New Comedy on the Way!
A fun, quick, and easy read, Lucas Goes to Cabo is out with advanced readers. All appendages are crossed hoping the story will soon be ready for release. This ensemble comedy has been kicking and screaming inside my coconut for five or six years, morphing, changing, evolving, and birthing.
At about 150 pages, Lucas Goes to Cabo is similar in length to my best selling novella The Rise and Fall of Piggy Church but the story is radically different. Piggy was a dramatic character study about five selfish people whose lives revolved around pier at a seminal time in American surfing history. Lucas Goes to Cabo is pure comedic mayhem, a modern comedy written to make you laugh. Four buddies travel to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for what they think will be the vacation of a lifetime. What happens once they arrive turns into chaos they will never forget…for a whole bunch of reasons totally unrelated to what they expected.
The development of this story was a challenge because I was searching for the pieces to assemble and tell a great story, not just a good one. I thought up the general premise years ago. Then I had the skeletal story. After the bones comes the organs, the inner workings of the storyline and characters. Last comes the skin. Who are these people, what do they look like, sound like, act like?
My last three trips to Cabo, each for a week at a time, were devoted almost entirely to story research. I insisted on writing Lucas from places of truth. I wanted the story to resonate with readers who have been there but also escort those who have only heard of the place. I want everyone who reads Lucas Goes to Cabo to feel as if he or she is with the characters too.
My insistence to paint such accurate pictures goes back to what I say when asked about my creative process: writing is easy but writing well is hard and the real writing comes from the rewriting. The book is not long, yet consumed hundreds upon hundred of hours of think time and creative, comedic effort. I am proud what that work produced. The more I invest in a story, the more my readers get out. This one merges authenticity with imagination and comedy. Lucas Goes to Cabo exists for one reason: to make you laugh. I am pretty sure it will.
My thanks too to Cabo Adventures for allowing me to use one of their photographs for the tentative working cover. I loved this shot of the humpback breeching in the foreground and Cabo’s famed El Arco rock formation in the back. Whale season occurs throughout the winter season but the Pacific Ocean’s merge with the Sea of Cortez means Cabo’s waters teem with remarkable marine life all year ’round. The company’s website is www.cabo-adventures.com if you care to check them out. These guys are service-centric tour professionals who offer and consistently deliver a full variety of fun experiential choices.
So, on behalf of Lucas, me, the whale, and everybody else, stay tuned. Thanks for reading, we’ll keep you posted.
Adios!
Ocean Palmer