Creating the Brown Recluse-a novel.

I wrote auto-biographical sketches for most of my life.  Like most wanna-be writers, who are busy with business careers and rearing families, I never devoted myself to the task of writing a long work of fiction, but the idea had always appealed to me.  To compound matters, I learned late in life that I have attention deficit disorder.  This personality trait prevented me from taking on a lengthy writing project because of the required focus and research needed to complete the task.  My ususal pattern would be to get bored and move on to something new.  This time, important new facors prompted me to take up the challenge of writing a novel and spend the two and one-half years needed to bring the project to fruition.

It all began with a new friend.  Dick Rothwell is a fellow member of a defunct college social organization, The Tejas Club, disbanded in 1960 to make way for a national fraternity.  For a variety of reasons, the membership of the Tejas Club remain faithful to one another and continue to meet even today.  Even though Dick and I were from different eras, we shared a love for fine wine, single-malt scotch, and the good times that go along with their consumption.  For reasons I cannot explain, Dick informed the president of Texas A&M University-Commerce, that we were going to write a book together.  This represented the first time I had heard about the venture or ever been pressured to do such a thing, and voila, the idea had strong appeal.  In fact, the thought of not writing a novel became the driving force I needed to complete the job.

During a visit to Houston to visit with Dick and Veronica, we began exchanging thoughts.  Dick had a friend who had an Asian wife.  That appealed to both of us, so the story started with a single character who had yet to be defined or given a personality.

The next post explains the origins of the characters and the plot.