Michael Hayes
@michaelhayesmedia.bsky.social
I’m a filmmaker and mystery writer working on a series of hardboiled detective novellas set in 2055 Los Angeles, where life is cheap, the tech is glitchy and magic is real. The first novella can be found here: https://books2read.com/u/bxkBzk
He wore a diamond stud in one ear and a flint gray blazer that fit him like a second skin. The angles of his face threw shadows that Sharp thought probably made children cry and old men tremble. He was 30s or 50s, hard to tell. But his close-cropped black hair was without grey.
-Stranger in Blood ⚡️📚
-Stranger in Blood ⚡️📚
October 8, 2025 at 12:54 PM
He wore a diamond stud in one ear and a flint gray blazer that fit him like a second skin. The angles of his face threw shadows that Sharp thought probably made children cry and old men tremble. He was 30s or 50s, hard to tell. But his close-cropped black hair was without grey.
-Stranger in Blood ⚡️📚
-Stranger in Blood ⚡️📚
Recently reread THE LIME TWIG by John Hawkes. One of my all-time favorites. A gritty tale of a plot to steal a race horse in the seedy underworld of post-WWII England. Flannery O’Connor says “you suffer TLT like a dream… that you want to escape from but can’t.” Check it out if you haven’t!
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September 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Recently reread THE LIME TWIG by John Hawkes. One of my all-time favorites. A gritty tale of a plot to steal a race horse in the seedy underworld of post-WWII England. Flannery O’Connor says “you suffer TLT like a dream… that you want to escape from but can’t.” Check it out if you haven’t!
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After dictionary.com stopped working for some reason, I went to redownload it and decided to download the OED app instead. The word of the day is “bloodshed”. I think I’m now an OED user lol
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June 27, 2025 at 10:41 AM
After dictionary.com stopped working for some reason, I went to redownload it and decided to download the OED app instead. The word of the day is “bloodshed”. I think I’m now an OED user lol
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#writingcommunity
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When he was young and dreaming of the future, hadn’t he imagined an ideal profession? He hadn’t told anyone, and never utttered these words aloud, even to himself, but he would have liked to be a ‘mender of destinies’. - Maigret gets wistful in Maigret and the Headless Corpse. Worth a read!
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June 19, 2025 at 1:06 AM
When he was young and dreaming of the future, hadn’t he imagined an ideal profession? He hadn’t told anyone, and never utttered these words aloud, even to himself, but he would have liked to be a ‘mender of destinies’. - Maigret gets wistful in Maigret and the Headless Corpse. Worth a read!
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Just finished Chandler’s The High Window. Marlowe solves another case. Some parallels to The Big Sleep. Especially in its convolutions. Chandler plots are often confusing in the very best ways.
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June 14, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Just finished Chandler’s The High Window. Marlowe solves another case. Some parallels to The Big Sleep. Especially in its convolutions. Chandler plots are often confusing in the very best ways.
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So I made a reader app for my stories and uploaded it to the App Store. It’s only for iOS so far. It’s also got a gaming element, solving clues in the mysteries. Would love you to check it out and give it a good rating! Let me know if it crashes. lol
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apps.apple.com/us/app/peace...
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apps.apple.com/us/app/peace...
May 31, 2025 at 12:34 PM
So I made a reader app for my stories and uploaded it to the App Store. It’s only for iOS so far. It’s also got a gaming element, solving clues in the mysteries. Would love you to check it out and give it a good rating! Let me know if it crashes. lol
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apps.apple.com/us/app/peace...
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apps.apple.com/us/app/peace...
“A little less ‘A’ and a little more ‘I,’ Frank.”
“Sorry, boss,” Frank said, discouraged. “The more human I become, the dumber I get.”
“Welcome to the club,” Sharp said.
(Detective Tom Sharp and his faithful AI assistant, Frank, in “I Put a Spell on You,” a hardboiled paranormal mystery.)
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“Sorry, boss,” Frank said, discouraged. “The more human I become, the dumber I get.”
“Welcome to the club,” Sharp said.
(Detective Tom Sharp and his faithful AI assistant, Frank, in “I Put a Spell on You,” a hardboiled paranormal mystery.)
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May 27, 2025 at 7:59 PM
“A little less ‘A’ and a little more ‘I,’ Frank.”
“Sorry, boss,” Frank said, discouraged. “The more human I become, the dumber I get.”
“Welcome to the club,” Sharp said.
(Detective Tom Sharp and his faithful AI assistant, Frank, in “I Put a Spell on You,” a hardboiled paranormal mystery.)
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“Sorry, boss,” Frank said, discouraged. “The more human I become, the dumber I get.”
“Welcome to the club,” Sharp said.
(Detective Tom Sharp and his faithful AI assistant, Frank, in “I Put a Spell on You,” a hardboiled paranormal mystery.)
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Current mood. A riff on Giacometti. “The chalice at 4am.” Yet it is a palace surely. I’m a lucky man. Precarious teetering on the edge notwithstanding. Finally hot enough in LA to sit out at night. Leaving for Cannes in a few hours. I should stay here and write. But I’m an idiot. So we drink
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May 11, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Current mood. A riff on Giacometti. “The chalice at 4am.” Yet it is a palace surely. I’m a lucky man. Precarious teetering on the edge notwithstanding. Finally hot enough in LA to sit out at night. Leaving for Cannes in a few hours. I should stay here and write. But I’m an idiot. So we drink
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Desperately trying to get back to writing the third novella in my series. Had another sale of the first book yesterday. One sale per month. Ha. But I think I’m reconciled to just writing and not caring after that. Write it, proof it, publish it. Write more. It’s too much out there. Too much
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April 29, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Desperately trying to get back to writing the third novella in my series. Had another sale of the first book yesterday. One sale per month. Ha. But I think I’m reconciled to just writing and not caring after that. Write it, proof it, publish it. Write more. It’s too much out there. Too much
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I was using em dashes obsessively years ago in an MFA writing program, a style I really liked and still like, but wonder if I wrote in this style now, would I be accused of using AI? Or did AI use my stories to train itself????
More em dashes is all I’m saying! 😬
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More em dashes is all I’m saying! 😬
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April 19, 2025 at 6:37 AM
I was using em dashes obsessively years ago in an MFA writing program, a style I really liked and still like, but wonder if I wrote in this style now, would I be accused of using AI? Or did AI use my stories to train itself????
More em dashes is all I’m saying! 😬
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#writingcommunity
More em dashes is all I’m saying! 😬
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It was exactly what I thought it would be. I just wanted the higher classes, but it’s a racket you know?
Sharp knew. He was surprised she did, but everyone was a cynic these days. Babies were being born at that very moment with scowls and lists of demands.
- Excerpt from Magic 101
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Sharp knew. He was surprised she did, but everyone was a cynic these days. Babies were being born at that very moment with scowls and lists of demands.
- Excerpt from Magic 101
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March 25, 2025 at 6:30 AM
It was exactly what I thought it would be. I just wanted the higher classes, but it’s a racket you know?
Sharp knew. He was surprised she did, but everyone was a cynic these days. Babies were being born at that very moment with scowls and lists of demands.
- Excerpt from Magic 101
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Sharp knew. He was surprised she did, but everyone was a cynic these days. Babies were being born at that very moment with scowls and lists of demands.
- Excerpt from Magic 101
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There are some foul crimes committed by some low-life hooligan or some madman that remain unpunished. But a crime committed by an educated man - never. They fiddle with everything. And it is this fiddling that eventually proves their undoing.
Maigret Enjoys Himself - Simenon
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Maigret Enjoys Himself - Simenon
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March 20, 2025 at 1:18 PM
There are some foul crimes committed by some low-life hooligan or some madman that remain unpunished. But a crime committed by an educated man - never. They fiddle with everything. And it is this fiddling that eventually proves their undoing.
Maigret Enjoys Himself - Simenon
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Maigret Enjoys Himself - Simenon
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I have a small collection of books. Maybe four tall wide bookshelves’ worth. I haven’t read them all but many. An eclectic library built over years. And I think these are the books I will need to figure it all out. And I need a few more
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March 18, 2025 at 11:53 AM
I have a small collection of books. Maybe four tall wide bookshelves’ worth. I haven’t read them all but many. An eclectic library built over years. And I think these are the books I will need to figure it all out. And I need a few more
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#writingcommunity
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Years ago, an acquaintance hired me to write a couple book reviews for Time Out NY magazine. I did an awful job. And drove to NYC upon the vaguest invitation wearing a cheap blazer and unfashionable brown shoes, looking to impress... I think I also brought a briefcase…
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March 16, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Years ago, an acquaintance hired me to write a couple book reviews for Time Out NY magazine. I did an awful job. And drove to NYC upon the vaguest invitation wearing a cheap blazer and unfashionable brown shoes, looking to impress... I think I also brought a briefcase…
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I’ve concluded I’m not good at self promotion, the most important survival skill of the 21st century. I want to be good at it. Lots of things I’ve created. Some of them have something to say. Maybe. Saying it out loud just seems ridiculous. Happy Friday!
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March 15, 2025 at 11:56 AM
I’ve concluded I’m not good at self promotion, the most important survival skill of the 21st century. I want to be good at it. Lots of things I’ve created. Some of them have something to say. Maybe. Saying it out loud just seems ridiculous. Happy Friday!
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#writingcommunity
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I got 1 sale today! And I wonder if you get many sales and are established and well known, if you think much about the reader or if by your success you assume probably correctly that there is already an audience so why worry about them? I wonder if this buyer will like my book
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March 11, 2025 at 1:45 PM
I got 1 sale today! And I wonder if you get many sales and are established and well known, if you think much about the reader or if by your success you assume probably correctly that there is already an audience so why worry about them? I wonder if this buyer will like my book
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Just realized that the time change here in the U.S. actually increases the darkness before dawn. So I’ve decided to start another Maigret at 6:25am. Maigret Enjoys Himself. Cheers
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March 10, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Just realized that the time change here in the U.S. actually increases the darkness before dawn. So I’ve decided to start another Maigret at 6:25am. Maigret Enjoys Himself. Cheers
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A framed publicity still on the wall of the legendary Smoke House. One of my favorite movies from one of my favorite books: The Maltese Falcon. Amazing to me how faithful the movie was to the novel, omitting only one substantial section
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March 9, 2025 at 7:12 AM
A framed publicity still on the wall of the legendary Smoke House. One of my favorite movies from one of my favorite books: The Maltese Falcon. Amazing to me how faithful the movie was to the novel, omitting only one substantial section
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Made this little animation of my book cover. Running an ad to see if I can get more sales, which have ground to a halt. But what’s nice is that the books are available and just waiting for me to figure out how to get them read. It’s the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ routine. Alas
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March 7, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Made this little animation of my book cover. Running an ad to see if I can get more sales, which have ground to a halt. But what’s nice is that the books are available and just waiting for me to figure out how to get them read. It’s the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ routine. Alas
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#writingandbooks
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Chatting with a couple of my old MFA cohorts, they mentioned something I had written that was published years ago in the literary magazine @conjunctions.bsky.social I had no memory of this. So my memory is now clearly an issue
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Conjunctions
conjunctions.com
March 6, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Chatting with a couple of my old MFA cohorts, they mentioned something I had written that was published years ago in the literary magazine @conjunctions.bsky.social I had no memory of this. So my memory is now clearly an issue
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Fame! they said. Fortune! Become a novelist! See the world! (Through your mind’s eye.) (That was in the fine print.) And now the gin’s gone. And what kind of world is that? Devils. Everywhere. Happy Tuesday
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March 4, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Fame! they said. Fortune! Become a novelist! See the world! (Through your mind’s eye.) (That was in the fine print.) And now the gin’s gone. And what kind of world is that? Devils. Everywhere. Happy Tuesday
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Current WIP is book #3 of my detective mystery series. It’s a novella called Stranger in Blood. The series is called Peaceable Kingdom. Sort of like Blade Runner but with magic instead of replicants. Only novellas so far. Dragging heels alas
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March 3, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Current WIP is book #3 of my detective mystery series. It’s a novella called Stranger in Blood. The series is called Peaceable Kingdom. Sort of like Blade Runner but with magic instead of replicants. Only novellas so far. Dragging heels alas
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#writingcommunity
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I think about Confederacy of Dunces and that the price of fame is sometimes quite high. And how to make rent in the interim… happy 1st of the month!
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March 1, 2025 at 1:41 PM
I think about Confederacy of Dunces and that the price of fame is sometimes quite high. And how to make rent in the interim… happy 1st of the month!
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My motto, to the extent that I have one, has been noted often enough, and I’ve always conformed to it. It’s the one I’ve given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain points … ‘understand and judge not.’
-Georges Simenon
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-Georges Simenon
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February 16, 2025 at 1:09 AM
My motto, to the extent that I have one, has been noted often enough, and I’ve always conformed to it. It’s the one I’ve given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain points … ‘understand and judge not.’
-Georges Simenon
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-Georges Simenon
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In Nicaragua for a wedding. The Best Western is a sprawling complex of rooms. Sort of a barracks theme. The parrot rock garden is nice. And I think, what would a hardboiled detective be doing here? Who was killed? And why? And how can it be solved? #booksky #indieauthors
February 13, 2025 at 5:05 PM
In Nicaragua for a wedding. The Best Western is a sprawling complex of rooms. Sort of a barracks theme. The parrot rock garden is nice. And I think, what would a hardboiled detective be doing here? Who was killed? And why? And how can it be solved? #booksky #indieauthors