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Daring Young Maids. It would be published as Blood Games.
    March 28 Headline sent an “on-acceptance” payment for One Rainy Night.
    April 17 I started work on material for an ill-fated, Screamplay stage play. (Not to be confused with the Screamplay collection of screenplays in which The Hunt would be published.)
    April 22-25 I wrote the short story, “Saving Grace,” for Richard Chizmar’s anthology, Cold Blood.
    April 26 I sent an article on novel outlining to Mystery Scene.
    April 27-29 I worked on a “Mess Hall” stage play for Screamplay (the stage play that never materialized).
    May 1 YES! Bob Tanner called with the news that Headline had offered me a three-book contract for approximately $135,000. At last, we’d really made it!
    May 18-23 I spent time communicating with a U.S. editor (then at Bantam) trying to come up with an idea for a book that she might find acceptable. I came up with ideas and sent off outlines, then got back to Blood Games.
    May 31 I had lunch here in Los Angeles with Bob Tanner. He suggested that, since my main success was taking place in Great Britain, I should try to come up with a novel having a British background.
    June 17 Pondering Bob Tanner’s advice from the luncheon, I came up with the idea for my Jack the Ripper novel, Savage. I would work on making notes and doing research for this book while continuing to write Blood Games.
    June 29 The big “on-sign” check from Headline arrived. Finally, we were no longer poor!
    July 11 With a portion of our new wealth, we went driving out to buy a new Jeep, but our ancient Omni broke down along the way.
    July 12-13 We succeeded in buying a brand new red Jeep Cherokee. We immediately showed it to the De Larattas, then drove up and showed it to Bob and Cheryl (my brother and sister-in-law), spent the night in Bakersfield, then drove the rest of the way to Modesto for a surprise visit to my parents so they could see the new Jeep. We were pretty happy to have it.
    July 18 Back in Los Angeles, I was treated to lunch at the Polo lounge by my publisher, Tim Hely Hutchinson, the head of Headline.
    August 10 Returning to Berkeley for a signing at Dark Carnival, we spent the night in the apartment of Lany Mori and Joan Parsons along with their collection of disturbing oddities.
    Sept. 6-10 I wrote the short story, “I’m not a Criminal” for the Stanley Wiater anthology After the Darkness.
    Nov. 8 Blood Games, begun on March 6 of that year, was finally finished.
    Nov. 18 I started writing Ripper, which I would later retitle Narrow Calls, and which would be published as Savage.
    Dec. 6-15 I wrote the short story, “Good Vibrations,” for a Gorman/Greenberg anthology to be called Stalkers III. The anthology would be published in 1996 as Night Screams.
     
    1991
     
    Jan. 1-5 I made notes for a novel called Nightman which never went anywhere.
    March 1-3 We took a trip to Bishop, CA to visit the Laws Railroad Museum so I could do some train research for Ripper Savage).
    March 18 I wrote a piece about The Stake for Mystery Scene.
    March 20 Looking for an American agent to replace Ralph Vicinanza, I contacted Dominick Abel.
    May 17 I spoke on being a writer for “career day” at Canfield, Kelly’s school.
    May 24-27 We drove to Tecate, Mexico and spent several days there with my parents, my brother Bob and his wife Cheryl.
    June 8 Don Cannon had a signing for me at Aladdin Books. Approximately sixty copies of The Stake were sold, and I spent three and a half hours autographing books and talking to fans.
    June 21-23 We stayed at the house of our friends, Sally and Murray Harb, and attended the Horror Writers of America festivities in Redondo Beach. My novel, Funland was nominated for a Bram Stoker award, but lost to Robert McCammon’s Mine. Bogart threw up. John Scoleri introduced me to Peter Enfantino and they proposed publishing a collection of my short fiction in a special limited edition. I agreed.
    June 29 I had a signing at The Bookstore,