HOW K. U. BASKETBALL MESSED WITH MY MARRIAGE

The first 50 years of our marriage went well, partly because we each had our own areas of interest. Hers were the arts, entertainment and psychology.  Mine were sports, sports and more sports. You might think this would be a source of friction, but other than a few disparaging remarks about my obsession, we respected each other’s passions. Each day began blissfully with her reading the arts and entertainment section of the newspaper while I was lost in the sports pages.  On occasion, I would be coaxed from my sporting lair to attend a concert or a chick flick, but hey, sometimes I had to compromise to keep the peace.  Year after year this marital bliss went on until the unthinkable happened and my world was turned upside down.  At the breakfast table one Sunday morning I started searching through the newspaper.

“Where is the sports section?” I asked frantically. “Did they forget to print it?”

“I’m reading it,” she replied tersely from behind the paper, like she had every right to do so.
For a moment I was stunned into silence. “Why are you reading the sports section? You haven’t read sports in 50 years,” I said, exasperated.
“I know.  I wanted to see if K.U. won the basketball game last night.”
If she had announced that World War Three had started it wouldn’t have been any more shocking.
“You have never been interested in K. U. Basketball,” I challenged, resentful of her treading in my domain.
“I know, but I like the way Bill Self coaches.”
I stared at her dumbfounded.
“How could you possibly know how he coaches?”
“Sometimes I watch the games while I’m doing other things. You have been too absorbed to notice.”

Me? Absorbed by sports?

“You were kind of sneaky about this,” I challenged.
“Don’t be silly.”
“And now you’re hogging the sports section.”
“You’re such a grouch. I’m almost finished.”
“You don’t understand. The sports pages are sacred. I’ll be reading second hand news.”
She shook her head in exasperation and handed them over.
“I think it would be fun to go to a game,” she announced.
For a moment I was too stunned to respond.  
“You’ve had no interest in sports all these years. What gives?”
“It looks like it would be entertaining.”
 “The Pope is easier to see than K.U. basketball tickets are to get.  And it would cost a small fortune,” I said, putting her off to protect my domain.
“You just don’t want me to go.”
She had played the marital trump card and we both knew she had me where it hurt.
“I’ll see what I can do.”

We were sitting at the very top of Allen Fieldhouse. The only thing higher was the Beware of the Phog banner. She didn’t mind in the least, and was totally enthralled with all that was going on below her.
“Isn’t this wonderful!” she exclaimed, enraptured.
“As soon as my nose bleed stops I’ll let you know. We had better watch for pigeons.”
She patted my leg to placate me as she watched the players warming up.        
“Where is he?” she asked
“Where is who?”
“Bill Self.”
“How would I know? I can’t see the court.”
“Don’t be cute.”
“He has this thing he does where he takes a few moments of quiet contemplation before every game.” I explained.
“Oh. I can understand that.”

 And then on the big screen Bill Self came sauntering out and she began cheering and clapping with the rest of the crowd.  The fieldhouse hushed for the alma mater. She was a K.U. grad and the hail to old K.U line made her swell with pride.  The rock chalk Jayhawk chant followed and she joined in with fervor for good ole K.U.
A few minutes into the game one of the Morris twins was called for a foul and she was fuming.
“Why did they call a foul?” she demanded.
“Elbows to the throat are not allowed,” I replied.
“Oh. It must have been accidental.”
I rolled my eyes.
“By the way, what does in the paint mean?” she asked.
Holy hoops! She was learning the jargon! I explained about the paint.

The game ebbed back and forth as she watched nervously, living and dying with each shot at the basket. Finally, K. U. put the game away and she let out a contented sigh of relief.
“Maybe we should leave early to beat the crowd,” I said, thinking about the trek down from the top of Allen Fieldhouse.
 She looked at me like I had committed a sacrilege.
“No way,” she said firmly. “I want to go down and see the court. We might even get to see the players when they leave the dressing room.”
I knew that I was dreaming and that I would wake up in a cold sweat, safe and secure in my sports domain.  
We watched some of the post game activity and were among the last to leave Allen Fieldhouse.
“I really enjoyed myself,” she said as we stepped out into the wind and rain. “I’m going to watch every game.” 
And there it was, stark and undeniable. One of the foundations of our marriage had crumbled. My domain was now our domain.  Bill Self had turned my wife into a basketball fan.  

TOP WRITING AND PUBLISHING TIPS GLEANED OVER 20 YEARS

1. Purchase a copy of The Elements of Style. It is a timeless instruction by Professor William Strunk Jr. on how not to use needless words.

2.  Before publishing, hire a content editor, a grammar and punctuation editor and a proof reader. Mistakes in the manuscript can be invisible to the writer because they are imprinted on the brain.

3. There is some truth to the theory that waiting at the computer for inspiration is the correct way to go.  However, that inspiration might also be waiting on the golf course or at the movies.

4. Buy a book of baby names.  You will know instantly the name of your character when you read it.

5. Do research and hire the best people to produce a book. It will be judged by the quality as well as the content.

6.  Writing about sex is risky. It should be erotic and exciting without going into too much detail.  

7. There is no rhyme nor reason to book reviews    One of my novels received a tepid review from the book review department of a large metropolitan newspaper.  Later, that same novel won a prestigious literary award named after the longtime book review editor of that newspaper.    

8. Don’t bet the farm on any writing project. Use money you can afford to lose and you will sleep better at night.

9. Trust your instincts.  Twenty years ago the establishment warned me not to self publish because the conventional wisdom was that my novel would not be taken seriously and would not be reviewed.  The establishment was wrong. My novel, Gully Town, received a ton of publicity and rose to number three on the Regional best-seller list.

10. Don’t forget the most important two word question of all before starting a writing project.  Who cares?  If you don’t know the answer then reconsider the project.

11. Writing is like a good wine. It needs to age before being consumed.

12. Be passionate about your writing.  An example of how I almost ended up in jail for the sake of research is detailed in one of my previous blogs: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING THERE.  

    

TWENTY YEARS AGO - MY FIRST VENTURE INTO SELF PUBLISHING

My journey into self publishing was born out of necessity as well as out of frustration. In 1991 there were no publishers of novels in the six state area where I lived.  My frustration grew as rejection letters kept piling up from major publishers in New York who were emphatic that no one would be interested in a historical novel about Kansas City.  In those days it was a risky venture because no other writer had self published a novel in my area of the country.  The prevailing wisdom was that the novel would not be taken seriously and would definitely not be reviewed. 

However, after working on the novel for 10 years, the thought of it languishing in a dresser drawer would be a sad ending to what I thought was a good book. The plunge into self publishing was daunting because I knew from the beginning that for the novel to be taken seriously the quality would have to be as good as, or better than books put out by major publishers.  And it would be expensive to make that happen.  But in spite of all my reservations I began the process by hiring the best rated editors, typesetter, and book publisher.  

When the book was finished I took it around to bookstore managers and left them a free copy of the novel with the proposition that if they liked it they would give me an order.  They did, and the book was stocked in every bookstore in the city.  My strategy for publicity was to leave a copy of the book with two of my favorite newspaper columnists with the same proposition.  If they liked the book they might give me a mention in their column. One of the reporters  wrote about current affairs in Kansas City and the other wrote about business.  Both reporters wrote a story about me and about how much they enjoyed the novel and that led to more articles and then radio and television appearances.    

Although book sales for Gully Town were excellent, and the novel made it to number 3 on the regional best seller list, the greatest satisfaction came in an article about the history of Kansas City in the Kansas City Star.  The reporter printed the cover of three books that were significant in the history of the city: Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis, and my novel, Gully Town.    And that alone made the self publishing venture worthwhile. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING THERE

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the Tarzan series without ever seeing Africa, but whenever possible, I try to visit the places I write about. To complete a Civil War scene in my first novel, Gully Town, I waited for the sun to come up on the exact October day the Battle of Westport took place. I wanted to get a feel for what the troops saw the morning before the battle.  And for my novel, Incident at Simms Center, I went to the Chase County Courthouse in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas during a thunderstorm. The climactic scene in the novel takes place on a stormy night, with Herb Tully running up the stairs to the bell tower.  

The hub of my third novel, The Ghost Dancers, was Kansas City’s Union Station. When the station opened it was the second largest train station in the country at 850,000 square feet, with a 95 foot high ceiling, 3 chandeliers weighing 3500 pounds each, and a grand clock with a 6 foot diameter face. In the 1930’s and 1940’s meeting under the clock was a way of life in Kansas City. It would be the meeting place for the characters in my novel.  However, there was no way for me to get into the station. It had been closed for years while litigation went on between the city of Kansas City and the Trizec Corporation about who was responsible for the station’s deteriorating condition. I tried calling the Mayor’s office and also Trizec to get permission to set my scene under the clock, but was told no one could get in, not even the Mayor. All further pleas were forcefully rebuffed.

 A few days later I was lost in the bowels of Union Station holding a lantern. It was very dark and very scary outside the edges of my lantern’s light, and I wondered what I had gotten myself into. After stumbling around in the dark for half an hour, I turned a corner and was attracted by a light shining from above.  I headed up an old stairway feeling very much like a character in a Dicken’s novel to seek out the source of the light. At the top of the stairs, and to my complete amazement, the light was pouring in from the 90 foot high arched windows at the front of the station and had led me into the North Waiting Room.  It was only a short walk to the clock where I wanted to set my scene.  

 The station, even in disrepair, was magnificent and I was spellbound. After spending some time setting my scene under the clock and in the North Waiting Room, it was time to explore. I headed up a stairway at the front of the station and encountered a security guard who was headed down. For a moment we were both too shocked to respond, and then he reached for his gun and I put my hands up in surrender. I began explaining why I was there, trying to put the guard at ease. He was not buying it however, and he called for backup. Two more security guards arrived, and I gave them my best pitch about literary pursuits and why they should let me go.  But they weren’t buying it either, and they called the Kansas City Police Department.

 I was in some serious trouble and wondered about my fate.  After a bit of conversation, the security guards realized they were not dealing with John Dillinger. They relaxed and started asking me questions about the station. We were doing a mini tour when the giant doors at the front of the building banged open and three police officers entered and headed my way. They were immaculately dressed in crisp uniforms and their polished boots clicked off the station floor in military precision. I wondered why I rated an elite unit of the police department. The security guards gathered round to listen. The sergeant in charge put his chest close to mine, and the conversation went like this:

 “Do you know what the penalty is for breaking and entering?” he asked.

I shook my head.
“Are you ready to go downtown?”
I remained silent.
“What is your name?”
I told him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m a writer and I wanted to set a scene under the clock.”
“What have you written?” the sergeant asked skeptically.  
“You probably haven’t heard of it. A novel about Kansas City called, Gully Town.”
The sergeant hesitated and looked me over.
“I read Gully Town and I liked it,” he said.
I let out a deep sigh of relief.

The sergeant wiped his brow and looked around in awe at the magnificence of the station.

“You know Mr. Schultz,” he said. “I haven’t been in here since I was a kid. My dad used to bring me here all the time.”
And that’s when I knew he was more interested in the station than in me. His two companions were mesmerized by the station and had already headed to the North Waiting Room to look around.
“Are you going to thank me for getting you in here?”I asked.
“Don’t push your luck,” he muttered.
We began talking about the history of the station, and after a few minutes we got more comfortable with each other and began telling stories about Union Station.  I was now giving a tour to three security guards and three police officers when those big doors swung open again and in marched a man dressed in a suit. He headed for us and the three police officers greeted him. I asked him who he was, and he replied that he was a police observer, and he joined our group. I suspected that he was there to observe the station, and wondered if the entire police force was going to show up.

 We started a discussion about the Union Station Massacre. The officers wanted to know the route that federal agents had taken as they escorted the notorious criminal, Frank Nash, to a waiting car in the front parking lot.  From there they would head to the penitentiary in Leavenworth, where Frank had escaped years before.  But out in the parking lot, Vern Miller, Adam Richitti, and Pretty Boy Floyd waited to ambush the officers and free Frank. In the ensuing gun battle, four agents and Frank Nash were killed. We were deep into the discussion when the station doors banged open again and the Trizec executives marched in. I knew my moment of truth had arrived.  Law enforcement left me like I had the plague and went to confer with Trizec. 

They huddled in a corner of the station with glances in my direction. I suspected they were weighing the benefits of my arrest against the possibility of some bad publicity for jailing me for trying to research a Kansas City landmark. The conference lasted long enough to make me sweat, and then one of the executives marched over and stuck out his hand. I shook it. He told me that I was not going to be prosecuted, but that I was never to do it again. I now knew how Frank Nash must have felt surrounded by police officers and I wanted no part of a jail cell. I shook hands with all of the officers and they escorted me out of the building.

The next day a story appeared in the Kansas City Star about the escapade and how the power of the station brought us all together.  The article summed it up very well and I was glad the story had a happy ending.  A few years later the station opened and was once again an important hub in the Kansas City scene.  A photo of the station is at the top right hand corner of my website: www.gpschultz.com   

  

    

             

 

    

FEEDING THE DIGITAL DEMON

The voice on the line said it was sooo easy to download a book to a digital distributor.  All I had to do was follow the Smashwords formatting directions and it would be a breeze.  What the voice didn’t say was that the directions looked like a five page physics test. Not one to turn down a challenge, I immediately called a formatting expert and hired her to do the job. If I’ve learned anything in 20 years in the book business, it is that easy and computer are oxymoron’s when used in the same sentence.  I sent my novels to a formatting expert in a Word document and when she finished the formatting they were downloaded with ease.    

But not so fast! The next digital distributor, the one named after a South American river, didn’t want the novels downloaded in a Word document, they wanted them in an HTML file. I’m sure that’s because any hint of uniformity in the digital world would not allow us to steam in frustration at our computers.  However, without too much trouble, the novels were converted to an HTML file and are now bobbing in the digital river.

The next stop was Google EBooks, and you guessed it. They didn’t want the novels downloaded in Word or HTML; they wanted them in a PDF file. What fun! And for good measure, just to wipe the smirk off my face, they didn’t want the books downloaded with their titles, they wanted them downloaded with their ISBN numbers. And just for me, mister computer klutz, they wanted a signed statement confirming that I am the owner of my own ISBN numbers. Do they think we make this stuff up, or is it just a lot of fun watching us jump through their digital hoops?   

The next call was to Lightning Source, the print on demand distributor. This would be easy because I had my electronic files and my electronic cover. I was way ahead of the digital game.  But just in case, I called ahead to talk to a representative, who immediately deflated me with the one question that filled me with dread. “How good are your computer skills? We have our own specifications that you have to meet before downloading into our system.”  Gee… what a surprise! I asked if they had someone who could do this for me, but alas they did not.  I spent the rest of that afternoon trying to figure out if I wanted to proceed or slit my wrists.      

My suggestion for the digital book world would be to come up with one, easy, universal downloading system for ebooks and for print on demand. The current system seems bizarre for an industry that was innovative enough to create the Kindle and the Nook. And in so doing, the mind they save just might be  my own.   

The Kennedy Club

I thought we would start off the first blog with some information about the new novel and how some of the scenes came about.   Future blogs will be more of an interaction, where we can share information about writing, current events, or just about anything. If you have any questions, please pass them along and I will do my best to give a satisfactory answer.  Thank you so much for checking out the website and I hope you will join our Email list.     

The idea for my novel, The Kennedy Club, was conceived on a Cape Cod vacation when I was standing on a pier next to the Kennedy Compound. I had always been a fan of John F. Kennedy, and admired his wit and intelligence.  It was so quiet and serene there by the ocean and I wondered what it must have been like during those golden years before he became president. I wanted to capture some of the president’s humor with the interaction between Jack Connolly and Coop Davis and the other members of The Kennedy Club.

 That visit to the Kennedy Compound was also the inspiration for the scene where Emily is initiated into The Kennedy Club and her sailboat is cast off from the pier into the wide and lonely sea.  In the quaint town of Chatham, I spent some time walking the streets and the beach near the lighthouse. I thought the location would make a great setting for Jack Connolly’s hometown, and also for Emily’s lovely little cottage by the sea.  

The Flint Hills scenes came from years of business trips between Emporia and Wichita, Kansas. I would  stop at the very pinnacle of the prairie, up by the cattle pens, and enjoy the view that had remained  unchanged through the centuries. That setting would be used for the Covington Ranch and for the scenes with Emily and her grandfather. And I spent a summer evening with the Kansas City Symphony at the Concert in the Flint Hills that was magical.  That evening was the inspiration for the Flint Hills concert described in the novel.

All the men in my family were coal miners. As a kid, I remember getting up with my grandma before the sun came up so we could get grandpa ready to work in the mines. Grandma would get a pot of hot water boiling and gather a bunch of towels. She would soak the towels in the water and then wrap them around grandpa’s legs to get the circulation going. His legs were so banged up from slate and coal falling on them that he couldn’t walk without the treatment.

 My job was to chew gum that we would line grandpa’s lunch bucket with, so the coal dust wouldn’t seep in and ruin his lunch. After the treatment, grandpa would limp off for a long day in the mines. At sunset, I would sit on the porch steps with my dog and wait for him to come limping down the road toward home. I would run to meet him. It fascinated me to learn how far back in the mine he had been working.  I used my grandparent’s home on the banks of the Kanawha River as the setting for Coop’s home in The Kennedy Club.