The Next Big Thing: F-250

Nanowrite is wrapping up. I like to write every day anyway, so that just means, November is over for me. I think it’s real cute that a lot of peeps are concerned about their 50,000 words crammed into November. Cool. Hope you hit your number. Also, hope you get laid at some point soon.

I took part though, cause I thought it’d be fun. The novel I wound up completing is semi-autobiographical and covers a summer of my life in New Jersey, drinking a lot of blood, mostly my own.

What is the working title?

The title is F-250. Based off the Ford pickup truck of the same name.

Where did the idea come from for this book?

This is a fictionalized account of my life at 23 years old. I was working for myself as a stone mason, driving around in a Ford F-250 that I used to get in a lot of car crashes, for various reasons. At the time I was playing in an experimental noise band and my drummer/very close friend OD’d at the same time that I was getting caught up in a three way relationship with two girls, K and June. One girl loved the other, one girl loved no one, both seemed to tolerate me simply for sex.

It’s an interaction of my life and some true events and a fictionalization of all of it. I was real inspired by Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and a book written by Misti Rainwater-Lites called Bullshit Rodeo.

Just, a raw, honest ride. That’s what I was going for.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s literary fiction, told in the first person like a memoir. There’s some humor, but mostly it’s a tense story about sex, music, drugs and working out in the sun, sweating and bleeding and trying to figure out what’s going on.

Which actors would you choose to play the characters in a movie rendition?

Funny shit. A young male American who’s been punched in the gut a lot, and doesn’t get sunburnt too easily. Some girls who don’t mind being topless a lot in the moonlight and know how to put the needle down on Rolling Stones Exhile on Mainstreet on vinyl.

That outta do it.

One sentence description of my book

A guitarist in a noise rock band finds his plans to move to LA interrupted by an overdose and a strange three way relationship with two college girls–K Neon and June Doom.

Will this be self published or agented?

It’ll be self published to start. Pitches to indie houses in the works now.

How long did this take you to write?

One month to draft. One month to re-draft.Wrote it mostly on my lunch breaks and coffee breaks at the oil refinery where I make my money.

What other books would you compare your work in progress to?

It bears a resemblance to works by Henry Miller, Bukowski at his least alcohol and sex obsessed, Amy Hempel and Denis Johnson in its mood and attempt at economy with words. It’s tough, but not posturing.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I always like it when writers make themselves a character in their own book. I think it’s less egotistical than it seems, really. All fiction reeks of non-fiction anyway and vice versa. I enjoy when a writer tells their own story and makes a point in letting you in. Even if its just a rouse. So again, Misti Rainwater-Lites was a inspiration. A lot of small press people, my contemporaries … Frankie Metropolis, Heather Dorn, Cat Benitez, ect.

What else about this book may pique your readers interests?

This book is about car crashes, rock n roll, sex, sex and more sex, drinking poison from red solo cups til you are near immune, fist fights, bonfires, mountain roads leading to the ocean and vice versa.

It’s set up like a novel, certainly, but broke out in segments as linked ‘short stories’ and vignettes almost. Not to be taken too seriously, and hopefully that kills you.

Thanks for reading.

Hit me up if you wanna beta read in January

budsmithwrites@gmail.com