People Would Buy Tickets

People Would Buy Tickets is my first attempt at creating fiction. Do not be misled into thinking I am getting tremendously creative here. Realistic fiction becomes fiction only because I have changed the names of people and the titles of the places where it was necessary. I am still telling stories that really happened, only embellishing where I lack details or think it would be more interesting. The part of this book that is really fictional and dreamt up is in the descriptions and actions of the main characters, but I am still using stories from, and characteristics of, people I have known personally. That said, Heck and Count are wholly fictional characters, and are not meant to symbolize or represent anybody.

When I began this project, the title of the book was, Count Is Clear. After careful consideration, that title works only if you are familiar with correctional jargon. I had intended some word play with the term count, and a main character, Count, but it does not work if you are not already familiar with the term as it applies to corrections, and the character. The title that I decided on, People Would Buy Tickets, comes from a co-worker, who does not want his name mentioned here.

Many of you know my previous work, and realize that I was simply writing about things that really happened. There is not much writing talent in regurgitating, just a skill for translating real life to paper. The primary characters are all fictional, as is much of their background, but the inter-woven humorous short stories are mostly factual, if only slightly embellished events related to me by co-workers and my own experiences while working in the corrections field.