Hello everyone! I’m Eddie Lawhorn, a “professional nerd” from Huntsville, Alabama who once walked away with $50K from Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I’ve been blessed to work on projects for the Space Shuttle, Space Station, a helicopter flight simulator, and many others.
I don’t like bragging, but I am a multiple-time international award-winning writer. (The reason I don’t like to brag? I won the Detective and Children’s Literature categories of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. That finds the worst possible opening sentence for a hypothetical novel, making me officially one of the most terrible writers on the planet.)
I couldn’t resist starting my mystery novel (Mike Hardware, Private Eye) with the winning line:
“Mike Hardware is the kind of private eye who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’, a man who can laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death – in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies.”
The book ended up good enough to get a literary agent (though it’s still unsold… for now). I later adapted it into a screenplay.
I’m also a big enough nerd to make a playable demo of a unique TV game show I created for the book. (It’s called RISK vs. REWARD, and I needed to check that the concept and math would work well in reality.)
Between the novel, screenplay, and game show concept, I’ll take all the help I can get! I’m still a newbie who’s looking forward to learning and getting to know folks.
Thanks! Feel free to contact me.
Great profile picture, Eddie Lawhorn! Congratulations on all your accomplishments! That's a catchy opening line! What's the screenplay logline?
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Thanks! The screenplay logline is: When "professional nerd" turned PI Mike Hardware is hired by his obnoxious ex-boss—and her ex-husband turns up dead—he must clear his possibly guilty client before she ruins his life again.
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Oh, and that picture is from when I had my photo taken with Weird Al Yankovic!
You're welcome, Eddie Lawhorn. I'd definitely watch that! I don't think you need the PI's name in the logline though. And it's pretty cool you had a photo taken with Weird Al Yankovic! It has a Weird Al feel.
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Eddie, you had me at "professional nerd" and sealed it with "$50K from Millionaire." Winning the Bulwer-Lytton contest for worst opening sentence then turning it into an actual novel with actual representation is the most chaotic-good energy I've seen all week. Building a playable game show demo to verify your fictional TV concept's math? That's not newbie behavior—that's unhinged dedication (complimentary). Great to meet you and welcome!
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I absolutely love the chaos! Way to bring it all out onto the table. Very good to meet you! I'm Elle, also from the Huntsville AL area. So great to find a local writer on the platform!
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Thank you all for your kind comments! I posted the script for Mike Hardware, Private Eye over in the Your Stage area. I am a newbie, but I want to avoid looking like too much of one, so I really desire all constructive criticism - that's the way to learn. And yeah, getting the demo working was a challenge. When you see it you'll understand how hairy the math behind it is. It started as an Excel spreadsheet, and I got decent reviews from the folks who saw it, but I eventually converted it to a web application on my site so more people could use it. (I'll make another post in the Your Stage for RISK vs. REWARD.)