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JACK: SECRET HISTORIES - A Young Repairman Jack novel
…except he’s not Repairman Jack yet.
It's 1983. The Atari 5200 is the hot videogame console and Star Wars Death Star Battle is the hot game; the Apple ][+ with a whole 48K of RAM is state of the art in home computing; everyone's twisting a Rubik's cube.
And a fourteen-year-old boy is beginning to explore the talents that will lead him to become a man known as Repairman Jack.
Never saw myself writing for kids, especially since I already have a fair number of teen readers, mostly sixteen and up. But a motley array of forces converged to goose me into writing a novel geared toward the sixteen-and-under crowd – a so-called Young-Adult novel.
I say "so-called" because the writing process wasn't much different from my adult work and the style is virtually identical. I've striven over the years for a clean, lean style, tailored to the pace of the thrillers I write. Now, to my delight, I find it fits a younger audience equally well. At least that's what a focus group showed: Kids who often took up to a month to finish a book were polishing off Jack: Secret Histories over a weekend and looking for more.
But what surprised me most was how much fun I had. I delighted in peeking into Jack's past and populating it with people who would play parts in his later life, or arranging cameos of characters from other novels. The books practically wrote themselves. I'd agreed to write three and I had drafts of the second and third done before the first’s pub date. Like taking dictation.
Best of all was looking at the world again through fourteen-year-old eyes. I remember my own last summer before high school as a turning point in my life. So that was where I decided to pick up Jack’s story. Since I’d already established his birth year as 1969, I pretty much had to set the story in 1983. Not a bad year – lots of new technology, disco was dead, and MTV was on the rise.
Lucky for me, I’d already placed Jack’s hometown in Burlington County, which juts into the mysterious and fabled Jersey Pine Barrens. Perfect. It all came together in a glorious crash. I could work all sorts of magic in a million acres of wilderness with places no human eyes have ever seen, where strange lights jump from tree to tree and the Jersey Devil supposedly roams. I peopled his town with weird characters and places – like an old woman (with a dog) who's supposedly a witch, and the town drunk who's rumored to be able to heal with a touch but always wears gloves, and USED, the store that sells old…stuff.
From his start many years ago in The Tomb , I made of point of giving the adult Jack an Everyman background. He's not an ex Navy SEAL or former CIA black-ops agent, just a guy from New Jersey who dropped off the radar and taught himself a few tricks. But he has an innate knack for manipulating people and situations to his advantage. (Of course if that doesn’t work, he has his trusty Glock.) Here was a chance to show him discovering his talents.
As I said: Like taking dictation.
Jack: Secret Histories is the first of a trilogy. If comments on this site are any indication, adult Jack fans are lined up, waiting to dive in. If you know a 9-16 year old, male of female, try a copy. It's a good gift and, considering the deep discount Amazon is offering, a small investment that could pay high dividends if you turn a kid on to reading.
Check it out here: JACK: SECRET HISTORIES
BESTSELLERS 101
5/25/08
It’s no revelation that making the bestseller lists is important for a book and its author. Bestsellerdom influences where the book is placed in stores. More prominent placement means higher visibility, increasing the likelihood of readers picking it up and checking the flap copy and the blurbs, and perhaps reading the first page or two. If they like what they see—another sale. Which increases the book’s chances of staying on the bestseller list.
A bestselling hardcover can look forward to higher advance orders on its paperback edition (with "Bestseller!" emblazoned across its cover), and the author can anticipate higher advance orders on his next hardcover.
All because his book made the bestseller lists.
(This is not the place to delve into the controversy over how bestseller lists are compiled - a long, complicated story - so let’s just assume that the lists are a true reflection of sales during the week in question and proceed from there.)
But bestsellerdom isn’t determined by total sales. It’s determined by velocity of sales during a given week.
For example: Author X and Author Y each have books released on the same day.
Author X sells 25,000 copies that week and Author Y sells 2,000.
Author X makes the bestseller lists; Author Y does not.
Author X sells 15,000 and 10,000 copies respectively over the next two weeks and remains on the bestseller lists. Author Y sells 2,000 copies in each of those weeks and is nowhere near the lists.
Over the next fifty or so weeks, sales of Author X’s book tail off so that by the end of a year he’s sold a total of 100,000 copies. Author Y’s book has gained a certain amount of word of mouth and sells 2,000 a week for the entire year for a similar total of 100,000 copies.
Both have sold the same number of copies, yet X is now a "Bestselling Author!" and Y is not.
Why?
Velocity.
Author X’s book sold a ton of copies during the first weeks after release. That’s known in the publishing world as velocity. It put Author X on the lists, thereby increasing his paperback orders and future hardcover orders.
So when you buy matters, folks.
What’s the take-away here? Simple: If you plan to buy the young adult Repairman Jack novel, JACK: SECRET HISTORIES, buy it during the first week of release (the official publication date is May 27). Better yet, pre-order it from your favorite bookseller, or:
Repairman Jack Young adult series
Exciting news for fans of Repairman Jack!
F. Paul Wilson has contracted to write a trilogy of young adult novels based on Jack. The first, Secret Histories, starts with Jack at fourteen years old. Gauntlet will be publishing a signed limited edition of all three, the first seeing release around February (well before the trade edition is released)
Read for the first time Jack's formative years. You'll meet his mother and father, big sister Kate and his bully of a brother Tom. While aimed for young adults, F. Paul Wilson doesn't write down and the book is as enjoyable for adults as it is for teens. And, as you can see from the above description there's plenty of foreshadowing of events that were to overtake Jack as an adult (i.e. An old woman with a dog … making herself known to Jack when he's just fourteen!)
Both Lettered editions (and only the lettered editions) will contain the complete outline as part of the limited edition. Those ordering each of the lettered edition will have first choice at receiving the same edition (and same letter) of the lettered edition for the entire trilogy if you order in January of each year.
Visit Gauntlet's website for more information and purchasing details.
BLOODLINE trailer
This went live 9/17 on MSN, Yahoo, Google, itunes, AOL, etc. Watch it here.
NEW RADIO INTERVIEW
On 8/22 Gard Goldsmith interviewed me on 107.7 FM in Concord, NH:
SOLD OUT
The following titles are sold out:
- BLOODLINES: The Gauntlet Press limited edition.
- BY THE SWORD: The Gauntlet Press limited edition
VIRGIN
Order from Amazon | Order
from Barnes & Noble
The limited edition hardcover is almost sold out, but the good folks at Borderlands Press have decided to make the novel available to the non-collector at a fraction of the hardcover price. It's now in trade paperback.
About the book: In the mid 1990s I wrote a novel about the discovery of the body of the Virgin Mary. As I did with vampire lore in MIDNIGHT MASS, I began with the premise that all the Catholic lore about Mary is true except for one thing: She wasn't assumed body and soul into heaven; instead, her body was hidden away in Israel's Negev Desert. The guardian of her remains gets careless over the millennia and, while he's busy elsewhere, the body is discovered and spirited away. This sets in motion a chain of cataclysmic events that reverberates around the world. I had a ball with it, putting all my Catholic background (even though I'm a recovering Catholic, you never forget) into play. I sent it out under my wife's maiden name (Mary Elizabeth Murphy) and gave it a blurb under my own. Even dedicated it to myself: "To my husband, without whom this book would not have been possible."
THE TERY
This novel had its start in 1971 as a novelette called "He Shall
Be Jon." I expanded it to novella length for 1978 publication as "The
Tery" in BINARY STARS #2. Unfortunately the accompanying Steve Fabian
illustrations were muddy messes due to the printing process. I fleshed
it out to novel length for the 1990 Baen version.
Last year I did extensive revisions. So here you have the definitive text in hardcover for the first time, with bright, crisp reproductions Fabian's original art, plus new art by Steve Fabian and Courtney Skinner.
You can order the Limited Edition or the super duper Silver Edition from the Overlook Connection.
Order Limited Edition | Order Limited Edition
SEX SLAVES OF THE DRAGON TONG
My homage to pulp fiction - a fun Yellow Peril story with the most
lurid title I could think of - is now available from the acclaimed audio
series, DARK VOICES. It's read by yours truly and features wonderful
background music and f/x by Robert Schaller. The CD comes with a chapbook
of the story.
I inserted a number of cameo appearances by famous characters; if you can't identify them you are banned for life from reading anything else I write.
REPAIRMAN JACK MOVIE NEWS
Historical note: Years ago I sold film rights to THE TOMB to Beacon Films/Touchstone Pictures. The idea has been to title the film "Repairman Jack" and turn our guy into a franchise character. The project has spent 12 years in development hell, chewing up 6 writers who’ve churned out reams of scripts. This section contains a year or so of updates on the Repairman Jack movie project
June 2009
6/11 - did lunch (note the Hollywood patois) in Santa Monica with Army Bernstein and Suzanne Ellis of Beacon Films, and producers Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush. Pretty much a rerun of the December meeting without Jason Barhydt from Relativity. The same old tug of war between who can best play the part and who can fill the seats overseas. With P&A (prints and advertising - which can run more than the entire production budget) so expensive now, and DVD sales slumping, overseas box office is critical to a film's profitability.
MArch 2009
3/23 - contact with Beacon - nothing of any interest to report.
February 2009
2/17 - email from the head of production at Beacon about what's in the works. Await word from someone I'm not at liberty to name. Sorry to be so cryptic, but that's the way these things go.
JANUARY 2009
1/15 - a rambling conversation with Suzann Ellis, Beacon's head of production, about where they're going with the "Repairman Jack" script (I can't say); we wind up talking about one of my favorite films, which she co-produced for Dreamworks: "Galaxyquest."
DECEMBER 2008
12/5 – In from San Diego and made it to West LA in time to meet with the Beacon folks at this tiny sushi place called Hamasaku that they all swear by. Good thing I had precise directions because it’s in a strip mall on Santa Monica Blvd that’s difficult to get into: once I was there, the place is tucked so far back in a corner that for a moment I feared I was at the wrong mall.
So, we had a semi-blocked-off area of the restaurant to the six of us: yours truly, Army Bernstein, head honcho of Beacon, Suzann Ellis, president and head of production, producers Barry Rosenbush and Bill Borden (the High School Musical guys), and Jason Barhydt from Relativity Media. Beacon and Relativity have partnered up on the Jack film. This is a good thing because they are THE major player in Hollywood these days. Check out Relativity's filmography.
I can’t go into the details at this point. A lot of sensitive matters were discussed and snarky comments made about people and companies and strategies. I can say that things are looking better than they have in a long time, maybe better than ever.
The big studios are having money troubles and are cutting back production. That leaves openings for flush companies like Relativity to fill. It also leaves more actors looking for the security of a franchise. Relativity wants the Repairman Jack franchise to happen. So there’s a convergence of factors that seems to be working in our favor.
Later on, Barry called and we post-mortemed the meeting. Although he never uses the “O” word, he seems cautiously (very cautiously) optimistic. This is encouraging because Barry is very much a realist, maybe verging on pessimist. He’s been around. He paid lots of dues on the way to the astounding success of High School Musical. He knows that Murphy’s law rules Hollywood.
So I came away more optimistic than going in (there - I said the “O” word), but that’s a relative statement. I was very dour - one might even say cynical, bitter, and depressed - going in.
NOVEMBER 2008
11/14 - a conversation with Beacon’s head of production. They’ve hooked up with Relativity Media now. She tells me the latest director they’re talking to (he’s done some big pictures and has worked with Beacon before). We make a date for lunch December 5 when I hit LA on the book tour.
August 2008
8/18 - word from Beacon that they're meeting with a company tomorrow that is interested in partnering with them, and will be going over directors. They think it "could be terrific news for the project." I have no idea what this means.
June-July 2008
The hunt for a director continuuuuues...
MAY 2008
5/23 - Even before publication, film folks are starting to sniff out Jack: Secret Histories. The problem is, Beacon Films holds character rights. I spoke to Beacon and they have no plans for teenage Jack (they’re still trying to find a director for grown-up Jack), but they want to retain right of first refusal. Fair enough, I guess.
April 2008
4/3 - a lengthy chat with Beacon's head of production about the travails of finding a director. The problem is that a number of previous and inferior versions of the script have circulated through Hollywood during the film's dozen or so years in development hell, and people think they've already read it - and didn't like it (with good reason). But they haven't read this new and vastly improved version that sticks to the novel. The big challenge is getting people to give it another look. They persevere.
March 2008
...and continues...
February 2008
The hunt for a director continues.
JANUARY 2008
1/21 - word from Hollywood on the Directors Guild (DGA) agreement with the studios is that it's pretty much a done deal, awaiting only a vote by the membership to make it official. This will speed an end to the Writers Guild strike and probably head off an actors strike. So maybe things can get moving again on the RJ film.
DECEMBER 2007
Nothing happens in Hollywood during December, especially with the writers on strike.
NOVEMBER 2007
11/6 - email from head of Beacon production saying we probably won't make much progress on a director until after the first of the year.
OCTOBER 2007
NOTHING new to report on the film. Been on the road so much I've talked to no one in Hollywood this month.
SEPTEMBER 2007
I've been so busy writing that I've had next to no contact with Beacon other than to hear they're going to wait till they have a director to announce the star. But someone with excellent sources scooped everybody. BK Akitas learned that it’s going to be Ryan Reynolds and posted it on the website's =Forum= for all to see.
AUGUST 2007
8/28: Suzann says they've decided to wait until after Labor Day. You might have already read the article by now. If it's out and you haven't, go to the NEWS page on the website and (I hope) you'll find it there.
8/16: Suzann tells me they're debating whether or not to hold off on the article until after Labor Day. Seems everybody who's anybody in Hollywood is out of town during August.
8/7: A call from Suzann Ellis, head of production at Beacon. They're planning an announcement in the trades that they've finally found their Repairman Jack - and they're gonna name him. They need some puffery from me on sales figures and popularity, etc. I send them what I can. They're not sure when the article will appear.
JUNE 2007
6/25: Spoke to the head of production at Beacon. They had a meeting with a hot German director last week that they like a lot. They’re going to meet again. Meanwhile, he’s not the only director in their sights.
6/7: Spoke to Beacon today. The star-director-studio package is still being pieced together. Still can’t name names but it continues to move forward.
MAY 2007
5/2: Email from Barry Rosenbush that we have a new HWMNBNUPOD (He Who Must Not Be Named Under Pain Of Death). Beacon’s choice for Jack (HWMNBNUPOD) read the script and wants to play Jack. I still cannot utter his name until he’s signed.
APRIL 2007
4/23: Barry says the script should be going to the prospective star this week.
4/13: An email from Barry Rosenbush telling me who they’re getting ready to go after to play Jack. He then swears me to secrecy. (I’m not being coy here – I’d love to tell you – but this is how the game is played out there.)
4/6: Barry and I have a longish talk. The next step is up to Beacon: whether to put together a director-cast package and take it to a studio, or partner up with a studio first and then put things together. They’ll be approaching "nothing but A-list actors and directors."
4/5: I get a copy of the script in .pdf. Only a few of the changes I wanted have been made, and a thing or two I liked have been cut. But it’s all minor, so I’m shutting my yap. The important thing is that everyone has signed off on the script. No more putzing around with it. That very big step is behind us.
4/3: Barry Rosenbush sent me a copy of the script tweak in Final Draft format, but my Final Draft program won’t open it. Very frustrating.
MARCH 2007
3/28: Chris emailed to say he finished all the notes and the fixed-up script is going into the studio today.
3/13: Called Army Bernstein. He’s happy with the script and happy that I’m happy with the script. With all this abounding happiness, it’s time to move. The question now (as I understand it) is whether to put together a director-cast package and take it to a studio, or partner up with a studio first and then put things together. But the first step will be for Chris to incorporate my notes and Army’s into the script before it gets shown around.
3/7: Sent in 5 pages of nits (mostly nuances and gun stuff) and how I think they can be fixed.
3/6: Barry Rosenbush (who’s in Utah filming "High School Musical 2") asked me to go through it and pick every nit I could find, so that’s what I did.
3/3: I read the script while in Baltimore and I LOVE it. It’s the Jack we know and (I assume) love, folks.
3/2: With the subject line "Repaired Man Jack," Chris Morgan sent me the latest script as I was leaving for Horrorfind.
FEBRUARY 2007
2/28: Word from Chris that the completed script will go in at the end of this week (that means March 2).
2/14: A call from Barry Rosenbush about the latest meeting with Beacon. Everyone is on board with Chris’s changes. They expect his rewrite in early March.
2/8: Email from Chris asking for suggestions for "characters or items to inject for the fans. I told him we need:
- A lady with a dog in the background.
- A large-framed bearded old guy with a cane in the background
- Food stains on Abe, an Entenmann's box on the counter.
- Abe's blue parakeet Parabellum.
- Overflowing, stacked shelves at Abe's. Must feel claustrophobic.
- Dead ferns in Julio's front window.
- "Neat stuff" in Jack's apartment along with the old oak furniture.
- The Semmerling.
(Some of these might be more trouble than they’re worth, but worth a try)
2/5: Here’s a partial list of what screenwriter Chris Morgan intends to do in his revision. (I’ve edited out references that will be meaningless unless you’ve read the previous script.)
1) A Character pass on Jack – Jack will be tweaked throughout the script in most scenes. He isn't the local hero everyone in the neighborhood knows and loves in this draft. Jack will be more morally-ambiguous and "invisible" all around and dirty up some of his actions and his views. And toward that end:
2) A new really fun, vicious intro for Jack that will also serve to introduce the idea of Gia earlier into the script...and will also pay-off in an amusing scene later in the story.
3) A character pass on Kusum – make Kusum less of a diabolical, moustache-twirler, and make him conflicted about the path he has chosen to obtain revenge. Jack and he will have far more in common than before, which makes their struggle more interesting.
4) layer elements from the books into the story – all background, subtle stuff, but meaningful for the core audience of fans.
5) clarify the Rakoshi myth;
6) rewrite the finale: In the final action set piece, it's just a cargo ship.
7) detail how Jack gets the necklace at the end of the script, rather than it just appearing in his hands.
8) smooth out some of the more jarring scene transitions in the script to give it a better flow.
Army Bernstein wanted to know if these were okay with me. I said absolutely. Let’s do it. =Now=.