I've let slip in a few social media venues that I've done some work adapting my novel Tulsa into a TV series. I wrote a pilot, it's made some rounds around the Hollywood Industrial Complex (feel free to send a note to HeyHarris@HarrisFootball.com if you're part of that complex and would like to chat), I've gotten some good feedback, and a producer likes the book and the script enough to do a table read. (Shout out to Michael!) Blah blah blah, I'm a huge deal. The point of this is that I was also asked to write the script for a teaser trailer in addition to the pilot and this whole process made me realize I don't remember my own book, at least not at the level of detail necessary to pull off these new tasks.

So a couple days ago, I read it again, almost certainly for the first time since 2018. In other words, this blog will be about pain.

Yes, yes, what a cliche, someone who made a thing looks back on that thing and can only see its flaws. Well but let's stipulate off the top that cliches might be cliches, but they can still smart when they're smacking you across your pedantic face. Reading back, there were a few moments when I squirmed and wished I hadn't.

I think it's a good book, and I'm proud of it, and if you haven't read it, I'd be delighted if you would. (In fact, for the first time, the paperback is now available at a non-Amazon property, if that matters to you.) I honestly forgot some of the plot machinations, and mostly was pleased at how well they still hang together, that there are surprises in what is, at base, a pretty pulpy (if still hopefully literary) story and that they feel "fair" and earned. Ah, but that feeling of trying on old shoes! Such great memories of the marvelous dancing I did in these musty brogans! Hm. Did they always pinch at the toe like this? Did my heel always feel quite so high? Who was the stranger who stretched these out?

Well, the truth is that I kind of wrote Tulsa for the screen. My previous novel, War On Sound, had been optioned and I was excited and thought: let's write something simpler and shorter and more visceral. I love The Road and wondered what would happen if I juxtaposed the world's descent into madness with a blank main character's ascent into becoming a fuller person, but as the result of an original sin that can't be forgiven. (If you've read the book: it happens on page 3 or something.) Tulsa really goes. I re-read it in one day. It's meant to be a perpetual-motion machine without fluff, a true plot-generating device that's intentionally light on extraneous information. It's good! But I also admit I can see the stitches. I found a few instances of pacing I don't love.

And the feeling I had is: Oh, I could fix those! Just give me a week! I'm embarrassed it's not perfect! Who cares about all the things I still enjoy and think are done well, what is the point of this book if it's not immediately properly canon-izable? Sure, it's a small unfamous book relatively speaking (but not *so* unfamous -- lots of you read it...thank you!), but I can't really help its lack of publicity -- and I've flattered myself thinking *if* it's discovered, *when* it's discovered by a larger audience, well, it will be ready. But now, here comes my Imposter Syndrome: it's *not* perfect, just a bit more emphasis here, a slight rejiggering there.... And the tragedy is it's published! It's done! It's out!

And I have friends who've told me that Tulsa is one of their favorite books, which of course may simply be charity -- one never knows -- but my friends tend to be on the brutal side. I know I'm seeing things others wouldn't. I know how cliche this all is, that Coppola looks at The Godfather and gnashes his teeth. But what can I tell you? Just because it happens to truly famous people doesn't mean it doesn't happen to me.

Ah well! I emerge bruised, but I emerge.

And maybe I'll rectify those annoyances in the TV series. Another bite at the apple.