A Writer's Tale (6 page)

May 31 I had lunch here in Los Angeles with Bob Tanner. He suggested that, since my main success was taking place in Great Britain, I should try to come up with a novel having a British background.

June 17 Pondering Bob Tanner’s advice from the luncheon, I came up with the idea for my Jack the Ripper novel,
Savage.
I would work on making notes and doing research for this book while continuing to write
Blood Games.

June 29 The big “on-sign” check from Headline arrived. Finally, we were no longer poor!

July 11 With a portion of our new wealth, we went driving out to buy a new Jeep, but our ancient Omni broke down along the way.

July 12-13 We succeeded in buying a brand new red Jeep Cherokee. We immediately showed it to the De Larattas, then drove up and showed it to Bob and Cheryl (my brother and sister-in-law), spent the night in Bakersfield, then drove the rest of the way to Modesto for a surprise visit to my parents so
they
could see the new Jeep. We were pretty happy to have it.

July 18 Back in Los Angeles, I was treated to lunch at the Polo lounge by my publisher, Tim Hely Hutchinson, the head of Headline.

August 10 Returning to Berkeley for a signing at Dark Carnival, we spent the night in the apartment of Lany Mori and Joan Parsons along with their collection of disturbing oddities.

Sept. 6-10 I wrote the short story, “I’m not a Criminal” for the Stanley Wiater anthology
After the Darkness.

Nov. 8
Blood Games,
begun on March 6 of that year, was finally finished.

Nov. 18 I started writing
Ripper,
which I would later retitle
Narrow Calls,
and which would be published as
Savage.

Dec. 6-15 I wrote the short story, “Good Vibrations,” for a Gorman/Greenberg anthology to be called
Stalkers III.
The anthology would be published in 1996 as
Night Screams.

1991

Jan. 1-5 I made notes for a novel called
Nightman
which never went anywhere.

March 1-3 We took a trip to Bishop, CA to visit the Laws Railroad Museum so I could do some train research for
Ripper Savage).

March 18 I wrote a piece about
The Stake
for
Mystery Scene.

March 20 Looking for an American agent to replace Ralph Vicinanza, I contacted Dominick Abel.

May 17 I spoke on being a writer for “career day” at Canfield, Kelly’s school.

May 24-27 We drove to Tecate, Mexico and spent several days there with my parents, my brother Bob and his wife Cheryl.

June 8 Don Cannon had a signing for me at Aladdin Books. Approximately sixty copies of
The Stake
were sold, and I spent three and a half hours autographing books and talking to fans.

June 21-23 We stayed at the house of our friends, Sally and Murray Harb, and attended the Horror Writers of America festivities in Redondo Beach. My novel,
Funland
was nominated for a Bram Stoker award, but lost to Robert McCammon’s
Mine.
Bogart threw up. John Scoleri introduced me to Peter Enfantino and they proposed publishing a collection of my short fiction in a special limited edition. I agreed.

June 29 I had a signing at The Bookstore, Ltd. in Modesto, CA. Approximately two copies of
The Stake
were sold. Larry Mori and Joan Parsons drove out from Berkley and had dinner with us.

July 17 - August
1
We took a driving trip out west. Went to Jackson Hole. At a dude ranch near Cody, Wyoming, we did a lot of horseback riding, some whitewater rafting, some rock climbing. We got to meet a few real cowboys. We went to the Cody rodeo and Yellowstone Park. After the ranch, we went to Custer, South Dakota, saw Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Mountain, the badlands, the Custer battlefield at the Little Big Horn, etc.

We drove through fabulous landscapes near Moab, Utah. All this provided vast amounts of first-hand experience that came in handy during the writing of
Savage’?,
western sections. (I had been writing
Savage
since November of the previous year.) Aug. 9 I spoke and autographed copies of
The Stake
at The Book Annex in Venice, CA.

This being Venice, we had real vampires in attendance.

Sept. 6 I finished writing
Ripper,
otherwise known as
Narrow Calls
and soon to be published as
Savage.

Sept. 9 Though I’m convinced he did everything possible to help my career, I broke off from my U.S. agent, Ralph Vicinanza.

Sept. 10 I began a series of original stories for my first short story collection, to be published by Peter Enfantino, John Scoleri and Robert Morrish of Deadline Press.

Sept. 12-18 I wrote the short story, “Finders Keepers.”

Sept. 19-23 I wrote “Joyce.”

Sept. 24 - Oct. 1 I wrote “Mask.”

Oct. 1-5 I wrote “Stickman.”

Oct. 7-20 I wrote a story called “Friend,” which would become the title story of the Deadline collection, “A Good, Secret Place.” (The title, of course, is a play on the title of Hemingway’s classic short story, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.”) Oct. 14 I met agent Dominick Abel for lunch at Coco’s in West Los Angeles. He seemed willing to take me on as a client, but he thought I would be a tough sell because of my track record. (It’s all computerized, so if your books are not smashing hits, you can’t escape the record and your career inevitably goes down the toilet.) Mr. Abel thought it might be a good idea for me to escape from my record by writing under a pseudonym.

Oct. 28 After smoking a pipe since about the age of sixteen, I gave it up. For a while, I thought I might not be able to write without smoking a pipe, but I managed.

Oct. 29 I started work on a new novel,
The Caller
(never finished).

Nov. 4 In my quest for a U.S. agent, I talked to a man from William Morris. I was informed, however, that the agency wouldn’t take me on as a client unless I allowed them to handle the whole world, including the U.K. Which would mean dumping Bob Tanner.

So I didn’t go with William Morris.

It may have been at this point that I decided to quit looking for an American agent, and have Bob Tanner handle the whole works. He’d done such a fine job everywhere else, that it made sense. And still does.

Nov. 6-13 I wrote the short story, “The Fur Coat” for Richard Chizmar’s anthology,
The Earth Strikes Back.

Nov. 12 Bob Tanner called to inform me that
Blood Games
would be the main selection of Book Club Associates, Britain’s most important book club.

Nov. 17-23 I wrote the short story, “Phil the Vampire,” for the Gorman/Greenberg anthology,
Vampire Detectives.

Nov. 27 - Dec. 2 We went to Bullhead City, Sedona and Cottonwood with the De Larattas.

Dec. 2-9 I wrote the short story, “Dracuson’s Driver,” for the Gorman/Greenberg anthology,
Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

Dec. 10-13 I wrote the short story, “Kitty Litter” for the Gorman/ Greenberg anthology,
Cat Crimes II.
Dec. 14 I started writing my novel,
Quake.

1992

Jan. 15
The Stake
went into development for Tri-Star TV.

Jan 26 - Feb.2 In Florida, we went to Disney World, Daytona Beach, Cape Canaveral, and Gatorland where I ate alligator.

March 19 The trial of the police officers who subdued and arrested felon Rodney King began. Though still working on
Quake,
I took time to watch the complete trial on television.

March 25 Headline gave me a new and wonderful three-book contract.

March 30 My Headline editor, Mike Bailey, asked for a plot synopsis of
Quake,
so I wrote one up and sent it to Bob Tanner. (I send just about everything to Bob Tanner, and he delivers it all to Mike Bailey.)

April 3 I stopped working on
Quake,
leaving it unfinished. April 4-28 I wrote my novella, “Wilds.”

April 29 The jury found the police officers not guilty of charges brought against them in connection with the Rodney King arrest. The verdict wasn’t appreciated by some segments of the population, and the Los Angeles riot started. Reginald Denny was pulled from his car and nearly beaten to death by a mob of black hoodlums while we watched it happen live on television.

April 30 The riot was continuing. Armed with a pistol and video camera, we piled into our Jeep and drove to the Target store on a mission to save our Disney World photos from the rioters. Though we passed through areas that had already been hit, we succeeded and returned home safely.

May 1-3 The National Guard finally came in. With such a massive show of force, the riot tapered off and ended.

May 6 I started working on a new novel,
Sleep Over,
which would be published as
Endless Night.

May 8 We went to a local gun shop and began to improve our home defense capabilities.

May 16 We went to Venice Beach, where we saw a fellow threaten another guy and chase him around with a big knife. We reported the incident to a couple of nearby LAPD officers.

May 23-25 The ABA was in Anaheim. We had breakfast with Bob Tanner, dinner with Anne Williams of Headline and Bob.

June 28 Two big EARTHQUAKES. A 6.5 demolished much of the city of Big Bear, and a 7.4 hit in Yucca Valley. We felt them both, but they were too far away to do any damage in Los Angeles.

June 29 We had dinner with Sian Thomas of Headline.

July 10 We had dinner in Sacramento with Steve, Kathy and Sarah Adamovich of Cobblestone book store. We stayed at a motel that night, and I signed books at Cobblestone the next day.

July 21- Aug. 10 We flew to Ann’s hometown, Clayton, New York and took a side trip through the Finger Lakes area to Niagara Falls. We also had an adventure in Clayton, in which we stumbled onto a possibly illegal dump site, were caught there on a back road, and feared for our lives.

Aug. 14-17 I worked on an interview for
Samhain
magazine.

Sept. 10 The St. Martin’s version of
Midnight’s Lair
was chosen to be a Doubleday Book Club selection here in the U.S.

Nov. 13 I had a book signing for
A Good, Secret Place
at Dark Carnival in Berkeley.

Late that night, at the Berkeley Marriott, we had rodent adventures and needed to change rooms. We didn’t find out until later, but in the new room Kelly spent the night between her bedsheets with a pile of nut shells near her feet.

Nov. 14 We visited the Santa Cruz boardwalk, which I had already fictionalized in
Funland.
While there, we observed a woman who was concerned because her child had vanished inside one of the amusement park’s rides.

Nov. 17-18 I wrote a piece about
Midnight’s Lair
for
Mystery Scene.

Nov. 19-24 At the request of film agent Frank Cooper, I wrote a treatment of
Midnight’s Lair.
Oddly enough, based on a review of the book that appeared in
Publishers Weekly,
the folks at Disney were interested in movie rights. But only for a while. Then they found out what
Midnight’s Lair
was
really
about. (Film never made.) Dec. 2 I finished writing
Endless Night
and sent it to Bob Tanner.

Dec. 12-13 We helped our friends, Loretta and Mel Roberts, set up and arrange their audio book store in Long Beach.

Dec. 15 I started making notes for a new novel,
The Pact (never
finished).

1993

Jan. 6-11 I had meetings with film agent Frank Cooper, and did more work on treatments of
Midnight’s Lair.
(No films made.)

Jan. 19 - Feb. 9 We took a massive driving trip through Arizona and New Mexico, visited Carlsbad Caverns, drove through west Texas, stayed in Corpus Christi for a few days, spent a while in Houma, Louisiana, then a few days in San Antonio, Texas before heading for home. On the way back, visited the Cadillac Desert to pay homage to Joe Lansdale.

Feb. 15 I started writing a new novel, working title
MOG.
It would be published with the title,
In the Dark.

Feb. 16 I made two trips to the Cooper Agency about a possible film version of
The Stake.

Feb. 26
Savage
sold to St. Martin’s Press for hardbound publication under the Thomas Dunne imprint. Also, I went to the Cooper Agency for a meeting with screenwriter Richard Adams about a film version of
The Stake.
(Film never made.) March 5-6 We went to Disneyland, Roy Robbins threw a book-signing party at the Disneyland Hotel, and Roy treated us to a night at the hotel. Tim and Serena Powers dropped by for the signing. We got kicked out of the Disneyland cowboy saloon (because Kelly was under age), so we all went to our room, opened up the mini-bar, and had a great time for a couple of hours.

March 12-13 We spent the night in Sacramento, then had another signing at Cobblestone Books. Larry Mori and Joan Parsons came over from Berkley and we took them to dinner.

March 15 I wrote my article, “The
Lizzie
Borden Syndrome,” attacking certain book reviewers. It would appear in
Afraid magazine
and cause a bit of a stir.

March 25 I was informed that paperback rights for
The Stake and Midnight’s Lair
had been bought by Berkley but the publisher turned out to be Zebra, not Berkley. Also, Tom Dunne of St. Martin’s made an offer for
Quake,
based on the partial I’d sent to England back on March 30, 1992.

April 17 Koon and Powell, two of the officers involved in the Rodney King arrest, were found guilty when retried by the Federal government. This was the “proper” verdict, so we didn’t have a riot this time. Except for a small outbreak of violence at Magic Mountain amusement park.