I’m always surprised when I find someone who not the joys of the great “what if.” To speculate, to me, is the greatest joy.

It’s like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with the image side down…in the dark…with gloves on.

In my newsletter, one poll suggested readers want to have this write-along-with-me inside scoop, so I’m sharing a bit of it in this blog.

Storytelling is not only one of the most endearing pastimes, it also carries the lore of a people. Storytelling pulls people together and fuels the imagination. I believe that so long as we have voice, we’ll be telling and singing stories around the campfire.

I think of an encounter with a book something like a relationship.

Now AI is stepping into art, and thus, more than ever, stepping on some toes.

Judgement…that’s what probably drives and crucifies my main character (okay, and sometimes me) more than anything. In the book, he’s battling himself, as we all are, but more, he’s battling what he worries his daughter will think of him.

I’m vicariously experiencing break ups, break downs, victories and defeats. I’ve laughed and I’ve cried, but the emotion I’ve been stung by the most in this experiment has been: betrayal.

My world build is a dystopian, near-future world in which corporations have come from behind the skirts of government to rear their ugly heads in the honest, open market.

I’m going to figure this thing out that carries my conscience around in it.

I argue that the broken need mended. The obsolete need revisited and resurrected. The Misfit Toys, after all, do rally and save the day!

The charge is ours, every man jack a repairman.

How, then, do I measure success?

However, word-whistling gets all mired in meaning. As soon as I fumbumble some something and stack phonemes into morphemes, someone will accuse me of making a mistake.

Thunderheads, and the tremendous power and glory that rolled in with them, gave me a glimpse of God. At the time I thought my god was Thor, but anyway…

What surrounds me when I sit down to write?

I am in good company with Yogi Berra and George W. Bush.

Getting to the writing sometimes requires research, even of memes and things.

Here’s my story incubator…

Whenever little ones join the farm, it seems we all put aside the chaos for a moment to just enjoy new life. We bicker less and smile more.