About Me

Writing is a way of de-cluttering my mind. I'm one of those people who can't shut his brain down. Sometimes I'm happy with that, because it allows me to recall some obscure nugget of information that I need in a book. But when it's 2 a.m. and I can't stop thinking about the next chapter, I start to seriously consider driving an ice pick into my head.

When I write something, I feel as if I've taken the thoughts and done something productive with them rather than just let them bounce around my skull all day. That's how all my stories start; I see or hear something that triggers a "what if" moment - and then it plays out into a whole production. If I can keep going with it, it becomes a book idea.

Writing is a challenge with major-league ups and downs. Sometimes it scares me - especially when I need to start a new book, because I'm certain I'll never get another good idea again. Once in a while (but far too infrequently) the ideas flow with ease and I get a "writer's high" which is the greatest feeling in the world. And, when a box of copies of my book comes to my door, it's as if I've given birth to a living, breathing entity. I can't ask for much more than that.

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It sounds so formal and authoritative, being a novelist. I'm not a writer - I'm a NOVELIST! (It sounds better if you say it louder and deeper than the rest of the sentence!) Of course, all it really means is that I wrote a long story, but it's not exactly a simple or easy task to do that.

I write professionally every day as a technical writer. (Yes, I'm that guy that creates those boring manuals that you only read when you don't know how to do something, but I'm not really a bad guy!) I've been doing that for 20-plus years. But, despite all that writing, it wasn't until recently that I figured out how to become that novelist. I struggled to complete a book - any book - for years, but every book fizzled out. I didn't understand it then, but those stories died quiet, whimpering deaths mostly because I like things to be orderly and organized, and I couldn’t figure out how to generate the conflict necessary for a story.  

In 2018, I was about 20,000 words into my latest attempt, and I realized my story was bogging down and I was probably going to fail again. But then the oddest thing happened. I was looking at the scene in my head (as I always do), not sure what to write next, when the female main character turned to scowl at me and say, “I would never have said that. Why would you think I would say that?” 

I looked around, convinced I was going bonkers, but I was alone. Not sure what else to do, I asked her what she would have said.  She wasted no time in telling me and then, like I was in the audience of a play, the characters simply did the scene. I was reduced to the role of an observer writing down what was happening. 

Certain that I was having a breakdown, I nonetheless allowed things to continue, and when I finished the scene it was pretty good, at least by my standards. More importantly, it opened up all kinds of possibilities for the story and the characters. To say I was excited was an understatement. I understood that I had to create my characters but then, instead of controlling their every movement like pieces on a chess board, I had to turn them loose and let them make their own decisions. Kind of like children - you do your best to get them ready for the world, but at some point you have to let go of the reigns and let them be who they are.

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I live in upstate New York, very close to the Hudson River. If you're not familiar with the Empire State, allow me to explain that "upstate" means different things depending on where a person lives. If you reside in New York City or Long Island, "upstate" means Yonkers or perhaps the bottom of Westchester County. If you live around Poughkeepsie, you think I live somewhere north of Albany. And if you're from Saratoga or Lake George, you are certain I'm either a mile from Lake Ontario or could throw a stone over the border into Canada. To clarify, I'm in the Mid-Hudson Valley, about 60 miles north of Manhattan. 

I haven't always been from here. I spent most of my youth in southern New Jersey (go ahead with the Jersey jokes - I've heard them all). I miss living at the shore - literally less than a mile from my house to the Atlantic Ocean. Mountains can be pretty to look at, but I still miss the wide-open flat expanse of land that I grew up with.