Let me get right to the point: ideas are worthless. There, I said it. Let’s consider one of the more recent billion-dollar literary enterprises: Harry Potter. Idea: the adventures of a boy wizard. Value of idea: zero. But why?

All books begin with an idea, but most never go beyond the idea stage and thus never become books. Furthermore few, if any, ideas are truly original. To expand—there is likely someone, or many someones, who harbor the “highly original” idea of writing a book about this year’s Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. Value, again, of idea: zero, and yet I have signed many a NDA over an idea of similar unoriginality.

What follows the Idea are three components of far greater value, without which the Idea itself is worthless. They are: Angle. In this case, perhaps the angle is to tell the story of the Giants Super Bowl win through the prism of the illustrious Manning family. Young Eli, the winning quarterback. Older brother Payton, the aging superstar, perhaps about to be eclipsed. Father Archie, the great talent never lucky enough to be surrounded by an equally great team. Nice …

Billion-dollar value yet? Not even close. Next component: Structure. We all know this one, yet we also know how fragile it is. First or third person POV? A little of both? Story order—pure chronology or a little back and forth? How about duel narrative? Parallel story structure anyone? Ah, the choices. Pick the wrong one and it all falls to pieces.

Yet nothing tops the fourth and final component: Execution. Combine great idea with interesting angle and appropriately entertaining structure and you still have nothing of value without damn good writing. And since subject matter experts come armed only with ideas and rarely even angle or structure, I sign and sign promises to protect and not profit off of ideas of positively zero value. They, in turn, sign contracts with me to provide the only thing of actual value: the writing. We sign, I smile, they smile, and we both dream of private islands.

THE FOURTH HOUSE, my Book of the Month Club Feature Selection debut novel, took place in the fictional town of Mountain City on the fictional street of Good.  Like many novels, not all of it was purely fiction, but was inspired by real events and places in the author’s life.

The house of the protagonist was modeled after the house in which I was born.  Unlike the main character, I did not live there my entire childhood, but moved – was forced to move – when I was three years old.  Like the main character, my father abandoned my mother and me, forcing us to sell the house and downsize to a small apartment in the same town.

Change, like the loss of a father and the only home I’d ever had, is disconcerting to a three-year-old.  One of my oldest childhood memories was of the day of that upheaval.  We’d finally moved into the apartment and were all relaxing at the kitchen table.  My grandfather was a quiet man of few words, but when he spoke he made it count.  Sensing my mood, he turned to me and quietly said, “Everything’s gonna be all right.”  Cliché, I know, but profound and beautiful in its simplicity, for it covered any and all anxieties I was feeling.  Everything’s gonna be all right.  And it was.

We sold our house to the Davis family, who had a girl, Colleen, a year younger than I.  Ironically, the Davises lived in the apartment we procured.  Essentially, we traded houses; them moving up, and us moving down.

For no logical reason, we made friends with and remained friends with the Davis family.  Bill Davis, the patriarch, had a wonderful tenor voice and my mother, the church organist, teamed with him often as they performed together in churches throughout our small town.

After high school graduation, I never saw any of the Davises again.  I can say that about a lot of people from Mountain City.  I left and hardly ever looked back, so the onus is on me.

Last night, I went to a party in New York hosted by Dan Gerstein and his company, Gotham Ghostwriters, with whom I occasionally work.  It was a nice crowd and a good time was had by all.  I milled about the room, talking to old colleagues and meeting new ones.

Toward the end of the night, a small blond with cupid lips approached me saying, “I hear you’ve written a lot of books,” which, as a ghostwriter, I have.  We began talking about writing, about education, about a plethora of subjects.  It was nice.  At the end, as with all previous conversations I’d had that evening, we exchanged business cards.  She got mine first.

Her jaw visibly dropped.  “You’re Kerry Zukus?”

“Yes.”

“You’re Kerry Zukus.”

“Yes.”

“I’m Colleen Davis.”  Simultaneously, we gave each other the biggest bear hug I’ve shared in a long, long time.

I’m a writer.  Colleen Davis is a writer.  We both work with Gotham Ghosts and we both attended that one party on that one night, of all the holiday parties in the entire world.  And neither of us had any idea of any of this up until that very moment.

Speaking of ghosts, Colleen confided to me once I’d told her about my novel and her/our house: “Don’t call me crazy, but I always thought there were ghosts in that house.”

Maybe there were and maybe there weren’t.  But two ghostwriters did live there, one after the other.

Hey Dan, thanks for inviting us to your party.  Can’t wait to see what surprises next years’ will bring.

Of all the women in adult entertainment, Seka was the greatest—The Platinum Princess, the Marilyn Monroe of Porn, the Queen of XXX Cinema’s Golden Age, and John Holmes’ Favorite Leading Lady. During the late seventies/early eighties era of red carpet premiers for “dirty movies”, Seka’s name was so big that her name above the title was not enough—her name had to be IN the title!

So why am I telling you this? I am pleased to announce I have just signed to collaborate with Seka on her memoir, to be titled INSIDE SEKA, after her most famous film.

The process so far has been a trip, in all the good ways. I don’t know what most people expect from porn stars in real life, but Seka is possibly the friendliest and most cooperative subject I’ve ever worked with. If she were not on vacation, I’d have her over for Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family in an instant. She even volunteered to be my date to my class reunion on Saturday night, but that would blow far too many minds—which is exactly why she offered. Her sense of humor is as wild as mine.

The book will be great. Seka breaks so very many molds. She was never a victim—on-screen or off. This is no tale of childhood sexual abuse causing self-destructive confusion in later life. Never controlled or imprisoned by any man; Seka was always her own boss. A savvy businesswoman, she was the first to copyright and own her screen name, and own the negatives of her photographic work. She took her job seriously, painstakingly taking elocution lessons to cover her backwoods Virginia accent. She fought for years to attain rights to certain films or block distribution of others. She made legal history by using the RICO Act to extract justice against a crooked business manager.

Seka was the last of the post-Pill/pre-AIDS era porn stars, reveling in the good times of “if it feels good, do it” when such a national attitude towards sex was the vanguard and Seka symbolized it. When AIDS ravaged the industry and the nation, she voluntarily retired, playing the game on her own terms.

Seka was post-feminist before the term was born. She became the unflinching, intelligent voice of the adult industry, appearing regularly on shows like Larry King Live, Donohue, Oprah, and many, many more, never apologizing for her career choices—affirming they had always been her choices. Decades since her last film, she is still regarded as one of the top ten most popular and famous porn stars ever. She is the last of the natural beauties, standing tall in comparison to the silicon-breasted, nipped-and-tucked clone girls of today whose names are forgotten a year after they have debuted.

Seka is a Betty Page-like mystification, a star who always said what was on her mind, yet forever left the public wanting for more. In the book INSIDE SEKA, more is exactly what you will get.

For a taste of her great sense of humor, tune in to Seka’s appearance on comedian Dave Attell’s “Dave’s Old Porn” on Showtime TV. Also visit Seka.com and follow her on Twitter @Seka1954. TV Schedule:

Showtime
11/24/11: 11:30PM
11/25/11: 12:30AM
Showtime 2
11/25/11: 11:30PM
Showtime
11/25/11: 3AM
Showtime Extreme
11/26/11: 1:30AM
On Demand from 11/25/11

Like most novelists, I had just come to realize that the advance from my first book would not last me a lifetime, nor even a fiscal year. Thus, I was stuck with the typical writer’s dilemma: to day-gig or not to day-gig; that was the question.

A few months prior, I had seen an ad from a ghostwriting agency. I applied and was instantly turned away; no full-length book writing credits to my name. Well, now that had all changed. I reached out, told them about my book deal, and a day later I was given my first ghostwriting gig.

Fiction. At first, it didn’t even register. I was a novelist. They wanted me to write fiction. Perfect.

The oddity of it only hit me once I began working with the client. All he had was an idea; just an idea. His entire novel — all that he had of it — could have been written out on a cocktail napkin while still leaving room for a few random phone numbers. But hey, I was being paid to write. I now had my advance and I had this other paying assignment. I was now a professional writer!

As we went along it became absurder and absurder. He didn’t even have character names. Would I be so kind? Sure, I said. I proceeded to put all of my friends in his book. What a gas! They would never know; he would never know. I kept to my “ghostwriter’s oath;” I would never tell, silence until death. There are simply too many books released each and every year. I’d created my first literary joke.

In the end, I felt used and abused, although I salved my soul with four facts: he never even bothered to try to traditionally publish it, he didn’t work hard at all at selling it via self-publishing and so it languished in his garage, the check cleared, and the experience had made me a better writer.

Since then I have ghosted about 45 other books, mostly non-fiction. But yes, I have done the stray fiction ghosting again since then. Now that the newness of the experience has worn off I am probably more irascible about the entire concept — more resentful, more bitter. But with experience, I am also wealthier for it as well.

None of my fiction ghostings have yet to make millions for anyone, although I pride myself into thinking they could, but alas, the marketing is in the client’s hands, not mine, and bestsellers are made via marketing rather than quality alone.

I truly wish I could get inside the head of someone who would be comfortable signing their name to something someone else wrote. I wonder how they sleep at night, having told all their friends about their muse, their vision, their philosophy of life via words that do not belong to them. But that is their burden to bear, not mine. For me, the check has cleared and that is that. Perhaps someday, if someone whose fiction I wrote appears on Oprah or Letterman, I will wince and I will cry, but I know the percentages; I know the numbers. I also know that we currently live in the age of the sequel and for book two I charge like a bitch.

Today is the 10th anniversary of Korey’s untimely death at the age of 27. When people die young, it angers me, and Korey’s death is no exception, for it was so darn unnecessary. Korey died of heat stroke, an entirely preventable malady that takes numerous lives each and every year.

I am also angered by the lies and misconceptions behind his death, many which have still not been cleared up sufficiently over the past ten years.

First off, Korey, a huge NFL offensive tackle, was not technically overweight. His weight was typical and remains typical for a player at his position. Korey had a weight clause in his contract, a clause that gave a specific range, both bottom and top. Korey showed up for training camp in 2001 at the very lowest end of that contractual weight range. Had he weighed any less, he would have been in breach of contract.

Team doctors who knew him and examined him many times before, proclaimed him “in the best shape of his life,” when he showed up for camp a few days before.

It has been rumored that Korey was using weight loss supplements and that was the true cause of his death. Yet when he was autopsied, there were no traces of these supplements in his system.

The supplements he was accused of taking were perfectly legal, sold in every health food store in America, and available to anyone who desired them. The day after Korey died, an empty bottle of supplements was “found” in his locker, and became the story the Vikings, his team, floated to the media. The problem with this story, in addition to Korey’s clean autopsy report, was why would Korey come to camp with weight loss supplements when he was already at his lowest allowable contractual weight? It made no sense.

The heat index in Mankato, MN, site of the Vikings training camp, broke records the first two days of practice, yet the team went out in full gear. Since Korey’s death, these sorts of things simply do not happen anymore. Korey’s death changed the way teams looked at heat, saving the lives of countless other athletes.

After practice number one, Korey was vomiting from the heat, as were others. Upon post-practice examination from team doctors and trainers, Korey was quite obviously suffering from heat exhaustion, a precursor to deadly heat stroke. No one suffering from heat exhaustion should ever be sent out in full football gear the very next day to exert themselves some more. Today, because of Korey’s death, such things no longer happen. But in 2001, Korey was sent on his way.

This situation was exacerbated by a photographer having taken a picture of Korey vomiting on day one. Korey’s position coach posted the photo and made a point of ridiculing Korey in front of the entire team. Korey Stringer was bullied by his employer to step out onto the field the next day, the last day of his life, despite the fact that medically he should not have. It is no different than sending someone out to run 10 miles on a broken leg. Common sense tells you it’s a bad idea and a formula for disaster.

(The photo used to humiliate Korey Stringer)

Korey spent much of the day of his death staggering around the field like a drunken man, unresponsive to questions or directions, due to his elevated body heat. He should have been pulled off the field he should have never been on, yet the offensive linemen actually stayed on the field longer and practiced after others had already been dismissed to the air-conditioned locker room.

It has been said Korey was “too macho” and “should have taken more personal responsibility for his health and safety.” Once practice started, Korey’s body temperature was so high, he had no idea what was even going on. If you saw a man on foot, weaving around in the middle of a busy highway, would you do something or say something? That was Korey Stringer on the day of his death–too sick to help himself. Yet no one else, no teammates, no coaches, no doctors, no trainers, got him out of the path of oncoming traffic. Korey wasn’t being macho. Korey was too feverish to even know where he was.

When he finally collapsed, he was taken to a trainer’s station. All the real doctors and trainers were gone. All that was left was one, poor, slightly-trained intern.

Korey’s body temperature was 108. But no one knew that at the time because the Vikings’ medical station had no thermometer!

Next to the first aid station was a man-sized tub of ice and water. Had Korey been placed into the tub and his suffocatingly heavy equipment cut off, he may have lived, even at this late a point. But no one knew to do it. Disease and cure were inches away from one another, yet no one put them together. Instead, Korey’s vital organs were boiling to death.

Precious moments went by and Korey remained on the field. 911 was never called.

The young intern finally got one of his superiors to return his frantic calls and Korey was eventually driven to the hospital. How much was known about heat exhaustion and heat stroke by the person left in charge of the entire Vikings team on the hottest day in Mankato history? When asked if he noticed Korey had turned pale, the young white man said, “I don’t know what a black person looks like when they’re pale.”

The day Korey Stringer died was a day when everything went wrong. Despite fighting any suggestions of responsibility for years and years after his death, literally the day after August 1, 2001, every NFL team reconfigured its protocols for heat-related injuries. If you wonder why there have been no Korey Stringer incidents in the NFL since, that is why. The preventions were always there, the knowledge was always there; someone simply had to care enough to execute them.

For nearly a decade, Kelci Stringer fought to get the truth out and to make sure those preventions were kept in place in the NFL, as well as passed along to the college, high school, and pre-high school levels, where other young men have died since due to similar negligence. Korey and Kelci’s legacy is the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, funded by Kelci’s settlement with the NFL. The Institute is the leading advocate for heat injury prevention. They are also delving into other areas facing athletes, such as the effect of concussions and repetitive head injuries.

Kelci Stringer is a hero, and Korey a martyr. It is impossible to count exactly how many young men and women are alive today because of preventions put in place due to Korey’s untimely demise. Today is a sad day, but a day where the passing of one young man will perhaps continue to change the athletic landscape for the better.

(Kelci)

Rest in Peace, Big K. And God bless you, Kelci, for fighting the good fight.

On a strange hunch, when Mom left, I thumbed to the rear index of the book.  Lo and behold, I’M IN THE DAMN BOOK!  Got myself an entire chapter!

I went to the Table of Contents and saw Ione had grouped things together logically.  I was listed with “Local Authors.”  Lessee, there’s Conrad Richter (Pulitzer Prize), Daryl Ponicsan (my personal fave), John O’Hara (god), and … and … moi!  I’d say the honor was in simply being placed on the same august list, noting here my objection that old classmate Scott Weidensaul (Pulitzer finalist) was not on that list as well, as he is far more deserving.

The book itself is an ode to the coal region and a must for those who care.  It’s a little hard to find, as it is a special commemorative for the Pottsville Public Library.  I support public libraries completely, for as things are going in this country, they may soon disappear, only to be replaced with privatized, for-profit variations that will inevitably cease to serve those who need them most.

Click here to see how to buy it.

1. I am the Author, lord of the book. I shall have no other lords before me.

2. I shall keep my editor close to me and compensate him/her well for he/she is with me.

3. I shall not payeth any agent or Publisher or Agent up front for any services for those who demand this are like the snake in the garden of Eden tempting me with their forked tongues.

4. I shall respect myself and carefully practice my craft. I shall eliminate errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar as much as possible before submitting a manuscript.

5. I will humbly accept input from people who are trying to make my writing better. No one is perfect and we all need outside help to maximize our potential.

6. I will seeketh a great cover designer, for the cover is the countenance of my book and speaks first to the potential reader. I will not skimpeth on my cover for to do so is to cheat the creative force that breathed life into my creation.

7. I will accept that it is up to me to market my book. I will pray at the altars of Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. I will reach out to the multitudes of readers with open arms and embrace them.

8. I will respect myself and my fellow Authors by keeping the price of my work at an honorable level. i will not sink to the bottom and sell my soul for $0.99 minuscule slivers of copper.

9. I will gladly share the credit for the success of my work with those people who empowered me to be in the position to participate in this wonderfully creative process.

10. I will respect my fellow craftsmen and support their efforts with my mind, heart and soul. When possible, I will support them with my purse as well. I’ll not ask for or accept any free books.

“I’ve got a book inside me and I can’t get it out!” I hear it all the time. I usually offer the typical solutions: stick two fingers down your throat. If that doesn’t work, hire an exorcist. If neither of these do the trick, there’s the standard third option—the old Nike credo: Just do it! Just sit down and write the darn thing!Ah, but if that was all it took, everyone would be an author. No, sometimes there is a book inside, dying to burst through your chest like that monster in “Alien,” but it just won’t budge. What to do?

There are no reliable statistics on the matter, since it often involves great levels of secrecy, but the clear-cut majority of traditionally-published, non-fiction books are ghostwritten, and the concept is catching on with self-published books as well. Yes, that book you saw on the shelves at Barnes & Noble by your favorite celebrity—she didn’t actually write it. No she did not.

It used to be that this was publishing’s dirty little secret. Today, though, ghostwriting is coming more and more out of the closet. Take a closer look at that memoir by that famous star you love. See the crediting on the cover? It says, “By BIG NAME SUPERSTAR and …” in very, very fine print … some other person you’ve never heard of. That fine-print person is a professional ghostwriter.

Why do they do this? Easy. There are two reasons why people cannot write books: lack of writing talent or lack of time. Or both. There is no shame in either. That celebrity chef you adore is great at what she does. What makes you think she can write as well as she can cook? How talented do we expect people to be?! And time? When you’re heading a food media empire, how can you set it all aside in order to write a full-length book? Book-writing takes time; it’s a full-time endeavor.

But what does this have to do with you, you with your book lodged inside you? You’re not a celebrity.

Would you believe that most non-celebrities also use ghosts for their non-fiction? Some people—celebrity and non-celebrity as well—even use ghostwriters for fiction. I mean, you don’t really believe Snookie wrote her own novel, now do you?

Deciding to write a book is a major decision. It involves an extremely large commitment of time. Maybe you started one but it’s been lingering in the top drawer of your desk for ages. Maybe you’ve shown it to your closest personal friends and even they’ve struggled to tell you it’s a good idea, but the execution is, well … a little amateurish. In other words, don’t quit your day job.

Consider doing what the big shots do. But is such an avenue open to you, a non-celebrity?

Yes. And ghostwriters are everywhere. Most of them are professional authors who have written successful books on their own, but choose to write for others as well in order to continue making writing their full-time profession. Ghosts can be found through referrals, through the Internet, through agencies and publishers, and a hundred other ways, but in the end, they are as easily found as professionals in most every field.

Can you afford one? That depends. A ghostwriter is likely to be the largest single expenditure of your publishing endeavor. Why? Because, as we said, writing an entire book takes a lot of time. But even the most well-paid ghost, when their time is broken down by the hour, is not overly-compensated. The hours are long and arduous. Books are lengthy. But still, people who are determined to get that book written once and for all usually discover a ghostwriter can be found that meets their budget, so long as that budget is serious and realistic.

Are you an expert in your field? Or someone with an amazing story that needs to be told? You can wait forever for the book fairy to place your magnum opus under your pillow while you sleep, or you can do like the rich and famous do—take life by the horns and hire yourself a ghostwriter!

Yes, I am working on changing all that.  All of you technophiles with e-readers, let me know you’re out there and, perhaps, a downloadable e-version for Kindle and what-have-you will soon be available.  I’ll keep you posted if you keep me posted as to your interest.

Meanwhile, I was surprised to discover it can be found in exactly 88 libraries all across America.

Here’s a link where you can find them all.

Most are in places I have never been before.   It’s in three libraries in Idaho alone.  I wasn’t even aware there were three libraries in Idaho.

North Dakota’s got four of ‘em.  God bless ya, North Dakota.

The Boonslick Regional Library in Missouri has a copy.  Somehow, I think it’s quite appropriate that a place called Boonslick would take a liking to life in Mountain City and Gibbsville.

Illinois’s got tons of them.  I think they must be hoarders.

And would you believe not a single library in Pennsylvania has a copy?!  I’m hurt; truly hurt.  Especially when you consider that you can borrow a copy when you’re in Haines, Alaska.

Haines, Alaska.  Everything You Dreamed Alaska Would Be (or so they advertise).  Haines, Alaska, population 2400 humans and 1897 dogs (I swear, this is true.  They brag about it).

(This is downtown Haines, Alaska.  Kinda looks a little like Ringtown, PA to me, except for the big-ass snow-covered mountain in the distance)

So for being the library farthest from Mountain City to carry a copy of my first novel, Haines, Alaska, we salute you!  Don’t go changin’.

Fate brought this writer home twice in the last few weeks to Lantenengo County. Fate and Mother, in the case of the annual Christmas Eve pilgrimage.

Every Christmas Eve, Mother, who like Opal Matino has been a church organist and choir director since the age of thirteen, implores me to return and sing in her church. She is no longer at St. John’s in Mountain City, but a parish closer to where she currently lives just outside of Gibbsville. The folks there are nice and have put up with a lot of shenanigans from me and my vocal performances over the years, the most unique being when I wrote and performed a Christmas song I can only describe as “outlaw reggae.” This is not the sort of musical fare one expects at Christmas in a coal region church, but I was undeterred. I brought a fully-orchestrated soundtrack to accompany me and when the bass and drums kicked in I was shocked to see heads bobbing and half-expected to begin to smell the sweet perfume of well-bred chronic.

(Yeah, Mon!)

This year Mother instead asked me to bury my ego and be part of her entire choir ensemble as they sang a cantata (not one of my original works, unfortunately). Little did I know that said cantata was 45-minutes long, I’d be standing the entire time, and because of my tight schedule and general laziness, I would be sight-singing the entire thing. Quite the exercise in stress and endurance for a sickly old man like me.

In light of my recent heart woes, Christmas kielbasi was lower-fat turkey. Low Fat! Turkey! I was assured it was purchased locally at the Andoshen Kielbasi Shop, where Mother had to stand in a line outside the door awaiting her turn (purchasing Christmas kielbasa in Lantenengo County being similar to trying to buy Springsteen tickets in Asbury Park).

(And worse yet, turkey kielbasi is only smoked, not fresh!)

Tried to squeeze in a visit with an old friend or two. Emergency Manager Artie came to mind, still living in Mountain City as he does. “Artie,” I said, “Care to invite me over to see you and your family over Christmas?”

“Sure,” he replied, “when are you coming in?”

“Arriving Christmas Eve and departing December 26^th.”

“Oh, that won’t work for us. We’re leaving on vacation Christmas Eve and will be gone over a week.”

“Artie,” I said, “Did you think I was talking Russian Christmas? Or might that already take us to closer to Ground Hog’s Day?” Alas, we will have to catch up some other time.

The rest of the visit was quick and relatively painless. The biggest blizzard the Jersey Shore has had in quite a while was to greet us upon our arrival home, so we left incredibly early (for us) the day after Christmas, but not before I got my annual case of Danny’s Boulevard Hot Sauce. It should last at least a few months.

(Pour it on your burgers and enjoy!)

Chronicles of my second trip a short time thereafter to follow.