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I may have posted this on the old forums, but I had trouble with the search function, so here we go again.
Way back in 2003, I had a very intense dream which inspired a novel. It woke me up at 6:05 am. As I was trying to back to sleep, the entire novel's storyline popped into my head, including how the two lead characters in the dream met, how they got to the situation in the dream and several good subplots. The morning after, (around 8am) I sat down at the computer and started writing. I completed the first two chapters in a single day. As I continued working on it when I could, I met up with a local actor who was perfect for one of the lead roles. After discussing the story a bit with him, we decided to pursue shooting a short promotional video to send into to prospective publishers with the manuscript. I used social media at the time to do a "casting call" and got an interesting response from (allegedly) a semi-well known actor. Well needless to say he was a fake..wackiness ensued, along with a lot of drama that could make for an interesting novel in and of itself. That situation, combined with a bad case of writer's block, derailed the book. that was around 2005, with four chapters (of a planned 12-14) completed.
Well in 2023 I found the manuscript and the saved thumb drive with the files and resumed working on the book. I am now in the first draft of Chapter 7 and continuing to work on it when I have time (and in the mood.)
Since this is a work in progress I have to be careful what I share here, but I wanted to put a few excerpts on this thread to see what you guys think. I will be putting "The following is rated.." Ratings based on subject matter for each excerpt.
This first one is the forward to the book. Enjoy! Rated G
(I have Redacted names in the thanks section to protect privacy.)
All material and excerpts (c) 2003, 2024 Tony Bandiera Jr. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD:
Every writer has his or her own source of inspiration, something that wakes up the muse within and motivates them to put their thoughts down onto paper (or as I’ve been doing, into a computer). That source can be almost anything, another writer’s works, music, movies, TV (now there’s a challenge), or in some cases, one’s own dreams. If all goes well, whatever the seed of an idea, with a lot of hard thought and long hours, it will grow into a fully fleshed out story, with all the elements working together to hold the reader’s interest. The process can be rewarding, and at times, extremely frustrating. But the end result is usually worth it.
The story you’re about to read is not the first work I’ve written. Back in my high school days, I wrote many short screenplays, based on “what if” certain things happened during the making of an extremely popular film of the era. Of some twelve scripts, one was considered pretty good by an outside source, one was ok but implausible, and the other ten were bad and worse. The pretty good one took four drafts and two years to write. The problem was, it was actually the second half of a really good story line. I set about writing the first half, but was quickly thrown off track by many conflicts in continuity. Since at that point it was also obvious that the setting (most popular film of the era, remember?) meant that there was no way I’d get the rights to film my epic, it was shelved and forgotten. And so, for many years (and I’m not telling how many, I feel ancient enough) there was no writing career in my future.
Over the years I had been in the military, raced motocross, worked as a sound engineer for concerts and shows, in the film industry as a projection technician, and had recently taken up snowboarding. Then, in January 2003, it happened. After a night of enjoying the concert DVD of my favorite metal band, I went to sleep with surprising ease. I need to digress here to let you know that when I dream, it’s a full-blown, Cinemascope, Dolby Digital big screen production. Well, that night, I had the dream that was the genesis of this book. Since that dream forms one of the key scenes in this story, I won’t reveal it here. But it was so powerful, especially as the music track fit it perfectly, that it woke me up at 6:05 am. (That’s where the title of the book came from, too.) For the record, I never get up that early unless there’s an earthquake or someone in the bed with me wanting attention. (Both very rare believe me.)
Such was the power of this dream; I couldn’t fall asleep afterward. As I lie there, all of the characters fell into place, virtually the entire story line was filled out, and it all happened with amazing ease. That was something that had never happened before. So, I then found myself at the computer at the ungodly hour of 8 am, writing the entire first chapter in one sitting. And the best thing of all, after I’d written about half of the second chapter, my 19-year-old neighbor read it and his immediate reaction was “Dude, you gotta make this into a movie.”
Now that was a hell of a thing to say. To be sure, it was quite a compliment that he felt the story was compelling enough to make a good film (I did verbally fill out the story line for him), but if he had any idea how difficult it is to write a screenplay! I subscribe to the theory that a good book has the five “W’s”, i.e. Who, What, Why, When and Where; a screenplay has those elements plus all the technical additions: Camera Directions, Narrative, Set Directions, Editorial, Actor's cues (“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille”), Special Effects, and so on. It’s too easy to let the story get out of control or diluted when trying to keep all that together. So, I’ve decided to write the novel first, and if I like it (And if you like it), do a screenplay later.
As I’d mentioned, the story fell into place quickly. The characters were also surprisingly easy to create as well. So, about them, here’s how they came to life: Derek Jr, the pro snowboarder, is a composite of many people I’ve met during my motocross days and snowboarding. His attitude is the darker, more badass side of my own, and his issues are mine also. Marcus is the closest to what I really wanted to be, in terms of his motocross success and his looks and personality. Derek Sr. is exactly the opposite of my own father in terms of personality and relationship ability. My father, though not rich, always provided for our family. God bless him. Marsha, Derek Sr.’s ex wife and Derek’s mother, is based on a mom who I knew from motocross, she was always there for her son and had a dry sense of humor. Most of the other characters, like Tom, Sam, Bill, Dale, Harold, Travis, and so on just fit right in, most based in one way or another with past acquaintances.
And the rest…. Well, you’ll have to read the book to get the rest. Some of you may find certain elements of this story uncomfortable or disturbing, and for that I make no apologies. Some of the greatest works by authors, playwrights and artists are controversial. And no, as a first-time author I do not presume to compare myself to them or ascribe some over-inflated sense of importance to this book. But in the course of writing this book and through the proofreading and editing, I found that any changes I made to tone down the narrative diluted the dramaturgy of the story. I did make some concessions in regards to language, as the real dialog of Derek Jr. and the other extreme – sports folks would come across as unbearable in print.
A famous author once said something to the effect that he wrote to please himself and if the public liked the work, terrific. If not, that was still ok, because he had told his story anyway. And that, my friends, is exactly how I feel about this story. It has given me a lot of pleasure to create (and a few migraines along the way) and from my seat, that’s good enough. But if you also find it compelling, intense and enjoyable, then that’s just the icing on the cake for me.
So, with that all said, I would like to thank many people for their help, comments and inspiration in writing this book: xxx, my neighbor, who provided support and helped with the accuracy of the lingo for the snowboarding scenes; xxx, who kindly agreed to help proofread this book, all of the motocross racers I’ve met over the years who are all in some way incorporated into the story; the linemen of (utility) and (utility) who endured my questions for technical details on power transmission and distribution; and finally my Father (Passed Oct. 1999) and Mother (Passed Dec. 2020), who supported me no matter what crazy thing I was trying to do. I miss them both a lot.
Now it’s your turn to discover the end result of years (now decades) of lost sleep, reams of paper and a lot of joy, tears, and anxiety.. Enjoy!!
Tony Bandiera Jr., 2003, 2023
Story to be continued.....
Way back in 2003, I had a very intense dream which inspired a novel. It woke me up at 6:05 am. As I was trying to back to sleep, the entire novel's storyline popped into my head, including how the two lead characters in the dream met, how they got to the situation in the dream and several good subplots. The morning after, (around 8am) I sat down at the computer and started writing. I completed the first two chapters in a single day. As I continued working on it when I could, I met up with a local actor who was perfect for one of the lead roles. After discussing the story a bit with him, we decided to pursue shooting a short promotional video to send into to prospective publishers with the manuscript. I used social media at the time to do a "casting call" and got an interesting response from (allegedly) a semi-well known actor. Well needless to say he was a fake..wackiness ensued, along with a lot of drama that could make for an interesting novel in and of itself. That situation, combined with a bad case of writer's block, derailed the book. that was around 2005, with four chapters (of a planned 12-14) completed.
Well in 2023 I found the manuscript and the saved thumb drive with the files and resumed working on the book. I am now in the first draft of Chapter 7 and continuing to work on it when I have time (and in the mood.)
Since this is a work in progress I have to be careful what I share here, but I wanted to put a few excerpts on this thread to see what you guys think. I will be putting "The following is rated.." Ratings based on subject matter for each excerpt.
This first one is the forward to the book. Enjoy! Rated G
(I have Redacted names in the thanks section to protect privacy.)
All material and excerpts (c) 2003, 2024 Tony Bandiera Jr. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD:
Every writer has his or her own source of inspiration, something that wakes up the muse within and motivates them to put their thoughts down onto paper (or as I’ve been doing, into a computer). That source can be almost anything, another writer’s works, music, movies, TV (now there’s a challenge), or in some cases, one’s own dreams. If all goes well, whatever the seed of an idea, with a lot of hard thought and long hours, it will grow into a fully fleshed out story, with all the elements working together to hold the reader’s interest. The process can be rewarding, and at times, extremely frustrating. But the end result is usually worth it.
The story you’re about to read is not the first work I’ve written. Back in my high school days, I wrote many short screenplays, based on “what if” certain things happened during the making of an extremely popular film of the era. Of some twelve scripts, one was considered pretty good by an outside source, one was ok but implausible, and the other ten were bad and worse. The pretty good one took four drafts and two years to write. The problem was, it was actually the second half of a really good story line. I set about writing the first half, but was quickly thrown off track by many conflicts in continuity. Since at that point it was also obvious that the setting (most popular film of the era, remember?) meant that there was no way I’d get the rights to film my epic, it was shelved and forgotten. And so, for many years (and I’m not telling how many, I feel ancient enough) there was no writing career in my future.
Over the years I had been in the military, raced motocross, worked as a sound engineer for concerts and shows, in the film industry as a projection technician, and had recently taken up snowboarding. Then, in January 2003, it happened. After a night of enjoying the concert DVD of my favorite metal band, I went to sleep with surprising ease. I need to digress here to let you know that when I dream, it’s a full-blown, Cinemascope, Dolby Digital big screen production. Well, that night, I had the dream that was the genesis of this book. Since that dream forms one of the key scenes in this story, I won’t reveal it here. But it was so powerful, especially as the music track fit it perfectly, that it woke me up at 6:05 am. (That’s where the title of the book came from, too.) For the record, I never get up that early unless there’s an earthquake or someone in the bed with me wanting attention. (Both very rare believe me.)
Such was the power of this dream; I couldn’t fall asleep afterward. As I lie there, all of the characters fell into place, virtually the entire story line was filled out, and it all happened with amazing ease. That was something that had never happened before. So, I then found myself at the computer at the ungodly hour of 8 am, writing the entire first chapter in one sitting. And the best thing of all, after I’d written about half of the second chapter, my 19-year-old neighbor read it and his immediate reaction was “Dude, you gotta make this into a movie.”
Now that was a hell of a thing to say. To be sure, it was quite a compliment that he felt the story was compelling enough to make a good film (I did verbally fill out the story line for him), but if he had any idea how difficult it is to write a screenplay! I subscribe to the theory that a good book has the five “W’s”, i.e. Who, What, Why, When and Where; a screenplay has those elements plus all the technical additions: Camera Directions, Narrative, Set Directions, Editorial, Actor's cues (“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille”), Special Effects, and so on. It’s too easy to let the story get out of control or diluted when trying to keep all that together. So, I’ve decided to write the novel first, and if I like it (And if you like it), do a screenplay later.
As I’d mentioned, the story fell into place quickly. The characters were also surprisingly easy to create as well. So, about them, here’s how they came to life: Derek Jr, the pro snowboarder, is a composite of many people I’ve met during my motocross days and snowboarding. His attitude is the darker, more badass side of my own, and his issues are mine also. Marcus is the closest to what I really wanted to be, in terms of his motocross success and his looks and personality. Derek Sr. is exactly the opposite of my own father in terms of personality and relationship ability. My father, though not rich, always provided for our family. God bless him. Marsha, Derek Sr.’s ex wife and Derek’s mother, is based on a mom who I knew from motocross, she was always there for her son and had a dry sense of humor. Most of the other characters, like Tom, Sam, Bill, Dale, Harold, Travis, and so on just fit right in, most based in one way or another with past acquaintances.
And the rest…. Well, you’ll have to read the book to get the rest. Some of you may find certain elements of this story uncomfortable or disturbing, and for that I make no apologies. Some of the greatest works by authors, playwrights and artists are controversial. And no, as a first-time author I do not presume to compare myself to them or ascribe some over-inflated sense of importance to this book. But in the course of writing this book and through the proofreading and editing, I found that any changes I made to tone down the narrative diluted the dramaturgy of the story. I did make some concessions in regards to language, as the real dialog of Derek Jr. and the other extreme – sports folks would come across as unbearable in print.
A famous author once said something to the effect that he wrote to please himself and if the public liked the work, terrific. If not, that was still ok, because he had told his story anyway. And that, my friends, is exactly how I feel about this story. It has given me a lot of pleasure to create (and a few migraines along the way) and from my seat, that’s good enough. But if you also find it compelling, intense and enjoyable, then that’s just the icing on the cake for me.
So, with that all said, I would like to thank many people for their help, comments and inspiration in writing this book: xxx, my neighbor, who provided support and helped with the accuracy of the lingo for the snowboarding scenes; xxx, who kindly agreed to help proofread this book, all of the motocross racers I’ve met over the years who are all in some way incorporated into the story; the linemen of (utility) and (utility) who endured my questions for technical details on power transmission and distribution; and finally my Father (Passed Oct. 1999) and Mother (Passed Dec. 2020), who supported me no matter what crazy thing I was trying to do. I miss them both a lot.
Now it’s your turn to discover the end result of years (now decades) of lost sleep, reams of paper and a lot of joy, tears, and anxiety.. Enjoy!!
Tony Bandiera Jr., 2003, 2023
Story to be continued.....
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