"Strange things are a-foot at the Circle K"

A lot has happened since I last blogged, and I have been a bit of a slacker for not sharing it all (any) of you that might care.

First, a little background.

Last year I received a telephone call from a movie producer who had just read Lifted Up and was very moved by it. He expressed a real desire to make it into a movie, and not one of these local "Mormon" movies but one destined for a national release and with a budget in excess of 8 figures. He was putting together the funds and lining up investors, but wanted to touch base with me, make sure the movie rights were still available, and generally talk about the opportunity this movie would have to touch many more people than it had already reached.

I was on a high for a couple of months. But the news died down, and there was really nothing more to report.

And then last Tuesday I am struck with the idea of sending this producer a personalized copy of Lifted Up as well as Shadow Hunter with a little note just saying "Hi" and wondering how things were going. I did a reverse search on his telephone number and found his address and planned to send the books out before we left on vacation on Thursday.

And then on Wednesday afternoon who should call me out of the blue? This producer. He had been thinking about me for a little while and had news about the movie project. It seemed that they had been working on funding a multi-movie deal and they were about ready to close the deal and just wanted to make sure everything was still a "go" on my end. I offered to purchase books for some of the decision-makers and met with two of his associates that night. It was amazing!

Now, I have kept my enthusiasm in check this past week because nothing is final or for certain at this point, but there is a real possibility that the pre-production money will be approved and they will have me start working on the screenplay. To quote the words of Ted Theodore Logan, Strange things are (indeed) a-foot in the Galli household.

So let it be done...

Joy in the Journey

Natalie included some of these pictures from our first book signing for Shadow Hunter on her Facebook page, but I wanted to include a couple of them here and share some thoughts about them.

I remember a few years ago when Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, etc.) came for a book signing at the old Media Play on Fort Union. I brought my favorite books by him (Characters & Viewpoints, and How to Write Science Fiction) and got in the back of a line that reached to the front of the store and started to wrap around to one side. There must have been 200-300 people waiting in line for his autograph and the chance to say a few words or ask him a quick question. It was a pretty big deal. A book signing for a small, local LDS-related book is not.


I mean, it's great to meet with the store manager and sales associates who have all read your book and can discuss it in detail with you, but for the most part you sit at a table just inside the front doors and smile as the customers come in and talk about and promote your book. Sometimes you meet people who share a real passion for the subject of your book, or (better yet) people who have actually read your book and can ask you questions about why the characters did this, or why the plot took this direction. It's pretty cool.


But in the end, and I've said this many times before, you don't write books for the money. Of course, it would be nice to finally reach a place where you could actually live off the royalties and write full time, but most of us have to find other means to make the mortgage payment and put food on the table until that far-off goal is eventually realized. In the meantime, you do what you can to find joy in the journey, personalizing each book, as you would a gift, with a sincere hope that they enjoy your book.


...so let it be done.

Super Breakout!

For the better part of a year I have been dreading the ending of my next book. It started out with a bang, the characters and action and plot line(s) just jumped out at me and it was all I could do to write it down. In fact, it came so fast and furiously (TWSS) that for the first time I wrote the first draft directly on the computer. It truly was a first.

And then I hit "the wall." I was concerned that my story premise couldn't carry through to the end. Exactly what was the motivation/purpose of one of my main characters? Nothing I came up gave me the goosebumps and felt right. And then there was the ending. I knew what I wanted to happen, but what I want and what I get are often two different things. And so, even when the chance came to write, I dreaded it. Was I on that "road to nowhere"?

And then it hit. In fact, it hit shortly after one of my previous blogs about being more committed to writing, and my character issue materialized. And what's even more cool is that I could see the shadows of this motivation throughout the half of the story that was already written--it was like my subconscious knew it all along and was just waiting for me to catch up.

And then this weekend the floodgates opened! It was all I could do to type in the scenes and chapters that I had to write/re-write, and (I have to say), I love this ending! I wasn't expecting it quite like this, but I love it! (That might sound a little odd to someone who hasn't written fiction before--these stories really do take on a life of their own.) It's got drama, it's got intrigue, it's got sacrifice, it's got death, and more importantly, it's got life! I started getting up an hour earlier just to make sure I get the time in to write before my work and other responsibilities get a hold of me.

It feels good to be "in the zone" again. I hope you all like it when it's completed.

...so let it be done.

Tales of a 6th Grade Nothing

A few weeks ago I found my old 6th Grade notebook that I wrote all my short story assignments in. I can't imagine why I would have kept it, but I am glad I did.

As a writer, I have been asked many times when I knew I was going to be a writer. I guess I had always enjoyed writing, as evident by this blast from the past. I have to say, though, I do remember my father pushing me at this age to come up with good ideas and write better than I might have without his pressure. I'm sure many of these stories have his influence on them, and for that I am grateful.

I have typed up one of the first stories in the notebook and have included it here for you to read. I hope you like it.


Reading Guy Galli
Period 2 Feb 7, 1982

Five Miles Off Kotzebue Sound


“Mayday! Mayday! Do you read me? Point Barrow! Do you read me? Iced wings! Repeat! Iced wings! I’m going in for a crash landing. Five miles northeast of Kotzebue Sound.”

The next day I woke up—alive, but cold and numb. I decided to take a look outside. All I could see was snow blowing in my face. I climbed back into the plane for something to east. All I found was a half-eaten pastrami sandwich and a can of beer. The plane was full of supplies, all right, but mostly valves, regulators, and pipe destined for the oil pumping station at Point Barrow.

My flight survival course had taught me to stay with the plan and wait for help, but I couldn’t be sure my “Mayday” call had been heard. If I stayed I could easily starve or freeze to death. I decided to start out on foot for the Eskimo villages which I knew dotted the shores of the Katzebue Sound.

It was mid-morning before I was packed for the journey complete with snowshoes. A blinding snow was still falling and it was difficult to see where I was going. “I might be going in the wrong direction,” I thought. The going was tough and night was coming on. The temperature was falling. I stumbled into a large crevice in the snow which got me out of the wind. I started a small fire using pieces of packing crate I had brought from the plane. I took a bite or two from my sandwich and fell asleep.

That morning I awoke to the sound of a polar bear. I was frightened more than ever now. I didn’t have any weapons except for a pocket knife. By the time I could reach my knife, the bear was all over me. I jabbed and slashed until the knife found its way to the bear’s stomach. The bear bellowed and ran away to find easier prey. I was in bad shape, myself, but I felt that I had better move on because the bear would probably be back. I bandaged my wounds the best I could and climbed out of the crevice.

The snow storm was calming down, and I could see better than the day before. I headed southwest. Four hours had passed when, over a ridge, I saw an Eskimo village. I didn’t speak Eskimo, but I didn’t have to. They saw my wounds and that I was blue and numb and took me in. They warmed me and fed me whale blubber. I was so hungry that I ate it like it was steak.

After I ate and rested, I tried to communicate with my newly found friends. One of them spoke a little English. I told him the whole story of how I had become stranded and my fight with the polar bear.

The next day, the Eskimos loaded me onto a dog sled. It was three days before we reached Nome. If it wasn’t for the Eskimos, I wouldn’t have lived to tell this story.


THE END

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This morning (strangely enough) I was thinking about what I wanted to be when I grow up. Notice I used "grow up" and not "grew up"--it's a matter of time that we "grow old" but we each decide when or if we "grow up." (That's my excuse, anyway, for still liking to eat a bowl of Cap'n Crunch while watching Saturday morning cartoons.)


With the release of my latest book, Shadow Hunter, I find myself reminiscing about the goals and dreams of my youth. My first recollection of "knowing" what I wanted to be when I grew up was this ad that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune when I was 13 or 14. It was a recruitment push by the CIA. Now, I'm not sure how often ads like this ran before I saw it (and cut it out), but I am pretty sure they have never run one like it since. Now, I was raised on James Bond and always imaged how cool it would be to be a spy, but the serious thought had not really crossed my mind until my dad pointed out the ad in the paper. From that point on, I read books, I watched history and documentaries, and even made a conscious decision in choosing my classes in Junior High, High School, and even College based on this assumption that I was destined for a life in the smokey, mirrored world of international espionage.



But then two things happened. First, I met the cute young lady that would later marry. Now, at this time, I had an application in for an internship with the CIA, and had also submitted one for the FBI. Natalie made it very clear while we were dating that she did not want to be married to someone who had to carry a gun or put his life on the line like that on a regular basis. You might think that it was a difficult decision to make, after all I had spent my entire life preparing for this line of work, taking German (during the Cold War) and Arabic (post Cold War), as well as a myriad of Middle Eastern, Asian, and South American courses at the U, not to mention years of Kung Fu. You might think that nothing could stop this Juggernaut pushing me toward a life of secrecy, but Natalie did. I made the choice then that I wanted to be married to to more than I wanted to work for the CIA or FBI or any of the other agencies I had applications for.



And then the other thing happened: I wrote my first novel. I have said this elsewhere, but the first book I ever wrote is the latest one to be published (Shadow Hunter) but back then it was titled, A Green Hill Far Away. About 15 years ago, my father shared with me a dream he'd had the night before, and over a game of pool we fleshed it out into a pretty good story. When the game was over (I think he won) he said, "and we're going to write it." The next day we started working on what would be our first novel. The next year and a half was challenging, fun, exciting, disappointing, and exhausting, all rolled into one. I still remember very clearly looking at the final, printed copy of the book, sitting there on the bed--I was so proud of it you might have thought I had just given birth to healthy, 400 page baby boy--and thinking, "I finally know what I want to be when I grow up." I was 25.



Now, when people would ask the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I would smile and say, "Happy." The reaction was always, "No, really. What do you want to be when you grow up?" and again I would emphasize that I just want to be happy. Would I have been happy being some foreign analyst working on the 3rd floor of the CIA offices in Langley, VA? Do I ever regret not pushing on toward my childhood dream of serving my country in this capacity? Not once. I made the right decision to choose Natalie and our life together over one glamorized by Hollywood. Happiness comes from not living with regret. Sure, you'll make mistakes and poor choices from time to time, but learning from them and moving forward, either toward a dream or being present in the one currently live--this is where you find real happiness and satisfaction in life.



So, what do you want to be when you grow up?

No Joke...

FedEx knocked about 20 minutes ago with a box full of books. Looks like my fears about having to explain to everyone why, on April 1st, my book wasn't in the stores were unfounded after all. Oh, me, of little faith.

On this note, let me say that I listened to the Audio CD for a few minutes, too, and LOVE it. The narrator read it exactly the way I wrote it, and even gave the Middle Eastern dialogue a little accent. It is great!

How in the world am I expected to work the rest of the day?