Thanks Crissi and the Press Democrat!
It’s been a roller coaster of a year since I released Move To Fire. Here are the highs and lows:
Notice the lack of anything mentioning sales? Yeah, it’s tough, and I find it hard to express just how much I appreciate everyone who bought a copy. It’s a struggle, and your loyalty, and leaps of faith, will never be forgotten.
Let’s use the lack of sales thing to transition to the low:
Been fighting that idea, that this is “a book about guns,” constantly.
But I know, I got nothin’ to whine about, really.
So this is an update, a thank you, and to whatever the next year brings. I’ll keep you all updated… (think movie, movie, movie).
Journalist Robin Abcarian did a nice profile piece on attorney Richard Ruggieri. Move To Fire is mentioned in article and in an accompanying photo you can see the book on a shelf behind Ruggieri. check it out here.
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-gun-attorney-20160909-snap-story.html
These are just a few notes from the notebook I used while watching attorney Richard Ruggieri’s closing statement in Brandon Maxfield’s case, which was the first time I saw the attorney ‘work.’ The note in the upper right references how Ruggieri had told his young client not to attend due to the sensitive, difficult issues Ruggieri would be talking about. Upper left are quick notes about the jury, and below are notes about Ruggieri explaining that he wasn’t asking for sympathy for Brandon, but rather for empathy. Although I’d done some research on the story prior to this day, Ruggieri’s closing statements and his masterful connection with the jury convinced me to write Move To Fire.
My advice — for better or worse — for anyone considering self-publishing, in a Publishers Weekly interview:
Move To Fire was at the top of the featured books in Publishers Weekly’s first every IndieWatch list!
The pilot set a course that paralleled highway 101 and, at some point, overtook Sue and Clint in their car below. Both vehicles were moving the family away from their previous, normal lives and toward an unknown future. Brandon was flying away from a normal childhood, leaving behind games of hide and seek in the woods, adventures on his bike and baseball games in the summer. Whether he lived or died, he would never take another step, never wave hello or goodbye, and never hug again.
Ripples from the accident moved through the entire community, and the effects would touch, alter, and impact hundreds of lives. From its small but explosive beginning, the accident’s economic and financial impact on people, schools, the health care and legal systems wouldn’t be fully realized for years, but the effect on the local emergency services and medical system was already substantial, quickly hitting the tens of thousands of dollars in hard costs for the sheriff, paramedics and CDF responses, the ambulance and emergency room treatment, physicians and staff.
The ripple was now moving south at an altitude of two-thousand feet. Every passing minute the REACH chopper was in the air was a minute of calculated risk, and this flight would add $5,000 to the growing costs of Brandon’s accident.
As in so many other aspects of their lives, the family was no different than many blue collar and low income working families, in that they had no health insurance to speak of, nothing that would address anything as catastrophic as Brandon’s sudden medical and health care needs. At a point in the very near future, they would be forced to deal with the paperwork, documents and liens associated with all of this, but right now their toll was psychological, emotional devastation.
The drive to Santa Rosa Memorial hospital took almost ninety minutes. When they arrived, Sue and Clint were told the flight had been redirected to Oakland’s Children’s Hospital, another ninety-minute drive to the southeast.
They had left Willits an hour and a half ago, not knowing the condition of their boy, but because the helicopter had not stopped in Santa Rosa, no one there had any information about Brandon. Clint and Sue wouldn’t know Brandon’s condition for at least another thirty minutes.
Aug 2014, PEOPLE magazine featured Brandon and his mom, Sue
These are the instructions that Bryco tried to hide, better known as the instructions that couldn’t be followed because the gunmaker changed the safety design to hide the gun’s feed jam flaw.