As many of you know, I have authored two books. Both were non-fiction and the first was telling the story of a Royals pen pal from South Korea who helped the Royals get to the World Series in 2014. Called The Silence, The Series, & The Season of SungWoo, this book was written in bulk over the course of about a month. I’d never considered writing a book before, but this one just flowed out of me.
The second book I wrote a year later, was a compendium of my best Landmark columns from this Rambling Moron space after I hit my 500th column with the paper. Called My Best 10%, this was a relatively easy book to write, because I got to go through and pick my most favorite columns, add a page of update or commentary, and then put it into book form. The project, in total, took me about a year from start to finish. (I’m at 650 columns now… perhaps a Volume II?)
Even with two books at Amazon.com, I didn’t really consider myself an “author,” simply because of the relative ease of authoring of the books.
A couple of years after my two books came out, I started writing down a few stories from my high school years. It was a writing sprint designed to break through some writer’s block I was having. I took a topic, “weirdest job” and started writing about some of the jobs I had in my youth. One, in particular, kept adding stories. It was the summer I turned 16, and my new truck (which was absolutely not a new truck) and I got a job delivering pizzas for a new place up the street from my house.
The pizza place was new. The owner was Italian and bombastic and funny. I got paid in cash every night and the effort of work was very, very low. He ended up hiring several of my friends “for when it gets busy” and we spent most of the summer sitting around, eating free pizza, and drinking soda. We simply didn’t deliver many pizzas.
We later learned that it was likely tied in with some sort of nefarious activity, but that part didn’t matter to us, we had a gravy train the entire summer.
I couldn’t let these stories go, however. I kept building these chapters out, trying to figure out a way to weave them together. Then I decided — this should become a story.
So, every few months, I’d pick it up again, write a little bit, and then things would get busy, so I’d leave it for a while.
That was eight years ago.
Yesterday, a 255 page, 69,000-word novel titled Paulie’s Pizza was published and released on Amazon. Later this month, the audiobook version will be released as well. An actual novel. And, pardon my bias, but a damn good one.
It follows Cole Callander, a s16-year-old with a new license, and a beat up truck, who gets a job at a pizza place run by the mob. The story includes high school banter, romance, crime, late 1980s nostalgia, and a ton of humor. I have never been more proud of something I’ve written, and I’d be honored if you considered getting a copy for your reading list. It’s available in Kindle, paperback, and hard cover through Amazon. (Search Paulie’s Pizza or Chris Kamler).
Additionally, my website, chriskamler.com will be doing giveaways and VIP packages, including all three books I’ve authored, throughout August.
Next week, I’ll return to commentary about the crazy world we live in, but I am excited to share with you that what started out as a small writing project is now the newest novel in the bookstore.
Enjoy Paulie’s Pizza.
(Check out more from Chris at chriskamler.com)
