February 27, 2026

I spoke with my mom last night, and joked that f the tax man showed up at my door, demanding that I owed him $1M, I could easily get him to go away by saying, “could you read my book?” Or I could be chased by a psychotic killer, and all I would have to do is turn around, show him my book and ask, “could you provide me some feedback?” And I would never see him again. As a matter of fact, he would probably go running, screaming, into the streets. Maybe even turn himself in to the police, and confess to crimes he didn’t commit, not to brag, but just to assure that he could go to prison and not run the risk of me stopping by and asking, “have you read it yet?” Apparently, five of the most dreaded words in the English language.

So, why are we here? Why am I writing? To save the world, that’s why! This is the only way I know how. Let me explain —

A while back, a friend of mine pooled some money and got me a several weeks course at a script-writing class called the Writing Pad. It came at the worst time of the year, it was recruiting season, and I was overwhelmed. I had to bring a screenplay that had been started, which I didn’t have, so instead I brought a short story I had finished. I like writing short stories because they’re easy to finish, easy for other people to read, and then you move on to the next story. I took the weakest story I had - us writers are always concerned about someone stealing our stories so you don’t want to put out into the world your best stuff - right? There we sat, in a semi-circle, about 10 of us, around a real writer facing us, and some of the first words out of his mouth were — “we’re not going to write, we’re going to create an outline, because if you can’t come up with an outline that has a beginning, middle, and end, then there is no point in trying to write that story.”

This man had a special ability to go through everyone’s story and provide feedback. And some of the stories were just so bad - okay, I sound like an idiot, but we all know what this is like - a moment happens in your life, like a trip that went sideways, and we tell the story to friends over and over, and then we think, “this would make a great movie!” So we start putting it down on paper and realize that — well, real life is boring. And I think there were plenty of people in that classroom who walked away realizing that. My story was pure fiction, and it was okay - it had a twist, but he kept asking questions, and I kept changing things. And then there was that annoying classmate, the one who wanted me to add this and that, and you listen to them until you finalize realize he’s trying to turn the story into HIS story. Stay away from me, dude.

Work was overwhelming, and one week I made no progress. I came into class, and as we went over each other’s ideas, I had to pass. And wow, the class all of a sudden turned on me. Like every suggestion I made wasn’t worth anything because I didn’t move forward with my own story that week. This wasn’t going to happen again, so the next week (the last week) I pounded out my story over and over and over again, until it was done. The perfect story. It was kind, thrilling, there was love, a person who saved the world. SAVED THE WORLD! I told my story on the last day and the instructor tried to stop me, I was going a little long but I plowed through it while thinking to myself - this story has to be made. The world is a terrible place, this will make it less terrible. But, that’s a lot of work, and the world will get better by the time it’s made, and for some reason I wanted to animate it but I knew nothing about animation, so I put it off. Little did I know the world was going to get really crappy.

I should’ve tried harder to make this movie.

But I did make some progress. I figured that I had to make a name for myself, and I liked writing short stories. Hmmm, animation (drawing) and short stories — hey, that’s a children’s book! So that’s why I started writing children’s books. Believe it or not, it’s because I want to save the world. We all have children’s stories that we read and we remember them dozens of years later! If I can get a great message into children early, the children would have saved the world and — with my help. :)

That’s why I’m here, writing this series, so I can get me to that story that will save the world. Will THIS series save the world? Well, it will in a way. There is lots of tolerance, many varied personalities, compassion, and about a bunch of kids who are given a certain set of rules (the rules we all live by day-to-day) and they use those rules to figure things out. Their superpower is being smart and listening to others. Sure they’re trying to make progress with their own person needs - the need for popularity, things, need to help others out, having fun, being alone, being lazy — but there is a deeper, larger purpose, that drives them all. It’s just that for some characters it takes longer to get to that good and helpful place — but they all get there eventually, we like to hope.

BTW, I’m still waiting for feedback. But today I think, “what do they know?” This is all going to work out - why? Because I’m out to save the world. The stakes are way too high for me to give up on this. Whoever said the world was going to be an easy thing to do? Besides, the larger the obstacles I have to face during this process, the more impressive my accomplishment.

February 2026

I let my book sit (once again, I’m taking things slow - patience), and wonder what’s missing. Ah, a chapter, and maybe a details or two here or there. I finish it, and now I’m so anxious to talk to someone about it. Remember, this is a bridge book, designed for children age 6-10, it’s 120 pages long, as far as I’m concerned it’s an easy read. I’m going to take the plunge - I send it out to three people who said they would read it.

There is a fourth person who agrees to read it. So I send it to them, too. Now I wait.

This is painful. This is where you can destroy dreams. You hope the person can’t put the book down, and then start wondering - have they even picked it up? I gave directions - I have someone to edit it, they will find some spelling and syntax errors - just keep going. It’s like playing through a piece of music, if you screw up, just keep going. I want to know what they think about the whole story.

And I wait.

A week passes. There must be some excuse for them taking so long. They aren’t listening to my instructions, they’re too involved with work or family, they’re reading it one chapter per night (there are 14 chapters total). It’s only 120 pages! Is it really that bad? I have nothing else to go by besides silence. Silence not due to awe or serene happiness. Silence due to - boy, this book is bad, and I don’t know how to tell him this!

But it’s not bad, it’s good. The characters are developed, the story is sound, it moves along — during my early days of writing I wrote some bad stuff - I know what bad is - this is not bad! But I’m starting to doubt myself - why aren’t they getting back to me?

A week has passed, I send out an email. “Hey, just following up, looking for feedback, just want to talk about the story, even if you don’t like it we can still chat about it - just like two people who watched a movie and one likes it and the other doesn’t - we can still discuss it.” I use humor, and tell them I can take feedback, the company I worked for was relentless with it - and I send this follow-up email out.

One person responds - they have been busy, give them more time. That’s something! 1 down, 3 to go.

I’m fairly close to these other three. I’m related to one of them! The other I supported with free advice and review after review of their resume. Still, no response. Is it time to give up and look for a real job? Is this where my writing career ends?

The girlfriend tells me I need kids to read it. Or people I don’t know. My response, I just want to talk to someone about it. I know it needs work, but I have absolutely nobody to talk to about this story. I want to refine it some more but how can I bounce ideas off someone when all I’m getting is silence?

What does it all come down to? Patience?

January 2026

I am an impatient person. Normally, if I finish a book at 3am on a Saturday night I will upload it and cross my fingers that it does well. No marketing, no pre-reads, just crossed fingers. I’m not going to do that this time around. I pretty much finished my first story, and now I’m sitting on it - once again, I need time for things to soak into my head. Now let me refine my pictures (a lot fewer than I would normally make) so they’re good enough for that publicist (see below), and let me put in all those details into my story that will come into play as the series progresses. If I do give this first book a good amount of thought it might come back to haunt me later on. The big takeaway from the consultants - slow down.

I tap into my network - I have a friend who is a great at marketing. She’s very patient, let’s me talk her ear off during lunches, and forces me to think about things that I normally wouldn’t or don’t want to think about - the ‘fingers crossed’ method doesn’t work for her,

I speak with a friend who had a wife who used to be an editor for a newspaper. She loves reading things, taking them apart, making sure punctuation is perfect (maybe she should look over this blog :)) and everything makes sense. This is great, this was save me from ordering 50 copies of a book that has an obvious error in it, that 8 people somehow didn’t catch. Yes, 50 copies. I’m thinking maybe I’ll use them as wallpaper?

Then there is the convention friend, who sells items at Halloweenish events year-long. He says the audience ranges from the gory to the cutesy, and the monsters in my book (I think) fall into the cutesy category. He is willing to market for me while he is at these events, so I can get the word out that way. I need to get some followers so I can keep them posted on my progress, and get them to buy my book when it’s read to be released.

Youtube channel - check.

Instagram - check

Website - check

Fictitious Name - check

Goodreads membership - check

Stickers, and working on a marketing plan - check

Oh yeah, wait a second, have to finish this book!!

December 2025

I’ve written books before, but not with much success. Sure, I had friends and some family buy them, but there was never that mad rush to the bookstore (or Amazon) or purchase them. I wrote children’s books - 8 of them. The topics varied, they were about good virtues, most of the time different characters and different concerns.

Why do I need people to go to Amazon to purchase them? Well, because that’s how I publish them. Not a bad deal, I upload them, they print them only when one is ordered, and I get my share and Amazon gets the rest. For a $14.99 book I get about $4.50 for every order. Not bad for not having to worry about shipping, stock, and keeping track of orders.

But I want to do better! I had a call with a publicist - a friend made the connection. During the course of our decently long conversation the publicist told me that I should get an agent, and they would set me up with an artist, a publicist, etc. My response - “But maybe I want to draw the books myself.” To which she responded - “No, you need an artist.” Wow.

Let me tell you a little about my drawing journey - I didn’t draw. I wrote my first children’s book about 6 years ago and I gave it to my friend who is a fantastic artist (it had lots of pages of words, and a few pictures I had drawn out) and she told me, “you don’t need my help.”

For the next few years I kept drawing and drawing, watching Youtube channel videos for inspiration and direction, started with Crayola pencils, which lacked the solid colors I was looking for, went to watercolors which gave me that solid color but boy, when you make a mistake you better fix it fast, did some line art, and then finally ended up with an iPad. Procreate is what I use, and I’m probably not going back to anything else.

So here’s the thing - I have someone tell me 6 years ago that I don’t need help. 5 years later I’m told I need help. Somebody is lying. But I’m not the type to just say ‘okay’ and do something I don’t want to do - I want to draw. I want to be the person to creates the pictures, especially for a children’s book because that’s mostly what a children’s book is — illustrations! So I want to illustrate! Nobody, especially someone who was giving advice based on just a few pictures she saw on my Amazon profile page, was going to tell me that I needed help. Telling me that I can’t do something is my ultimate motivator. I’m going to get better - I’m going to figure this out.

I went to work, stopped making books and started drawing. I worked on 5 books at a time, going from picture to picture when I got tired or needed to step away and I think it was working. But it was so hard. And people are so good at this. But I kept going, until —

— I got some advice. I bartered with a consulting group at a local college - they would help me market my books, and I would help them with their resumes, cover letters, and networking to improve their chances of getting a job at a consulting firm. That’s what I have to offer - I worked as a recruiter at a consulting firm for 15 years, then a recruiting coach for 3, and I have to admit I’m fairly good at it. So let’s work together and make something wonderful happen.

The most memorable question I got from this consulting group was, “what do your stories have in common.” I came up with an answer I can’t even remember. But the next session, I got the same question. “What do your stories have in common?” Obviously the first answer didn’t do the trick, so this time I created a spreadsheet, listed my character of books published and books in the works, and what their story was about, what they learned, then examined those words — good virtues. My stories are about good virtues.

As usual, things have to sink into my head. Finally, I got it. Not, “what do your stories have in common,” but instead, “create a commonality between your characters!” Now everything made sense! And that was the moment I made the shift - from children’s books to bridge books. All the children from my books would now be together, in a classroom, I would use the stories from my previous books, and I would create a larger overarching story that would combine them all together! Series are much more successful than single books, so these stories would spread over a series of 10 to 12 books. More words, less drawing (my weakness). Let’s do this! I felt good moving forward. I had direction. This is going to be great!