Some time before I ended the stories, I was approached by two people: Jim Aust (now former) editor of GoodGuy’s Gazette and Brandon Flannery, (now former editor) of CK Deluxe. Brandon asked me to write a story for his magazine… I wrote an exclusive story, it appeared in a later issue. Jim Aust asked if I’d like to write a column for GoodGuy’s Gazette… of course, I jumped right in (yeah… riiiii-iight!!)! I was a bit intimidated at the thought. He told me he loved the stories of the 1960’s and figured the members of GoodGuy’s would as well. In March, 2003, I sent in three… to test the waters… my column would start with the May issue. When the May issue came out, he asked for three more and sent me a check for all six… needless to say I was hooked. Shortly after that I received a check from Brandon… hey, I like this, getting paid for putting words on paper.

Based on what I was hearing from Jim, and how popular the stories were, I assembled the 26 I had in chronological order, stole part of my GoodGuy’s column title, added to it and came up with the title… then submitted the entire manuscript to automotive type publishers: Motorbooks International and Krause Publications to name just a few, certain they would jump on it because of its popularity on the website. I got rejection letters for all, except one - an Australian publisher, Grafitti Publishing… matter of fact, I’m still waiting for his letter. Needless to say I was dejected… oh well, their loss. But, like the proverbial dark cloud, the silver lining appeared in my mailbox the next day… my GG’s Gazette. Yep, right there on page 16… my column… and I had more fans via their letters section… Dejection turned to inspiration, these stories needed to be published.

At this point, the manuscript needed something more tho… I dissected each of the stories, figured the why’s, what-fors, the aftermath and the reasons for doing what “we” did back then and jotted down those notes… soon I had several pages of ‘running commentary’. I placed myself back in that time and proceeded to explain my actions… and the consequences of the nut I was. Before long, the majority of the stories had explanation… I assembled that into one huge manuscript and sent it off to a publisher I’d discovered.

Some time later the publisher sent back a letter asking me if I had pictures to go with it. I dug thru my sister’s old albums, came up with several, captioned them and sent them off. A few weeks later, their acceptance letter arrived.

Damn!!! I am going to be published. I am going to have my own book. I am going to be a published author. I am going to join the ranks of writers such as Stephen King, John Clancy, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, et al.

You believe that? Neither do I. I could never join THEIR ranks, but getting published is one thing a lot of people wish would happen (and a lot of writers struggle for)… and so did I, quite a few years ago.

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