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January 6, 2006
A tell-all tale with Nye County in mind
Surely, if one more person tells you they're going to lose 20 pounds, as they scarf down a Twinkie like a Hoover sucks up lint, you will pull out your hair. Clearly, if one more person verbally resolves to quit smoking, as they light up their third in a row, you will cough up a lung on their behalf. Please allow me to indulge you with just two more resolutions. My first resolution is to write a rough draft of a book, fiction, by the end of March, 90,000 words. No agent, no publisher, no prospects. My second resolution is to write a rough draft of a book, nonfiction, by the end of 2006, 90,000 words. Publisher is very interested; topic could reach limited national audience, subject matter very familiar. Inside every writer - from the young, idealistic poet who pens poorly-worded rhymes, to the sage, sophisticated syndicated columnist whose pieces are published on the next to last page of leading magazines and on the opinion pages of major newspapers around the nation, if not the world - beats the heart of an author. Many newspaper reporters are published authors so what I've resolved to do is not unprecedented, but it certainly seems daunting. I attempted to write my first book at the advanced age of 20, but after about 300 words I realized I had nothing to say. As Dylan wrote, I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now. The first rule of writing a book is this: know your subject. The example most writing teachers use goes thusly: "Do not write a story about sailing if you've never been on a boat." I know my subject. Both books will use Pahrump as a setting. Both books will focus on, let's say, the more unique aspects of life in The Heart of the New Old West. The nonfiction book will be a history of brothels in Nye County, from Tonopah's boom years at the turn of the last century to the modern era at the turn of this one. This book is going to take work since truth is often elusive. While I'll make every attempt to write in a fashion that entertains, the parameters of writing nonfiction are by necessity, like journalism, extremely constrained. The fictional novel will be a quirky whodunit and I plan on having a blast writing; and I'm going to write as if I don't care if it ever gets published. The working title is "One Hour and One World from Vegas." That's how I described Pahrump to Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly - see, I'm already dropping names. The plot will be complex and commercial: sex, drugs and videotape. Throw in a body or two and I'll have the ingredients for a story shallower than a bar ditch and therefore loaded with mass audience appeal, custom made for idiots. I see a movie in this, an indie that wins Best in Show, or whatever they call the best independent film shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Robert Redford will gently shake my hand and tell me I'm a genius. The characters will be based, very loosely, on people I've met in Nye County since first coming out here in 1995. I'm thinking of merging the personalities of former sheriff Wade Lieseke with current sheriff Tony DeMeo; this guy will have definitive passive/aggressive tendencies. Kind of a macho, macho man. I'll take one-half Cameron McRae and one-half Candice Trummell and create the smartest Nye County commissioner in history. I'll take now imprisoned Public Administrator Red Dyer and trans-mutate him with his evil fugitive wife Genie, and then I'll kill them off early in the story. Grave robbers in real life should not be rewarded with immortality in a fictional life. I'll develop a few secondary story lines borrowed from the front pages of past editions - the Binion murder and subsequent $7 million silver heist; the burning of the Mountain View; the building of Wal-Mart and the frenzy that project brought to the valley. I'll keep out the building of Desert View for dramatic impact - the golden hour lasts 60 minutes but it's 61 minutes to the closest hospital - but I'll add a bunch of other stuff that I've covered over the past decade and cram it into one brutally hot summer. I'll write about a depraved sex offender who was sent away to prison for a minimum of 10 years two years ago but was spotted on the street just last week. Oh wait; that really happened. I'll recount the tale of a government administrator who thought he was an elected official and took the town hostage. Hold on a second ... dang, that's really happening, too. I guess I'll just have to make stuff up and put in tons of gratuitous violence and naked women. I don't have any desire to get all literary; I want people to actually buy "One Hour and One World From Vegas." Heck, I'll even have a fully loaded passenger jet land on Highway 160 and radioactive water coming into the valley off the test site. I mean; "One Hour and One World from Vegas" is going to be fictional. It's going to be one gigantic lie with personality. I don't know if any publishing house would want the novel, but I know I'm going to have the time of my life weaving the tale. We'll have the book signing at The Winery. In my novel a flashflood washes away the landmark at the same time terrorists are robbing the bank. On horseback. Yeah, that's it. Write to Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com. |
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