10/23/12 UPDATE – Full Book Now Available on Kindle and Paperback

Hello friends! This month I will be publishing my first novel titled Odessa Red. Kinda psyched about it. The final edits are not yet finished but we (My Editor Abigail and I) are in the final stages of what has been almost a two year process of making this book a reality. Below as a special thingy are the Book Summary and the First Chapter. Hope you beautiful bear riding shark punching champions of the underworld enjoy it.

Book Summary: Loner high school student Grant Nichols finds himself in the middle of an Odessa, Texas street with a knife in his hand, a pile of unidentifiable bodies behind him, and enough policemen with cowboy hats pointing guns in his direction to cause at least a little bit of concern. As Grant chooses to run, he brings the reader up to date through flash backs as to why he might not be as bad as the people with guns think he is, how his dream girl might not be so dreamy, and why he is not nearly the biggest problem the town of Odessa will be facing in the near future.

Chapter 1 – September 3 – 9pm

Time Flies When You’re a Felon

A lot can happen when once upon a time is nothing but the present. You feel like the world has turned you upside down and shaken your pockets clean only to find out your pockets being full was a cruel joke in the first place. You were never meant to feel joy – at least that’s how it feels at this point – because I’ll tell you one thing for sure, as normal as you once hoped to be, you can’t be normal after something like this.

Normalcy or death. Your choice.

Oh and quick quiz: when you are standing in the middle of the quietest street in America holding a bloodied knife with police spot lights shining down on you, what would you do? Tell them the truth? That might work, minus the fact that the truth sounds like the misconstrued lies of a psychopath. Other than that, it’s a good plan.

Normal is no longer an option. You know how people say that right before they have a near death experience they see their lives flash before their eyes? Well, that’s not true. It can’t be. You don’t have that kind of time. It’s a millisecond, if that, and in that moment however many years your stupid fleshy being has been rotting on this earth will not supersede the fact that you are about to die. Your life’s events will not play out again for you like an endless movie.

It is one moment. One moment of your life flashes for that short period of time and stays with you forever. It might not even be a good moment, or one that seemed important to you when you didn’t have to worry about being deceased soon. It’s whatever your brain chooses, and who is to say that your brain has ever made a good decision?

Mine was her. Most cliché thought I’ve ever had, and it saddened me. Not because the last thing I could think of was a girl, but because my stupid brain picked a girl over roller coasters and whiskey.

My new white Chuck Taylor shoes were stained, and it was red no less. That will never come out. I couldn’t remember just then whether I could bleach shoes. My focus is terrible.

“Put it down! Now!” screamed the man with a cowboy hat and gun. If I didn’t know any better I would say Dirty Harry was yelling at me. Although if that were the case I’m almost certain I would have been dead already. Clint Eastwood wouldn’t have taken this kind of guff from nobody.

The lights were so bright. There were two of them. Overkill much, Odessa? I knew for sure there were pretty horrific problems in my general vicinity that were much more important than some stupid kid with a blood soaked knife and a plain white tee which by the way, was also ruined.

The things you think while looking down a gun barrel can consume you as they seemed to do in this very situation. For example: helicopters are too loud for their own good.

“So what now?” I asked myself audibly, thinking the dozen bloody pulps behind me would answer. They didn’t. So lame.

I thought about shouting back and telling the nice people with pistols what was really happening, but for some reason I was betting against them saying, “Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense! Also, those horribly maimed beings behind you? Yeah, we’re fine with those! On your way sir!”

I dropped the knife to the ground. It splashed; worsening the soak my shoes has already grown accustomed to. My hair was in my face, scratching my nose. I wanted to move it so badly but I thought against it. That would suck if the last thing I ever did was stop my nose from itching. “Here lies Grant, he sure was an itchy guy!” No thanks.

I felt like I had two options, which was untrue, but simplification is sometimes best in the face of unholy turmoil.

I could put my hands on my head, drop to my knees, get carted away by the cowboy police, and wait for the interrogation to end. At the end of said interrogation they would tell me I’m too crazy for trial, lock me in a blue padded room, and that girl would only be able to talk to me through a phone behind a pane of glass. That is, if she or any of us really are still alive by then.

Or I could run.

Hands down, easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.