Monday, June 24, 2013
I'm so busy with stuff and it feels great! I logged in another 15-hour writing/reading/thinking day, which is becoming routine. I printed out a double-spaced draft of Zombie Cookies and will go through every scene, adding, subtracting, modifying, embellishing, emphasizing, stretching out, tightening, cutting, and polishing the manuscript until it's where it needs to be when an agent requests the full. This will take a few weeks. This is what writing's all about. I love it!
I'm also writing a 30,000-word Behind-the-Scenes e-book on the making of Don't Eat the Zombie Cookies. I wrote about 2,000 words of this today. I'm a junkie for stories about the making of books, movies and tv shows. I've read many books on the making of It's A Wonderful Life, Casablanca, All About Eve, and I love listening to filmmakers talk about the making of their movies on DVD extras. So, I'm writing e-books on the making of all of my books, starting with Zombie Cookies since it's still so fresh in my mind. I figure this will be a great way to learn how to set up e-books on Amazon. I'll sell each Making Of e-book for $.99 and load it up with tidbits, my writing process, what the heck I was thinking during the composition of each chapter, my emotional state during the writing of the book, the books I was reading at the time, the music I was listening to at the time, etc. Remember all those VH1 Behind the Story documentaries on rock bands? That's kind of what these e-books are about. Should be fun and should take no time to write.
So Chris and I are about to embark on what I think will be one of the most exciting projects I'll ever write. He came up with the idea a few weeks ago when we were talking about Amanda Bynes and the tragedy that has occurred to such a phenomenal young talent. Chris said, "what they should do with Amy Winehouse-types is scoop them up off the streets and deposit them on a deserted island so they can go cold turkey and figure out who they are."
Alarm bells went off in my head, along with a voice that said, "We Interrupt this Broadcast to bring you an important pitch in which Survivor meets Cast Away meets Celebrity Rehab."
Working title: Intervention Island.
I'm reading three books by Mark Burnett, a memoir by Shirley MacLaine's daughter called Lucky Me (apparently, Shachi Parker wasn't so lucky), Ricky Lake's autobiography, a memoir by the producer of the Larry King Show, and Warren Littlefield's account of his time at NBC called "Top of the Rock." Needless to say, there's unlimited resource material for this awesome, awesome new story. After reading Gone Girl, I wanted a story Chris and I could write that would combine two narrative points of view into a fast-paced novel that people would enjoy reading on airplanes. This is it! The satire levels are on full-throttle with this one. Lucky for all of us,we live on a planet with so much to write about. If II becomes a hit and a sequel is requested, the working title for book two might be, The Planet That Keeps On Giving.
After printing off my manuscript, I treated myself to the $25 gift card I'd had in my drawer from Pegasus Books. Bought these treats that I can't wait to dive into:
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| New books to gobble up, three YA and one story collection by a true master! |
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