How long did it take you to write the book?
About two years, with some extended breaks thrown in.

Did you have the entire plot worked out in your head before you began writing?
Yes, I had a beginning, middle and end in mind before I even began page one. The main story about the Harmony/Hunta hoax turned out pretty much as I'd envisioned it. The Jean and Madison subplot, however, became something quite different.

What did you originally have planned for Jean and Madison?
I was planning to introduce the possibility that they weren't quite who they claimed to be. That Jean might not really be deaf, Madison might not really be thirteen, and the car accident that brought them into Scott's life might not have been an accident. If you think that sounds intriguing, then I'm sorry I abandoned that thread. If you that it sounds stupid, then I agree. And you're welcome.

Did you write the book full-time? Or was it an "evenings and weekends" sort of deal?
The first nine chapters were written outside my day job as a graphic artist. The rest of the book was written full-time, and quite obsessively. Sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for nearly a year. I couldn't stop myself. By the time I finished, I looked like the Unabomber coming out of his shack.

How did you support yourself?
Credit cards. I figured if independent filmmakers can do it, so can I. But I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart. By the time I finished SLICK, I had $40,000 of debt on seven different cards. When my father found out, he screamed like a little girl.

Did you consider declaring bankruptcy?
I briefly considered Chapter 11 right as I writing Chapter 11, strangely enough. But I pressed on, and it all turned out okay.

Did you get a lot of feedback from people as you were writing SLICK?
No. I only had three "alpha-testers" reading my chapters as I was finishing them. It was just enough feedback to get me out of my own head, but not too much to drown me in other people's comments.

But once I finished a first draft, I sent it out to at least twenty different friends and relatives whose opinions I trust. Any lack of suckage in my novel can be directly attributed to their great feedback.

How did you get a literary agent to represent SLICK?
I already had a film agent, Stuart M. Miller, from my screenwriting tenure. He sent the first nine chapters to a small assortment of literary agents. Soon enough, we netted Jonathon Lazear, of the Lazear Agency. He and Stu worked together in the quest to sell SLICK.

In early 2002, they went to town with the partial manuscript. The goal was to get a publisher interested enough to pay me to finish the damn book. Although nobody bit, most of the publishers expressed interest in reading the story when it was finished. That was when I decided to literally go for broke and finish it.

Did the finished manuscript get a lot of rejections?
Tons of rejections. It seemed to get turned down everywhere, even at other imprints of Random House.

What was their reasoning for turning down SLICK?
Mostly editors were afraid that Scott wasn't likable enough. Some felt that women (the primary audience of novels these days) wouldn't enjoy the story. Others felt that the plot was too "inside baseball," and wouldn't appeal to people outside the media world. And some just thought it plain sucked. They're all entitled to their opinion, of course, just like I'm entitled to go THHHTHTPPHH!!!

What made Random House decide to buy the book?
Will Murphy, a senior editor, loved the story, and fought like a bear to get it purchased. He won, which is why we all love Will Murphy.

How was the editing process?
Surprisingly quick and painless. I was afraid that Will would ask me to trim 30% to 40% of the story, but I wasn't asked to trim at all. We actually ended up adding three scenes. And to my eternal delight, not a single edit had to do with marketability, demographics, or other sales factors. The entire effort was focused on improving the story. And improve the story we did.

What was the biggest change to come out of the editing process?
In all my previous drafts, there was something in the Scott/Harmony dynamic that just wasn't working. Scott was a little too ga-ga over Harmony, for reasons the audience just couldn't see. So we fixed it up. I gave Harmony a lot more depth, and it all turned out ducky.

Did you have any input over the design of the cover?
There were four different jacket designs created, one after the other. I registered disapproval of the first three because I felt they failed to match the tone of the story. Amazingly, Random House indulged me on each and every one of my vetoes.

Luckily for all of us, the fourth and final cover nailed it out of the park. I wanted something modern, sleek, eye-catching, and DIFFERENT. And man, I got it. I love the final design. As you surely noticed, I based the look of this entire web site on it.

Is SLICK being published in other countries?
England, Holland, Poland, Germany, and of course Canada. I've seen the U.K. and Dutch versions of the cover. They're really trippy.

What about the movie rights?
In July, we submitted advance copies of SLICK to every major movie studio in Hollywood. They passed on the story for most of the same reasons the publishers did. My guess is that you'll being SLICK in theaters around the same time as Gigli 2, which is never.

Are you working on a second novel?
I'm researching a second novel, but I haven't proposed anything to Random House yet.

What can we expect to see?
All I can say for sure is that my next novel won't be told in first-person narrative like SLICK. It'll jump into the heads of several different people.

Final question: did you enjoy writing SLICK?
Best damn experience of my life. Until the next book.