A Writer's Tale

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.”