Dear readers,
I hope you have not forgotten me. It has been quite a while, and I admit that things have progressed far slower than I’d hoped. I feel that much of that is my own fault, and that has made me reluctant to post any updates. However, it looks like we’re finally over the slump, and have something real to report.
The book went into copy edits just last month, and should be moving on to the next step within the next week or so. Apparently we have a publication date set for February 2022, so here’s hoping things go according to schedule.
As I’m writing this, the International Agatha Christie Festival is just entering its last day. I was invited to say a little something about Christie’s post-WW1 world, though the ongoing plague means my contribution has had to be online only. Rather a shame not to be there in person, but being "online only" means the video is now available on YouTube. Check it out here: Agatha Christie: Clues to the Post-War World. While you’re there, why not check out some of the other online talks and events for the festival?
Cheers to everyone; stay healthy, and happy reading.
Apologies that I have been out of touch for a while. I think I can find some reason to blame 2020, but the reality is over the last six months, I’ve gone through three more major drafts of the book. Each stage involved putting the manuscript aside for a few weeks and then reading it objectively and thinking hard about what was working in the story and what wasn’t. A lot of effort was spent beefing up the characters to make sure the story felt authentic and modern, rather than just some ’50s noir pastiche.
There was also a major improvement a few months ago which involved changing who the killer is. That took a lot of thinking but surprisingly it did not require that much rewriting, impacting only the last quarter of the book. Nonetheless, it greatly strengthened the theme of the story which centers around the relationship between two brothers, one of whom dies in World War II while the surviving brother deals with the loss.
This is a good segue to let people know that this has not been a solo effort. My brother Mike has been my uncredited co-author for quite some time now. He’s forced me to give up some of the early writing that I’d clung to for too long, sometimes expressed by writers as “Kill your darlings.” Having a co-author meant I could finally let that happen but I didn’t have to witness the gruesome deed myself.
The book is now called “The Man from Mittelwerk,” which puts the story’s historical context front and center. I’ll be sending it to the publisher Monday. No doubt there be a few weeks before we get his feedback and then hopefully only light editing will be required. Given the impact that Covid has had on the publishing industry, I suspect the publication date will be some time next year.
As always, thank you for your support of this project. If you want to drop me a line and tell me what you’re up to, I would love to hear from you. Don’t hit reply to this email. Instead email me at ZUrlocker@hotmail.com. With that, I’m gonna have a beer. Cheers!
--Zack
PS. Here’s a picture from last year’s Bouchercon writer’s conference where I met a favorite author Max Allan Collins. He has a terrific series that features a writer / detective named Mallory. One of his books in this series is appropriately enough called “Kill Your Darlings” and is set at an earlier Bouchercon conference.
The new draft I mentioned in January was short-lived. Within a week, I was working on another new draft based on more feedback from the publisher. While the latest draft is not complete, the first third or more is finished and this addresses the bulk of the concerns that were raised. (Or so I hope!) I’ll be making these first 100 pages available to a couple of beta readers to get their input.
A lot has been going on this past month with the coronavirus, emergency shutdowns etc. It’s a pretty stressful time for everyone. So with that in mind, I offer a few pieces of advice for those who are so inclined:
▪ Practice gratitude. Let’s not mince words, we are in a shitty situation. Possibly the worst the world has faced in generations. Nonetheless, every day I find things for which I am grateful and I write those down. Today I am grateful that I finished revising a major scene in the book, that I’m back home in Michigan with my wife and that my father (who’s 89 and living in Florida) is in good health. Also, I had some leftover Taco Bell. To each his own, right?
▪ Get outside. No matter where you are, if you can get outside in nature for fifteen minutes, that helps. If you can exercise, so much the better.
▪ Go on a news diet. Today I skipped the NY Times, WSJ and all other news. I feel much calmer.
▪ Reach out and stay connected. You may be under a lockdown situation, so are others. So reach out to friends and family over email, phone, text, slack etc. (Hence, my excuse for sending this update.)
As always, thank you for your support of this project. If you want to drop me a line and tell me what’s going on your world, how you’re coping, what you’re reading etc, I would love to hear from you. Don’t hit reply, instead add a comment to this web page or send email to me at ZUrlocker@hotmail.com or whatever email address you have on file for me.
--Zack
PS. Here’s a picture of our dog Roxie who passed away last fall, but can still cheer us up. This was taken on the first day of spring in Michigan last year.
The new draft I mentioned in January was short-lived. Within a week, I was working on another new draft based on more feedback from the publisher. While the latest draft is not complete, the first third or more is finished and this addresses the bulk of the concerns that were raised. (Or so I hope!) I’ll be making these first 100 pages available to a couple of beta readers to get their input.
A lot has been going on this past month with the coronavirus, emergency shutdowns etc. It’s a pretty stressful time for everyone. So with that in mind, I offer a few pieces of advice for those who are so inclined:
▪ Practice gratitude. Let’s not mince words, we are in a shitty situation. Possibly the worst the world has faced in generations. Nonetheless, every day I find things for which I am grateful and I write those down. Today I am grateful that I finished revising a major scene in the book, that I’m back home in Michigan with my wife and that my father (who’s 89 and living in Florida) is in good health. Also, I had some leftover Taco Bell. To each his own, right?
▪ Get outside. No matter where you are, if you can get outside in nature for fifteen minutes, that helps. If you can exercise, so much the better.
▪ Go on a news diet. Today I skipped the NY Times, WSJ and all other news. I feel much calmer.
▪ Reach out and stay connected. You may be under a lockdown situation, so are others. So reach out to friends and family over email, phone, text, slack etc. (Hence, my excuse for sending this update.)
As always, thank you for your support of this project. If you want to drop me a line and tell me what’s going on your world, how you’re coping, what you’re reading etc, I would love to hear from you. Don’t hit reply, instead add a comment to this web page or send email to me at ZUrlocker@hotmail.com or whatever email address you have on file for me.
--Zack
PS. Here’s a picture of our dog Roxie who passed away last fall, but can still cheer us up. This was taken on the first day of spring in Michigan last year.
It’s been a while since the last update, and I’m happy to report that a new draft of the novel is complete. I put it aside for a couple of weeks, while I was busy with a work project and finished re-reading it yesterday. The story has come together much better than the earlier drafts. On the advice of my publisher, I stripped out quite a few complications that were cluttering things up.
That said, there’s still work to be done. It’s possible that things were pared back a bit too much. I need to spend some time beefing up the opening chapters to give them more breathing room and adding more depth to the main character, detective Jack Waters. But it’s the first time I’ve re-read a new draft and not been embarrassed. So definitely good progress.
I don’t when the next round of edits will be completed, it’s likely going to take a few months. I will also likely tap into a couple of beta readers to provide an objective perspective. The publisher has set a very high bar for this book and I want to make sure it is as good as it can be.
In the meanwhile, thank you for all your support and encouragement. This has been a tougher project than I ever expected, so thank you also for your patience.
--Zack
PS. I attended BoucherCon, a mystery writers conference in October and met a many authors including fellow Canadian David Morrell, who wrote the book First Blood, which became the basis for the Rambo series.
Last month, I took a trip to Europe with my brother Mike to o some research for scenes that take place in Europe in 1945 during WWII. We visited Antwerp, Koln and most importantly Nordhausen, site of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and the underground factory known as Mittelwerk where 20,000 slave laborers dug out tunnels in an old gypsum mine and manufactured the V-2 rockets used to bomb London and Antwerp.
While I had done research for these scenes, there is an additional level of verisimilitude that gained from walking the same steps that scientists like Wernher von Braun did when he visited the camp, or where the 104th Infantry rode tanks into town to liberate the prisoners.
I’ve received helpful and detailed feedback from the publisher on the most recent draft. The bad news is, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The good news is, it’s mostly about stripping out a lot of complexity that has grown into the story so that it can be more focused on the historical fiction elements. In the coming weeks, I’ll be re-assembling a new outline before diving back into the next draft of the novel that will be even better than the last.
On a sad note, my co-author Roxie passed away a couple of days ago. We knew she had cancer for the last couple of months and I’m grateful that she had so much energy and enthusiasm right up until the end. The house is eerily silent without her.
—Zack
Last month, I took a trip to Europe with my brother Mike to o some research for scenes that take place in Europe in 1945 during WWII. We visited Antwerp, Koln and most importantly Nordhausen, site of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and the underground factory known as Mittelwerk where 20,000 slave laborers dug out tunnels in an old gypsum mine and manufactured the V-2 rockets used to bomb London and Antwerp.
While I had done research for these scenes, there is an additional level of verisimilitude that gained from walking the same steps that scientists like Wernher von Braun did when he visited the camp, or where the 104th Infantry rode tanks into town to liberate the prisoners.
I’ve received helpful and detailed feedback from the publisher on the most recent draft. The bad news is, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The good news is, it’s mostly about stripping out a lot of complexity that has grown into the story so that it can be more focused on the historical fiction elements. In the coming weeks, I’ll be re-assembling a new outline before diving back into the next draft of the novel that will be even better than the last.
On a sad note, my co-author Roxie passed away a couple of days ago. We knew she had cancer for the last couple of months and I’m grateful that she had so much energy and enthusiasm right up until the end. The house is eerily silent without her.
—Zack