Friday, December 24, 2021

Guard This: New Novel

 Los Angeles, CA

 

Guard This is my third novel and fourth overall book that I wrote and published since 2010. Guard This is now available as an e-book. Stay tuned for information on a print version and paperback, which is due out in early 2022.

What is Guard This?

Here's the book description:

Guard This depicts New York City's art community during the last vestiges of gritty Gotham in the 1990s. Tenzin McGrupp takes a security job at the most famous art museum in the world while he saves up money for film school. He's welcomed into an enclave of painters, musicians, photographers, nonconformists, and freaks that hold day jobs as museum guards to fund their late-night creative endeavors and drug-addled antics. The guards are defiant artists at the dawn of the new millennium before every nook of the City is gobbled up by corporations and transformed into a capitalist theme park.

Guard This is a project that I started over 25 years ago. It had so many variations and formats that it's hard to keep up. It started out as a screenplay. Then a comic book. Then a novel. Then a stage play. Back to a novel. Then a series of short stories. Back to a screenplay. Then a limited series. Flirted with an animated series. And now, back to a novel.

The current novel version of Guard This came together quickly and almost by accident. In April of 2021, I blocked out a couple of weeks to work on rewriting a second draft of a project called The Kicker, which I penned at the end of 2020. After sitting on a shelf for the customary 90 days, I read The Kicker for the first time in three months and realized I did not have enough time to fix all the problems and rewrite a second draft. I still set aside two weeks without anything to work on, so I decided to give Guard This another pass. It had been 18 years since I last told a version of this story, but was surprised ho quickly the first draft of a the new novel wrote itself.

It took me five years to write Lost Vegas. Took me another five to work on Fried Peaches. It might take me five years to finish The Kicker. But, I didn't have five years to work on Guard This. Call it laziness, or just PTSD from the pandemic, but I didn't have the patience to hold this story back. I'm starting a major project in 2022 and just don't have the time to devote to a prolonged process of re-writing and editing and re-writing Guard This. I convinced myself to put out a less than desirable version of it out now, than let it grind away at my insomnia until 2025. Instead of five years, I gave this project less than five months time from start to finish.

Guard This will eventually become a paperback version in the Spring of 2022. For now, it's an e-book while I accumulate all the typos and errors that I missed to rush this version out before Christmas. I'll thank you in advance when you catch something. As soon as I successfully crowdsource all those typos, I'll convert Guard This to a print version in a couple of months. I promise that it won't take three years in between e-book > print conversion like what happened with Fried Peaches, which finally became a paperback in October 2021.

I appreciate your assistance, support, and understanding. You can purchase your e-book of Guard This here. You do not have to own a Kindle to read it. Your phone or tablet has a Kindle app that makes it easy to read. If you're a Luddite and detest e-books or Kindles, then grab one of my other paperbacks: Fried Peaches, Lost Vegas, or Jack Tripper Stole My Dog.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Fried Peaches: Print Version Now Available

 Los Angeles, CA

The print version of Fried Peaches novel is currently available. Buy a print copy here. If you read the e-book version, here's your first chance to fondle a print copy of Fried Peaches.

If you've been waiting three-plus years for a print version, I appreciate your patience. The moment has arrived for all of you Luddites and old-school book purists.

I curated a special Spotify playlist for Fried Peaches as an accompanying soundtrack to listen along in the background while you read it. It's three different playlists broken down into three acts with 33 songs on each playlist. Check out the Fried Peaches playlists here: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3.

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Q. Why did Fried Peaches print version take so long? 

A. Laziness. That's the quick, quirky, and pithy answer. 

 

Q. Seriously, why?

A. The real answer is a little more complicated. I had the opportunity to work with an old friend on a new project in the fall of 2018 and didn't have time to convert the e-book to a print version. In 2019, I was simply too lazy to get it done. In 2020 the pandemic hit and I didn't think anyone gave a shit about a book I wrote two years prior that takes place in 2015. Since late 2020, I cranked out two new manuscripts including something I hope to publish soon as an e-book.

 

Q. When does the next novel come out?

A. I wrote a new novel titled Guard This about my experiences working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as my first job out of college. It's also a period piece about the 1990s art scene in New York City. Keep your fingers crossed for a late December release of Guard This. The e-book should be available before Christmas, at least that's the current plan. I promise that the print version of Guard This will not take three years before it's available. I'm eying a print release for Spring 2022.