Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since January!  There are two pieces of news to get you up to date on: 1) Gappy's journey to the big screen/Hollywood, and 2) Book 7. 

You might know that all six of Gappy's Young Vampire Adventures have been optioned by a movie producer in L.A.  She loves the Gappy series and is excited to be working on getting a movie deal for him.  The first three books, A Surprise for Gappy, Gappy Disappears, and Gappy is Kidnapped, will comprise the first movie, and Books 4-6, Gappy and the Thieves, Gappy's Great Escape, and Gappy and the Witch's Curse, will make up one or two subsequent movies.

The producer sent me a spare copy of the screenwriting program she uses, called Final Draft.  I'm not very computer literate so I asked my husband, who's a computer wiz, to figure it out and show me how to use it.  It is easy to use and has some neat features.  When you enter a discussion between two people, it automatically fills in that character's name because it assumes the person is going to be responding to the first character.  It also has a really cool feature, in that it has a number of different audio voices you can assign to your characters, and then you can tell it to read the script out loud, using the voices you have assigned to the characters.  I haven't done that yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it.

Anyway, around the beginning of this year, after the contract had finally been signed by all parties, I set to work on the screenplay.  I had previously written the first 10 minutes in Word, up to the point in Book 1 where Gappy finds out that he is turning into a vampire, and once I had downloaded the proper screenwriting software and had a lesson from my husband, I converted what I had done thus far into the program.  Then I spent a free day off in my favorite coffee shop downtown and listed all the scenes in A Surprise for Gappy and Gappy Disappears.   I've spent so much time writing at The Daily Grind that I simply must acknowledge them at the end of Book 7 . . . but, back to the scenes: Each scene appears as a digital index card on the right side of the screen. You can decide how many you want to see at once, you can given them headings, make notes in them, describe the action, etc. 

There's a format to use when you begin each scene.  You have to put INT. or EXT. for interior or exterior, where the action takes place, i.e. Gappy's Kitchen, and whether it's morning, afternoon, evening, midnight, etc.  The scene headings from the index cards appear on the left side of the screen, which is the actual screenplay. Below the screen heading, you type in a description of the action in that scene, and then you start your dialogue, which the program arranges in a column down the middle of the page.   You can also add in parentheses below the character's name the way the character is speaking, e.g. chuckling, angry, sadly, sighing, etc.

I spent the weekend filling in all the scenes with the action descriptions and dialogue and quickly learned that less dialogue is better than too much.  That's my main problem: I'm way too wordy and find it difficult to pare down.  Keep in mind that one page of screenplay represents roughly one minute of movie time, and you only have a thin strip down the middle of the page to fit the dialogue into.  You also can't say what a character is thinking, like you can in a book, unless you want the audience to hear his/her thoughts, which sometimes does happen in movies.  In Gappy's case, I don't think that's the way it's going to go, so therefore I have to write in facial expressions, body language, and movement in order to impart what the characters are thinking or feeling at that moment. 

Remember, one page is equal to one minute? Well, Books 1 and 2 took up 70 pages of screenplay and I still had to add Book 3, Gappy is Kidnapped, which is about three times the length of books 1 and 2 combined!  A children's movie should ideally be about an hour and a half long - i.e. 90 minutes.  That meant I only had 20 pages left.  The producer told me not to worry about the length for now, just to get it all down, and we would cut it down afterwards.

I took a break from screenwriting to concentrate on finishing Book 7 (no title yet but probably something like Gappy in Disguise or Gappy Goes Under Cover).  After a jaunt to the UK for my aunt and uncle's Golden Wedding Anniversary, the producer e-mailed me to ask if I had started writing the screenplay again because she has people to talk to and they don't really take you too seriously until there's actually a complete screenplay that's close to the final draft. 

I received the e-mail on a Wednesday, which is Grandma Day in our household, so after I'd put my granddaughter down for her nap in the afternoon, I set to work putting Book 3 into the screenplay.  I then worked on it all weekend and finished it Sunday night.  The total length - about 175 pages!  I also wrote a page of ideas about how to cut down the length and e-mailed the screenplay with my idea sheet to the producer.  The first read-through and idea sheet were well received and I can't wait to get it back from her and see her editing suggestions, added directions, etc.

Book 7 is written and I've edited it a couple of times so far.  I'm going to get back to it in a while so that I can look at it with fresh eyes and do another editing read-through.  A friend of mine is helping me with some Spanish translation, and then it'll be done!  All I can say for now is, Stay Tuned!


Star

So I've had a fantastic time in Arizona, driving around the desert, viewing cactus, looking for likely places for Gappy's latest adventure to take place . . . but today surpassed all expectations. 
I needed to do research on how police respond to calls and also what the U.S./Mexican border looks like in certain places.  After inadvertently almost driving through the border and doing a U-turn just in time, I was driving around the border town of Nogales looking for the border fence where I could view it up close and was getting hopelessly lost driving around residential neighborhoods, up and down hills, and never seeming to get close.  I had passed by City Hall at one point and figured that the police station was probably located there and maybe it would be simpler and more efficient to try to interview a police officer and ask some questions about the border too.  

I went back to City Hall and, sure enough, there was the police station.  I went in and introduced myself as a children's author researching for my seventh book and asked if I could ask someone some questions.  I gave them my business card, but I thought the cops might be suspicious that maybe I was working for a drug lord, scoping out how things work at the border. However, they were cool, but they did take a photocopy of my driver's license and check me out first. 

The shift supervisor (Rick) came out and offered to take me on a ride-along, during which he would answer questions and show me the border.  I leapt at the chance and leapt into the passenger seat of his police SUV with alacrity.  Actually, it was more like a heave and a climb into the SUV because it was so big and high up off of the ground. 

First we drove to a street on a hill from which we could look down on the border fence and see Mexico on the other side.  It was a weird feeling, seeing it for the first time.  I couldn't believe I was actually looking at Mexico!  And from a cop car, to boot! 

After that, we drove down to the crossing point and almost drove through into Mexico but made a U-turn at the last minute.  Rick explained how people and cars are inspected when and after they cross into the States.  I was amazed that the 12-to-20-ish-foot-high border fence was made out of square, vertical, metal bars with quite wide spaces between them.  Apparently it used to be a solid fence, like sheets of metal with no holes, but for aesthetic reasons, the powers-that-be, whoever they are, decided to replace them with the slatted fence.  We could have bought a hot dog from Mexico by reaching through the fence.  There really was a hot dog vendor right there on the other side, and I'm sure they would have been happy to sell us a hot dog. 

The fence continues on, up and down hills and valleys, as far as I could see and the form of it changes in different locations.  Various houses on both sides of the fence are suspected as being  lookout points for the purpose of keeping an eye on happenings at the border fence for warning smugglers of both drugs and people and facilitating their passage.  What an eerie feeling that was.  Rick also told me all about the "coyotes" who are paid to smuggle them across and how they abuse and rob their charges.  He was very empathetic towards the plight of the illegals and the suffering many of them have to endure, especially the women and children he has met.

We proceeded to drive through neighborhoods, both affluent and poor, which backed on to the border fence and Rick  pointed out popular places where illegal aliens scale the fence and where drugs are delivered to the States in various forms and packaging, either thrown over or passed through to the other side.  He told me about night raids by flashlight in the gullies and sandy washes between the hills, what the cops do when they come across people who they suspect to be illegal aliens, how they coordinate sightings with border patrol, etc. 

I was surprised to learn that Nogales is one of the safest cities in the States to live.  It only has one or two homicides per year, which makes some of the neighborhoods around where I live in the Northeast look like real crime hotspots.  Part of the reason is the size of the police and border patrol presence.  At several strategic points along the route were parked big white and green border patrol SUVs, keeping an eye on the fence with the aid of huge lights, cameras, infra red devices, etc.  Apparently most illegal aliens are respectful to the police and do what they are told when caught.  Another reason is that drugs are much less valuable right at the border.  They increase tremendously in value the farther into the States they go, and the danger and violence grow exponentially. 

Throughout the drive, Rick was also monitoring his radio and dispensing instructions to patrol officers.  At one point when I wondered aloud what the outcome of a call involving a crying baby was, he got on the radio to find out who had responded to the call and what the status was.  I felt really honored that he would do that for me - a non-cop, civilian!  I was concerned that I was taking up too much of Rick's time but he assured me that he was having fun.  Certainly, when he woke up that morning, he had no idea that he would be giving a ride to a children's author and coolly discussing vampires, magical powers, border fencing and police procedures while sitting on a hilltop overlooking Mexico.

All in all it was a great experience and I'm very grateful to Rick for being so obliging and informative.  I look forward to sending his children a set of my books, once I get back home.

So, the book signing was very successful, and I sold a lot of books between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.  It only took about 10 minutes for the first people to come looking for me after seeing the announcements I'd posted all over the place online and in e-mails.  I think it the local interest helped because the bookstore is right next to the Troy Farmer's Market where Gappy's adventure begins in the fourth book, Gappy and the Thieves.  It also features Oakwood Cemetery, just down the road where Uncle Sam is buried and where Gappy's adventure really heats up and becomes quite scary.  Below is the news article about my Gappy books, which came out in the Troy Record newspaper on Friday, July 26th, and the poster made up by Market Block Books to announce the book signing.

So, at looooong last, here is the interview from my Network Arizona Radio Talk Show.  Been a bit incognito these past months, but life has just been so busy, what with sick parents, renewing my marriage vows and organizing the whole event and reception, travel, work, etc., etc.  Hopefully, life is settling down now so I can get back to writing Gappy in Disguise.  Just got back from the Azores in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where I got in a few horseback rides.  I'm looking forward to taking some more lessons and passing that info on to the next book.  Having never really been around animals -- except for a rabbit and a dog or two -- Gappy needs all the help he can get in his next vampire adventure, which includes riding a horse . . . and reeeealy fast!  Hope he can manage not to fall off!  Stay tuned.