Three Pigs

I wasn't convinced from the beginning that Matty could overcome all the obstacles that I would throw his way as the author, which meant that should he be killed in the end as a martyr there wouldn't be any heroes and that's not a good thing for a novel.

A few years before I had the idea for The PriVILEged I was working on a story that involved three detectives from Denver, Colorado. They were working a case involving high school cheerleaders. Isn't that what every beginning writer writes about? Okay, I'll admit that cheerleader stories are perfect for the first novel because sex sells and cheerleaders, even dead ones, are sexy. I have since returned to writing that first story because you never forget your first and giving up the story made me feel as if I let everyone down, fiction and nonfiction.

The detectives are extensions of who I am, in case you were interested in getting to know me better, and there are three of them.  Just like there are three sides of me. The first side is Adam Dasugo. He's neurotic as hell, struggles with his moods, desperately requires medication, and thinks that all women are in love with him, but that's not true because his partner, my androgynous side, Lacey Cain, is the right woman for him and yet she doesn't love him back. Lacey takes no shit, plays it "buy the book," (shameless suggestive sell) and is the most loyal woman on the force. And finally, there is Graham Castle. He's my third side, my third dimension, the laid back Jerry Garcia-type who began his illustrious career fixing computers around the police station, but since he was so damn good with puzzles, he was recruited to solve mysteries.

I often refer to the detectives as the Three Pigs. Over the course of eight-years, they probably taught me more about me than I did them. Once I mixed the detectives into the story, I had an immense challenge on my hands. How do Three Pigs solve a global mystery?