What I Learned About Writing From Glenn Frey of the Rock Band, Eagles

BILL BRIER

www.billbrier.com

Glenn Frey was just starting out as an artist and living in a cheap apartment above Jackson Browne. Every morning he’d hear Browne’s teapot go off. Then a few notes on his piano. Over and over and over. Each time, just a little different. Then a second verse, and the same thing, again, and again, and again. It would be quiet for a while, then once more, the teapot. Then that first verse on the piano, and it would start all over again. Ah, ha, Frey thought. So that’s how it’s done. Not through inspiration, not by waiting for great ideas to float into your head. Elbow grease . . . time . . . thought . . . persistence.

Heeding that advice, I buckled down and wrote the award-winning THE KILLER WHO HATED SOUP. The first in The Killer Who mystery series, taking place in small town, Defiance, Oklahoma, 1957. A town not particularly averse to murders, just the embarrassment of them.

The Internet? Never heard of it. Smart phones? Who you kiddin’? We’re talkin’ 1956.

Energetic and eager to make his mark on what Time magazine called the next great boom town, Bucky Ontario leaves his Louisiana home and hops a bus to Defiance, Oklahoma, a town not particularly averse to murders, just the embarrassment of them. While helping his friend, Kindra search for a ring that once belonged to her dead mother, Bucky is told: “Find the baby, find the ring.”

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About Bill: 
     Bill grew up in California and went to Hollywood High School, then served as an Air Force combat cameraman. After hiring on at Disney Studios as a film loader, he soon advanced and moved on to other film studios. He earned a master’s degree in psychology. A big help when working with Trumpish Hollywood producers.
     During his more than twenty- five years in the movie business as a cameraman, film editor, and general manager, Bill worked on everything from the hilarious, The Love Bug, to the creepy, The Exorcist, to the far out, Star Trek and Battle Star Galactica.
     Eight years ago, Bill switched from reading scripts to writing mysteries and driving racecars. After completing three award- winning novels, he signed with Black Opal Books. His first novel, The Devil Orders Takeout, is a standalone thriller about a devoted father and husband who makes a deal with a real- life devil to protect his golf- prodigy son after his wife and older son are killed in a mysterious accident — and pays hell for it.
    Bill’s second novel, The Killer Who Hated Soup, is Book One in the 1950s The Killer Who mystery series, and is available NOW! Book Two of the mystery series, The Killer Who Wasn’t There, is scheduled for release February 24, 2018!
     Bill writes everyday and golfs infrequently (that damn right knee!). His five children and eight grandchildren keep him busy going to birthday parties, and he never misses a one!
     The Brier Patch is Bill’s wildly entertaining blog about his shameless early days in Hollywood.
     Bill is a member of Mystery Writers of America.

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