Going To Pieces

When a Literal Literary Loser Turns Serial Killer

Before the historical fiction but after the Figure Skating Murder Mysteries, came the soap-opera tie-ins.

Oakdale Confidential (based on As the World Turns) and Jonathan’s Story (based on Guiding Light) were New York Times best-sellers. The Man From Oakdale (also based on ATWT) won the International Association of Media Tie-In Writer’s SCRIBE Award for Best Novel (General Fiction).

I’d been a soap opera viewer since 1980, a.k.a. The Summer of Luke and Laura When the Whole World Dropped What They Were Doing and Watched Soaps.

I love soaps. I worked for soaps (the aformentioned ATWT and GL, as well as the online reboots of All My Children and One Life to Live). I write about soaps (currently at soaphub.com).

Serials are my favorite genre. I always want to know what happens next, and I am partial to a story that goes on an on. If I fall in love with a character I want to keep living their life with them! What is this nonsense about “the story is over, go get attached to someone else now?” No! Tell me more about this one!

Which is why, as part of my plan to get back on the fiction writing horse after being brutally thrown off it in 2020 with the loss of both my agent and my editor, I leapt at the chance to try out writing serialized stories on two different platforms.

For Amazon’s Kindle Vella, I am writing “Best For Last,” a classic soap opera tale of love, lust, adultery, revenge, rival families and deep, dark secrets kept through generations. Check it out, here.

For Radish, I am writing “Stepmother Russia,” a soap-opera with a twist, in that, here, the deep, dark family secrets happened back in the USSR - but are exploding among the immigrant generation in America.

I’d love to give you a link to read the story on Radish. But here’s the wrinkle. These stories are only available on the Apple Store or Google Play. And I’m so lame that I have neither. (Yes, my teen-age children mock me mercilessly about it.) I’ve released a serialized story that I can neither access to see what it looks like nor promote by offering a link.

So if you get a chance to check it out, let me know how it looks - and how I can direct people to it. TIA!

In other news, I finally heard back from the publisher described here, who wrote:

Please allow this email to serve as our official withdrawal of our offer, as we have heard nothing from you for over six weeks.

Warmest Regards

This is after I wrote them to say thank you for the offer and might they connect me with any of their past authors so I could ask about the experience of publishing with them - and never heard back. So that’s that.

Finally - what do you think of my new head-shot above? New year, new me… new opportunities! Here’s hoping!