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The Inevitable...

Writing is a funny animal. You do it, you put it out there, and then you sort of sit. THE VIRGIN DAIQUIRI is no different. It’s all rush, rush, rush for a few weeks as you’re getting the book ready and making sure everything is how you want it, proofing, fixing things, editing, checking the cover, making sure everything works and fits and somehow becomes something you want it to become.

Then the book goes live and for a few days it’s very exciting as people buy it, people tell you how excited they are, first reads come in and people tell you if they love it (or hate it…)

And then you are done…and it takes on its own life and you feel like someone just broke up with you and is already dating someone else. You simply feel let down. Because it’s out of your hands and into the hands of the book gods (or movie

gods…if that’s the case.) But there’s an empty feeling, like your child who has been home with you for five years suddenly is off to school all day and you have to regroup, figure out what to do with your time, your day, and how to readjust.

I always have other things to write, and now I’ll be starting on this Hallmark movie, as well as getting THE WEDDING GIFT through another rewrite (or two) so I can have it ready for a late fall release and push. But these days after a book goes out, it’s sort of lonely. The bird has flown the nest and while you’re doing some marketing on it (not my strong suit but needs to be done,) you’re not writing on it which is where I find my comfort and joy.

So, for a few days, I’ll mope. 🙂 I’ll keep busy, but I’ll miss Daiquiri. Because now instead of inventing her and nurturing her, I’m trying to sell her.

And God knows, I hope she sells.

Proof is in the Proof!

It’s always amazing for a writer to step away from his work for a period of time and then revisit it. You discover all your flaws, your mistakes, your wince-inducing sentences, your ‘when is this over’ paragraphs. You think, ‘how the hell did I write this’? I don’t believe there is a writer in the world that doesn’t go through this…and as I’ve gotten older and more discerning about my work, the more I second guess every word I type.

I miss being young.

But I hope what it means is that I’m continuing to grow as a writer. That’s important to me. I’ve always been a late bloomer, and I had a great deal of success with my first novel, HONEYMOON WITH HARRY. I am the guy who hit a homer his first time at bat and then had to learn the craft of writing novels on the backend of that success. Each novel I’ve written I’ve learned a lot about myself and the craft of structuring a novel and the best way to tell each story. Even what medium to tell them in. Some stories make better novels, some make better screenplays, and some make better plays. Yes, there is a lot of cross-sections, but how you tell a story for the screen is very different than how you tell it for a reader. And I feel I’m still scratching the surface of how to do each to the best of my ability.

Screenwriting has changed since I broke in in the late 70s/early 80s. Filmmaking has as well. Because audiences have changed, or more accurately audience expectation has flipped upside down in the last 30 years. Shorter attention spans. More visceral ability to the craft of filmmaking. Faster, bigger, bad-assier, what audiences expect when they walk into a movie now is simply different. And being a writer who has been at it a while, you can either bitch about it, which many writers do way too much, or you can learn what’s working and adjust your skillset. Again, screenwriting is a craft. Crafts can be learned. And if you learn them really, really well and can add a layer of your own-ness on top it can border on art.

I’m usually just happy if the craft is workable and saleable. For me, art is for someone else to decide.

Same with the novels. I’m not a great novelist. But I fancy myself a pretty good storyteller. And I want to entertain. Each character I create is meant to make people either laugh or cry. I work really, really hard to get people to feel some sort of emotion. I’ll admit it, I love to make people cry. Much of my work punches hard at a person’s tear ducts. I hope I earn the cry and not just completely manipulate the results. But most important for me is the results. I want people to laugh out loud. I want people to cry.

That was the success of the (first two) HARRY books. You laughed, you cried, you loved, you hated. The readers felt something. I think they will with THE VIRGIN DAIQUIRI as well. Though not aiming for the tear ducts, I am aiming for the funny bone and for people to fall in love with Daiquiri La Bouquet. She’s a unique character with a unique voice and I have loved writing this young woman, which always makes me believe that people will love reading her.