Sunday, July 30, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/30/17

Sunset Boulevard, the street and the movie, plays an important role in chapter 18. I wrote a scene that takes place while two of the characters are watching the movie. They start to pay less attention to the movie and concentrate more on what they are doing with each other, but I describe what is happening in the movie while the characters are doing whatever they are doing.

After I wrote the scene, it occurred to me that I have not actually watched Sunset Boulevard in a long time. The tiny bits of the movie I described might not happen when I think they do. That could be embarrassing.

There was a time when I could have gone down to Blockbuster and rented Sunset Boulevard. That is not going to work today. Fortunately, we have Youtube. Unfortunately, Youtube users generally don't care about violating copyright laws.

I found the entire movie just sitting out there without any of the people who worked on it earning any money. That worked out for me since I could watch it and make sure I knew what I was talking about. If Billy Wilder were still alive, maybe I would send him a quarter to make up for the royalties he lost when I watched his movie for free.

In the end, my memory was pretty good. The two scenes that I referenced were in the right order, but they were a lot shorter than I remembered. I also completely forgot that Buster Keaton was in it. His scene is short, but I need to find a way to work him into my story. I already have an idea for Charlie Chaplin. It makes sense to put in a little Buster Keaton.




Thursday, July 27, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/27/17

I have a few scenes in this story about reality TV shows. I'm not a fan, but some of the characters get involved with a couple of different shows. The first show has someone from one religion live with a family of another religion. The Mormon lives with a Jewish family, the Muslim lives with a Catholic family. The more I type, the stupider it sounds. And it's supposed to. It's reality TV.

The second reality TV show is more conventional. Single people go on three dates. If the person they choose after the three dates also chooses them, they are back for the next round. Any dates that don't choose each other or don't choose anyone are eliminated.

In a lot of ways, that is even worse than the religion show. Going out on a first date is hard enough. No matter how you met the person, the odds of success are remote. Most first dates might not end in hilarious disaster, but they don't lead to a second date. Imagine having a first date in front of a TV crew. The more it's staged, the easier it would be. But if it were actual reality, that would have to be a terrible first date.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/25/17

I wrote a scene about two of the characters trying to make an online video go viral. I guess that answers the question on whether this story should be contemporary or set in the recent past. Did they have viral videos in the 1990s? I'm guessing no.

There are a few other mentions of people using computers, but we had those in the '90s. They were just very different from today's computers. And no one kept them in their pockets or took self portraits with them.

I think I mentioned a cell phone at one point. But that could be any time after the '80s. Cell phones were not nearly as smart in the '90s, but I never wrote anything about anyone taking pictures of their dinner for Facebook. I think I had them talking on the phone as if it was a phone. That sounds more like the past than the present.

I'm pretty much torn at this point. I want the story to take place in the past. The story wants to take place in the present.




Ancient technology

Monday, July 24, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/24/17

If you are an actress invited to the Golden Globe Awards, what do you wear? I would be tempted to just pick something out of my closet or, more likely, borrow something from my roommate. But it turns out there are a few rules you are supposed to follow.

If you are walking down the red carpet, someone will send you a list of designers who want their latest collection to be seen. Naturally, there is a hierarchy. Nominees get a longer list than presenters, who get a longer list than A-list invitees, who get a longer list than all those people no one recognizes. If you are a nominee, you get first dibs, and might even get a famous designer to make something specifically for you, assuming everyone expects you to win. The greater your chances of screen time, the more the designers are interested. If your name is Meryl Streep or Jennifer Lawrence, they might even pay you to wear their newest dress.

Once you have decided on a few designers, they will send several options out to you. The higher up you are on the food chain, the more options you have. Once a nominee or presenter has chosen a dress, no one else will ever see it. They have been doing these awards shows for decades. They know how to keep any two people from wearing the same thing. Even if you ignore the designers and pick something out of your closet, you have to clear it with the show before anyone steps on the red carpet.

Sharon Stone wore jeans and a t-shirt to an awards show one year. Not only did that freak a lot of people out, but it pissed off the show's producers because she was scheduled to wear something else. There were no duplicate outfits. No one else showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, but she broke protocol. Coincidentally, she is not as famous as she used to be.

Keep that in mind, just in case.


They never dress like this anymore.
It would not get enough Twitter likes.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/23/17

My original plan was to title each chapter with the city or neighborhood in Los Angeles where the chapter takes place. Los Angeles is almost a character in this story, so that makes sense to me. Several chapters will take place in the same location, but there are ways around that. A chapter at UCLA does not have to be called “Westwood” if there is another chapter in Westwood.

But then I wrote chapter 17. There is a Paul Simon song that would be perfect for the chapter title. Not only does the title work, but the character in the song shares a few similar traits with one of the characters in the chapter.

Song titles are not copyrighted. Anyone can use them, as long as they are not trademarked. Most song titles could never be copyrighted even if the songwriter wanted them to be. Glenn Frey and Jackson Browne could never copyright the phrase “Take It Easy”. Some titles are completely unique, like “Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, but still not copyrighted. Anyone can use that title, unless it's trademarked. If you are a songwriter, you can write a song called “Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”. No one ever does, for obvious reasons. Every single critic in the world would compare your song with the original. That is not a position you want to put yourself in.

Rather than think about other songs for all the other chapters, I will simply keep my original plan for chapter 17. It's a shame, but I'm sure Paul Simon will not mind.



Take It Easy
Eagles



Stranded In a Limousine
Paul Simon

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/20/17

About 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, just west of Santa Barbara, is the small town of Solvang. I have never been there, but it's supposed to be a popular place to go Danish. The city, built as a Danish community, is famous for Danish cookies and pastries. It sounds like a tourist trap, but a few thousand people live there.

The funny thing is, if you talk to anyone who lives in Los Angeles, they have been there. It's like asking people in New Jersey if they have ever been to New York. Except Solvang is a million times smaller and not the cultural, artistic and financial center of the country. But everyone goes there, either as a separate trip or on their way up the coast.






Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/19/17

What would you do to be famous? There was a time when people gained notoriety by actually accomplishing something. Explorers were known for discovering new lands and shipping passages. Scientists were known for discovering gravity and planets. Today, people seek fame by posting cellphone videos on Youtube.

But if you are an actor, how do you get people to notice you? The traditional route is to study your craft, work hard, pay your dues and rise through the ranks until you get bigger roles and more recognition. Jack Nicholson's first jobs in front of the camera were soap operas. His first movies were low budget horror and westerns. It was writing screenplays that led to better acting roles. He did Five Easy Pieces 16 years after moving to Hollywood.

Today, everyone wants their first acting job to be the lead role in a giant summer blockbuster that breaks all box office records and wins a million Oscars. If that is your plan, good luck.

A popular route to celebrity for people who want to be famous for the sake of being famous is to make a sex tape. I doubt they are as popular as they used to be, but they worked wonders for great thespians like Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton. Their sex tapes made them household names, and started a wave of copycats.

But I think people forget that Pamela Anderson was already moderately famous before her sex tape. She was also a Playboy model, so I don't know why anyone was excited to see her naked. That is as rare as seeing Lindsay Lohan drunk.

Paris Hilton kind of bothers me. She was born with every advantage, yet she blew it all just to have 15 minutes. If all she wanted was fame, she could have gotten it by using some of that money to do something worthwhile for humanity. I would not expect her to cure cancer, but I'm sure we could all think of a better use of a billion dollars than a camera and hotel room.


Beverly Hills Hotel


Gil Turner's

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/18/17

Where would you throw a Christmas party if you lived in Los Angeles? There are plenty of hotels and event centers, but if you want somewhere with character, Los Angeles has a few options.

The Queen Mary in Long Beach is nice if you are into nautical themes, but I have decided to have a party at Harry Houdini's house in the Hollywood Hills. People disagree on whether or not he actually lived there, and the current building is a reproduction of the original. Even if Houdini lived on the property, he never lived in the house that exists today.

But it's a nice looking place that is available for private parties. The main house looks like a Mediterranean villa and the grounds are ideal for entertaining, with a terraced garden and rock waterfall. Spending the evening outdoors during Christmas might not be a good idea in most of the country, but this is Southern California.


Houdini Estate
Laurel Canyon Blvd

Monday, July 17, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/17/17

When the idea of setting a story in Los Angeles came to me, I wanted everything to revolve around Santa Monica. I have been there and I know the area more than any other part of Southern California. Originally, the main characters were going to live in Santa Monica and spend most of their time around the beach, pier and Montana Avenue. I even used MGM because I thought it was still in the Colorado Center.

Eventually, it made more sense to put them in the San Fernando Valley. It also opened more opportunities since more than a few people in Los Angeles look down on the Valley. It has some of the richest neighborhoods in the city, but some people ignore the hills and only think about areas like Pacoima, Van Nuys and Panorama City.

But I still wanted someone to live in Santa Monica, at least part time. So I'm putting one of the characters into a house on Palisades Avenue, near 4th Street. It's a nice little neighborhood near the park, with a large beach and ocean just down the cliff. I don't know what it would cost to actually live there, but it's next to Montana Avenue and close to the Third Street Promenade. I'm guessing it might be a little pricey.

I wrote a quick scene between two of the characters on the beach that hopefully says a lot about their relationship in a short conversation.


Palisades Park, Santa Monica


Probably not the worst place to live.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/16/17

Stella Adler was one of the founders of method acting in the United States. Most people think about Lee Strasberg when you talk about the method. He was one of the first people to bring Stanislavski's system to the United States. But then Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner broke away from Strasberg when they thought he was focusing too much on parts of Stanislavski's training that Stanislavski himself came to reject.

In the most general terms, Lee Strasberg wanted actors to think about emotional moments from their lives and use that emotion on stage. If your character's father is dying, think about when someone in your family died. Stella Adler wanted actors to imagine the circumstances of the scene. If your character is a banker, go to a bank and learn what they do. Sanford Meisner wanted actors to react with other actors in the moment. Study your character to the point where you know how they would react in any given situation. Each approach is similar, and more or less based on Stanislavski's system. The audience would never be able to tell what the actor was doing, but it's obvious to the actors if their partner is using a different technique.

Acting with someone who uses Strasberg's method is like acting with a wall. When fully immersed in their own emotional memory, they can block out everyone else around them. Actors who use the Meisner technique are the exact opposite. They pay careful attention to everything their partner says and does. Adler students are closer to Meisner, but not as in the moment.

When I started acting, I thought Strasberg's method was the way to go. It makes sense. If you have to act an emotion, just imagine something in your past that brings out that emotion. But the younger you are, the less likely you will have a similar experience. Shakespeare as a teenager is very difficult for someone with no life experience.

When I got a teacher who used the Meisner technique, I knew that was the way to go. It made even more sense. Rather than think about yourself, you react to the other characters around you. Ophelia is not crazy because she has a chemical imbalance. She is crazy because Hamlet drives her crazy.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I found that with Strasberg's method, I could never cry on stage. Thinking about a sad memory never did it for me. As soon as I went Meisner, I could cry on cue. Rather than make myself cry from a buried emotion, I was crying because of the character's situation. It suddenly got easy. It's also much easier to recover when you are crying based on the scene rather than something terrible in your past.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/13/17

I spent a few chapters hinting and teasing at a film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. In chapter 16, I finally get into the story.

The fictional film is about Émile Armand, but my story is not. One of my characters is an actress who plays one of Émile Armand's lovers in the film. Her mother is also one of Armand's lovers, and one scene in the film explores their little triangle, culminating in a threesome between mother, daughter and their shared lover. It's the kind of twisted situation someone like Bertolucci would film.

I did not write it just because it's twisted. There are some Oedipal and Electra issues the character has to work out. It's not at all graphic. It is supposed to be more psychological than titillating. In fact, I should mention the character's relationship with her parents more. That might help her.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/12/17

Who are your biggest influences? That is a question you are going to get a lot if you do any kind of acting. My standard answers are Helen Mirren, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep and Sally Field. More or less. Sometimes I will mention Edna Purviance, but that is more likely to confuse the interviewer. They all know Meryl Streep.

In having one of the characters answer that question, I chose Jennifer Aniston. There is no hidden reason. She just seemed like an actress most people probably don't look up to as their acting idol. I'm not mocking Jennifer Aniston. I have nothing against her. She simply popped into my head when I thought about actresses that people probably don't think of as their acting idols.

But it makes sense, in a way. If you grew up with Friends, and you are a big fan, you might think more of Jennifer Aniston than most people. I first learned about Alan Alda from M*A*S*H. He has done plenty since then, of course. And who knows. Maybe in 50 years, Jennifer Aniston will be universally admired for her work. It's theoretically possible.


The African Queen
Directed by John Huston
© 1951 Horizon Pictures

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/11/17

The new character that I have just introduced is from Alaska. I wanted her to be from somewhere far away from Los Angeles, but still have a down home Americana feel.

I don't know anything about Alaska. I have seen pictures. It looks quite nice. But I probably picture it as the frozen wasteland that most Americans picture of Minnesota. Since I know beyond any doubt that Minnesota is nothing like Antarctica, I have to leave open the possibility that Alaska does not match its stereotype, either.

Rather than bog myself down in research on Alaska and its community culture, I'm just going to think of this character as being from Iowa. I suppose I could make her from Iowa, but Alaska is more mysterious. To me, at least.

Choosing her hometown was not entirely scientific. I looked at a map of Alaska and picked a coastal town in the middle of nowhere. I wanted her to be from the coast rather than inland to contrast with the Southern California beaches. Alaska has an enormous coastline, so there must be all kinds of beaches. But I'm assuming they are not quite like Venice.

Monday, July 10, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/10/17

Are there any acting schools in Los Angeles? Of course there are. I could have easily had one of the characters go to any anonymous acting school and no one would have ever questioned it. There are probably thousands of schools in Southern California.

But I like to at least picture a place in my head when I'm writing about it. I can write about the 405 freeway and picture a million parked cars, but I don't know of a single acting school anywhere in Los Angeles.

Since there are far too many choices, I picked one near a Mexican restaurant that I remember from my 2014 Los Angeles trip.


Casa Martin
Santa Monica, California

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/9/17

I do not like reality TV shows. I never have. For one thing, they are not realistic. In the first episode of one of the very first reality TV shows, MTV's The Real World, one of the characters points out that the way they were living in that house had nothing to do with the real world.

Today's reality shows are either game shows – America's Next Top Garbage Collector, American Prep Cook, American Accountant Wars or shows that follow curiosities around – Here Comes Child Services, Newark Shore, Keeping Up with Chlamydia.

It's not that scripted shows are always better. There have been some pretty terrible shows over the years. Remember Manimal or Holmes & Yoyo? Those were not Saturday Night Live sketches. They actually existed. But the entire point of a TV show is to entertain. Is anyone really entertained by watching actors pretend to buy abandoned storage units or people who are not actors acting like they are buying a house?

In my story, there is a reality TV show that takes someone from one religion and has them live with a family of a different religion. The fake reality show is called Turning the Other Cheek. A conservative Mormon goes to live with a liberal Jewish family, a Muslim lives with a Catholic family. That sort of thing. It sounds like such an absurd idea that I looked around to make sure it did not already exist. I'm sure it will sooner or later, but for now, I can't find anything like it.

When Fox finally does it, I want credit.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/8/17

I have always heard that Los Angeles is a good place for live theater. I'm naturally skeptical, especially since the history of Los Angeles revolved around the motion picture industry, and movies today are all about computer effects. But you never know. Most Americans have no idea how much theater and live music is available in Minneapolis, so it stands to reason that Los Angeles might exceed my expectations. Plus, the city has 4 million people. Some of them must enjoy the theater.

Los Angeles is no Broadway, but what city is? Maybe London comes close. But they have the Pantages Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre and probably more than a few smaller venues.

And with that, another chapter is finished.

Chapter 15 starts off with some serious career disappointment. One of the main characters is an actress, and the acting world is one disappointment after another. There is a simple rule for actors: if you can't handle rejection, don't go to the audition.

This is an easy character to write. I have been acting off and on for about a dozen years. I have gone to open calls and was immediately told I was too young, too old, too tall or too short. There is a scene in Tootsie when Dustin Hoffman is auditioning for a play and the faceless voice in the dark tells him that he is not right for the part. Tootsie tries to tell them that he can be whatever they want. The voice tells him they are looking for someone else, someone not him. That is exactly what it's like. Every production is looking for the right people and every actor is looking for work. When the actors outnumber the jobs 1,000 to 1, someone is going to be disappointed.

On the rare occasion you are offered an important part, but then changes demand that you take a smaller part, you have two options. A lot of actors let their pride take over and they quit. That is not the best way to get work. Some actors swallow their pride and take the smaller part. That is better for your bank account, but it also tells producers and casting directors that you can be pushed around.


Tootsie
Directed by Sydney Pollack
© 1982 Columbia Pictures

Friday, July 7, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/7/17

Has anyone ever made a movie about Hugh Hefner? It does not really matter. I'm only mentioning it in passing. It will never be as detailed as the Bertolucci movie.

A quick search reveals that Brett Ratner is trying to make a Hefner movie. That makes sense. There is plenty of room for nudity and drugs in that subject. I'm kind of surprised no one has already made it.

Like Bertolucci, Hugh Hefner is not the youngest kid on the block. He could go soon, which is probably why they are trying to make a movie about him. If he dies right before or right after it's released, that would only help ticket sales. That sounds cold, but that is how studio executives operate.

In looking up Hugh Hefner, I have just looked at a website full of naked pictures. I have to say, at least as far as centerfolds go, Playboy is a pretty boring magazine. If you look at them in chronological order, it's just the same thing over and over again. The hairstyles change, both drapes and carpet. Up until it's all hardwood floors. The poses go from teasing T&A to soft focus spread eagle. But essentially, it's just the same thing month after month.

I guess that was exciting when it first came out. How many places could lonely men look at pictures of half naked women in the '50s and '60s? But with the internet, those centerfolds are obsolete. And all that airbrushing is just annoying.

I just realized that if my book happens to come out before any Hefner movie, it will look like I predicted it. That would be funny.


Thursday, July 6, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/6/17

Two of the characters are old friends with a history long before the story starts, but I'm not sure if I made that clear when I introduced them. It's obvious that they know each other, but in chapter 14, they have a conversation that casual acquaintances would never have.

Looking back, I might not have made it obvious. I should either go back later and change that or leave it as it is. It's not really important to explain how they know each other when they are introduced. Most people will just assume that they must know each other well while reading chapter 14. Or it will read like something is missing. The next time I read it over, I will see what happens.

What I really don't want to do is spell everything out. Generally speaking, if it's obvious enough to me then it should be obvious enough for the story. But you can't follow that like a rule. Sometimes something is obvious to the author because they are thinking about it when they write it. That does not guarantee the reader will know. And that is reason #32 to always go back and read from start to finish.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/5/17

What are some common street names for cocaine? It turns out, I have no idea. I know what they say in movies, but how accurate is that? I suppose it depends on the movie, the time period and location. Most screenwriters are or were cokeheads, so they should know what it's called.

There are websites for parents that tell them all the latest lingo, but I have to question their accuracy as well. Do today's teenagers really call crack “biscuits” and using methamphetamines “going fast”? It seems like that would only get confusing.

Driver's Ed Instructor
We're about to merge onto the freeway now. I need you to go fast.

Teenager
Ok, I've got some biscuits in my backpack.

Special note to the NSA: I'm only looking up drug slang on Google for research. Scout's honor.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/4/17

Chapter 13 is finished. It is easily the worst chapter, in terms of pain and suffering. Friendships are torn apart, careers are destroyed, principles are sacrificed. Good stuff.

One of the great things about fiction is that you can turn a character's life upside down without hurting anyone. It's only a fictional character. In non-fiction, there is nothing fun about writing man's inhumanity to man. Sometimes it's harder for the writer than the reader.

Fiction is the opposite. Hopefully, it's harder for the reader. But for the writer, it can be interesting to create a character from scratch, build them up with hope and aspirations for the future and then destroy their life, causing them to question everything they believe.

There are no spoilers here. This is only chapter 13. It's not over yet.

I have also introduced a new character. She is only a minor character who needs to come in, introduce some conflict and then go away. I'm thinking about making it sound like she is going to be an important character, but I have yet to decide if I want to toy with readers like that.

The benefit to making her seem like a more important character is that another new character will come in later who is more important. If I bring this one in and take her out quickly, most people will assume I'm going to do the same thing with the next character. On the other hand, if I misdirect readers, they will assume I'm doing it again with the next character. Either way, I think people will make that assumption. So there is no real reason to play around. Most people will take little notice of the next character, which is what I want.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing it.

7/4/17

Monday, July 3, 2017

Shooting For Paris 3.0

I lived and worked in Paris for a little while during the spring of 2015. Naturally, I wrote a book about it. I started writing it while I was in Paris and continued long after I came back to Hong Kong.

The first thing any publisher wants to know about your book is word count. They will decide if the story is marketable when they skim through it, and genre only matters if it is not something the publisher usually covers. The first thing they need to know is how long it is. If it's too short, they will tell you to go back and rewrite it. If it's too long, they will tell you to cut it to pieces. Word count affects the price, and every publisher wants books that are in that sweet spot of expensive enough to make a profit, but not so expensive that no one will buy it.

Shooting For Paris came in at 350,000 words. With most standard formats, that would be over 1,000 pages. According to the publisher I was working with at the time, that was entirely too long. Readers want 300 pages.

I looked up a few books. Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is over 655,000 words. War and Peace, depending on translation, is between 561,000 and 587,000 words. But would either of those sell well if they were released today? Probably not. I think most publishers would reject them outright.

What about books that might sell today? The Catcher in the Rye is 73,000 words. Nineteen Eighty-Four is 89,000. The Great Gatsby – 47,000, Fahrenheit 451 – 46,000, Lord of the Flies – 60,000. That does not bode well for me.

But those are great works of literature. What about more contemporary books? The first Harry Potter book is about 77,000 words. They gradually get longer. The first Twilight book is 119,000 words, which is actually considered pretty long for a first novel. The first Hunger Games is 99,000 words.

An obvious argument is that Shooting For Paris is not a series of books aimed at the young adult audience. But publishers see numbers. If 80,000 words = giant buckets of money while 150,000+ words = a few sales here and there, what is the average publisher going to say to 350,000 words? I was told to gut it like a fish.

On the one hand, I did not want to. I felt that the story was as long as it needed to be and that cutting anything would hurt it. On the other hand, every publisher in the world has more experience than I do. They have seen a million books come and go, and they know that longer books are usually longer because they need some serious editing. Writers, especially novice writers, tend to ramble on and on. This post, for example. None of us are Victor Hugo.

After cutting out more than I wanted, it was down to 290,000. What I cut out could be an entire book, but it was still too long.

Someone came up with the idea of breaking it into two volumes. Series books are popular right now, and the theory was that people would rather buy more than one book to get the complete story than buy a 1,000 page book.

I immediately hated that idea. So I went shopping around for another publisher. No one seemed very excited to publish an expensive book by no one about women who have no magical powers and are never rescued by vampires. My only options were to cut it in two or sit on it and wait around for something to change. The hardest thing you can do after spending so much time on a book is to shelve it. You want it out in the world where people can read it. So I cut it in half.

I should have waited.

I went to Jerusalem for a little while during the spring of 2016. While I was there, I thought I might end up writing a book about it. But the last thing I wanted to do was write about the trip only to cut most of it out. In Jerusalem, I met someone who worked for a publisher in Europe that was looking for Israeli writers and novels about Israel. I had always intended to write the Jerusalem trip as a non-fiction travelogue, but the more I thought about it as a novel, the better it sounded. My story describes a movie that I did not write. I did not like the idea of talking about someone else's story with my name on the cover. If I changed the plot of the movie, I could describe anything I wanted. In non-fiction, you have to describe what happened. There is a little room to use different names and change a few things to protect the guilty, but in fiction, you can do absolutely anything.

Harmony On Spring Hill became a novel and I went with a different publisher. Ordinarily, I would have felt too much loyalty to switch houses, but gutting and dividing the Paris book left a bad taste in my mouth. When they wanted another novel almost immediately, I had nothing to give. For good or bad, I tend to write after I have taken a major trip abroad. The last trip I took was Jerusalem, and that story was taken.

I was never entirely comfortable with cutting Shooting For Paris in half, but I never found a way to shorten it either. But what if it were a novel? As a work of fiction, I could do anything with it. I had no idea how long it would take to turn an epic travelogue into a reasonable novel, but I liked the idea.

It actually took a long time, but that gave the new publisher time to buy out the old publisher. I'm the copyright holder, so I can rewrite whatever I want, but the material is licensed to the publisher. They hold the exclusive rights to publish it. No company wants to publish a book that is already available from some other company.

As of right now, Shooting For Paris is only available in novel form. Other than used copies or remainders, the non-fiction version should be out of print and/or unavailable at all retailers. If you bought either volume of the non-fiction version, hold onto it. It might be worth something in a hundred years.

Personally, I like the novel version better. It tells the story I wanted to tell without too much sacrifice on my end. Ironically, it is 220,000 words shorter than the first version. The best part is, it's finished. There will never be a 4.0.


Sunday, July 2, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/2/17

Elegance defined illuminating from the Classic Riviera Necklace. Expertly designed with 113 perfectly matched diamonds of 21.13 carats, G-H color, VS1 clarity. Hand crafted against a dazzling background of 18k white gold.

Does that make any sense? It's supposed to be a jewelry shop brochure description of a necklace. It sounds good to me, but is it realistic? I don't know. I don't buy jewelry. So I looked up the real thing.

“A rhythmic beauty of sensational design. Featuring 176 perfectly matching diamonds that weigh approximately 18 carats and are G-H color, VS-SI clarity. Expertly hand crafted in platinum. 17-1/2 inches long.”

That is almost the same thing. Maybe I should write jewelry brochures. I never mentioned the length, but maybe that's a guy thing.

17 1/2 inches? Yeah, right.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 7/1/17

Here's something I never knew. As a public service, I will share it with the world.

According to some taxi website, a taxi ride from Chatsworth to the Van Nuys Courthouse is $62.97, and another ride to the impound lot is $10.51. With tips, that's about $80. That sounds high to me.

According to the city of Los Angeles, the standard rate for an impounded car is $124, plus $39 for daily storage, $7 mileage rate, $115 release fee and a 10% city parking tax. If your car is impounded, you have to pay the city for the privilege of parking in their impound lot. That comes to $313.50.

Did you know any of that? I sure did not. Now we all do.

Did you ever care? Neither did I. They say we learn something new every day, but they never said it would be useful information.