A Writer's Tale (2 page)

1963-65

In March, 1963, I received my first rejection slip for a piece of fiction that I submitted to the magazine,
Bluebook for Men.
My piece, “The Great War,” was a crummy imitation of those vignettes that can be found in Hemingway’s
In Our Time.

After my brother’s graduation from Glenbrook High School in June, 1963, we had a garage sale, packed up our belongings, hopped into a couple of cars and drove across the country to California where Dad started a business venture. We settled in Tiburon, in Marin County. We lived in a house with a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay, and I received my last two years of secondary education at Redwood High School in Larkspur.

At Redwood, I took two years of creative writing classes, edited a book review newsletter, worked on the staff of the school literary magazine, and hung out with “intellectuals” at least one of whom got busted during the Berkley “free speech movement.” I spent a lot of time with my friends, the Gronbecks. I went to a lot of plays. I spent much of my spare time exploring bookstores all over San Francisco, Sausalito, Mill Valley and San Rafael.

I wrote for
Bookmark,
the Redwood High School’s monthly book review periodical, from January through June, 1964.

After doing reviews of such books as
All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom the Bell Tolls
and
Battle Cry,
I inaugurated a column called “The Bookstore Browser” in which I wrote about new paperbacks appearing at the Redwood student bookstore.

The 1964 issue of the Redwood High School literary magazine,
Orpheus,
contained my poem, “Memories” and my short story, “The Contemplator.”

From October, 1964 through March,. 1965 I was editor of
Bookmark,
seeing it through six issues. I wrote essays about several authors who turned out to be major influences on my own writing: Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne and J.D.

Salinger. (Also one about Ford Madox Ford, but I don’t think he had much effect on me.) The 1965 issue of
Orpheus
contained my poems, “Man We Gotta Make Music,” “Nothing,” “Running Away,” “A Prayer,” “Eternity,” “Road With a Sharp Turn,” “Kite,” my haiku “Sea Gull,” and my short stories, “Beyond the Streetlights” and “Lillies Die in Rough Wind.”

During that period, I was extremely self-conscious, weird, arrogant and annoying especially to my parents. I moped. I pined. And I continued to write. I fancied myself to be a sort of hybrid Dylan Thomas/Jack Kerouac/Ernest Hemingway/William Goldman/Edgar Allan Poe.

I also started taking backpacking trips into the High Sierra mountains with my brother, some explorer scouts, and various other friends. Sometimes, I camped and took driving trips into dangerous places with my friend, Chris Gronbeck. It is a wonder we survived.

But I got a lot of material that would later turn up in my fiction.

1965-69

Upon being graduated from Redwood, I headed north for Willamette University in Salem, Oregon to begin my days as a college student. Willamette is the inspiration for the fictional university, Belmore, which appears in some of my novels. I majored in English, wrote a lot, and had stories and poetry published in the university literary magazine.

The Spring, 1966 issue of Willamette’s literary magazine,
Jason,
contained my poem, “Complaint.”

The Spring, 1967 issue
of Jason
contained my poem, “One More Crucifixion,” and my short story, “Beast.” (About a teenager who keeps a dead mouse for his pet.) I attended summer school, 1967, at the University of Iowa, where I took courses in literature and creative writing.

Three of my poems, “Night on a Lake,” “Some of Us,” and “Today I Could Have Lost” were published in the 1968 issue of Willamette literary magazine,
Jason’s Phantasy.

In 1967 and again in 1968, I received $20.00 for winning second place in the Willamette University Creative Writing Award contest.

Though I’m officially in the Willamette class of 1969, I piled up a lot of credits by going to summer sessions at various institutions. I received my B.A. a year early, and spent my fourth year (Fall, 1968-Spring, 1969) working on an MFA degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Two of my poems, “Today I Could Have Lost,” and “Some of Us” were published in the December, 1968 issue of
Tongue,
which appears to be the literary magazine of the University of Arizona.

While in Tucson, I took a driving trip into the desert with a friend who intended to steal a cactus. This incident inspired my first professionally published story “Desert Pickup.”

In 1969, President Richard Nixon started the draft lottery.

I had lost my student deferment some time earlier, had gone for my pre-induction Army physical, and had made preparations to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. When Nixon held the lottery, however, I came up with a fairly high number. Thus, I never served in the armed forces. And I lived on to write my fiction.

1970

After one year at the University of Arizona, I dropped out of the MFA program and moved to Los Angeles. I enrolled in Loyola University of Los Angeles to pursue a Masters Degree in English literature.

April 10 I received a contract in the mail. My short story, “Desert Pickup,” had been bought for $75.00 by
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
It would be published in the magazine’s “Department of First Stories.” I went crazy wild with joy.

September I got a job teaching ninth grade English to girls at Bishop Conaty High School. (A teaching certificate wasn’t required for being a teacher at private schools.) I experienced a real life version of
The Blackboard Jungle.
I also started working on a Masters Degree in English literature at Loyola University of Los Angeles.

1971

I experienced my first major earthquake, a 6.6 that struck at 6 a.m. on the morning of February 9. Not knowing whether school would be in session at Bishop Conaty, I hopped into the car and drove downtown to Pico and Normandie. Traffic signals were dead. Fire hydrants were shooting water into the air. I used some of this experience, years later, when writing
Quake.

At the end of my first year of teaching at Bishop Conaty, I resigned to publish a pamphlet called
Smoker’s Blend,
which I thought would be sold by the thousands to pipe smokers and make me rich. It didn’t. I published four monthly issues (July-Sept., 1971) before going out of business.

The issues contain articles, tips and jokes for pipe smokers mostly written by me.

December 27 I began working on my novel,
Dark Road.

I worked as a library clerk at Mount St. Mary’s College in Brentwood.

June 17 I received a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from Loyola University of Los Angeles.

Summer I took classes in Library Science at University of Southern California, working toward a Masters Degree in Library Science in order to become a certificated librarian.

In October and November, I published
Smoker’s Blend II,
two follow-up issues of my original periodical.

1973

March 5 I joined Mystery Writers of America. Soon afterward, I was invited to attend a meeting of the Pink Tea writer’s group. I ended up belonging to the group for about a decade.

September I quit my job at Mount St. Mary’s and took a good job as the library assistant at John Adams Junior High School in Santa Monica.

While working at John Adams, I attended USC and UCLA in my spare time (night and summer sessions). Over a period of about four years, I took teacher training and worked on a Masters Degree in Librarianship. I came out of it with a lifetime California teaching credential. I am permanently licensed in this state to teach secondary school and junior college English, and to be a secondary school and junior college librarian. Nice to have something to fall back on.

1974

April 25 My second story, “Roadside Pickup,” was bought by
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

August I briefly worked as the editor of
The Executioner Mystery Magazine
and
The 87th Precinct Mystery Magazine.
These magazines were published by Leonard Ackerman. They appeared to be sponsored and intended as some sort of conduit for stories written by clients of a certain famous literary agency that I’d better not name in print.

1975

Oct. 3 I sent a manuscript of my novel,
Ravished
(a revised version of the 1971 novel,
Dark Road),
to literary agent Richard Curtis. He didn’t think much of it. More than twenty years later, a significantly revised version would be published as the novella, “Fiends.”

(This goes to show that rejected stuff is not necessarily without merit and value.) Oct. 9 In a letter to Richard Curtis, I told him about my current work in progress,
Substitutes,
which I had been working on “during the past 18 months.”

June 24 Having sent
Substitutes
to Richard Curtis, I received a letter from him. He wrote that he and his staff were divided down the middle about the book’s virtues and shortcomings. However, the shortcomings won the day and he didn’t wish to handle the novel. “You have a definite talent,” he wrote, “and if you can learn to plot a novel better, I think we can break you into print in the novel field.” (I later broke into the novel field, but
Substitutes
has never been published.)

August Ann Marie Marshall and I took a driving trip up the coast, visited the Hearst Castle and the Winchester House, then drove on to Lake Tahoe where we got married.

(I’d met Ann through our mutual friend, Marshall Oliphant. At the time, Ann was working in reservations at TWA.)

1977

Jan. 28 I was elected for a two year term as regional director of the Los Angeles Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.

April My short story, “Keeper of the Books,” was published in the Spring, 1977 issue of
California School Libraries.
(I don’t list this on my short fiction bibliography because it was not a professional sale.)

May 3 I wrote to Jay Garon: “Saturday night (at a party hosted by Garon - R.L.), on the recommendation of Clayton Matthews, you said that you would be willing to look at my work. I recently finished writing
Missing Pieces,
a mystery novel. The manuscript is enclosed.”

June 28 Based upon my novel,
Missing Pieces,
(which is so far still unpublished) I was taken on by the literary agency of Jay Garon-Brooke Associates. I needed to sign a three-year contract with the agency.

June - Aug. Instead of working the summer session at John Adams, I stayed home at our apartment in west L.A. and wrote my novel,
Beast House,
which would eventually be published as
The Cellar.

Sept.19 I sent my gun confiscation novel,
Take ‘Em,
to Jay Garon.

Oct. 28 I sent the manuscript of my novel,
Substitutes,
to Jay Garon. In my letter to Garon, I told him that I wrote
Beast House
over the summer, and that I was currently halfway through a novel “about a girl’s revenge on the man who raped her.” This was
Lo Down.
I later finished the first draft of
Lo Down,
but I have never completed a final draft of it. The book was a little
too
nasty, and I’d been advised to back away from the really rough stuff.

Nov. Ann and I moved into our house in west Los Angeles.

Nov. 17 Garon wrote to me, “We love
Take ‘Em
as a hard cover possibility and
Substitutes
as a good paperback. (Neither novel has ever been published.)

May 26 My novel about gun confiscation,
Take ‘Em,
was rejected by Warner Books.

June 12 -Jay Garon wrote to me, “I had made a presentation of what I considered two of your best to Warner, but to the top man (Larry Kirshbaum, I believe R.L.)… In another 10 days or so, I may have an interesting deal with Warner in a major way.”

Sept. 19 Jay Garon wrote to me, “We have read
The Keepers
and like it. You did a splendid job on this one. We immediately sent it out on multi-submissions.” (It has never sold.)

1979

Jan. 26
Beast House
(to be retitled
The Cellar)
was bought by Warner Books for $3,500.

April 18
Your Secret Admirer
was bought by Scholastic for $3,000.

April 25 Ann and I had lunch in New York City with John Kinney, my editor at Warner Books.

May 7 Jay Garon wrote to me that he had sent
The Keepers
to John Kinney.

June 21 Got news that Warner Books was giving me a three book contract for $45,000.

July 25 Our daughter, Kelly Ann Laymon was born at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood.

July 31 I mailed out the manuscript of my mummy novel,
Dead Corse,
to Jay Garon.

(This book never sold.)

Sept. 7 I mailed the manuscript of my novel,
Secret Nights,
to Jay Garon. (This book never sold.)

Sept. 12 My short story, “Stiff Intruders,” was bought by
Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine.