Critical Mick

How To Start A Sensation

1.

Use a pseudonym to write a novel about what would happen if a serial killer started killing real-life Minneapolis residents in the same ways featured in our hot new Serial Killer Detective Unit computer game.

2.

Market the novel as Monkeewrench in the US but call it Want to Play? in the UK and Ireland. Over there a wrench is called a "spanner." Monkeespanner is a kick-ass title, but only for a children's game about a wealthy flea who jumps at hot property developments on several simians.

3.

Hope that switching from children's software to a computer game about a serial killer does not destroy the reputation of our beloved Monkeewrench Software company.

4.

Write the book with many different plotlines moving at a fast pace on a bad-ass collision course. And when I say bad-ass, I mean big bright red hairy baboon ass!

5.

Put the weather in it.

6.

Put a hell of a lot of the Twin Cities in it, actually. Give Minnesota-based Erin Hart a run for her monkey.

7.

Wacky characters always welcome! Hairy bikers, pudgy sexpots, Southern belle ninjas who always wear riding boots, weird hermaphrodite gun nuts, painter detectives and supergenius love interests. Let's see how many colors this sucker can display.

8.

Impress Harlan Coben into saying "debut of the year."

9.

Mention Lutherans but have them curse like A Prairie Home Companion has never seen.

The following entry had, sadly, a line through it:
 

10.

Talk with real software developers and computer security people so that the computery details will sound legit. If every time the serial killer sends a cryptic message the book just technobabbles about a firewall, some nerd will probably get annoyed.

Several more important points follow:
 

11.

Keep it entertaining.

12.

Make sure it doesn't suck like that John Sandford Mind Prey game that some fool put online.

13.

Twist, baby. Twist like a prehensile tail.

Then, 518 times, the memo prints out:
 

14.

I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

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I Like Monkeys

38-531.

I Like Monkeys!