I've done a fair bit of writing in my time. I had kept a bibliography on the web at one point, but that page needs serious updating to cover the recent things I've done. Most specifically, I haven't included the two books on Small Business Server that I wrote in 2005 and 2008 on that list. I also maintain three blogs (this one being my personal blog, my technical blog, and my MVP blog) , and contribute to my company's blog and the blog over at Third Tier.

I don't have a complete list, but I've also been writing music for nearly 25 years as well. The most notable compilation of those efforts is the album available over on iTunes (along with other digital distribution venues, but the iTunes link is the only one I have handy). One of my early blog efforts was a venue to share my musical creations and to try to get me in the habit of writing music on a regular basis (similar to what my brother has been doing of late).

I'm also in talks with my publisher about a couple of possible upcoming technical titles, even though I swore off major technical writing projects for a while after finishing the SBS 2008 Unleashed book. What can I say, I must just be a sucker for writing.

Which makes my announcement (well, more of a statement of fact, really) that I've been working on a series of mystery books for several year not really all that surprising. No, this isn't any sort of press release that I've inked a deal with anyone to release the first book in the series or anything like that. It is, in fact, an admission. Not an admission of guilt, but an admission that any other writer will understand, an admission that it's not just a passion I have for writing. It probably borders more on a sickness, but it is what it is. But the only cure I know of for this affliction is to succumb to the illness and write. In this case a blog post, but bigger things are afoot.

You see, earlier this morning, a little after 2am to be precise, I awoke from a dream with a major plot point for my mystery series firmly planted in my head. I often will drift off to sleep while running story details or character backgrounds in my mind while awaiting the sandman. Sometimes I dream about the stories, sometimes the dreams provide ideas that I can work into the stories. Tonight's dream was the latter.

I finally realized how serious I am about actually crafting these mental notions into an actual publication when I got out of bed, came upstairs, made notes about the elements of the dream that so nicely packaged up a critical point in the series (this particular item doesn't actually come to play until Book 3 in the series, but now knowing that it's coming in Book 3, I can fully develop the set of characters impacted in Books 1 and 2) and then spent the next 90 minutes freewriting about the angle that had come to mind. And saved those thoughts. To a file that is stored in multiple locations. Just in case.

You see, I've had previous "Eureka!" moments regarding these stories that I have failed to notate anywhere, and those ideas ended up leaving my little grey cells, apparently never to return again. But not this idea. No, this element wraps up so many relationships that I was honestly having trouble putting together, so I couldn't risk losing it. And in the act of digits pressing keys, my brain launched into a free association activity that gave me dozens of new elements to include in each of the 4 books that I've outlined thus far. Yes, it's not bad enough that I've got this idea for just one book - I had to go and actually not only want to do a series, but actually came up with enough reasonable scenarios to get my protagonist into that the first four books came pretty easily. Well, the overall story outlines anyway. And now that I have the arc that ties them all together, well, it's bringing me several steps closer to actually tackling this project seriously.

Although, since I've been working on this project in my head for at least six years, I guess it hasn't just been a passing fancy. While I've always enjoyed reading mysteries, I never really got the idea that I could actually write one until sometime in 2003. Back then, I was working with a group of people who had a fondness for a particular card game, and we would regularly meet at lunch and play. Sometimes we would order food for delivery so we'd have longer to play since we wouldn't have to wait for people to go get lunch before we could start playing. [And for those of you reading this who were in that group, it's been WAY too long since we've played, and we need to get the gang together again!] One afternoon, I posed the question about what would happen if someone died while we were playing (no, I don't have a morbid streak, and there wasn't anyone at the table I particularly wanted dead), which then turned into "what if someone were murdered while sitting at the game table?" The next natural progression was "and what if this all happened in outer space" and I was hooked. I started penning this missive at work (hey, I had received word that my team had been outsourced and since my position as manager wasn't needed at the outsourcing firm I was getting laid off, so my motivations may have been a little different) and while the story came out OK, I clearly needed to work on my writing skills. I fully intended to get back to that story, but my next position took all kinds of time, and then after I started my own business, well, you can imagine what happened to "spare time" after that.

But while attending my 20-year reunion with my high school class, I had an encounter with a former classmate that planted the seed for a completely different kind of story, one that fit in with another idea that had been germinating in the back of my mind for a while. What if someone got murdered at a high school reunion? (really, I'm not that morbid, and again I have no death wish for anyone I attended classes with. seriously!) And what if the suspected killer was another attendee at the reunion? Yeah, I know the formula had been done before, but this chance encounter at my reunion gave me the twist that would keep a story based on that completely different from the others that have incorporated that setting. Only that couldn't be the first book featuring those characters, they'd actually have to be introduced in a previous book, so this notion immediately became the idea behind Book 2. And if I really wanted to make it happen, I'd have to come up with an idea for Book 1.

Eventually, the storyline for Book 1 did come around, but not without lots of effort. And while I was working out details for Book 1 (I ended up purchasing a software package to help keep track of storylines and characters and notes), the inspirations for Books 3 and 4 came along as well.

Have I penned a single word that will ultimately end up in one of these books I have envisioned? Sure, and you've seen most of them here. In this post. Common words. Like "and" and "or" and "the" and "a" and "them" and "here." Have I written the hook for the first book? Yep. Multiple times. Still trying to get it exactly like I want it. Part of that will be determined when I decide if this will be told in 1st person or 3rd person, but the jury is still out on that call. I have written the cliffhangers to end Books 1 and 2, but will probably revise those multiple times before I submit any kind of manuscript. I've also got a solid working outline for the first book, although I need to do some research to nail down a few plot elements in there. The second book outline is fairly complete, but still in its infancy. The overall story arc for the third book, and the first four in truth, is now much more clear, and Book 4 has finally come more into focus as well.

So now that I've decided that I'm really going to pursue this notion of converting at least one of these stories into a novel, I'm going to have to get serious about it. Which means doing actual research. Talking with actual people about these crazy notions in my head and seeing if I'm even close to on track with some of these ideas. Carving out time to enter all of this information into my software. Getting everything in order so that the only thing left to do is actually string together words in such a way that the reader gets from Point A to Point B along the line I've laid out for them, and enjoying the journey along the way.

Can't be that hard, can it?