> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.tuskmor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Author's Commentary: Detox Mansion - URL: https://www.tuskmor.com/authors-commentary-detox-mansion/ - Published: 2026-08-06T21:00:15.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-14T16:13:37.000Z - Author: D.J Tuskmor - Tags: Author's Commentary If you have followed me on socials, you know that I won't shut up about this anthology called Bad Intentions: A Crime Fiction Anthology Based on the Music of Warren Zevon. The reason I won't shut up about it is because it is a crime fiction anthology inspired by the music of Warren Zevon. It's right in the gosh darn title! I love Warren Zevon, and I love the song "Detox Mansion", so it is only natural, then, that I wrote a story by the same name to submit to the call for the anthology. What you probably don't know, because why would you, was how that story came about or how it is so deeply personal to me. I'll admit here and now that I *knew* in my soul that this story would be published the second I was done writing it. I don't say that to be cocky, I just poured so much of myself into it when I was writing it, and I knew the action and violence were raw and real, I mean...look, I skeeted about it! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c1/72/c1725460-f0e8-4c0d-bd08-a1f61196da07/content/images/2026/08/image-1.png) Anyway, before we dig into the decisions I made, and how the story changed in editing, you should go buy a copy of the anthology and read the story: [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/p/books/bad-intentions-a-crime-fiction-anthology-based-on-the-music-of-warren-zevon-michael-downing/583a2217246e891a?ean=9798905531361&bkshp-astro=t&ref=tuskmor.com), [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6KRQ1P1?lv=shuf&bestFormat=true&channelId=704&ref%5F=cm%5Fsw%5Fr%5Fffobk%5Fcp%5Fud%5Fdp%5F1WA87JSH7QNZ44RBFYPQ%5F4&plpRedirect=mhFallback&ref=tuskmor.com), [B&N](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bad-intentions-michael-downing/1150492024?ean=9798905531361&ref=tuskmor.com). --- # Pieces of Me Every writer is trying to say something when they write, even if that something is, "Here, be entertained!" But writers also intentionally, or unintentionally, put pieces of themselves into everything they write. It’s impossible not to. Our imaginations run on lived experiences, anecdotes, things we’ve learned, and the research we do. "Detox Mansion" has an antagonist who is highly competent in the art of violence. He is also an unreliable emotional fucking mess who drowns out the memories of the brutal things he has done with alcohol. It was important to me that both of those things hit the page in a believable way. And so, we come to the pieces of my own life littered throughout this story. I’ll start with the fun stuff. I wasn’t allowed to do martial arts growing up. Well, I was until I wasn’t. The day I snap-kicked my older sister was the day my parents unenrolled me from karate. I read somewhere that the things we aren’t allowed to do as children become the hobbies we run to as adults. At twenty-six, I decided to take up BJJ. The nearest gym was an MMA gym with an instructor who had a good lineage. Having access to so many programs through my membership, which my work reimbursed me for, meant I regularly dabbled in no-gi BJJ, catch wrestling, and striking. I liked striking enough to join a second gym that offered Muay Thai. I spent almost every night of the week doing some kind of martial art or combat sport for the better part of two and a half years. Then life happened. I did some solo training at home, found another gym when we moved, bounced around a bit, and eventually decided I was too old to keep putting that kind of wear and tear on my body. All told, I spent close to four years of my life grappling and another three or so practicing Muay Thai. There’s a picture somewhere of me with Liam Harrison, a world champion in Muay Thai, from when I got to train with him. Other guys I trained with have fought in the UFC, won world championships in BJJ, and done all kinds of cool stuff. That’s not a flex. I just want to be very clear that my time training was a hobby, not a vocation. A taboo subject in my house growing up was guns. My parents are true-blue Massachusetts Democrats. "You don’t need a machine gun to hunt a deer," was said more than once. But I am a man, and I like things that go fast and make big booms, so I eventually found myself getting licensed to own firearms. My mother actually took the required safety class with my brother and me, which was cool. My uncle did a lot to show me the ropes with firearms, and hanging out with him turned into going to the shooting range, hunting, and competing in shooting sports. Turns out making things go boom in a competitive environment, where speed was the goal, was something I was really into. I share this history to tell you that I am no badass, but when the protagonist in "Detox Mansion" is riding the trigger of a rifle or transitioning through sweeps on the ground while scrambling to survive, those are things I have experienced in a sporting context. If you want to read that kind of visceral shooting and fighting from someone who has experienced the life-or-death version, I suggest a Jack Carr novel. All I wanted for the action in "Detox Mansion" was for it to feel authentic, and that is a point of praise the story keeps receiving. That authenticity does not exist without my time practicing martial arts and competing in shooting sports. Now for the less fun topic. How do you write an alcoholic who is experiencing forced detox and struggling with his own mental health? I am going to tread carefully here, but I will say it comes from lived experience as well. Alcoholism runs in my blood. I have seen its ruin. I have had friends struggle with it. I have personally found myself in a murky relationship with alcohol, and I have had candid, open conversations with people who have been through detox programs. Many of the details in "Detox Mansion" surrounding the process of detox came directly from people who have seen or experienced it themselves. As for the mental health struggles, I don’t know that I have ever said this publicly before, but I received my acceptance notification from Literary Garage for "Detox Mansion" while sitting in a psychiatric hospital after being involuntarily committed. I, like many creatives, am an incredibly empathetic person. Unfortunately, I allowed my mental health to erode over time until one day I found myself in crisis. In some ways, writing "Detox Mansion" was me trying to deal with my own struggles and traumas without being conscious of it. Okay, sorry to be a downer here at the end, but now we can get back to the fun stuff. Let’s talk about how this story changed in editing and the deliberate decisions I made to bring an unreliable but competent main character to life. --- # The Cutting Room Floor Editing has always been the hardest part of writing for me. I have gotten better at it over time, and my HWA mentorship helped tremendously, as did a few books about short stories. I’m putting a whole section on this site for my thoughts on craft, so I’ll bore you with those details later. For “Detox Mansion,” I tried something new in my editing that has since become my standard mode of operation: I opened the first draft next to a blank document and rewrote the whole thing as I reread it. It was incredibly effective. Immediately, the fat in the story became apparent. In draft one of “Detox Mansion,” we open on the protagonist leaving the scene of his latest job. He thinks about how awful it was to kill not just a man, but his family. The safe house is in Rhode Island, and he has to get back from NYC without raising suspicion, even though he just committed a high-profile assassination. The mansion is a salvation he isn’t sure he wants to grab onto. Interesting backstory, right? You can actually read about the earlier days of my MC, from a time when he would at least think before pulling the trigger, on [X/Twitter](https://x.com/MythicPicnic/status/2067623643623125494?s=20&ref=tuskmor.com) (this is not an endorsement of that place, I am not there, but the Mythic Picnic is). But in the end, I highlighted all the text related to the backstory I felt was slowing the story down and hit delete. The original draft was also in third person. I found it difficult to really show someone who is both unreliable and competent with that POV. It was also difficult to capture the humor that underpins so much of Warren Zevon’s music, something I knew the story needed if it was going to find its identity. So, the major changes in the second draft were that I cut a bunch of backstory that caused the story to move at a glacial pace and changed the POV. Pretty major stuff, but the biggest reshuffling came in draft three, which I also rewrote in a blank document. The original draft followed the protagonist chronologically, from his arrival at the mansion through the gunfight at the end. It wasn’t bad, but it also asked the reader to trust that I was building toward something. Baby, we are in the entertainment business. I needed to find a way to go all gas, no brakes. I did this by starting with the gunfight and having the MC ruminate on the past while trying to solve the kinetic puzzle he was in. This puts the reader in the shit from the get-go without losing any of the heart of what I was trying to say. As for that opening line, the one that goes, “The M1 carbine would not have been my first choice...,” that got added right before I hit submit. I watched a video review of a modernized, suppressed M1 carbine, and it was immediately clear to me that it needed to be part of the story. It was exactly the kind of detail I felt could tell you who this guy was. By now, you have probably clocked that I keep referring to the main character in “Detox Mansion” as the MC, protagonist, or narrator. The only name I have ever attached to this character is Ulf, which is a play on his codename, Wolf. Giving the MC no name was the first and most deliberate choice I made. Why? Because I think the mythology of hired assassins laying low in safe houses disguised as detox centers doesn’t quite work if you know too much. I didn't set out to build a John Wick style universe. --- # Coda The editing, of course, is never done. My wonderful wife, Meaghan, gave the piece one last pass and helped me find some minor issues. Michael Downing, the editor of the anthology and a great writer in his own right, suggested some pacing improvements that led me to trim about 10% of the total word count. I do think I put the best version of “Detox Mansion” into the world that I was capable of writing at the time. If you want to read more about “Detox Mansion,” Michael did an awesome "Side B" newsletter about it [HERE](https://michaeldowning3.substack.com/p/side-b-ffd?r=9n9b8&triedRedirect=true). I also did an interview with Literary Garage that can be found [HERE](https://literarygarage.substack.com/p/behind-the-story-6fd?r=5sseam&triedRedirect=true). Hopefully this kind of insight and commentary is interesting. I think I'll come back next time with an earlier flash piece I published. It's interesting how you can delete thousands of words to end up with a story that only contains hundreds. As always, thank you for trusting me with your time, and thank you for reading my words.