Phew! The second draft of Hollywood PA is finally done. The book was going super smooth at first, but then I hit a wall with my day job taking all my energy and I got a bit stuck and negative. But now it’s finally ready to be read by my first editor Lenah who actually hatched the idea to the whole thing! We’ll see how she likes it. Sometimes I get a bit trigger happy with the delete-button and remove too much, but it’s hard for me to tell without letting the manuscript sink in properly and the feedback from Lenah and my group of “draft readers”.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. My official site for upcoming books is jonaswrites.com. It might not be much at the moment, but I hope to improve on it as soon as Hollywood PA is done and dusted.

Thanks for listening (and reading!).

Here are some quotes from the best show (Mad Men) and the best character (Don Draper) on television right now (ever?). Thank you IMDB for most of these.

“Maybe I’m late because I was spending time with my family reading the Bible.”

“I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.”

Roy asks Don (after learning Don is in advertising/the big lie) how he sleeps at night…Don replies, “On a bed of money.”

“I can’t decide if you have everything . . . or nothing.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Pete Campbell: A man like you I’d follow into combat blindfolded, and I wouldn’t be the first. Am I right, buddy?
Don Draper: Let’s take it a little slower. I don’t want to wake up pregnant.

Don Draper on true love: The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t one.

Don Draper: If Greta’s research was any good I would have used it.
Pete Campbell: What are you talking about?
Don Draper: I’m saying I had a report just like that. And it’s not like there’s some magic machine that makes identical copies of things.

Peggy Olson: [Presenting an idea to Don] We thought that Samsonite is this very rare element, this mythical substance, the hardest on earth, and we see an adventurer leaping through a cave.
Don Draper: Is this a substance much like bullshit?

Bertram Cooper: How much do you know about Pete’s family?
Don Draper: Nothing, except that they put out a mediocre product.

Don Draper: Peggy! Take Danny over to Joan, he’s starting next Monday.
Peggy Olson: Are you kidding?
Danny Siegel: You will not be sorry.
Don Draper: Go away.

Don Draper: You got anything on Vicks?
Peggy Olson: Actually, it’s Vick Chemical.
Don Draper: Answer the question.
Peggy Olson: We’re very behind. Your new art director has been waiting for synchronicity, which involves me coming up with a bunch of ideas, chasing him down and having him draw all over them, and lose them.
Don Draper: He’s your new art director too, and you have a deadline. And don’t think you can spend Monday hiding behind corners and trying not to make eye contact. I will find you.

Don Draper: That’s how this works. I pay you for ideas.
Peggy Olson: You never say ‘thank you’.
Don Draper: That’s what the money is for!

Peggy Olson: I thought we were doing this at 9. It’s 11:15.
Don Draper: I’m late, but you’re not. Good work so far.

Don Draper: I wouldn’t be good company anyway.
Roger Sterling: That’s never bothered me before.

Don Draper: We should get married.
Midge: You think I’d make a good ex-wife?

Don Draper: This is the greatest advertisting opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want. How do you make your cigarettes?

Lee Garner, Jr.: I don’t know.
Lee Garner, Sr.: Shame on you. We breed insect repellant tobacco seeds, plant them in the North Carolina sunshine, grow it, cut it, cure it, toast it…
Don Draper: There you go. There you go.
[Writes on chalkboard and underlines: "IT'S TOASTED."]
Lee Garner, Jr.: But everybody’s else’s tobacco is toasted.
Don Draper: No. Everybody else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes’… is toasted.
Roger: Well, gentlemen, I don’t think I have to tell you what you just witnessed here.
Lee Garner, Jr.: I think you do.
Don Draper: Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.
Lee Garner, Sr.: It’s toasted.
[Smiles]
Lee Garner, Sr.: I get it.

Check out amazing photos from behind the scenes of the spectacular TV-series Mad Men here and a Q&A with “Don Draper” = Jon Hamm here

But there sure are beautiful houses. Just look at Lisa Vanderpump‘s (from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) “house”. Lenah and I are doing plenty of Hollywood and celebrity research for my upcoming novel (set in the Hollywood celebrity world, Rome and New York) at the moment and it’s quite interesting. I’m working hard whenever I get a free moment and I hope to release the novel named Hollywood PA on April 1st (not as an April fools joke!).

I will post more information about the upcoming book over the next two months, it’s a humorous take on the Hollywood lifestyle and also a love story with a twist. It will be interesting to see what people think of it when it’s released. For now, please enjoy these photos of Beverly Hills housewife, Lisa Vanderpump’s fabulous ”house”.