Two “Starving” Cats, a Cup of Coffee, and an Epiphany

The idea for Rocky & James first came to me in 1998.

Yes, 1998. Apparently, some characters are very patient.

I’d just completed my first short film, Shoulda… Coulda… Woulda…, about a young gay man looking back on missed opportunities. Afterward, one question kept rolling around in my head: What if two people who otherwise never would have met were thrown together under extraordinary circumstances?

Then I started thinking about Romeo and Juliet. Not the tights or the iambic pentameter. The whirlwind romance. Two people meet, fall in love, and have their worlds completely upended in a very short time.

Enter Rocky and James.

Rocky’s biggest decision might be whether to order an iced mocha or a chai latte after school. James is trying to earn his gang colors by stealing a car.

He chooses Rocky’s.

That does complicate things in the wee hours of the morning.

I always imagined their story as a movie. In 2015, I finally wrote the screenplay. The first draft took about six weeks, followed by months of research and revisions.

Rocky, incidentally, began life as Rory. That lasted about twenty pages.

Eventually, I had a screenplay I wanted to make into a film.

I still do.

But years later, after discovering how much I enjoyed dual-point-of-view audiobooks, and acknowledging how difficult it is to get a film financed, something happened.

I rolled out of bed, fed my two “starving” cats, and stood waiting for my Nespresso machine to pour a cup of Intenso.

And I had an epiphany.

Rocky & James could be a dual-POV novel.

Apparently, the coffee hadn’t even needed to kick in.

Turning a screenplay into a novel sounded straightforward. I already had the characters, the dialogue, and the story. How hard could it be?

Decades of screenwriting had trained me to put the essentials on the page and leave room for actors, a director, and an editor to bring them to life. In a novel, the words on the page are the performance.

That took some adjusting.

Then I got to know Rocky and James all over again.

They could finally tell me what they were thinking. What one misunderstood about the other. What embarrassed them. What they wanted to say but couldn’t. Characters I’d known for years started revealing things even I hadn’t known about them.

They also made me work. Scenes that happened without either boy present in the screenplay had to find another way into the novel. I couldn’t simply cut away while they were telling the story. That challenge led to new scenes, new conversations, and a deeper understanding of both boys.

The danger still drives the story: a violent home invasion, two boys on the run, and choices that keep tightening the trap. But now we’re inside their heads as suspicion gives way to friendship, and friendship becomes desire.

Over six extraordinary days, everything changes.

It only took me a few decades to figure out how to let them tell you about it.

Rocky & James is available in paperback, special hardcover edition, and e-book from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The special hardcover includes Rocky’s song lyrics and selected scenes from the original screenplay paired with their novel counterparts, along with my commentary on what changed and why.

And if you’re wondering whether I’ll write another novel?

I might just have to.

If I haven’t already.