Hi, I'm Chris Plante and I live with my wife Loraine in Riverside, California, where Loraine teaches music and I create stuff. I don't play the piano or the violin or the cello like Loraine so I just think up things. Running From The Taxman, A Great American Road Trip, was one of those things that just flowed out one morning while I was sitting at the computer wondering what to do that day. Actually, I had notes from twenty-five years previous about three makeup clad polyester muumuu wearing sisters and their supportive husbands, children and family members. I just needed a setting for them.

So I took the family out of their big houses and put them in Winnebagos, traveling crisscross through the country slinging make-up at road side diners. Then they were introduced to Simon and the story took off. As a younger man I had known that family well and always loved them for how they watched out for each other. I wanted to bring their love for one another out in the book, and Simon was the perfect character to interact with them, as he is just so chill and nonjudgemental.

Writing the book occupied a nice eight months of my life. It was writing in the sense that I had to type, but all that I was really doing was typing what I saw. The book played out like a movie in my head. It's important to note that the book was written to a loop of Elton John's "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters," with one chapter written while listening to The Beach Boys masterpiece, "God Only Knows." Listening to The Beach Boys got me into a great frame of mind when I was giving life to the blossoming relationship between Simon and Maggie. And Simon always had in his heart a gratitude for the people he was with, something that is very apparent in Elton John's song as he repeats many times, "I thank the Lord there's people out there like you."

Now I just want to sell some copies so I can buy Loraine a new cello and a new house, and since our two boys are out of college, I'm thinking it's time to buy a yacht. And to keep my mind going I'm writing another book, this time a comedy and love story inserted into an exploration of modern day societal moral codes all wrapped up into a how to guide on investing in real estate.

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Contact me here.