#36 Grounded in the present, a future to come

I stayed on radio silence for almost a month. I’d steered clear of Jean’s condo, stayed off Lori’s radar. It was easy to do because I didn’t have any new script assignments, having completed my scripts for The Littles and The Get Along Gang. But I felt like I’m in limbo. Again, something’s in the air.

A part of me is thinking I might have a career in children’s entertainment. For a writer who’s written grisly murder mysteries, terrifying horror novels and a sprawling historical saga, it’s strange to think I could end up writing for children.

It’s a different deal writing for children. I think differently, knowing my work will be seen by kids, knowing I might make them smile and maybe, just maybe, have an impact on their lives.

It would be forty years before I’d would realize how right I was.

Kim and I will be on stools at The Stray Dog’s horseshoe-shaped bar in the resort community of New Buffalo, Michigan, where we live. Joey, the bartender, sometimes likes to out me to visitors from Chicago, telling them I created Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and The New Adventures of He-Man.

He does this with three young couples on the other side of the bar and soon I hear chanting of “POW-ER RAN-GERS! POW-ER RAN-GERS! POW-ER RAN-GERS!” Fireball shots arrive. I lift my shot glass and drink with the fans across the bar.

But then I see them getting off their stools and heading for me. I know it’s going to be a long night.

#35 So close I can taste it

“Care Bears.”

Lori looked up from a script she was editing, surprised to see me in her office doorway at eight-thirty in the morning. “I thought you’re a night owl.”

“Some things can’t wait.” I paused, then decided it was my turn to have a little fun with her. “If you didn’t hear me I can shout it at the top of my lungs.”

She grumbled, “Didn’t I say to stick to writing and stay away from business?”

I teased, “You’re the one who sent me on the hunt.”

She waved me in, telling me to close the door. I did, sitting in a chair across from her desk. Then she turned uncharacteristically serious and warned me not to talk to anyone about this because the deal wasn’t closed yet.

Giving me kudos for having figured it out, Lori allowed, “It does look like we’re getting Care Bears.” I’m delighted for her and Andy and Jean. When I told her I know it’s a major kids’ property she nodded and said, “It’ll put DIC on the map.”

I knew it would be disingenuous if I didn’t ask, so I did. “Does that mean I’ll be writing Care Bears scripts?”

She hit me with an answer I wasn’t expecting. “Maybe…maybe not.”

We’d moved three spaces on the board and now she’d reminded me she held all the aces. But I still had a few cards of my own, so I played one by not asking her what she meant. Lori leaned back in her chair, smiled and said, “You are a smart boy, aren’t you?”

#34 The lightbulb goes on

I love doing research. For my historical novel, The Young Dragons, published in 1982 by Signet, I did seven months of deep research. With my novel to be set in 1800s China and California, I learned about China’s Szechwan province, the history and culture of China, San Francisco, the history and culture of California, the construction of the transcontinental railroad and The Gold Rush that brought over three hundred thousand people from across America and abroad to the Golden State.

When the dust cleared I had nearly five hundred pages of research and character descriptions. I used a lot of it in my novel.

The research job I was presently on wouldn’t take nearly so long because I was hot on the trail of what I was looking for. Lori had given me clues: American Greetings and Those Characters From Cleveland. Lori worked very hard at the studio. But I knew she also liked to have fun, and I had a hunch seeing a newbie sniffing around a mystery was fun for her. I also had a hunch she wanted me to solve this mystery.

At the library I read articles about American Greetings. I knew they made greeting cards and that they started Those Characters From Cleveland to handle merchandise tie-ins for their original greeting cards characters. This led to television series. Their Strawberry Shortcake character, starting in 1981, would generate $500 million in revenues. But legal entanglements stopped Those Characters From Cleveland from developing a series around her for decades. They were doing okay with The Get Along Gang. But I knew they wanted a hit and The Get Along Gang wasn’t it.

Then, in a trade magazine, I saw two magical words: Care Bears.