of them exhibit "antagonistic behavior" – this could include approaching the ship at high speed, on an intercept course.

If any of them do so, the ship's crew will be alerted via visual and audible alarms, plus WatchStander's high-intensity spotlight will be shone at that boat. The light serves to both disorient the possible pirates, and to let them know that they've been spotted, and have therefore lost the element of surprise. The system can, of course, be slaved to a more lethal deterrent.

The system is autonomous, with the ship's WatchStander unit(s) automatically panning and tilting to stay trained on the suspect vessels. This means that the ship's crew can take refuge if wanted. They can override the system if it becomes clear to them that a boat doesn't pose a threat, or they can likewise declare a vessel to be a threat, if they realize it is one before the system does.

THE MARK I EYEBALL. All of this adds up to an impressive set of capabilities. The one weakness, as I see it, is that WatchStander cannot look at a boat and determine that the craft is likely to be hostile because of the look of the crew and the fact they are armed. Sometimes, there is no substitute for what the British call “the Mark I Eyeball.”

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June 3 2014: Books, writing, sex, and technology

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

George Bernard Shaw

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WRITING A BOOK WAS ONCE ABOUT WRITING. I remember the days when writing a book was about—well—writing a book. If you were writing a serious novel about human nature, in truth, you didn’t really need to do any research at all. You just slept around a bit, went through a divorce or two—and then, life being what it is (and assuming you were moderately observant, and your memory was somewhat functional), you picked up your quill pen, and—fueled by your own angst, wrote a literary masterpiece that won many awards, and which no one finished—but which made you a little money, and gained you a reputation as a serious literary writer. You started wearing tweed jackets with leather elbow patches; and public speaking fleshed out the miserable amount you made from your literary masterpieces.

AND ABOUT SEX. Armed with that reputation, even more women came your way, you were divorced again—and now had the material for yet another book. It was, so to speak, a virtuous circle that revolved around books and sex (alcohol—along with lying publishers and cheating agents—being a given) and frankly what else could any sane writer want.

AND VIOLENCE. Thriller writing—back in those days—was much the same thing except you read up on guns and bombs and—if you were really dedicated—you put yourself in harm’s way just to give your writing a little flavor (or get killed—which, at least put your sales up). But, in essence, gratuitous violence apart, your life—quite sensibly—revolved around books and sex.

Those were the gone and glorious days of words, women and wine—and variations thereoff.

THEN THE GODS NEEDED ENTERTAINMENT. Then the gods, whose sense of humor is infamously warped, invented the PC, Amazon, and indie publishing—the devil invented Bill Gates and Microsoft--and suddenly all that time the writer had for sex was taken up by having to try and master strange and unreliable equipment and procedures which were supposed to make the task of writing easier, but which virtually required a full time maintenance guru.

Such is writing today—and I am prompted to rant about it because I installed Yahoo Messenger last night—and this morning found all my Chrome Extensions had been changed.

I remember the days when the only high tech tools a writer needed were the birth control pill, a corkscrew—and whatever nature had equipped him with..

So much for progress.

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June 2 2014: Books, bias—and absolute nonsense—or not?

"It is however always important to remember that the ability to see things in their correct perspective may be, and often is, divorced from the ability to reason correctly and vice versa. That is why a man may be a very good theorist and yet talk absolute nonsense..."

Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1975, p. 76, footnote 3)

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CAUTIONARY NOTE. I put the above quote in as a cautionary note to myself. I do a great deal of research on an ongoing basis as part of a policy of keeping myself well informed—but it is always a good idea to question your own conclusions, and, particularly, to factor in your biases. That is not that easy to do because—all too often—you aren’t even aware of them. They become just part of the way you think. Yet, more than a few people delude themselves into thinking they are unbiased—which is crazy—then, again, lots of people are crazy. How else can one explain the world?

But, I digress.

BIASES AND DECISIONS. Lack of awareness of one’s biases is not all bad, because biases, often based upon experience, are a necessary aid to reaching conclusions. In fact, there are so many variables in life, that if you tried to assess them all consciously, you’d never reach a conclusion. That state would be  madly and deeply unhelpful where writing is concerned—because writing is all decision-making—particularly where fiction is concerned. You can write about anything in any way. It’s all up to you to decide. In fact, you can disregard all the rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling (if you think you can get away with it).

If you are going to ignore the conventions, it helps greatly if your name is James Joyce, and you are dead.

So, how do you counter your biases? ‘Deliberately’ is one answer. In fact, I think there is a good case for writing them out, and displaying the end result as a reminder. Have I done this up to now?  No, I haven’t—but it’s never too late to learn.

MY BIASES. What are my biases? If I put them all in, it would be a very long list—so let me just give number of examples:

• ORGANIZATIONS. I am skeptical of large organizations—whether government, corporate, religious, academic, or military. That bias almost certainly stems from my early experiences at boarding school. Subsequent life hasn’t done much to change my mind. We need large organizations, but they have a tendency to encourage a mindset depressingly lacking in a moral code—so they do bad things.
• REACH AND GRASP. I tend to underestimate how difficult it is to do things—so my reach has a tendency to exceed my grasp. That said, I have accomplished many things in my life which for a while—sometimes a long while—seemed near impossible.
• WOMEN. I am very supportive of women. I just like the way women think—apart from their/your other attributes.
• PEOPLE POTENTIAL. I tend to think that people are more capable than perhaps they are (based upon the evidence of history). Strangely enough, I still think that (though looking at our political gridlock, you would wonder).
• STATUS QUO. I am biased against accepting the status quo—of just about anything (except words, women, and wine).
• BOOKS AND WRITING. I am totally biased in favor of books and writing.
• POWER OF THE MIND. I am biased in favor of the power of the mind—arguably to the point of over-thinking some issues. I hold to the view that most of our problems are solvable—and that the answers are out there. But, we seem strangely reluctant to look.

Given the above (which are but a subset of the total), do I reason correctly? Or do I talk and write absolute nonsense?

I’d answer—but, as you will appreciate—I’m absolutely biased.

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By the way, the photo—which is of lampshades and has nothing to do with this piece (except that it adds color) —is yet another of my sister, Lucy’s, striking works. The kid (she is the mother of five children) has the eye.

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June 1 2014: David Abbott, a truly great advertising creative director and copywriter, has died.

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

William Bernbach

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Back in the late Sixties—before I came a professional writer (which I tend to date as from 1986 though my first book wasn’t published until 1991)—I worked for a time in the London office of famous advertising agency, DOYLE DANE BERNBACH (now generally known as DDB).

DDB was—and doubtless still is—regarded as the epitome of a creative agency where all that really counted was the quality of the creative work. The other tools that go into manipulating us to buy this or that (or to persuade us how and what to think)—research, public relations, below the line promotion, and so on—were given short shrift. The ads themselves were what counted—and typically they were copy-driven by a single brilliant copy line supported by elegant typography, lots of white space, and a beautiful graphic.

Let me stress the importance of the white space. DDB takes words very seriously and DDB copy is always framed to give each word maximum emphasis. Print was still front and center in those days—but TV ads still adhered to the same principles.

David Abbott was DDB’s chief copywriter at that time—and he epitomized the DDB philosophy, and was awesomely good at implementing it.  That apart, he was a singularly good-looking man gifted with a gravitas to match. When David talked, even the most recalcitrant clients listened. I admired him greatly. In a hype filled business, where talk was a great deal more common than talent, he was genuinely gifted—and he was also a fine human being.

David went on to co-found what is now the UK’s leading advertising agency, Abbott Mead Vickers—and a few years ago published his first novel, THE UPRIGHT PIANO PLAYER.

He died on May 17 2014.

I have mixed feelings about advertising and our consumer society in general—which I tend to think has got entirely out of hand—but I have no doubt at all that my association with David (such as it was—I was very junior then) both taught me a great deal and enriched my life.

The first ad of David’s that I can recall reading was for a British trade union—and it focused on the somewhat arbitrary nature of corporations in relation to laying off staff in the UK. It read:

“The Board and I have decided that we don’t like the color of your eyes.”

It touched a nerve and was outstandingly successful. David’s ads normally were.

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