The birth of The Night Police, our debut offering!
We’ve decided that we’d share our journey to develop and create our first book. In this case a complex, anthology of thematically linked short stories reuniting five warrior lawmen for a cathartic night of drinking, a homecoming of sorts. Of course they get sucked into a violent tale that unburies the past. And, no one escapes unscathed. Sound authory?
Paul and I have been writing for years, just for the love of it and sometimes for the escape. We’d share our writings with friends and often we’d get polite, encouraging responses.
The key was, share it with friends if you want great reviews, but not necessarily good advice.
There’s been some encouraging news on the professional front when a screenplay completed was optioned in Hollywood. Optioned, that’s not purchased or made into a movie when you’re a rookie at the game. In this case, there were contracts signed, big $$ due on the first day of principal photography. Holy crap did that sound enticing. That joy lasted a hair longer than a Dewars on the rocks.
That screenplay went into what they call development, never to resurface. Never to be seen by man nor beast. Read no $$. Hey it was a ride, and we learned much of what not to do. Turns out it was just a stepping stone that moved us towards writing our first book, The Night Police.
Paul wore me down over the years, explaining ad nauseam how we could write the book we’d always talked about. There were many, many nights on graveyards, our patrol cars parked “69”, our radios turned down to meek and we’d dream. Bad coffee and night dreaming was an antidote to the frustrations of the job.
Nothing was more fun than swashbuckling your way through a graveyard shift as a young policeman. The bullshit thrown our way by the city administrators, attorneys and occasionally an ornery non-male unit gave us plenty to alt-dream about. Writing became a prime topic, often ‘til sun up when that damned orange orb would appear for a morning blinding.
Up ‘til the last couple of years, I continued to push back, “what the fuck do I know about writing a true crime book?” Paul would remind me, that although I didn’t know a damn thing about it, it would be fun. We decided we wouldn’t let facts or knowledge get in our way, we just needed to jump into the deep end.
My pal of over 40 years was correct. Again. That sickens me.
We’ve completed our first draft of The Night Police and are deep into the editing process. We’ve had our first feedback from professional editors and that’s been encouraging.
Oh, and since we appear to be poster boys for the ignorant, we didn’t really even think about the whole business side to this writing thing. Create web sites, blogs, search engine optimization, marketing, reviews, book signings and on and on. It’s interesting even if daunting.
Hell, if us two mutts can get over on it, you can too.
We’ll keep you posted.
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