“I can’t do this,” says Maya, a 25-year-old cancer patient. “Look at me- I look like a skeleton. These sweatpants won’t even stay around my waist without falling down.”
“Maya, you’re beautiful. Here, let me do it,” says Max, wiping the tears away from her eyes.
Max ties her sweatpants in a quadruple knot and cuffs each pant leg twice for extra support. He kisses her on the cheek and takes her by the hand as they sneak their way out of the back entrance of the hospital.
What do a cancer patient, a recovering alcoholic and an overbearing Jewish mother have in common? They’ve all kissed Max Cohen. On the morning of his 25th birthday, Max wakes up bruised and battered in the emergency room of a New York City hospital. Afraid of where his self-destructive behavior might land him, he decides to seek help.
Stacie, the pretty-faced wino, will do whatever it takes to keep Max on the path to sobriety. While Maya, fighting for her life on the second floor of an Upper East Side oncology ward, will do everything in her power to convince Max that life is worth living, before it’s too late.
I write fiction in order to keep sane. I write to entertain. Most of all, I write because I love telling stories. I combine my own real-life experiences with the thoughts and ideas that swim through my wild, often absurd, imagination. The results are typically outlandish, hard to swallow and over the top. But then again, that’s what makes writing so damn fun.
The old saying goes “write what you know.” Well, over the course of the past five or so years, I have taken everything that I’ve known, or thought to be true, and intertwined those experiences into a fictitious world of my creation. Writing is not easy. Writing takes more than just skill. It takes patience. It takes time. It requires you to not only accept failure, but to welcome it.
Charles Bukowski said it best: Find what you love and let it kill you. While I don’t recommend letting anything within your control kill you, I do recommend finding something that you love to do and pursuing it in your free time. For me, I love writing. And while I would love to retire from the day in and day out grind of the New York City 9-5 and relocate to an exotic island far away so I can spend the rest of my days sipping on stiff drinks and typing away on my computer, I am a realist… for better or worse. I have yet to figure that out.
With the funds raised, I will be able to publish, promote and sell my finished manuscript. It has been a dream of mine to get this not-so-lovely-love-story in front of a mass audience looking for an entertaining and fast-paced read. Oh, and for those of you who are looking for a good excuse to laugh, cry and feel better about your own wacky habits and mad behavior, I welcome you into my world. Stay as long as you’d like.