It was the year 1982.
I don’t remember it very well.
I do remember Bob.
Bob Mecoy. I’d met Bob through my friend Lou Stathis. Lou was a freelance editor, writer and good guy. I was staying in New York for a few months to babysit an apartment, with the idea I’d get to know the publishing community.
Bob worked at Arco Publishing.
His wife, Robin, worked at Starlog Magazine, and was editor of FUTURE.
Cool! They used to have salons. They’d just gotten back together after a split. Both journalism studenst from the University of Oklahoma, somehow they seemed the coolest Okies I’d ever met. In any case, years passed from the mid seventies when I met them, and by then Bob had a job at Dell Publishing.
He called me.
“Even done a novelization?”
“No.”
“I think you are right for this screenplay. I mean to novelize it.”
Bob wasn’t crazy about my writing, but he recognized something in it that he could use. Dell had just picked up the rights for this movie. Mind you these were the days when novelizations could sell very well indeed. William Kotzwinkle’s novelization of E.T. was on the top of the bestseller’s list for uncounted weeks.
“Thanks, Bob.” I said. ”I’ll do it.”
You see, one of the things I’d always wanted to be was a film director. And I’d found out — whew! — a film director was a hard thing to be.
So why not be a film director — in front of your typewriter
Oh yes folks. And I do meant typewriter!
