The Secret Sauce

Whenever I give a book talk, I think the part I enjoy the most is the Q&A that generally follows. Readers, it seems, are always interested in just how all of this comes about from the initial inspiration to the choices made in executing ideas. Ergo The Secret Sauce where we’ll take a look at the ingredients that go into making up a Funky or Crankshaft strip. In a sense, this entire blog is about that, but here we’ll drill down a bit more into the process itself.

Ippso pippso the photo of the abandoned house above. It’s a house I’ve jogged past for years and each time I’d find myself wondering about it. What happened inside those walls? What secrets does it have?

The interior of this house was fascinating. There were pictures and a mirror still hanging on the walls.

It led to and became the reference for a Funky week that’s coming up this month as Funky decides to pay a visit to a house that he’s passed by many times on his runs with Les.

There’s a story hidden behind these decaying walls. And like all of us, Funky wants to know what that story is and how it ends. Inside he finds a painting called “Dakota Wheatfields”. It was a painting I discovered in an art class in Junior High and I finally finally found a place for in it in the detritus of this former home.