I'd like to explain how I got started writing a book, about pool.
I was at the Eastern States Nine-ball Championships in New Bedford, MA. After playing, one of my matches, Mike X., the tournament director, introduced me to Peter Griffin. Peter was, and still might be, a writer. He was researching material and looking to write a book about pool. We talked for some time and during our conversation, I told him, "I always had a story in the back of my mind. What happened to Eddie Felson after he walked out of Ames pool-hall?" I told him my ideas and suggested he write this story. He looked at me and said, "It's your story, you write it." Having no back-round writing anything, I told him, he was crazy. He offered to help, and when I went home I started writing. I sent him the story, several months later. It wasn't very good. He made numerous c corrections and send it back. I started to catch on and eventually ended up with a short story of roughly seventy-five hundred words.I had a lot of paragraphs thrown together with a grand finale last chapter. My characters included Eddie Felson and Vincent from the Color of Money. Big mistake!
Mr Griffin had some friends in high places. He got friendly with the widow of Walter Tevis. He managed to convince her to talk to me about using her husband's characters. It didn't go well.Mr Tevis fantasized, he was Eddie Felson. His widow told me she would take legal action if I used the characters.I had to go to plan B.
I started over using my own characters and my own story. I honestly feel Mrs. Tevis did me a favor, in the long run. It would have been difficult trying to compete with such a classic group of characters, Mr Tevis had already created.
I went back to the beginning. My paragraphs became chapters. I eventually wrote, a very long story. Another big mistake. Editors charge by the word. Three hundred and fifty thousand words is now around a third of that. Lots of editing. Not bad for a kid that bought a ten page paper in high school so he could pass English, and graduate. Mr. Gallagher, if your still out there, grade this paper, I really wrote this one.
Here's the first page, or so of my story:
August 1998. A few months after the completion of United States Open Nine-ball Tournament, ESPN televisesthe rerun of the last six matches.While one of the matches is being aired, twenty-three year old Johnny Jordan sits in his southern California home watching. He's a few weeks away from returning to college for his final yearand has become very interested in the game of pool.He sits perched in front of the television with his elbows on his knees watching the match. One of the meninvolved in the match is Billy Bates;Johnny has fallen in love with the way Billy plays the game. Johnny is in such awe of the way Billy shoots that he calls his mother as she comes up the stairs leading to the family room. He says, "Mom you gotta come over and watch this guy playing pool. He's by far the best player I've ever watched play."
Elaine, Johnny's mom, has been going all day, and she is looking forward to watching something she might enjoy. But, she humors her son and watches the pool match which has him glued to the television. When she sits down in her usual seat, the younger man is at the table, not the player Johnny wants her to watch. Elaine starts to walk away but the younger player misses a shot, and Billy comes to the table. She has a hard time believing her eyes.The older man looks familiar. She sits there thinking, Can This really be him? She goes as far as telling her son that the television needs to be dusted, and she gets her rag and cleans off the TV. She takes her time and gets a good look at the man. He's twenty four-years older than the last time she had seen him, but after one long last stare at him, Elaine knows that she knows this man. She refrains from blurting out the fact to her son. As she sits down, Johnny focuses on the pool match. She slips into the past and begins to recall the details of the first time they met. She falls into a trance as she starts to remember the vivid details of thier brief affair in northern California.
The story takes off from here. I hope this is enough to peek your interest. I can also tell you this is the first pool story that involves both men and women players. What's taken so long. The women bring a lot to the table.
That's all I got for now. AZ and The Break are in the process of reviewing the book. If anyone else has read it, I welcome all opinions.
