FSB Author Article
By Deborah Coonts,
Author of Lucky Stiff
When my then fifteen-year-old son suggested a family relocation to Las Vegas, my then husband and I started packing. Okay, maybe we didn't think it through, but after five years in suburban Maryland we had yet to find our niche, so we were ready for a change. Little did I know, the story I had been looking for was lurking in Sin City. In retrospect, perhaps it should've been obvious, but back then I was pretty naive.
With bags packed and good wishes ringing in our ears (The one I remember the best was: You're going to finish raising a hormonal teenage male in Las Vegas? Are you on drugs? I'm still thankful those 'friends' didn't call Social Services), we packed two cars and a moving van and headed toward the bright lights.
A lot of people say Vegas is an acquired taste -- not for me.
Where else outside of maybe New York City can you watch an everchanging cross-section of the world parade past and still go home and sleep in your own bed? Absolute heaven for a storyteller.
However, it is true that everyone sees something different in Vegas.
I see magic.
And this is the Vegas I wanted to write about. The fun stuff. Not bodies buried in the desert. Not mobsters. Not fools losing everything. But the real Vegas. The forty-five million visitors a year -- each of whom are on a mission of mischief, the celebrities, the singers, the shows, the amazing shopping -- that Vegas.
My Vegas.
Wanna Get Lucky? is the beginning of the story. Of course, the story had to be set in a huge strip casino/resort, and since I'm a storyteller, not a reporter, I created my own -- The Babylon. And who better to tell the story than a woman in her early thirties (old enough to know better, but young enough to ignore it) who is the Head of Customer Relations?
On a roll, I wrote the first sentence of the story -- I'm big on beginnings -- then came to a screeching halt.
Great, forty-three words into the next Great American Novel and I had writer's block. This was going to be harder than I thought.
That's when I started hearing voices.
At first, I thought maybe this ought to worry me, but then I remembered an interview with P. D. James. When asked how she came up with her stories, she said something to the effect that she sat in a room with her characters, listened to what they had to say, then wrote it down. I was so there. And, by all accounts, Ms. James did all right. So, if it was good enough for her, it was fine for little ol' me.
Lucky, my protagonist, was the first character to speak to me. Apparently fed-up with my waffling, she spoke up loud and clear -- she told me her name -- while I was minding my own business sitting on the porch at the Grand Lake Lodge in Colorado. Vacation interrupts. Two women and one man (my then husband) do not make a great vacation. Of course, if we'd been in Vegas, that would've been just an interesting evening . . . or so I've been told.
But I digress. Being given my protagonist's name was a good start, but I was hoping for more. Lucky didn't disappoint -- she introduced me to her friends: The Great Teddie Divine (Las Vegas' premier female impersonator who is straight and, understandably, has a tough time picking up women), Miss Patterson (Lucky's plucky assistant and a cougar), the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock (a private investigator and prime cougar bait), The Big Boss, and Mona (Lucky's bordelloowning mother).
The whole female impersonator thing sort of opened the door for me. I mean, some of the impersonators in this town are amazing. And then I started wondering . . . well, anyway, I finally ended-up wondering what would a straight guy do if he spent his professional life sheathed in Oscar de la Renta? How would he do with women? Of course, this being my fantasy, I decided he might do all right. Think about it. A man who can speak Jimmy Choo? A man who can help me with make-up (I'm not a girly-girly.) A man who would not only know who Rodgers and Hammerstein were, but who could even hum a few bars of I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Outta My Hair. All this and sex too? Hey, a girl can dream, can't she? So, Teddie was born.
The cougar thing . . . well, I'm of a certain age -- old enough to find that concept interesting. Enough said.
And who wouldn't wonder what it would be like to have a mother in 'the business'? This is Vegas after all.
The cast set, I actually had to come up with a story. Porn stars and spouse swappers?
The genesis for the porn star angle was a chapter of a book, Skin City by Jack Sheehan. Jack is a Vegas author and quite wonderful. The vignette he wrote that inspired me was a recitation of his attendance at the real adult film awards held in Vegas each January. I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my face. So, of course, I had to have porn stars -- of my own creation, of course.
And the spouse swappers -- that idea came right out of Sixty Minutes.
Put the two together, along with a young woman who falls out of a tour helicopter, landing in the middle of the Pirate Show in front of Treasure Island, add some Vegas magic, and romance . . .
So, do you Wanna Get Lucky?
© 2011 Deborah Coonts, author of The Lucky O'Tool Vegas adventure series
Author Bio
Deborah Coonts, author of Lucky Stiff, says her
mother tells her she was born in Texas a very long time ago,
though she's not totally sure -- her mother can't be trusted. But
she was definitely raised in Texas on barbeque, Mexican food and
beer. She currently resides in Las Vegas, where family and friends
tell her she can't get into too much trouble. Silly people. Coonts
has built her own business, practiced law, flown airplanes,
written a humor column for a national magazine, and survived a
teenager. She is the author of the Lucky O'Toole Las Vegas
adventure series.
Her first book, Wanna Get Lucky?, was released in 2010.
For more information please visit http://www.deborahcoonts.com, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter