Sailing from "Inner Harbor" to Crime Fiction Writing

Since 2010, I have written a blog called "Inner Harbor." The posts tend to be a vehicle for my reactions to current events. I typically comment on issues or incidents promiscuously discussed in social or traditional media. Certain posts involve episodes whose root was either an immediate, personal incident or a reflection on some aspect of my own life. In some cases, I comment on people or contexts which aroused my curiosity, but were otherwise unknown to me.

"Inner Harbor" began when my wife, the fine art photographer Amy Becker, suffered a serious illness. My posts were intended as a daily commitment to our love and firm belief in each other's talents. Every post offered an opportunity for her to hear my voice and witness its growth. Without Amy's strong encouragement and visceral commitment, I would not have developed "Inner Harbor," nor used that blog as a vehicle to generate a style and voice suitable for a creative journey.

I believe I have now achieved "Inner Harbor's" purpose. This summer, I stopped writing in "Inner Harbor." At that time, I came around to the notion that nonfiction could not adequately represent contemporary issues. "The rule of law" crowd, through its ruthless use of intimidating litigation and restrictive legislation, made nonfiction writing a debilitating exercise in risk management. Having people speak "on the record" has become an excruciatingly difficult task for even the most skillful or highly placed writers. Public discourse became a realm where spin doctors, investigative wolves, and data "scientists" commanded the media's high ground. Entertaining distortions took precedence over intelligently presented fact, something exploited most shamefully via "reality TV" and political propagandists.

This degradation of rationality compelled my move into writing mystery/detective stories. This pulpy world has historically, successfully been viewed as a portal into depictions of contemporary reality. Fiction allows the weaving of character, context, and motive in useful, and yes, entertaining ways. Coinciding with ceasing "Inner Harbor" posts, I read a number of Italian crime novels. The ones I have read embrace a mixture of reportage and fiction -- exactly the formula I wanted to pursue. Their sharply drawn characters struck me as entirely, unsentimentally real. And the books integrated current events, such as human trafficking and institutional corruption, with men, women, and children whose flaws and strengths displayed the writer's and audience's interest in humanity that no software wizard could "engineer."

I look forward to the challenge of creating work worthy of these Italian writers, along with iconic American detective novelists whose work I admire. Whatever I do, I will have also fulfilled advice my father offered me on his deathbed. He held me hand firmly and asserted that I should pursue fiction writing.

It took me a generation to embrace my father's perspective. I'm ready now to begin that journey to create work into a world Raymond Chandler aptly characterized as one where "the streets were dark with something more than night..." To that end, "More Than A Fresh Corpse" will be a blog/sketchbook for this effort.