Ever since my novel The Exit Man got optioned for development into a TV series back in 2015, my family and eleven fans have continued to ask me about the status of the project. This may sound like I’m complaining. Trust me, I’m not. Being prompted to talk about the biggest honor of my writing life is hardly a nuisance. In fact, you don’t even have to prompt me. Take this blog post, for instance.

Following is a quick recap and update on my book’s journey to (hopefully) the small screen, followed by the blogging equivalent of a nervous breakdown.

It all started when HBO optioned The Exit Man in 2015 and I fainted. However, HBO elected not to renew the option in 2016. (Thanks a lot, Westworld.) No biggie. It happens. As people like Shia LaBeouf and Lindsay Lohan can attest, things in Hollywood don’t always work out as planned.

Fortunately, the story didn’t end there. A few other networks expressed interest in The Exit Man earlier this year. And then in April I signed an option agreement with Showtime – and fainted again.

The Showtime option could not have happened without the work of three important people: 1) Ilene Staple, the feisty, whip-smart Hollywood producer who sold The Exit Man to Showtime and who has never stopped believing in the story; 2) Adam Berkowitz, my badass agent and Co-Head of Television at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), who sealed the option deal; and 3) the brilliant scriptwriter Brian Buckner, who wrote a killer show outline and has since put the finishing touches on the pilot script. Thanks to Brian’s great work, I’m told the TV series – if made -- will be better than the book. I’m both delighted and insulted.  

Now, I realize there’s no guarantee The Exit Man will end up on the small screen; nevertheless, it’s hard to temper my enthusiasm. I mean, let’s face it – most folks don’t read like they used to, and most folks don’t read me, PERIOD. So getting a book adapted for TV is really the best a relatively unknown author like me can hope for. And the fact that the network aiming to make it happen is the same network that has brought us such delicious dark comedy-dramas as Dexter, Californication, Weeds and Nurse Jackie makes all of this that much more enthralling.

And terrifying.

Yes, terrifying. What am I so afraid of? Success, mainly.

I’ve grown quite accustomed to the middle of the road and near misses throughout my fiction-writing career. I almost reached the number-one spot in the Dark Comedy category on Amazon with each of my last two novels. HBO almost put The Exit Man on TV. This blog post is almost staying on track. My point is, I’m great at “okay.” I excel at “almost.” I do “nearly successful” very well. Major achievement? I’m not built for that. Big break? I can’t think of anything worse. So, if Showtime goes all the way with The Exit Man and turns it into a hit series, I may be screwed.

For one, it will likely lead to tons more sales of my novel – and subsequent tweets/reviews/letters/email/graffiti from readers expressing how the book strays from the TV show. Secondly, all the attention and Hollywood parties will turn me into more of an insufferable a-hole than I already am. Rather than begging people to buy my books like I do now, I’ll be punching people when they corner me in public with a copy they’d like signed. And don’t get me started on all the drugs and alcohol that such success will get me started on.

I’m beginning to see things from Shia LaBeouf’s and Lindsay Lohan’s perspective. Maybe the three of us will hang out one day.

Yeah, I’d better go tell my agent to call the whole Showtime deal off. The more I think about it, an option agreement is really just a gateway drug for someone like me. The beginning of the end.  

Nothing good ever comes from an opportunity of a lifetime. So if you need me, I’ll be busy writing… in the middle of the road. Where it’s safe.

Okay, that’s enough about me and my possible TV deal. What about YOU? What do YOU think about me and my possible TV deal? 

The giant spilling over into my seat in row 43 glares at me like his overactive pituitary gland is my fault. The baby on the lap of the woman up in 42-C has been shrieking since our delayed take-off two hours ago. And my water bottle just rolled into some corner of pressurized oblivion.

But you won’t hear me complain. I’m too busy tapping away at my next novel seven miles up.

Writing fiction is a great way to escape the pain of everyday life. And since few things are more painful than flying coach, there are few better places to write than on a commercial flight. 

Lucky for you, I’ve already had three miniature bottles of bourbon and thus am a bit too drunk for my novel, but definitely not too drunk for my blog. In other words, this is a good time for me to get more specific on why I love writing on planes:

The mild decrease in oxygen is great for creativity. I have some of my best ideas when my brain isn’t functioning properly. Thanks to the slightly lower levels of oxygen on a plane, I’m able to think up especially captivating character quirks and impossible plot twists, as well as make myself believe I can make a living as an author.  

Strangers in uniforms risk bodily injury to bring me cocktails. Everyone knows a bit of alcohol enhances prose. And there’s something very satisfying about watching a flight attendant ricochet off aisle seats to deliver me a bourbon without spilling a drop. And since flight attendants are so preoccupied with ensuring the safety of everyone on board (except themselves), they often forget to charge me for the drink(s).

The in-flight magazine makes me feel like a literary genius. If ever my writing isn’t going well during a flight, I need only open up a copy of what’s tucked into my seatback pocket. Reading a couple of sentences on what to do in Newark or where to eat in Omaha is all it takes to make even the worst parts of my manuscript seem like they were written by Margaret Atwood.   

It’s a “get out of small-talk free” card. We’ve all sat next to the overly chatty passenger who just won’t shut up about the weather and their family and how they need you to get up so they can go pee. This hasn’t happened to me since I started writing on planes. Once I break out my laptop and start talking to my characters while drooling, even an intoxicated salesman from Wisconsin knows enough to pipe down and hold it in.

It’s fun to mess with wandering eyes. It’s only natural for passengers to sneak a peek at a manuscript on a screen that’s mere inches from their face. And it’s only natural for an author of dark fiction to frighten the hell out of them when the peeking turns into staring. Whenever I sense I have an audience while working on a plane, I write them into the story right before their eyes. There’s nothing quite like the expression on the face of the person next to me when they read, “Suddenly, the head of the overly curious woman in 27-E exploded.”        

Easy book promotion opportunities during the descent. The last 10-15 minutes of a flight, when the FAA requires me to stop writing and stow my laptop, that’s when I open for business. What better time to promote my books than when surrounded by people who have been starved for entertainment for hours on end and who are about to regain access to Amazon? So upon the initial descent, I hand out business cards (which list my titles) to everyone seated next to and near me. Then I tell them it’s been an absolute pleasure flying with them, and casually mention that if they don’t buy at least one of my novels the second we touch ground, I’ll write them into my next one. 

TAKE OFF

So if you are a writer or want to be, I highly recommend selling your home and/or car and/or drugs and using the money to fly as much as you can. I’m telling you, it’s the best thing you can do to enhance the number and quality of words you produce. On the ground, there are just too many options and distractions. Unlimited streaming. Reliable Wi-Fi. Edible food. Plus open spaces and fresh air. Nobody can be expected to write anything worthwhile in such a comfortable environment.

Miles high in a 737, however, there’s just drudgery and elbows and cold drafts and babies. And the only way out other than the emergency exits is your imagination. 

After publishing a novel about a guy who helps terminally ill individuals end their lives, and another novel about terminally ill individuals who become vigilante serial killers, I decided it was time to take a break from all the death and dying and murdering. I mean, there’s only so much a reader—and a writer—can take.

So you’ll be happy to know my next novel isn’t about any of that stuff.

Instead, it centers around child sex trafficking.

You can blame my wife.

She’s the one who just had to go on a noble humanitarian mission to Cambodia in 2016 to build an art center for young girls who’d been rescued from sex slavery. And she’s the one who came home and just had to show me all the inspirational and touching photos from her trip. All the smiles she and the women she traveled with brought to the faces of girls who’d endured months/years of unspeakable physical, emotional and psychological abuse.

After blubbering over the photos and telling my wife how proud of her I was, I said there was something I needed to know. “Who rescues these girls from the brothels?” 

And when she told me, I knew I had my next novel. It’s not every day you hear about former CIA agents and Navy Seals pretending to be pedophiles to catch pimps and give little girls their future back.   

I spent the next month learning facts while concocting plot details for my novel. As part of the research I did to get my lies right, I interviewed a man who spent over two years leading sex trafficking sting operations all over the world. What he shared with me via phone and email was unsettling, unforgettable, inspiring and invaluable. My novel is by no means the tale of his life, but I couldn’t have created what I’ve created without the detailed information and gripping accounts he provided.   

I’m inches away from completing the book. It’s called In Wolves’ Clothing. Here’s the draft of the blurb that will appear on the back cover: 

Zero Slade is not a pedophile. He merely plays one when saving children’s lives.

During his seven years on a team fighting child sex trafficking, Zero’s become quite good at schmoozing with pimps, getting handcuffed by cops and pretending not to care about the Lost Girls he liberates. But the dangerous sting operations are starting to take their toll on his marriage and sanity. His affinity for prescription pain medication isn’t exactly helping matters.

When the youngest girl the team has ever rescued gets abducted from a safe house in Cambodia, Zero decides to risk everything to find her and bring her back. Never mind he’s still recovering from a recent overdose—and an even more recent gunshot wound that should have killed him. 

It’s the biggest mission of Zero’s life. Trouble is, it’s certain death. 

Indecent Browsing, and Nuns Flying Coach

As you might imagine, this has not been an easy writing experience. Learning all about the horrors that occur in the international child sex trade – or just getting your head around the fact that such a trade even exists—is enough to turn you into a permanent insomniac. But I knew I had to write this novel, and I knew I could do it in a way that would respect the subject matter and inform readers without completely devastating and depressing them. So I pressed on.   

Almost as challenging as the research was coping with the concern of getting arrested (or at least investigated) based solely on my browser history. How I managed to stay under the federal authorities’ radar during several months of highly questionable online searches is beyond me. You’d think googling “international sex-trafficking hotbeds” followed by “cost of roundtrip flight from LA to Phnom Penh” followed by “Cambodian kiddie brothels” would have at least resulted in a local police officer knocking on my door.        

And then there was the issue of working on In Wolves’ Clothing on flights. While sitting in coach. With passengers practically sitting in my lap as I typed such lines as, “The trick to looking excited when children are presented to you for sex is to remember you are saving their lives.” And I’ve been flying a lot. From Austin to Portland and back every Monday/Tuesday for ten weeks to attend an amazing writing workshop led by Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club and numerous other dark contemporary bestsellers). On these flights, I’ve sat next to (and tried to shield my screen from) mothers with young daughters, marines with arms as big as my legs, and, perhaps most harrowing of all, a nun with wandering eyes.

I guess what I’m saying is it should have been me and not that poor little Chinese doctor from Kentucky who got dragged off a plane for all the world to see. (Seriously. It would have been great publicity for the book.) 

No Laughing Matter. But Laughing Matters

Perhaps most challenging, though, was the writing itself. Well, not initially. The first draft was actually easy. Surprisingly so. But then I read it from start to finish and realized, um, it was a little too, uh…and please forgive me here… funny.

It’s not that I’d made light of child sex trafficking in the first draft (not al ALL, actually). Rather, I found that the “voice” I’d brought to the story was a little too similar to the voice used in my previous two novels, which are both straight-up dark comedies. While it’s totally fine to be hilarious and witty in novels about terminal illness and murder, when your book centers around pedophilia and sex slavery, it’s best to tone down the humor a smidge. So, I had to tell my first-person narrator, Zero—who deep down is a good guy—that he was having a little too much fun describing and showing the nightmarish work he does.

Zero sort of listened to me during the second draft, but it wasn’t until Chuck Palahniuk said something to Zero and I during a recent workshop session that Zero really started to pay attention. Chuck said, “This is a terrific concept and I like what you’re doing, but be careful not to let funny and clever cut the tension.” Then Chuck said something funny and clever to cut the tension: “Remember, this isn’t ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Phnom Penh.’”

That’s not to say the novel is now devoid of humor. Extracting every ounce of funny from the story actually would have made it less authentic. At least according to the real-life Zero I interviewed prior to starting the book. He told me having a dark sense of humor is a necessity in his line of work. It’s how you survive. After he read the first twenty chapters I sent him in March, he called me and said, “I read everything out loud to my wife, and when we weren’t crying, we were laughing. Man, you nailed it.”

Having someone who has lived through most of what my fictional character has experienced react in such a positive manner, that meant more to me than any praise even Chuck could have provided. (Chuck, if you are reading this, I merely said that to create more tension. Of course your opinion matters more.)

I expect In Wolves' Clothing to launch early fall 2017, so mark your calendar. (Just write “Buy Levin’s new novel!” all over September and October, to be safe.) Between now and then, I’ll be sure to post an excerpt or two so you’ll have a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. My wife just told me there’s a man at our door who says he’s with the FBI.   

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Whenever submitting one of my novels for an award or to a potential publicist or promotion service, invariably I am asked to check a box indicating what genre the book falls under. It’s harder than it sounds.

Mystery? Nope.

Thriller? Not exactly.

Suspense? Close, but nuh uh.

Romance? No, my darling.

Fantasy? Dream on.

Sci-Fi? Does not compute.

Young Adult? Whatever.

After scanning and rejecting all the major genre categories, I end up doing the same thing my wife – who is half-Indonesian and half-Australian – does whenever answering the ethnicity question on a form or application. …

I check “Other.”

I’m proud to be an Other. I find it more interesting than being another. Another mystery writer. Another romance writer. Another fantasy writer. Not that I’ve got anything against those who write in the most popular genres. It’s just, what’s the fun in creating books that sell easily?    

Being an Other does come with its set of challenges. Namely, a smaller reading market. If I had a dime for every person who has asked me why I don’t write more like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin – or at least more like writers who try to write like those writers write – I’d have enough money to hire a hitman to take out the next person who asks me that.

Now that would make for a good novel. One that wouldn’t fit easily into any major genre category.

I get that most readers are partial to a specific genre. But it seems many readers are completely unwilling to read outside of that genre. Or will start reading something they think falls within that genre only to stop the second a sacred rule is broken or bent, the minute a familiar formula begins to morph. I’m not saying these readers don’t want to be shocked and surprised. They do, as long as it's in a way they expect. 

Call me a freak, but when I’m reading or writing a novel, I simply don’t think in terms of genre. I think in terms of STORY. If I’m totally engrossed in a book (or a movie or a TV show), not once do I stop and think, “Wait, is this a thriller or a mystery?” or “Is this dystopian fantasy or sci-fi?” I just keep reading (or watching) and allowing myself to be immersed in the captivating reality the writer (and/or director) has created. At least until my wife wakes me up on the couch, puts my empty cocktail glass in the sink, and escorts me to bed.

Some of my favorite novels cannot be cleanly categorized: Fight Club (and just about every other novel by Chuck Palahniuk); Slaughterhouse-Five (and just about every other novel by Kurt Vonnegut); Geek Love; Trainspotting; We Have Always Lived in the Castle; The Contortionist’s Handbook. These peculiar books thrill and delight me, and naturally they and others (un)like them have had a significant influence on my own writing. What can I say? I brake for broken rules. I heart inventive. I get off on oddly original.  

I’m pretty sure you do, too. So, if you’ve never tried it before, grab the wheel and veer recklessly outside your genre lane. Get off at the wrong exit. Drive down an unpaved road. Then just continue on and see how far you can go, keeping the pedal to the floor until you arrive somewhere so mesmerizing and new, it doesn’t even have a name.

Okay, I waited three spaces. I feel that’s sufficient before going ahead and pushing my own peculiar books, The Exit Man and Sick to Death (Note: Sick to Death is currently just 99 cents for Amazon US & UK customers! Deal ends April 25.) 

Most people assume it takes a ton of talent to succeed as a novelist. But you need only read a few bestsellers to know that isn’t true.

If you want to be a novelist, there’s something much more important than talent. Something much easier than mastering the craft of writing.

Being utterly indestructible.  

Every year, thousands of fiction writers are hospitalized or die – or worse – because they are unprepared for the tremendous physical and emotional strain of finishing, submitting and begging friends to buy their novel. That’s why I’m in the process of establishing the world’s first survival camp for aspiring novelists. I feel the best way to stop the suffering of rookie fiction writers is to put them through training that will make them wish they were dead.

Following are a few of the key components I plan to incorporate: 

Core and gluteus training. All camp participants will be required to do an hour of planks, squats, crunches and lunges everyday. This will help dramatically reduce their risk of injury and horrific posture once they start working on their novel and are forced to sit on their ass for days on end. (Few people know this, but Stephen King’s tremendous productivity has less to do with his writing prowess and more to do with his CrossFit obsession.)

Bladder strengthening. Nothing ruins the flow of writing like the flow of urine. That’s why each camp participant will be given only one bathroom break a day. It will be painful and seem inhumane to begin with, but after a few days, happy campers will be able to “hold it in” with ease for chapters at a time. Those who cannot will be welcome to follow in the tradition of Charles Bukowski, who took great pride in soiling himself every other paragraph.        

Sun-staring sessions. For eons, mothers have been telling their children, “Never stare directly at the sun.” That’s because mothers never expect their children to become novelists. (Or want them to.) The truth is, looking straight into the center of our glorious fiery star without the aid of sunglasses (in moderation, of course) is an excellent way to build the corneal strength authors need. Without such strength, a novelist cannot be expected to tolerate gazing endlessly at a blank computer screen during periods of massive writer's block. Camp participants who absolutely refuse to take part in the daily sun-gazing sessions will be given slightly less intense alternatives, such as staring directly at a shirtless Norwegian, or staring directly at George Hamilton’s teeth.

“The Rejection Room.” To better prepare camp participants for the crippling sense of failure and self-doubt they’ll experience as novelists, each will sit in a special “Rejection Room” where, for five straight hours, they will be forced to listen repeatedly to a recording that says, "Thank you for your submission, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass." The next day they will be placed back in the room for another five hours of even harsher rejection – total silence.

Simulated squalor. Just as important as preparing aspiring novelists for constant rejection is getting them accustomed to living in constant squalor. My survival camp will take care of that by providing participants with just one small plate of plain boiled pasta per day, an old dirty mattress to sleep on, and all the bottom-shelf liquor they can drink. The bountiful supply of cheap, horrible liquor is intended to serve a dual purpose: It will teach campers how to use alcohol to cope with constant squalor and rejection; and it will loosen their inhibitions, thus freeing them to write more boldly and daringly when not vomiting.   

I’m currently seeking investors to help get my proposed survival camp for aspiring novelists off the ground. Only serious individuals with ample financial resources to contribute need contact me. In other words, I don’t want to hear from any writers.