Featured Book: Eye In the Sky

Eye in the Sky was my 2nd published book and thinking back on it, it was really important for a whole bunch of reasons.

First off, the why I wrote it:

I had just finished the extensive tour with Money Changes Everything and lo and behold, I wasn't a millionaire. I also wasn't really happy with Limits so I didn't do anything with it.

But I still wanted to write.

I just didn't know what I should be writing about and I was really down in the dumps. I was still in the office in my parents basement and I was still drinking a lot of beer. Yet I wanted more. I landed a job as a writer for a soon-to-be-defunct magazine in Niagara Falls. It was called World Events, I think.

I hated the meetings. I hated dressing up. I hated being told what to write.

I was a mess.

Each day I went to the grocery store in town and each time I waited in line to be checked out by a girl who worked there. Davine was always so cheerful! Her smile and the chance to flirt with her was all that was keeping me interested. After a long while, I got up the nerve to ask her out. She said, 'Yes.'

Days before our first date...she was tragically killed in a car crash.

I was absolutely crushed...as were so many in our tight-knit community.

I laid in bed the night I heard the news. I didn't cry. I just laid there. I had one thought going through my mind on a reel:

"She was so alive!"

I wondered.

Over the next few months I came up with a story. The girl in the story wasn't Davine, but everything about the book was. I still think of her today.

And wonder.

When the book came out I can remember thinking:

"The Crucifix! How do I live up to that?"

These days I pick up the book and read how poorly I wrote it...that's a common theme, folks...it's why you don't go back and read any of them...you're always getting better...the old ones always look like poop.

Yet...

It was important.

It was for Davine.

I was now writing for others.

There was another book-signing in North Collins for it.

A man and woman pulled the car next to the book stand.

"I need ten copies," the man said.

"You sure you aren't at the wrong signing?" I asked.

He laughed.

"I'm Davine's Dad," he said. "I want a copy for all my family members."

Eye in the Sky.

It's raw.

There's a sentence in there when the antagonist finally apologizes to the protagonist but he says:

"You've had so much tragedy. Where is God when you're suffering?"

And the antagonist answers:

"He's in your eyes as you apologize to me. He's here."

And I take a little pride in coming up with that thought.

That was a gift that Davine left behind.

Even though we never had that date.