Before the protagonist was Blake Deco, he was Drake.
Initially, the idea was to steal King Tut’s dagger, not the Deringer.
The story is inspired by a real-life actress.
I couldn’t decide on a title for the book. “Sun Kiss,” “Gun Boulevard” – the list went on. I finally decided by playing with the Californian orange brand, Sunkist and came up with Gun Kiss.
After changing the protagonist’s name to Blake, I contacted an expert in San Diego on skydiving who coincidentally is Blake.
The cat in the story is based on my tuxedo cat.
The Besame Mucho scene is based on my own experience with someone as we were driving to Malaysia.
I should put more trust in my thoughts and ideas. Story ideas that I had in mine but doubted them were eventually made into books and movies by others. And when I watched these movies, I would scream in my head, “Hey, I had the same idea!”
One example was “Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight” with Billy Zane. I had a similar concept but instead of portraying demons, I thought of vampires.
My version: Some people were trapped in a castle, and one of them had this special gadget that created a temporary force field (20 minutes each time) that protected them from vampires.
In Demon Knight, someone had a mystical bottle of blood that when poured on the ground would create a temporary force field to prevent the ghouls from crossing over.
There were other stories that I lost opportunity too. But you get the idea. Confidence is key.
