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.