A Writer's Tale (7 page)

April 19 The Branch Davidian compound at Waco was burned down with multiple casualties.

May 20 I got involved in writing a screenplay with the man who installed the new windows in our house.

July 1-13 To celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents, my brother and I treated them to a week in Hawaii. We all went over and stayed together in a condo on Maui. Then Ann and Kelly and I spent an additional week in Honolulu.

July 20 I finished writing
MOG,
which would be published as
In the Dark.

July 31 - Aug. 20 We took an extensive driving trip up the California coast, staying in such places as Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg, then going up the Oregon coast and spending a couple of days in Portland. After going to the disaster site of the Mt. St. Helen’s volcano eruption, we stayed in Seattle, Washington for a while, then drove up to Port Angeles and Aberdeen. On the way back, we spent a couple of days at Gold Beach, California, where we took the mail boat ride up the Rogue River.

Aug. 20 - Sept .22 I wrote a screenplay based on ideas developed in discussions with the man who installed several windows in our house. I then sent a copy of the finished screenplay to him, and never heard from him again. So much for the fun and games of collaboration.

Sept. 24 I started working on a new novel called,
The Look.
(I don’t think it went anywhere.)

Sept. 30 A letter arrived from Tom Dunne, who had just bought
Quake
for St. Martin’s Press, in which he made several suggestions for revisions and ways to proceed with the parts I hadn’t yet written.

Oct. 1 I returned to writing
Quake,
which I’d stopped writing on April 3, 1992 about a year and half earlier.

Nov. 29 I started making notes for a new novel, working title
Body Hitcher,
which would be published as
Body Rides.

Nov. 30 I wrote an introduction for Bentley Little’s first collection of short fiction.

1994

Jan. 17
BIG AWFUL EARTHQUAKE!!!
A 6.6 magnitude earthquake (or larger) struck the Los Angeles area at 4:31 a.m. We thought it was “all over.” For a while, we were trapped inside our house because a book case containing my published novels had fallen in the way of the front door and we couldn’t find the key to the back door. But we finally got out, and stayed in our car until dawn. Our only major damage was the loss of our chimney and fireplace.

Jan. 22 In spite of the destruction throughout the Los Angeles area, we went ahead with a signing at Don Cannon’s Aladdin Books.

Jan. 25 I got back to writing
Quake
with quite a lot of fresh perspective under my belt.

Feb. 7 I was interviewed by John Fredrickson via telephone at 7:30 a.m. for a radio show out of Penn State University.

March 3-6 We drove to Phoenix, AZ for the World Horror Convention. I spoke on a couple of panels, autographed books and met authors and fans. I finally got to meet Bob Morrish, one of the three guys who had published
A Good, Secret Place
and who would also be a publisher of this book.

March 20
EARTHQUAKE!
Though we’d had a lot of aftershocks from the Jan. 17 quake, this was a big one. It was magnitude 5.3, hit on a Sunday afternoon when we are all home, and lasted 30 seconds. Ann, Kelly and I stood around holding television sets and the china cabinet.

March 24 I finished writing
Quake.

March 24 - April 4 We took a driving trip to Arizona, returning to Tombstone, then spent a few days in Bullhead City with the De Larattas.

April 5 I started a new novel, working title
Glory Bus.
(Never finished.) May 7-8, 15-16 I wrote the short story, “The Maiden,” which would be published in
Dark Love,
edited by Nancy Collins and Edward Kramer.

May 8 “We took a Sunday morning drive to explore downtown Los Angeles and east L.A., and saw a dead body on the pavement of a car lot near the Hollenbeck police station. It was partly covered with a blanket and surrounded by several cops.

May 25 I started making notes for my novel,
Island.

May 27-30 ABA in Anaheim. We had dinner with Bob Tanner, went to a breakfast for a talk by Pat Conroy, and had lunch with Jane Morpath of Headline. Had a ten second chat with Stephen King, a man in a hurry.

June 2-6 We drove to Las Vegas for the Horror Writers of America weekend. I had been nominated for a Bram Stoker award in the short story collection category for
A Good, Secret Place.

June 29 I had lunch at the Bel Air Hotel with my publisher, Tim Hely Hutchinson.

July 12-13 I worked on notes for
Down Cellar,
the third Beast House book. I sent a partial and notes to Bob Tanner, then started making extensive notes on
The Cellar
and
Beast House
to ready myself for writing the sequel.

July 22-26, Aug. 15-16 I wrote the short story, “Herman,” which would be published in
Cemetery Dance.

July 28 - Aug. 15 We flew to Memphis, TN, stayed a few nights, then took the Mississippi Queen down the river to New Orleans, where we spent a week. Among other things, we visited Graceland in Memphis and William Faulkner’s home in Oxford.

Sept. 1-8 We spent a week in New York City. There, we had a meeting with Thomas Dunne of St. Martin’s Press in his office at the Flatiron Building.

Sept. 14 I started writing my novel,
Island.

Sept. 24 I went to Dangerous Visions bookstore for a signing of the Zebra paperbacks
of Midnight’s Lair,
etc.

Sept. 27 A memorial service for Robert Bloch took place in Westwood, and I attended.

Dec. 26 - Jan.1 We went on a trip with De Larattas to Death Valley, Tonapah and Ely, Nevada. At an Ely bookstore, we were told that Stephen King had recently come through on his motorcycle. Apparently, he was in the area doing research for
Desperation.

1995

Jan. 23 I finished writing
Island.
And the trial started for O.J. Simpson in connection with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Though continuing to get my writing done during the months of the trial, I watched nearly all of the trial on live TV.

Jan.’ 27 I started working on my new novel,
Body Rides.

March 6 Kelly had a day off from school, so we all went downtown to the courthouse to observe the O.J. action. The crowd was moved down the block because of a bomb scare.

March 16 I spoke about being an author at Kelly’s high school for career day. There, I was teamed up with a local TV personality who was a lunatic, yelled at the kids (using the F word) and threw a couple of them out of class. Later, some of Kelly’s friends wondered which of us was her father.

April 8-14 We took a driving trip to Lee Vining, visited Mono Lake, and spent most of the week in Reno, NV.

April 29 While leaving the Burbank Book Fair, we ran into Del Howison. He told us about his new store, Dark Delicacies, so we drove over for a look at it. Visited with Del’s partner and future wife, Sue.

May 3 Ed Gorman interviewed me again for
Mystery Scene.

May 6 At 11:30 p.m., Ann took Bogart into our enclosed back yard. She heard noises behind our garage, hurried back to the house, and told me about it. So I went to the rear of the garage and encountered a man trying to break in. I confronted him with my Colt .45.

He flung up his hands, yelling “It’s cool, man! Hey, it’s cool! Don’t shoot!” So I didn’t shoot, and allowed him to run away. Though we called 911, the police didn’t show up that night.

May 7 I called the police again. An officer came over and we gave him a statement about the incident.

June 3 We flew to San Francisco for a signing of
Quake
at a Brentano’s bookstore. A couple of the guys who worked there were major fans of my work. And I found out that their store hadn’t been scheduled to receive even a single copy of the St. Martin’s hardback of
Quake.
This let me know just where I stood with my U.S. publisher. I made up my mind to waste no more of my novels on any publisher that isn’t willing to put a little effort into getting behind me.

June 10 I had a book signing at Del and Sue’s store, Dark Delicacies.

June 17 We went to the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore in San Diego, where Dennis Etchison and I talked to the customers, answered questions, and autographed books.

June 24 We had a book signing at a Waldenbooks at Eagle Rock Plaza.

July 14 We arrived in Ann’s hometown of Clayton, New York, and were awakened in the night by a storm called a “micro-burst.” It felt like a bombardment, and caused great destruction throughout the area, uprooting trees, knocking out the power, ripping roofs off buildings, destroying the Lafargeville drag racing track, and killing several people.

July 14 - Aug.4 After the storm, we stayed in Clayton for a while, then took a driving trip. In Elmira, we visited a Mark Twain museum and his grave and saw a terrific stage play,
Mark Twain: The Musical.
Then we drove to Harrisburg, PA, visited the Gettysburg battlefield, then spent a while in Scranton.

Sept. 11 The concrete was poured for the foundation of our new garage. The garage, when done, would be two stories high. The top floor would be my office. We’d wanted such an addition for years. It was made possible by Tom Corey, a fan who’d come to many of my signings and became a close friend. A contractor, Tom managed to put the whole project together and get it done.

Sept.
27
I finished writing
Body Rides
and mailed it to Bob Tanner.

Oct. 3 All common sense to the contrary, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty by a jury of his admirers. This undoubtedly saved Los Angeles from another riot, but outraged some of us.

Oct. 5-16 I wrote the short story, “First Date,” for Poppy Brite’s anthology,
Razor Kiss.

Oct.
17
I started work on a new novel,
Bite.

Dec. 3-9 I revised my old novel,
Fiends
(originally written in 1974 and never published) cutting out large portions and turning it into a novella. It became the title story for
Fiends,
my first U.K. short fiction collection.

Dec. 26-31 We took a driving trip to Yuma, Arizona with the De Larattas. Visited the old Yuma prison and spent a day in the Mexican town of Algodones.

1996

Jan.
5
I mailed my short story collection,
Fiends,
to Bob Tanner, then resumed working on
Bite.

Feb. 17-18 We drove to Ridgecrest, Trona and Death Valley so that I could get the geographical details straight for the driving trip in
Bite.

March 11 I had lunch with publisher Lyle Stuart who is famous for publishing such non-fiction titles as
The Anarchist’s Cookbook.
He told me of his plans to publish
all
my books with loads of publicity, three books per year, under a special Laymon imprint.

Sounded great, but it never happened.

March 29 The building inspector showed up and gave final approval of the finished garage/office.

March 30 Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri came over and we went out to dinner at the Warehouse in Marina Del Key.

April 5-12 We took a driving trip to Salinas, San Francisco, and Moro Bay. In San Francisco, we went on the tour of Alcatraz Island and I got the idea for having “self-guided audio tours” with cassette players which I would soon use in writing
The Midnight Tour.

May 1 I finished writing
Bite.

May 6 I started working again on
The Cellar III.

June 9 I changed course on my ideas for the next
Cellar
book, and started making notes for a version called,
The Midnight Tour.

June 22 - July 2 We took a driving trip to Modesto, Placerville, Reno and Lone Pine.

July 6 I returned to work on
The Midnight Tour.

Aug. 7-24 We flew to New York City, took a train to Boston, drove around Cape Cod and took a train from Boston to Salem of witch trial fame.

Sept. 4 Learning that Book Club Associates planned to print my next novel as part of a “double-book” with
Bite,
I quit writing
The Midnight Tour
about 180 pages into the manuscript. I started a new novel,
After Midnight,
which I saw as a “companion piece” to
Bite.

Nov. 18 Going out for my morning walk, I slipped on our recently painted front stoop, fell down the stairs and broke my right arm in two places. Ann drove me to the emergency room at Brot-man Medical Center. Back home a couple of hours later, I returned to writing
After Midnight.
I’d gotten up to page 405. I managed to write two more pages that day typing with my left hand.

Dec. 20 I received my new contract from Headline for four more novels. The new contract gave me about two extra months between each novel.

Dec. 21-22 We took my parents to Catalina Island, and storms nearly prevented us from returning the next day.

1997

Jan. 2 I finished writing
After Midnight.

Jan 15-Feb. 5 With the extra time on my hands because of the new contract, I wrote a screenplay
of After Midnight.

Jan. 19 Ann and I had dinner at the Bel Air Hotel with Tim Hely Hutchinson and Amanda Ridout of Headline.

Feb. 18 I finally got back to my third book of the “Beast House” novels
The Midnight Tour.

March 1,3,7,12,16 At the request of Bob Tanner, I wrote a “zombie” story for an anthology being edited by Peter Haining. I experimented with a new writing method of skipping about from one project to another. A day or two here, a day or two there…