The Waiting….

I can't remember the first story I wrote. It was probably in my early teens. I am sure it was about Star Trek or Batman or something like that. I remember someone finding some of these early stories in some things stored at my parents' house after they had passed.

Even then, I wanted to write a novel. I tried many times. Inspired by things I had seen or read, I wanted to take ideas and develop them into something new. I wrote a few outlines. I once wrote a chapter about an ice-fishing ship in deep space. I wrote a summary of a story about the first faster-than-light test flight, inspired by The Right Stuff and the scene from Star Trek: First Contact.

For years, I have used an exercise to help me fall asleep: telling myself a story. Usually heavily influenced by whatever I was reading at the time. My upcoming debut novel started there years ago. The idea of an AI (I don't even think I knew that term at the time) detective and a partner was inspired by both Asimov and Rex Stout. The idea went through many iterations in my head.

A few months ago, an offhand comment by my wife led me to create a story about a superhero called Spider Bee. I couldn't really make the idea work, but playing with it gave me the motivation to write this story.

Now, months later, after writing the novel in a rush of inspiration and spending night after night reading it with my wife, finding spelling, punctuation, and continuity errors, and refining the story, it is done. I submitted the final draft a few days ago, and now all there is to do is wait to see if anyone finds it compelling—that and the million details of publicizing a self-published book.

So now the countdown is on. As of this writing, it is four days. Tuesday. I, of course, want others to enjoy the story, but I took a recent comment from Taylor Swift to heart. When asked about some people not liking her new album, she pointed out that all art is subjective, that it speaks to people at certain times and circumstances in their lives, and that not all art is for everyone. Hopefully, this work will speak to a small number of people.