All My Books and Stories To Date

I'm kind of at the end of a long writing journey that began when I was a Marine in Vietnam. I've never had what a person would call an amazing output in terms of volume. Some writers can write a story in two days and a novel in a week. I worked on Lord of Homicides for two years before the rewrite. Since I rewrite each day when creating the novel, my rewrites were never too difficult, but they were time consuming. Michael In Hell and The Bad Season each took about six months. Last Chance of a Crazy Virgin, Waiting For An Open Bed, and Sudden Victims took years of collected writing. Bad Night In The Holding Cell took less than a year.

My absolute favorite is Last Chance of a Crazy Virgin. I had a ball with this comedy. I wrote the first sentence in 1976 and probably finished the novel in the 80s. It made a final marketing meeting at Bantam "over the transom" and was rejected in favor of a book by a more famous writer. It was originally published as Driving With Ace with a promise of promotion that never appeared. My timing as a writer has never been the best and neither has my promotional ability. I have crossed eyes, a twitch, and a hump on my back. I would make most male writers at a conference look like movie stars, and that would be very hard to do. I don't really have those physical things wrong with me, but I often feel that way as a writer.

My favorite story is Crossings. I don't know why. It's a sad, post world destruction story of love and regression to violence. Maybe because it's the last story I wrote. I figure that maybe some day after I'm gone, people will begin to notice I had something to say and my books will become popular. I imagine every writer feels that way if they aren't one of the chosen few. I'll be 65 in a few weeks, and I no longer know if I have the patience or the will to say anything else about the human condition. So, I've included a collage of all the covers I've created for my books and stories. I also had a ball doing the covers, which is a difficult task for anyone, especially, a guy who can't even draw stick men.

If I do finish more books, I'll get them out there. But if not, it's been both depressing and a lot of fun at the same time.

Comments

Vietnam: The Liberty Bridge

(This entry has had a lot of comments, and I'm glad it can help bring Nam vets together or to help find each other. If you have a comment, please attach your name to the comment or from this point forward it won't be published. I've received many comments that are phony and obviously made up, submitted by anonymous submission. I do screen all comments. Click the photo to enlarge. Semper Fi.) This is the Liberty Bridge (click to make larger) in Quang Nam Province in Vietnam during July of 1968. Of the 14,000 Marines killed in Vietnam, 10,000 were killed in Quang Nam Province. (Figures in comment section show a little under 7000 KIA in Quang Nam.) This was late in my tour on July 2. The bridge had been blown once again by the enemy to isolate the Marine base at An Hoa. I was a 50 caliber machine gunner on a convoy to resupply the An Hoa Firebase. I called this the River Styx because it had a ferry boat. Once you crossed the river you entered a nightmare hell on earth cal

The Jesus Moth

Photo taken through a window screen. I had just gone over the first print copy of The Bad Season on July 22, 2006. I walked over to the window and saw this moth on my outside air conditioner unit. It was the most bizarre thing I had seen in a long time. I retrieved my digital camera and snapped a picture through the glass and the window screen before going outside in a failed to attempt to capture the moth. I contacted a moth expert. He told me what kind of moth it was, but added that he had never seen one with a cross on its back like this one. I call it the Jesus Moth, the Crusader Moth, or maybe the Infidel Moth. The syndicates wanted me to give it to them for free. They said they don't take pics from non-employees because "we would actually have to pay you for it." Hmm, what a novel concept, getting paid for something. I offered to swap for a syndicated story about my book. They refused. So I copyrighted the entire pic (the one below is a fragment from that p

The Old Corps: Marine Corps Boot Camp 1966

BLT 1/3 USMC 1967 Vietnam Boot Camp Hell I recently saw a video of what I assume was the current Marine Corps Boot Camp. It mentioned recruits reporting any abuse right away and the DI was trying to be tough (and he did sound tough to an extent), but underneath it all you could tell the old Corps was gone in the civilian desire (political desire by people who never served) to make things easier and less traumatic for the boots. They never mentioned abuse to us in 1966 because we were abused 24/7. I'm an old Corps Hollywood Marine (that's an inside Marine joke about the difference between boot camp in Parris Island or San Diego.) The boots in Parris Island claimed they had it rougher because they had swamps. The Hollywood Marines had mountains. I would rather walk in water than climb mountains so I disagree. I entered the Marine Corps on August 10, 1966. Marines had been in Vietnam for over a year. All of us would probably go to Nam. For some of us it woul

Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

Search This Blog