getyourgoodnews/matthewclemens

By Sean Leary
www.getyourgoodnews.com

Matthew Clemens has a job to die for.

Clemens, perhaps best known as the co-author of the successful
``CSI'' book spin-offs, has been crafting insidious fates and
daunting obstacles for the characters in his crime novels for
almost three decades.

His fruitful collaborations with Max Collins on a variety of film and
fiction projects allow him to roam the corridors of his imagination
with a child-like glee, concocting fun and deadly worlds for his
readers to explore.

Clemens will be signing copies of his latest book, ``You Can't
Stop Me,'' at 2 p.m. Saturday at Borders, 4000 E. 53rd St.,
Davenport.

Recently, we got together to chat about his career and future
works.

Q: How do you feel about the current book?

A: It's really good. (Laughs.) It's really good. That's the quote I
want the world to see. (Laughs.)

Q: Where did you get the idea?

A: It's something (Max Allan) Collins and I had been kicking
around for a while. We had been doing ``CSI'' novels for years and
thought we should come up with some ideas of our own. I thought
the idea of having a group of serial killer hunters not affiliated with
any government or law organization was interesting.

Q: It is. Tell us about it.

A: It's about a Midwest guy, John Christian Harrow, whose family
is murdered at the same time he's helping to save the president
from being assassinated. So he's shoved into the spotlight pretty
fast and in ways that he's not entirely comfortable with, but he
uses it to his advantage. He starts a TV show called `Crime Seen,'
which is basically kind of an `America's Most Wanted.' And at the
end of season one of the show he hijacks the show and says he's
going to find the killer of his own family.

Q: It's a cool idea. Any other twists to it?

A: We came up with something slightly off-kilter in regard to the
serial killer, which I won't reveal here, you'll have to read the book
to find out, but it makes the killer someone you can sympathize
with by the end of the book. It's not so black-and-white, it's
morally more about shades of gray.

Q: Sounds interesting. How long have you been writing now and
how long have you been collaborating with Max?

A: I'm 53 now and I've been writing since 1992 as a pro, so almost
20 years. April 10 will mark my 18th anniversary since I quit my
day job and decided to write exclusively. And I've been writing as
an amateur since 3rd grade. In the olden days I was the only 3rd
grader who had homework because I had extremely bad
penmanship. So I had to copy pages from a book to work on it.
One night, I got bored doing that so I thought I'd make up my own
story instead. That's when I found out that making stuff up is cool.

Q: How many books have you had now?

A: There have been a lot, at least 50. This is my 19th with Max.

Q: How is it collaborating with Max? How do you work on projects
together - do you both get ideas to start, do you both work on
narrative, how does it evolve?

A: It feels great. Part of it is that I came into this knowing he's
Bruce Springsteen and I'm Clarence Clemons, so there's no
competition or arguing over who's the boss. How it works is, one
of us comes up with an idea, we'll start playing `what if,' `what if,'
`what if,' until we have an idea that can be made into a book. I go
start researching and he'll start working and soon with any luck
we'll have a presentable synopsis and first chapter. I'll write a draft,
he writes a draft and we arm-wrestle over whatever one works.

We can usually come to an understanding pretty easily. We work
well together.

I think part of having me on board that's good is that it gives him
another bullet in the chamber. I'm kind of like a reload.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

A: Good luck! The business is shrinking quickly. There's so many
entertainment options out there to compete for people's time, it's
tough for books to keep on going. I don't know how much longer
books will be books in the format they are right now.

Another piece of advice is for people to realize that 80 percent of
the books sold are non-fiction, yet everyone wants to be a
novelist. The vast majority of the fiction books sold are of a genre -
mystery, sci-fi, romance, romance is a huge seller - and literary
fiction, which is also a genre, but is what everyone tends to think
of when they think of writing novels, makes up a very small piece
of the pie. People need to keep that in mind if they're considering
this as a career.

Q: It's a pretty dire picture, but it's true, it's one that people have
been writing about the print media and the publishing world for a
while. So, why do you continue to do it, and why would you
recommend anyone else do it?

A: It's more fun than anything. It's the best job ever. You get to
play with your friends, travel, and make stuff up. This allows me
the opportunity to never have to grow up. What could be better?
I'm 53 and I get to be Peter Pan and get paid for it.

I'm doing this until someone makes me stop.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm working on the next Harrow novel. I'd like to work on them
for a while. And we've got another book coming out in 2011 called
``No One Can Hear You.'' So, we're having fun. It's a good life.