Writing every day, feels like I’m almost a hermit. Cutting, making hard decisions on what to keep is very difficult. Finished chipping away at two difficult chapters in the first part though, and actually, I’m really happy with the result. Only one more difficult one to go and I think I can give the first quarter of the book to early readers.

I want to post the ‘first ten pages’ excerpt for the mailing list. Generally, an agent or publisher will want to see the first ten pages of a manuscript before they’ll request any more. In my case, that’s approximately chapters one and two.

Book flap blurbs are almost as important as what’s between the covers, they can make or break the book. I take breaks to work on that often. I recently had two of my writer friends give me their criticism of my latest effort. Though very different responses I think I see the correlation and hope to have a new version of that blurb available to the mailing list as well, too.

If you’d like to be on the mailing list, you can click on EMAIL SIGNUP in the bar below the header above or follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Life-as-A-Naked-Car-Thief-by-Larry-J-Dunlap/195240843890069?sk=app_100265896690345.

Thanks for your continued support.

Hi Jamie, thanks for stopping by. Though I have been bad for not posting for the last couple of weeks, things are moving along nicely for my rewrite. I hope you’ll enjoy the story, it was pretty interesting living it.

LOOK BACK IN LOVE? What do you think?
Considering a name change for the book. I have been thinking about the possibility of using LOOK BACK IN LOVE, My Life as A Naked Car Thief. Already reserved the domain name; almost a little odd that it was available. Stark Naked’s nearest miss was Look Back in Love, so maybe a cross promotion with oldies stations who might play that record … Any opinions out there?

A Naked Car Thief memoir – the rewrite #2. The second message to the mail list about progress through the second draft of six amazing years in a rock band in the mid-sixties. If you’re not a member yet, please join the mail list for updates once or twice a month.

Hurray! My website is now on Facebook!

For the last year, as many of you know, I have been concentrating on writing a narrative memoir of the years I spent in a rock band in the mid-sixties that brought me from Indiana to California. The background for the book is a rich and amazing time of change in our culture. The band’s viewpoint in our journey from dangerous dive bars in the bay area to the most opulent and largest Las Vegas world class resort hotels was unique and fascinating. But most important to me was my personal transformation, from the earlier years in the Midwest and band years, through personal relationships, loves and losses, and my friends and band brothers, as we continually bumped against history and memorable characters as “the times they were a’changing”.

I recently finished the (huge) first draft and I will soon begin the first rewrite. Now, it’s very important to the success of the project to begin gathering support for the work. I need your help with that. I’m collecting email addresses to notify people of the progress of the book. Entering your email address at the following signup page on the website I’ve created for the book will let me keep you updated on the books progress. http://anakedcarthief.com/signup.html Or you can use the Email Signup button just below the header at the top of this page. I’ll be working out later, with the help of participants of this list, what would be a special premium for members of this list as the book approaches publication ready. Several tough steps between now and then, though, so your support is critically important and very much appreciated during this process. Please join me if you can.

Thanks for you help.

It’s been great to receive the support of a successful author like Eva Stachniak, whose historical novel The Winter Palace I am well along in. I would like to share her trailer from YouTube. I’m looking forward to creating a very cool trailer like hers.

INDY HOMECOMING AT 500 SPEEDWAY – 1968
After leaving Hawaii and stopping in L.A. long enough to do the Steve Allen show, we flew to Indianapolis for four weeks at the Holyoke club in Indianapolis, our first trip home since I had left for California three years earlier. Stark Naked and the Car Thieves was a big success by most considerations. Most of the guys from here seemed to bask in the admiration of friends and family. But whatever personal redemption I had hoped to find in Indianapolis didn’t materialize. No one in Indianapolis would recognize our name; to them, if they remembered us at all, it would have been as the Reflections. Our new record, apparently breaking in the east wasn’t getting local airplay. None of my school boy friends or antagonists came to the club, either moved away or indifferent. Despite the warm welcome from my folks and little sister there was unexpected turmoil as I revisited old landmarks and haunts reigniting bittersweet memories of my lost wife and sons; all complicated by the magnet that drew me four thousand miles away toward the islands we had recently left.
Nevertheless one of the highlights was the group visiting the 500 Mile Speedway just a few miles from the house where I grew up and could hear the race cars growling through each May as they circled the track. Les (second from left), me (Larry, second from right) and Dave (right) were excited to show this amazing facility to Mickey (left) and Leonard and Mac (not in picture), where nearly 300,000 people, less than a week earlier, had jammed into the stadia and infield for the 1968 race.