A Writer's Tale by Richard Laymon Read Free Book Online Page A

began. Though still working on Quake, I took time to watch the complete trial on television.
    March 25 Headline gave me a new and wonderful three-book contract.
    March 30 My Headline editor, Mike Bailey, asked for a plot synopsis of Quake, so I wrote one up and sent it to Bob Tanner. (I send just about everything to Bob Tanner, and he delivers it all to Mike Bailey.)
    April 3 I stopped working on Quake, leaving it unfinished. April 4-28 I wrote my novella, “Wilds.”
    April 29 The jury found the police officers not guilty of charges brought against them in connection with the Rodney King arrest. The verdict wasn’t appreciated by some segments of the population, and the Los Angeles riot started. Reginald Denny was pulled from his car and nearly beaten to death by a mob of black hoodlums while we watched it happen live on television.
    April 30 The riot was continuing. Armed with a pistol and video camera, we piled into our Jeep and drove to the Target store on a mission to save our Disney World photos from the rioters. Though we passed through areas that had already been hit, we succeeded and returned home safely.
    May 1-3 The National Guard finally came in. With such a massive show of force, the riot tapered off and ended.
    May 6 I started working on a new novel, Sleep Over, which would be published as Endless Night.
    May 8 We went to a local gun shop and began to improve our home defense capabilities.
    May 16 We went to Venice Beach, where we saw a fellow threaten another guy and chase him around with a big knife. We reported the incident to a couple of nearby LAPD officers.
    May 23-25 The ABA was in Anaheim. We had breakfast with Bob Tanner, dinner with Anne Williams of Headline and Bob.
    June 28 Two big EARTHQUAKES. A 6.5 demolished much of the city of Big Bear, and a 7.4 hit in Yucca Valley. We felt them both, but they were too far away to do any damage in Los Angeles.
    June 29 We had dinner with Sian Thomas of Headline.
    July 10 We had dinner in Sacramento with Steve, Kathy and Sarah Adamovich of Cobblestone book store. We stayed at a motel that night, and I signed books at Cobblestone the next day.
    July 21- Aug. 10 We flew to Ann’s hometown, Clayton, New York and took a side trip through the Finger Lakes area to Niagara Falls. We also had an adventure in Clayton, in which we stumbled onto a possibly illegal dump site, were caught there on a back road, and feared for our lives.
    Aug. 14-17 I worked on an interview for Samhain magazine.
    Sept. 10 The St. Martin’s version of Midnight’s Lair was chosen to be a Doubleday Book Club selection here in the U.S.
    Nov. 13 I had a book signing for A Good, Secret Place at Dark Carnival in Berkeley.
    Late that night, at the Berkeley Marriott, we had rodent adventures and needed to change rooms. We didn’t find out until later, but in the new room Kelly spent the night between her bedsheets with a pile of nut shells near her feet.
    Nov. 14 We visited the Santa Cruz boardwalk, which I had already fictionalized in Funland. While there, we observed a woman who was concerned because her child had vanished inside one of the amusement park’s rides.
    Nov. 17-18 I wrote a piece about Midnight’s Lair for Mystery Scene.
    Nov. 19-24 At the request of film agent Frank Cooper, I wrote a treatment of Midnight’s Lair. Oddly enough, based on a review of the book that appeared in Publishers Weekly, the folks at Disney were interested in movie rights. But only for a while. Then they found out what Midnight’s Lair was really about. (Film never made.) Dec. 2 I finished writing Endless Night and sent it to Bob Tanner.
    Dec. 12-13 We helped our friends, Loretta and Mel Roberts, set up and arrange their audio book store in Long Beach.
    Dec. 15 I started making notes for a new novel, The Pact (never finished).
     
    1993
     
    Jan. 6-11 I had meetings with film agent Frank Cooper, and did more work on treatments of Midnight’s Lair. (No films made.)
    Jan. 19 - Feb. 9 We took a massive