A Writer's Tale

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…

March 2,4,8,9 I worked on the opening of a new novel, working title Madland, loosely based on an idea I’d long ago proposed to John Silbersack at Onyx. (He accepted the proposal, but didn’t give us an acceptable offer so we declined.) March 15 I returned to The Midnight Tour.

March 22 Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri came to the house, we all went out to dinner at Islands restaurant in Beverly Hills, and discussed developing this book about me. After dinner, we drove around to show John and Peter some places that inspired parts of Body Rides. Then we went nuts and drove around for a couple of hours, exploring famous murder sites.

March 23-29 We drove to Las Vegas, where we experienced some terrible crowd scenes and I got the inclination to write a novel set in Las Vegas.

April 2 I started work on my “Afterward” for the special limited edition of The Cellar published by Richard Chizmar and CD Publications.

April 15 I had my first meeting with film maker Jerry Lentz. We discussed forming a limited partnership in order to produce films based on my books.

April 25 I started working on material for this book, dividing my time between this project and Midnight Tour.

June 20 We attended Kelly’s graduation from Hamilton High School.

July 23 - August 10 We spent about a week in Philadelphia, then in Baltimore. At much peril to ourselves, we visited former dwellings of Edgar Allan Poe in both cities. In Baltimore, we visited Poe’s grave and hung around Fell’s Point to watch the taping of Homicide, Life on the Streets, the best drama show on television.

Aug. 15-16 Kelly and I attended Dracula ‘97, a vampire convention at the Westin Hotel near L.A.X. I signed books, sat on panels, and had a memorable “dialogue” with Tim Powers. Afterwards, we had drinks with Tim and Serena, Nancy Holder, and Katherine Ramsland.

Aug. 23 We took Kelly to college and managed to survive hauling her stuff to her third-floor dorm room.

Sept. 6 Ann and I drove to Parkfield, the “earthquake center” of California, to celebrate my mother’s birthday. On the way home, we dropped in on Dark Delicacies to sign a few books, visit with Del and Sue, and order our Christmas cards.

Sept. 14 I finished most of this book, which I plan to call A Writer’s Tale, and returned to work on The Midnight Tour.

Sept. 21 I had a private chat room discussion on the Internet with John and Peter in which we discussed details of A Writer’s Tale.