In my latest novel, The Swimmer, instead of debating others, a third party presidential candidate who campaigns on bringing our divided country together, holds public discussions between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  Here's the first one.  I note that I've changed  the name of the candidate to TOM in this post so as not to reveal too much of the plot.

    ​“Today, I announce the formation of the REASONABLE Party.  Those of you who join us could be from the left, right, or center.  All we ask is that you be reasonable in your disagreements.  I honestly believe that as Americans, deep down, most of us are decent people.  Most of us want our country to be stable and to go forward as our founders once demanded, that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And don’t discount that last one.  Aside from a few at the top, I don’t think too many people are happy these days.  It’s hard to be happy when you’re scared.  I’m scared.  But if we work to listen to others, to agree to disagree, and to show some respect to everyone, I think we can save our country. 

    “Perhaps others have said it before, but I’m prepared to do whatever is necessary to put the ‘United’ back into the United States.  Don’t be afraid to put reasonable disagreement and discussion ahead of hate and fearmongering.  Join us!”

    A week later, TOM held the first of what he called ‘Reasonable Discussions about Divisive Issues’.  While the major networks tried to bid for exclusivity, TOM made it clear that his broadcast would be for everyone and that any network that wanted to carry it could.  In fact, nearly all did.

    Dressed in a very presidential suit that left no question about the powerful athlete underneath, TOM greeted the audience and two scowling individuals.

    “Good evening all.  Welcome to the first of our Discussions about Divisive Issues.  With me are John McCallum and Steve Bourne.  As you can see from the way they’re scowling at each other, they’re not the best of friends. 

    “Tonight’s topic is Immigration.  We’ll be holding future discussions about Abortion, the Economy, Gun Violence, Election Security, the Wealth Gap, and depending on how things go, several other key topics which so far, have furthered the division in our country. 

    “My role is to act as moderator.  Well, maybe moderator isn’t the best description.  This is not a debate.  Instead, call me a mediator.  We’re going to imagine that a court has ordered these two to settle their differences with a mediator. 
​
    “As mediator, I decide who gets to talk, when they get cut off, and how we move forward.  Sometimes mediation doesn’t work, but generally each party leaves with a better understanding of the other side and sometimes they reach a compromise in a subsequent mediation session.  I’ve known a few judges in my career, and most are pretty tough.  They keep sending adversaries back to mediation until they come to agreement.  We may not have time to do that for each topic, but I wanted to see if we could move the needle toward the center from two extreme positions. 

    “Before they came I asked Steve and John to prepare a short, two-minute-or-less statement about their positions on Immigration.  So, to kick things off, I’d like Steve and John to read those statements.  After that, they’ll introduce themselves and then we’ll begin the discussion. Steve, why don’t you start?”

    “Ah.  Okay.  Here goes.  Sorry.  I’m a bit nervous.”

    “Understandable, but hey, it’s just us here and we’re going to try to be reasonable.  Nobody’s going to attack you.  Go ahead.”

    “Okay.  Immigration.  We should just shut it down.  Our country is being overrun by people who shouldn’t be here.  They take our jobs, they fill our emergency rooms and drive up the costs of healthcare for everyone.  Most of them are lazy.  Many are criminals. They live off others either through snow-flake social services, by dealing drugs to our kids, or robbing small businesses.  Their gangs kill each other and innocent hard-working people and our kids.  Those who got here illegally should be deported.  So should their kids.  They have no right to take places in our schools where our kids should go.  And this bull crap about seeking sanctuary?  No.  They should stay in their countries and solve their problems there, not bring them here.  As for legal immigration.  It needs to be severely limited.  Like New Zealand.  No one should be allowed in unless they have enough money to live on, are going to start a business with enough money, or have a guaranteed job.  Our current policies have been a disaster.  It needs to stop!”

    “Thank you Steve.  John, I can see you disagree and seem to be getting a bit heated listening to Steve.  However.  I’d ask you to just read your statement.  We’ll get to the discussion shortly.”

    John glared at both Steve and TOM.  For a moment, the audience and even TOM thought John might get up and leave.
​
    “This sucks.  No one should be able to say that bullshit.”

    “John.  You agreed to come.  You agreed to listen.  You agreed to try to be reasonable.  I’m not asking you to agree with Steve. Let’s give this discussion a shot.  Please read your statement on Immigration.”

    John paused, clearly thinking about his next move.  He had agreed.  He wasn’t a quitter.  He’d follow TOM's orders.  And while it may have sounded like encouragement, John knew that these were orders.  He’d been in the service.  He knew. 

    John took a deep breath, sighed, took another deep breath and started reading.

    “We’re all immigrants.  Immigrants built this country.  We wouldn’t have a country without immigrants.  My great-grandfather came here from Scotland over a hundred years ago because there was no work.  Some of his friends came because of religious persecution.  I don’t see much difference today.  The United States is the richest country in the world.  It’s our duty to help others.  We should open our borders to all but criminals.  The immigrants I know work harder than anyone else.  They came here often risking their lives to work hard and make a better life for their families like my great-grandfather did.  They will pay their taxes and take jobs most Americans don’t want.  They’ll get ahead.  Their kids will get educations and our country will prosper because of them as it always has.  We need to open our borders.”
​
    If looks could kill, Steve would have murdered John.

    Acting as if nothing were amiss, TOM continued. 

    “Thanks guys.  Now, please tell us all where you’re from, give us a bit of history, and then tell us what you’ve done or do for a living.  We’ll get on to our discussion topic after that. 

    “John, why don’t you start?”

    “Ah, okay.  I’m John McCallum.  I was born in Perry, Oklahoma.  My dad worked at the Charles Machine Works for over forty years.  Me, I was a wrestler in High School.  We won 3 state championships while I was there.  When I graduated, I joined the Marines and eventually made it into the Seals.  TOM, you’re a legend there.  Like you, I saw a lot of action and lost more friends than I want to think about.  I put in my twenty and retired.  I’m now following in my dad’s footsteps working at the machine works as a line manager.  I’m married and have two kids: a girl who’s twelve and a boy who’s ten. I’ve stayed involved with wrestling by coaching the kids in an after-school program.  I think that’s about it.”

    As the camera pulled back, it was obvious that Steve Bourne was surprised, and maybe a bit fascinated.
​
    “Steve, your turn.”

    “Ah.  I’m Steve Bourne.  Okay.  My great-grandfather came to this country over a hundred years ago too. He was from England where industrialization cost him and his family their jobs.  Ultimately he settled in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.  He worked in the paper mill there.  My grandfather did too.  Then my father worked in the aircraft factory.  Both are closed now.  I went to Lock Haven High which is now closed too.  I was on the wrestling team and we won two state championships. When I graduated, I joined the Army and worked my way into the Rangers.  For those of you who don’t know, the Army Rangers are a special forces group like the Seals.  Like John and TOM, I saw a lot of action.  I’m not happy about a lot of it.  But I survived.  Some of my friends didn’t.  Anyway, I didn’t put in twenty.  After my last Purple Heart, I didn’t re-up.  I went home and got a degree in accounting from Lock Haven University.  It was weird taking classes at my former high school again.  Now, I’m an accountant.  I have three kids: Amy, age 15, John, who’s 13, and Mitch who’s 11. And,  I also coach the local high school wrestling team.”

    “Thanks, Steve.

    “Before we get into the actual discussion, let me ask you something.  John, what do you think of Steve?”

    “Well, I hate his politics, but hey, respect brother!”

    “I’m going to be picky here but John, let’s try to avoid the use of the word ‘hate’.  It just gets people riled up when you say you hate them or something about them.”

    “But –”

    “Sorry to have cut you off, John, but could you rephrase to be just a bit nicer?”

    John was fuming and you could actually see him count to ten.

    “Alright.  Steve, I’m not happy with your position on Immigration, but I do respect you man.”

​    “Steve?”

    “I’ll say the same. I’m not happy with your bullshit position.”

    “Steve!”

    “Yeah.  Okay.  I’m not happy with your position on Immigration, but yeah.  I respect you too.  Seals.  Action.  Wrestling!”

    “So one last thing before we get started.  If you guys had met in a bar or at a game and didn’t know anything about the other’s politics, if politics were the last thing on your minds, do you think you could have been friends?”

    Each shook his head pensively, looked at the other, and reluctantly nodded.  

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe right side.  

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe left side.  

Stroke.  Stroke. Stroke.

Mark Hamilton was swimming nude in Monterey Bay.  He’d left his clothes above the high tide line on Natural Bridges beach, gazed at the lights of Monterey and Pacific Grove across the Bay, and started swimming.   Having surfed almost every day over the past forty plus years, this seemed like an appropriate way to end his life.    

The water was a chilly 55 degrees.  He’d worn his surfing ear plugs and triathlon swim cap to eliminate the discomfort he felt in his ears when swimming in cold water.  Although this was a suicide, he wanted it to be painless.  In fact, he was relying on what he’d discovered years before when training for his first triathlon – he loved to swim.  It wasn’t just something you did when you lost your board, it was meditative.  Your body and breathing got into a rhythm and you could just empty your mind.  You could forget the pressures of the day and the sins of your life.  

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe right side.
  
If all went as planned, he’d last an hour, maybe a bit more.  But in an hour, he’d be well out to sea.  The tide was dropping so it would help him along.  He’d probably be two miles from shore.

Mark had studied the effects of hypothermia when he’d worked as a beach lifeguard during college, and revisited them the week before.  It usually took at least twenty to thirty minutes for the first effects to set in.  Once your body temperature drops below ninety-five degrees, you start to lose coordination. In an hour or so, he’d be so exhausted that he’d lose consciousness.  Then he’d drown.  His lifeless body would sink and maybe he’d be lunch for a passing shark.  He certainly hoped he wouldn’t wash up on a local beach and frighten some poor child.  No.  He would be far enough from shore that his body would never be found.

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe left side.   

And the swimming should help speed the process.  He’d burn much more energy swimming than just floating.  Exhaustion should overcome him soon. 
​ 
Mark paused in his swim.  He looked back at lights from the homes on West Cliff Drive, then east at the Wharf, the Boardwalk, the East Side and the power plant at Moss Landing.  It looked like he’d been swimming pretty straight.  

Rising up on a passing swell, he looked south and could still make out the lights of Monterey and Pacific Grove some twenty five miles away.  Mark double checked the position of the soon to be setting moon on his right side and began swimming again.  He knew this was the right thing to do. 

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe right side.​

If, like me, you're not a boater, you probably think the Santa Cruz Harbor Patrol is only purposed with maintaining order in the harbor and helping boaters in distress in and near the harbor itself.  You may have seen Dan Coyro's picture at left of the Harbor Patrol boat towing a capsized boat after the 2011 tsunami that wreaked havoc on our small harbor.  Although I spend a huge amount of time in the ocean, I have to admit, I certainly never gave the Harbor Patrol much thought.  

But then, as I started working on my next novel, currently titled The Swimmer (you can check out the beginning in my Work in Progress section), I knew I needed to do some research on ocean rescues.  My scenario is very dramatic and I thought the chances of my swimmer being rescued were nil but I needed to describe an attempted rescue in the book.

I met briefly with one of the members of the Santa Cruz Fire Department's Marine Rescue Unit, thinking these were the people who would attempt such a rescue.  Over the years, I'd seen them doing physically demanding training exercises at night along West Cliff Drive.  

I was hoping to understand how they'd attempt a rescue of a swimmer trying to commit suicide in Monterey Bay at night, expecting lots of information about their jet skis, search patterns, rescue swimmers, etc.  And while they have all that, apparently, if we're looking at a rescue more than a couple hundred yards offshore, especially at night,  it would be the Harbor Patrol that would pursue the rescue, possibly in coordination with the Coast Guard.  I was told that the Harbor Patrol boat had all sorts of cool high tech equipment including thermal imaging, side sonar, sophisticated radar and more, and that I should contact the Harbormaster to find out how they approached ocean rescues.

I spoke with Latisha Marshall, the Harbormaster, and she gave my contact information to Blake Anderson, the assistant Harbormaster.  Blake would meet with me to explain rescue strategies and show me their rescue boat.  

I sent Blake a link to my scenario and when I arrived, he greeted me and introduced me to Latisha.  Blake was more than prepared to answer my questions.    I laid out my scenario and apologized, saying I understood that the likelihood of saving my swimmer was just about zero.  But Blake interrupted me and said he wasn't so sure.  Over the next thirty minutes he told me about some remarkable rescues.  One was led by Don Kinneman (Senior Deputy Harbormaster) and was later recounted by Santa Cruz's resident ocean science guru, Gary Griggs.  Griggs writes a not-to-be-missed biweekly column for the Santa Cruz Sentinel titled Our Ocean Backyard.  

Griggs describes ocean disasters, impacts of climate change, pollution, and much more.  You can find archives of his articles here.

In the early 70s, Griggs did a study of ocean currents in Monterey Bay.  He dropped floats containing postcards at various points along the coast and followed where they were found.  Ironically, in the summer of 1972, I found one of the floats in the rocks on the south end of Four-Mile Beach.  Grigg's current research would play a significant role the first story.

Amazing Rescues
In one of the rescues, Don Kinneman led the search for two brothers whose Hobie Cat had capsized.  Two very distressed women had entered the Harbor office just before dark.  The first was the wife of one brother and the second was the fiance of the other brother.  The brothers were supposed to have returned hours before.  Don put together a crew and  following the lead of the Coast Guard, searched southeast of the last known position (accounting for drift from the northwest winds).  But after hours of searching they were forced to return to the harbor about midnight.

Frustrated with their lack of success, Don didn't give up.  Having studied Gary Griggs' results on currents in the Monterey Bay, he pulled out charts, and plotted where the currents might have taken the brothers.  Don, and Cary Smith, another Harbor Patrol Officer, went back out and after starting a sweep search in the projected area, found one brother clinging to the side of the overturned boat 10 miles offshore.  He was hypothermic and likely near death so they raced back to shore and then returned to search for the other brother.   A mile further out, on a pitch-black night, they rescued the other brother.  If you think about the vastness of the Monterey Bay and the odds of finding a swimmer 11 miles out, this is truly miraculous - or beyond miracles, perhaps Don Kinneman is a rescue force to be reckoned with!

Gary Griggs gives us a nice footnote to the story that Blake didn't relate.  Don, and Cary were invited to the brother's wedding a few weeks later.  For his first toast, the groom raised his glass to Don and Cary without whose help, the wedding would have never happened.  

As Blake finished this story, which clearly reset my expectations about my swimmer's rescue, Laticia jumped in.  "Why don't you tell Steve about that rescue where you were awarded the Rescue Professional Hero Award?" she suggested.  

Modest Blake reluctantly agreed to tell the story.  

He was on duty one evening and heard what seemed to be static on the radio.  The operator had concluded that it was just static.  Somehow, Blake thought he heard something else.  At first it was 'mile buoy' and then 'water'.  Since no one else heard this, Blake went on instinct.  He found a crew member and they motored out to the mile buoy - just in case his hunch was right.  Not far beyond the buoy, they found an overturned Hobie Cat.  They continued their sweeping search and located the victim another quarter mile away.  Once again, this was another successful rescue in what I thought of as a near impossible situation.

The Harbor Patrol Boat

Moving back to my scenario, I asked Blake to take me through the entire process from the time a 911 call is placed.  He explained how they would be alerted and that once the Fire Department confirmed a rescue was needed, they'd contact the Coast Guard and would begin the search. Blake described the complex process of coordinating the searches (you'll find a dramatized account in my novel).  He then suggested he take me out on the boat.

Today, the Harbor Patrol Rescue Boat is a 21-year-old 28' RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) with twin 250 HP Yamaha outboards.  The 'cabin' is tricked out with  two displays which show charts, side-sonar imaging (looking at the bottom up to 40' down), thermal imaging, radar images, and much more.  They have a camera where they can record interactions with boats or rescues.  The boat has a top speed of almost 50 knots (nearly 58 mph), so it can get to distress situations remarkably fast.  The soft sides make it easier to come alongside other boats and to bring victims on board.

The Harbormaster staff includes 4 deputies who are 'offshore certified'.  As Latisha and Blake explained to me, this is a rigorous training and certification program where part of the final exam is done in the boat at night with blacked-out windows.  The candidate must show navigation and rescue skills using only instruments.  

I put on a PFD and Blake led us slowly out of the Harbor.  One screen showed the thermal imaging while the other used the side-sonar to show the bottom of the harbor entrance.  We headed toward the wharf, my eyes jumping back and forth between the thermal imaging and the windows.  A few hundred yards into our trip, I saw a kelp bed ahead of us, just offshore from the Boardwalk.  It looked like any other kelp bed.  But on the thermal image, I spotted 6 white balls moving around.  As we got closer, I could see that this was a family of sea otters - well hidden in the kelp, but visible through thermal imaging.  

On our way out to the mile buoy, we passed some swimming sea lions.  Again, I would never have seen them visually but the thermal imaging clearly saw their heads as they periodically rose above the water. 

Several hundred yards from the buoy, I could see the buoy on the thermal imaging screen.  I was a bit surprised, but Blake explained that the system spotted temperature differences and the buoy was warmer than the ocean.  Several large white objects were moving on the buoy - sea lions.  I realized just how powerful this imaging tool was.  And apparently, the Coast Guard boats and helicopters are similarly equipped.

On our way back to the harbor, Blake talked about other work he and the Harbor Patrol had undertaken.  Over the last few years, they've become instrumental in cliff rescues.  As most of us know, not only do people fall off cliffs into the ocean or get knocked off by unexpected waves, far too many beach walkers fail to pay attention to the tides.  Incoming tides have trapped many on virtually inaccessible cliff faces and in caves.  

While it's the Fire Department's cliff rescue and marine rescue teams that usually perform the actual rescues themselves, they need to locate the victims first.  With high cliffs or high wave conditions, this can be nearly impossible.  But once again, it's the Harbor Patrol and their thermal imaging to the rescue.  They can locate people and help guide the rescue teams to the victims.

Blake also talked about the Harbor Patrol's recent involvement with law enforcement.  I won't go into detail here, but they now do training for police departments, SWAT teams, and Federal agencies.  

As you can see, I was impressed.    Between 2015 and 2018, the Harbor Patrol saved over 217 lives.  I never suspected that the Harbor Patrol was so critical to the safety of our ocean-loving community.  And I wondered why.  Why didn't I know this?  How is it I could have underestimated their contribution?  I hope that this blog and my accounts to surfing buddies and friends will help get the Harbor Patrol more recognition.

The good news is that the Harbor Master recently received a Federal grant that will allow them to replace the aging Harbor Patrol Boat with a new $550,000 craft so that they can be even more effective.  

If you see the Harbor Patrol while surfing, boating, kayaking, stand-up paddling, or during other ocean activities, give them a wave.  And if there's an issue on the ballot that involves funding for the Harbormaster or Harbor Patrol, give it due consideration.  This team might one day save your life or the life of someone you love.
​

If you saw my blog titled The Impact of Jury Duty after an 8-week Criminal Trial, you know that I had planned to write a novel about the experience.  In particular, I wanted to recount the story of the trial from the jurors' perspectives and to show how they suffered through the emotional stress of the trial itself and what was for many, post trial stress disorder.  

As the trial began, I was well underway writing a novel called The Misogynist.  It's a psychological thriller that includes internet bad guys, a vigilante with a desire to take revenge on manipulative women, a woman psychiatrist who's treating a schizophrenic and another patient who suffers from Borderline Personality, and of course, an intrepid reporter who has to put it all together.  I'd written about 50 pages, which let me introduce the main characters, and I had outlined the rest, including countless twists and turns and misdirections. 

I put that on hold because the trial hit me really hard.  I just didn't have the necessary energy to continue writing after leaving jury duty for the day.  My sleep was disrupted with violent nightmares where I'd often wake up screaming, and during my free time, I couldn't get my mind off the trial.  Once the trial was over, in some ways it got worse. I won't go into why.  So, I figured the best way to purge myself of this obsession would be to write a novel about the experience.  But as I mentioned above, I wanted to take a different approach. 

There are lots of books and movies about trials.  But most, if not all, seem to focus on the victim, the accused, the attorneys, or the case itself.  This one, which I'm calling The 15th Juror, would provide a completely different point of view.

I worked with the court to get thousands of pages of the trial transcripts.  That, in itself, was more complicated than I'd imagined.  And then, as I started writing, I read all of the transcripts in detail.  Some of it was very interesting because they included discussions between the judge and the attorneys that took place out of the presence of the jury.  There's some juicy stuff there.  

This time though, I deviated from my regular writing process. 

As strange as it sounds, I don't normally have 'first drafts'.  Sure, my first pass needs editing, primarily to catch typos and unfortunate wording.  But in each book I've written thus far, I've done the upfront work to flesh out the characters and their motivations, the locations, and virtually every plot twist, along with all the devices I'm going to use (and at which points) to keep the reader involved and ready to turn the next page (as best I can).  In other words, by the time I finish my first pass, the book is pretty close to done.

This one was different.  I had rough sketches of the jurors (not full portraits), and I had the transcripts.  I wanted to stay faithful to the trial and to some degree make the reader feel the impact of the length of the trial.  But I didn't really think about my readers. 

And so, here I am after 8 months of work. The writing was difficult, and going through the transcripts was even more challenging.  I knew it was going to be a real first draft when I started writing, but now, I actually have a  first draft in front of me, and it sucks!  

It's not that the writing is terrible or that the story is bad, but the fact is, the story just doesn't grab you. 

So what am I going to do?

Well, one of the writers' groups I follow regularly posts some variation on "A first draft is like throwing sand in a sandbox from which you'll later build castles." Yeah, right!  That's little consolation when you've got 300 pages of sand to deal with. 

Other forums suggest that you walk away from your first draft for at least a month. 

Okay!  I can do that.

In the meantime, I'm back to The Misogynist.  And I've got to say, it's a lot of fun.  I love laying out subtle clues and misdirecting my reader with personality quirks and events that aren't quite what they seem.  I'm writing at a nearly frenetic pace since after 8 months slogging through The 15th Juror, writing The Misogynist is easy.   That novel was fully thought out.   

And now that I think about it, I recognize that the critical difference between the two books is that with each sentence I write now, I'm focused on the readers (and how I'm going to lead them astray).  It's fun!  Unfortunately, I didn't do that with The 15th Juror.

So as far as the first draft of The 15th Juror is concerned,  I'm just walking away.

I will regain my confidence by writing something I really love.  And with luck, in a month or so, I'll come back to The 15th Juror with a fresh perspective and will find a way to take a box full of sand, and build castles.

  It's finally over.  Or is it really?

When I received my jury notice, I  figured that this time would be like the dozens of others - I call in each day and am told to call the next.  At the end of the week, the recording thanks me for my service and says that I have fulfilled my jury duty obligation and would not be called for the next two years.  

But this time was different.  It started out the same; I called in to see if I had to report the first day and as had happened literally dozens of time before, I was told to call back the next day.  Same thing the following day.  I was sure that this was going to be a repeat.  What was the likelihood that I'd be called in the middle of the week for a DUI trial?  Almost everyone I knew who was actually called to appear was impaneled on a 3-day DUI trial.  Only a couple of people had to serve longer - a week or so on civil suits.  

On my next call, I was told to appear on Thursday.   The fact that I was supposed to show up at 2 pm near the end of the week should have been my first clue that more was going on here.

After driving around the courthouse for 30 minutes in search of parking, I finally found a spot on Water Street.  I walked into the Jury Assembly Room, dripping wet because of the raging storm, with barely 10 minutes to spare.  I filled out the basic questionnaire and took a seat among over 100 people.  A few minutes later, a friendly Sheriff's Deputy led us through security and into the courtroom where we struggled to find seats.  Judge Timothy Volkmann greeted us warmly and encouraged the stragglers (me among them) to sit in the jury box.  He jokingly assured us that sitting in the jury box at this point was nothing to be worried about.  We looked nervously at each other.

Over the course of the next twenty to thirty minutes, Judge Volkmann explained our responsibilities as jurors and how the process worked.   He also made it very clear that no one was getting out of jury duty without a very good reason.   Then he dropped the bombshell.  This was a five week trial and the defendant was charged with raping his 7 year-old daughter.  There were countless audible gasps in the courtroom.  

I'm sure this is disappointing, but I'm not going to go into the details of the case in this blog.   Instead, I want to describe some surprises in the process and how this trial impacted me and the other jurors.  First the surprises:

1) We were given a very long questionnaire to be completed outside the courtroom and returned to the bailiff before leaving the courthouse.  There were a few yes/no questions, but the majority were questions that really got into who you were and what you thought about the justice system, the police, and the idea of innocence until proven guilty.  There were lots of case-specific questions about sexual abuse, your ability to separate lies from truth, and questions about children testifying, children lying - it was all surprising.  It took me nearly two hours to complete the questionnaire.  Court and jury selection would reconvene first thing Monday morning.  

2) On Monday morning, the court requested private interviews with seven of us, me included. Based on my questionnaire responses, both the prosecutor and defense attorneys asked me numerous questions about my previous experience with people who had been sexually abused and about my ability to render a fair decision in spite of this experience.  While they seemed to find my answers satisfactory, I noticed that 3 of the seven were excused. Not long after entering the court as a group, a few dozen potential jurors were excused, some for hardship (a separate form they'd filled out).  

3) Jury selection progressed as you might expect.  They put 12 people in the jury box. The judge asked several questions, then the defense and prosecuting attorneys asked questions. Surprisingly, it wasn't adversarial at this point.  Both attorneys seemed to be looking for impartial jurors, not jurors who would favor their side.  Countless jurors were excused.  At one point, it appeared there were 11 jurors who seemed acceptable to both sides.  They needed one more juror and 4 alternates. They brought me up.  I was selected as the third of the 4 alternates - juror number 15.  Everyone else was excused and thanked for their service.

4) During the course of the trial, winter storms closed roads and caused power outages.  At times jurors couldn't get to court on time.  The judge would either excuse us for the day or delay the start until the jurors could get there.  

5) During the trial, the prosecutor and the defense attorney worked closely together.  Certainly, they had disagreements which were settled in sidebars or through objections, but overall, they spent a lot of time conferring on how to best present evidence.

6) We've all seen the movies where there is direct examination of a witness followed by cross-examination, followed by a possible redirect.  What I didn't know is that the redirect and recross become a re-redirect and re-recross and that there's no limit to the back and forth.  And the biggest surprise: JURORS GET TO ASK QUESTIONS.  

According to Judge Volkmann, in California and many other states, judges have the option to give an instruction permitting jurors to ask questions.  A juror notes the question on a piece of paper, the bailiff delivers it to the clerk who enters it into the record and hands it to the judge.  If he thinks it might have merit, he gives it to the attorneys.  They determine if it has merit and if so, decide who will ask it, sometimes getting clarification from the judge on evidence and legality before posing the question to the witness.  We had over 80 juror questions during this trial.  

7) The police, forensic examiners, and expert witnesses were excellent.  It was clear that these people knew what they were doing and had expertise that you wouldn't think possible, even after watching countless courtroom dramas.  Personally, I couldn't imagine doing their jobs.

So here I was.  After decades of receiving jury duty notices, and only having to show up once, this time I was selected for a criminal trial forecast to last 5 weeks, but which actually took almost 8 weeks.   Since I'm now retired, I thought the timing was perfect.  For years, I had managed to escape jury duty's  impact on my startups so now it was time to pay up.  For the first time in my life, I had the time and flexibility to try to contribute to this most fundamental of our democratic processes.

But, I had no idea how much it would impact my life.  

It was a complicated trial.  Witnesses lied. And they lied about things that didn't seem to matter to the case.  They contradicted each other.  They changed their stories. They recanted previous testimonies with investigators and at the preliminary hearing.  The process was long.  The crime was described in excruciating detail complete with forensic evidence, photographs, and hours and hours of victim and family interviews. The defendant interrogation was grueling.  Most of us were overwhelmed seeing a real life interrogation that went on for 10 hours or more.    And as the trial progressed, it was clear that innocence, guilty, or not guilty (can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt) was not clear.  There would be no easy decision here.  

But the worst was that none of us could talk about all we were seeing, hearing, and feeling.  As we exited the courtroom for breaks, it was clear that most everyone was deeply shaken by what we had seen and heard.  We couldn't talk to family, friends, counselors - as you might expect - but we couldn't talk to each other either.  It would have been helpful to be able to discuss the contradictions that seem to arise throughout the trial as well as the truly disturbing claims.  

I had nightmares.  I got depressed and angry - short tempered - not like me at all.  I couldn't stop thinking about the trial - about the process, the victim, the defendant, the attorneys, the conflicting evidence.  Unanswered questions haunted me and there was no one I could talk to about them.  During evenings and weekends when we had time for social events, my mind was on the case.  I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Now, after the end of the trial, other jurors tell me they experienced the same or worse.  Like mine, their spouses tried to be patient and understanding, but when you're in a relationship where you share your lives, and talk about what you do each day, going 8 weeks without being able to discuss what occupies your every waking hour and disrupts even your sleeping hours is a strain on any relationship.  

Worse, for me as an alternate juror, while I got to ask questions and participate in the whole trial just like any other juror, I was excluded from deliberations unless someone dropped out.  We did lose one juror during the trial, but the likelihood of losing another during deliberations was virtually non-existent. All the analysis, all the questions - I wouldn't be able to ask them.  I wouldn't be able to give my input in the deliberations.  And now that I know how it turned out.  I get to feel some additional guilt and lose more sleep over the fact that I think I might have helped bring about a different outcome: on the major counts, the jury was hung, 11 to 1.  

Eleven jurors thought the defendant was not guilty.  If you think about it, that's a long way to come from the initial gasps, especially after 6 weeks of intense prosecution evidence including those police reports and interviews, forensic interviews, and testimony by  police and experts.

I admit that I wasn't sure about my conclusions until I finally laid out the entire thing for Karen after the decision came in and I was released from the confidentiality instruction.  But over those hours of explaining every detail to her - my first chance to talk about all the evidence and associated contradictions - it was clear to me that there were just too many holes in the prosecution's case.  Not only was there reasonable doubt, I was convinced that the defendant was innocent - falsely accused of one of the most horrendous crimes.  

And what about that one hold-out juror?  According to the others, that juror admitted there was reasonable doubt (the requirement for a not-guilty verdict as dictated by the judge), but just wouldn't allow a not-guilty verdict.  It must be nice to not have any doubt.

What happens now?  There will likely be another trial.  The defendant, who has spent over 3 years in jail and who has had his life ruined, will likely face the whole process again.  There's a major concern about the charges on which he was found not guilty.  These provided much doubt about the main charges.  They likely won't be admissible in a future trial.  

But I'm glad it's over.  The other jurors are glad it's over.  None are happy.  All have been disturbed by this particular trial.  We all hope to find some way to move on.  

For me, I'm still not sleeping well.  I hope to be meeting with both attorneys shortly to talk about the trial.  I will be spending time with other jurors, trying to make sense of the whole thing and trying to get our lives back on track. Then maybe I'll give you the details and the countless questions.  In the meantime, I'll be working on a novel about the case, hoping the writing will release me from the mental squirrel-caging I can't seem to control.

Update:  It took quite a while, but I finally finished that novel.  I called it The 15th Juror.    You can find it on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats.  Let me know what you think.  And, If you get a chance, , please check out my other novels.
​

Writing a novel is supposed to be creative and cathartic.  It's the ultimate expression of great stories through your ideas, emotions, and deep thoughts framed with human drama and moments of humor.  But getting from that first blank page to a work of 300 or more pages is intimidating, even if you've done it before.

When I started my first novel,  The Silicon Lathe, I knew I wanted to tell a semi-autobiographical tale of my life as a young entrepreneur starting out in the Silicon Valley.  After a long career filled with my experiences  of  innovation, creativity, and altruism confronting ambition, greed, manipulation, and downright evil, I knew I had more than enough material for a novel, probably several.  Wherever there's money to be made you will find the best and the worst in people. 

And I was lucky.  Since the novel is about the history of the Silicon Valley, I could just start at the beginning of my career and finish at the end.  To bring the proper context to the reader, I took the logical approach of opening each section with the year's global events.  It was easy to put together a simple outline for the book. 

When I wanted to add sections about extreme sports and juxtapose them with the challenges, successes and failures, all I had to do was insert them in the proper places. 

My second novel, Ethics (unpublished), was a cathartic book.  I started by writing the first and last chapters, then worked from back to front to fill in an outline.   I poured my heart into the novel  and often found myself writing long emotional diatribes.  My early readers pointed out that I'd gone a little far with most of these and suggested some trimming or perhaps more accurately, some serious clear cutting.  But with the outline, this clean up was easy to do and Ethics is arguably my best work to date. 

With The Shadow of God, an outline was essential.  This was my first foray into the mystery/psychological thriller genre.  Imagery was a key part to very subtle foreshadowing as were the clues that I dropped in each section.  As the San Francisco Book Reviewer said:

"Jackowski lays out the information in such a way that everything is in place long before you discover it. This is a very smart book, perfect for both readers who like to try to solve the crime before the characters do and readers who love to reread mysteries to see all the hints early on."

The outline enabled me to decide where to put the clues and even to move them around when I made organizational revisions.   Even better, when I was well into the book and wrote something that required corresponding changes earlier on, those places in the book were easier to find using the outline - certainly easier than searching for key words or reading for situations whose locations I couldn't quite remember months later. 

Unfortunately, in my latest novel, I decided to try to write it without an outline.  It hasn't gone well.  I've written sections to introduce each of the main characters, have set up several ominous situations, have laid down hints to start leading the reader astray, but the fact is, since I'm not sure where I'm going, it's kind of hard to bring the reader along.  I find that I have too many options.  I start down a path, then backtrack or second guess myself.  It has taken me far longer to get less than 25% done than it did to write an entire outlined novel.  I'm starting over with an outline and will refine it to a couple of levels before I start continue writing this book. 

What I've learned is that outlining is not just an organizational tool.  It forces you to think through your story and to make decisions so that when you're heads down, you know where you've got to get to.  Even better, when you hit a block on a particular subject or character, you can just decide to write a different section and come back to the difficult one when you're ready.  

Unlike a building, where you need to lay the foundation before getting into the heavy construction, as a writer, if you have an outline as your plan, you have the freedom to construct the story and then to come back to lay that foundation with clues and foreshadowing.  

For me, the outline is my safety net.  I won't write without one again.

The translation of The Shadow of God is finally done - at least we're done with the first pass.  For those of you who may not have followed our progress on this effort, you might want to have a look at Translating My Novels and Another Translation Challenge: Shaggy Dog Stories.  These two posts discuss the approach that Peyo Amulet and I took and some of the initial challenges we encountered. 

Overall, it has taken about a year to get through our process.  Of course Peyo had other translation projects to work on so he wasn't on this full time.  Plus, our process allowed for a fair amount of down time.  Essentially, it went as follows:

Among the open issues we had were what to do with the Shaggy Dog Stories, final formatting of dialogue, and language.  Often Peyo would push for more formal/literary language, where I was pushing for more colloquial French, particularly with dialogue. 

For the Shaggy Dog Stories, we finally decided to translate them into French, then to add a footnote to explain the play on words in English.  I think this reads well. 

We got through the final 50 pages in October and began the somewhat arduous process of reassembling and reformatting the document.  It may seem like a minor issue, but in French, quotation marks are followed by a space.  Question marks, exclamation points, colons, and semi-colons are preceded by a space.  While MS Word inserts these for the French Language, the version of Word that Peyo used would line wrap them and sometimes we'd end up with a question mark, exclamation point, colon, etc.  alone on a line.  Or they'd split oddly across lines.  I finally figured out how to force Word to use non-breaking spaces with these characters and the document cleaned up nicely.

I forwarded the reassembled book to a French friend and she tore through it, finding countless typos and making a number of suggestions.  Peyo reviewed and incorporated these and today, I sent copies out to a well-known French author and to two friends who claim to be Monsieur and Madame Tout-le-Monde.  They wanted to be among the first to read the book. I've asked them to be brutally honest.  Specifically, I want to know:

With luck I'll have their comments back in a few weeks.  While waiting, I'm searching for someone who can redo the front and back cover to replace the English.  Then Peyo and I will make one more pass before seeking a French publisher.  We also need to create a French web page for The Shadow of God (now L'Ombre de Dieu) on this site or perhaps even create a French version of the entire site.  After all, if it goes well for L'Ombre de Dieu in France, I'll want to translate The Silicon Lathe, and Ethics (which I might actually publish there).  Clearly there's still a lot to do.

Wish us luck!

Since this chapter is several pages long, I'm just posting enough to give you a bit about this character.  Let me know if you want to see more about his psychological break and his condition and I'll start making short Word documents available.

Mark Johansen made his way slowly up the stairs past the bakery on his way to his first outpatient session with Doctor Samantha Louis since his psychotic break several weeks before.   

God, it smelled good.  Lately he’d had challenges controlling his eating and coming here certainly wasn’t going to help.  Maybe it was the medication. 

It had been a rough year since Janice left him.  He’d been depressed.  He’d started drinking.  Then it was the cocaine.  It seemed to help elevate his mood.  When using, he felt like he was almost back to his normal self, the charismatic CEO of Johatchen Software.

But as he now recognized, what he thought were brilliant new presentations were just rants.  What he believed to be his renewed enthusiasm for his work was perceived by his team as mania.  When he thought he was bringing them closer, he was driving them away.   And then Janice appeared. 

At first it seemed normal,  he’d see a woman on the street and would mistake her for Janice.  Then she showed up at work.  At least he thought she was there.  Every day he’d see her in the break room sipping coffee. But it wasn’t her and what was really scary was that it wasn’t anyone else either.  No one saw her.  He tried to pass off his questions about the woman at the table as just a joke, but unbeknownst to him at the time, his overly intelligent team saw through him. 

He did his best to ignore her appearances, but then she started following him around.  She’d show up everywhere.  He’d be sitting on the toilet and when he looked up, she’d be there looming over him, shaking her head in disgust. 

She showed up in meetings.  Just when he thought he’d gained some sense of normalcy, she’d show up and give him a dirty, disapproving look.  He’d stop in mid-sentence and would stare, hoping she’d go away.   His team recognized the gaps. 

But it really got bad when she started talking to him.  She wasn't talking to him; she was lecturing him.  And it didn't stop.  He became paranoid, looking around corners, and behind plants and large objects to make sure she wasn't there, plotting to leap out at inappropriate times.  But she did.  He'd cover his ears, but nothing he tried could drown out her criticism.  He'd stop mid-sentence and  run out of a meeting for no apparent reason. 

This is a draft section from The Misogynist.  Keep in mind that these drafts are just that and will likely change or may even be omitted in the final version.
          _____________________________

George Gray printed the two emails then walked past the other cubicles on the 11th floor of 555 Montgomery Street in San Francisco to the corner office occupied by Morris Levinberg, George’s boss at the New York Sentinel.  Morris was heads down, reading glasses hanging precariously from the end of his nose, a red marker in his hand.  
 
“No, No, No!” Morris grumbled, clearly not pleased with what he was reading.

 Morris was in his mid-fifties, with a sweaty balding pate and wiry gray hairs poking out over his ears.  While frumpy wasn’t a term that was generally applied to men, it was the first word that came to mind when George looked at Morris and his middle-aged paunch, five o’clock shadow in the middle of the day, and disheveled clothes.  It was amazing what physical appearances could hide and how easy it was for people to judge others by their bodies.  But one look at Morris’ face with its oversized beak and eagle-like eyes, and you could sense the keen intelligence that had won him a Pulitzer and made him a bestselling author.

 George let Morris finish the page he was reading, then knocked on the open door.  

Morris looked up. “George!  To what do I owe the honor of a visit from one of our most talented young reporters?”

 “God, I sure wish I was talented.  I work my butt off and most of my work still never sees the light of day.  

“But I’m not here to complain.  I have a dilemma and need your advice.  When I got in this morning, I had two somewhat strange emails in my Inbox.  I tried to track down the authors, but the email addresses and the paths the emails took seem to lead nowhere.”

“Learning some tricks from Janey?” Morris asked.

“Yeah.  My high-tech guru wife showed me how to follow email paths through multiple servers.  I’ve been getting pretty good at tracking down ‘anonymous’ emails.  But these two definitely led
nowhere.”

“Are they from the same sender?”

“I can’t tell. The sender names are just a scramble of letters. Here.  Take a look at the  first one.”

Morris took the email and began reading. 
           
______________________________
 From: sqpr93uy4nk  <sqprwo93uy4nk@sqpr93uy4nk.com>
 Date: June 29, 20XX 05:31 AM PDT
To: George Gray <GeorgeGray@nysentinel.com>
Subject: Exposing Unethical Zillionaires
 
George,
 
I read your article on Michael James, someone I greatly admired, and appreciated your even-handed, honest reporting of the situation he found himself in.  It’s tragic that we lose people like Michael while unscrupulous high tech moguls screw people and make millions or billions doing it.  
 
I’ve managed to collect some very interesting information on several of these scumbags, information which would ruin them personally if it were exposed to the public and to law
enforcement.  
 
I’m not some crackpot.  I only want to see justice done.  
 
Of course I expect you to verify any information I give you, but assuming you do determine that I’m providing factual information, I would like you to publish articles which will expose the crimes these people have committed.  Of course if you can’t verify it, I expect you to tell me to take a flying  leap.
 
I’m untraceable by email and replying to this one won’t work, so if you’re interested in the next step, tweet “sqprwo93uy4nk, I’m interested”.  
 
sqprwo93uy4nk           
______________________________

 “What do you think?  Should I pursue it?  Is this something the paper would approve?”

Morris thought carefully.  “George, I don’t see any reason not to.  See what he or she has to say.  As the email says, if it’s bullshit, all we lose is the time you take to verify the claims.  If not, we might have a great story.”

George thought back to his last ‘great story’.  He and Janey were driving up the coast on their way to a brief honeymoon in the City when they saw a gray Audi go soaring off the cliff.  The
driver was killed.  Starting work at the Sentinel the following Monday, George was asked to do a story on a  successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur.  By some weird coincidence, they were the same person.  He and Janey had watched Michael James commit suicide. His months of chasing the story had left him frustrated.  Initially thinking Michael James was a scumbag like sqprw – whatever - described, he found out he was wrong.  He searched for why someone like Michael James would kill himself.  It seemed to be about a divorce, but at the end of the day, he didn’t really understand why this gifted, apparently ethical man, had died.  
 
“Since your fan brought up Michael James, I have to ask, any progress on that novel you’re writing based on the Michael James story?” Morris asked.

 “No Morris. I keep coming back to the facts which didn’t lead to answers.  The story haunts me and though I can write about it, I can’t get past the unknowns.”

“George, take it from a fiction writer.  If you base a novel on facts, you need to give the facts some time and distance. They need to become a bit hazy.  Then, as ludicrous as it may sound, you just need to make shit up.  Remember, it’s  fiction!

“But back to the reason you came in, what about the second email?”

George handed the next email to Morris. 
           
______________________________ 
From: x63qxr8k4mu5 <  x63qxr8k4mu5@ x63qxr8k4mu5.com>
Date: June 29, 20XX 06:41  AM PDT
To: George Gray  <GeorgeGray@nysentinel.com>
Subject: A woman will die
 
George,
 
The former wife of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur will die this week.  I will tell you why after she’s
dead.
 
Don’t bother trying to trace this email.  It’s untraceable.  I will contact you.

 x63qxr8k4mu5           
______________________________

Morris looked up at George.   “This probably is from a crackpot.  But we need to hand it over to legal.  They can decide if they want to give it to the police.  If you get more like this, forward them to legal immediately and cc me.”

“But do you think they’re from the same person?”

Morris laid the two emails side by side and examined them closely.  After about a minute, he circled the From name, the email address, and the signature, then the word ‘untraceable’ in both.  

“Well, we have the word ‘untraceable’ and I see that each of the senders’ names has 13  characters.  The tones are different but I’ve seen some very disturbed people change their tones
dramatically in seconds.  And, we have two emails on the same day, just a bit over an hour apart, both sent to you.  It may be just coincidence, and as we discussed before, unlike many of my police buddies, I do believe in coincidence,  but just to be safe, forward the first one to legal too.”

George thanked Morris and left his office, more than a little worried about what he was about to get himself into.

Here's a draft Preface from the Misogynist.  It will be up to the reader (and the main characters) to figure out who wrote this...

I hate people. 

People are the reason this world is such a mess.  They’re gullible.  They believe what they’re told.  They’ll follow charismatic leaders into self-destruction and destruction of others. Give them a political or religious cause and they can justify any action no matter how immoral, no matter how many others suffer from their actions.  People lie.  They cheat at almost any opportunity.  They protect themselves at the expense of those around them.  

Tell them a lie and bury it in half-truths or truths taken out of context and you can create true-believers.  With the advent of the Internet and Social Media, people with crazy ideas have the means to convince others of their righteousness.  Say something sensational, get a following, go viral.  More and more will believe you. You can be famous.  You can have influence.  You can be
rich.  

And the rich. Don’t get me started.  I don’t mean people who are well off.  I mean the truly rich, people who have more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes.  They have walled estates around the world, cars whose cost would feed a hundred families for ten years, clothes that cost more than many people’s homes.  And what do they do with this money?  They protect it.  They get richer.  And they get richer at the expense of others.  Their money and the power that comes with it allows them to buy politicians who can convince their constituencies to vote for things that are bad for them but that will benefit their wealthy partners.  

The rich get richer and richer, the poor get poorer and poorer as they’re promised that there’s a way to have the American Dream.  And the middle class, they don’t even see it coming.  They’re
so damned complacent that they work their jobs, come home and watch television, and repeat.  They’re getting poorer too and when they lose their homes to failed economies, they join the poor as the rich get richer.  

I can’t fault the poor.  There is too much stacked against them.  The few that succeed, never look back.  Why would they want to return to desperation when they worked so hard to climb out? Those that don’t get out fall into hopelessness, petty crime, drugs, and violence that gets propagated to their next generations.

 There was a time years ago when the poor had a chance.  Stay in school, get an education, go to college, and succeed.  Those days are long gone, but the rich keep selling them this ideal and
after they give everything they’ve got and fail to succeed multiple times, despair sets in.  

Desperate people do desperate things.  They want to believe in some salvation, be it religion, drugs, revolution.  Crowds become mobs and mobs destroy without thinking. For God’s sake, if people can’t even watch a soccer game without rioting and killing fellow spectators, what hope is there?

 I went into high tech thinking I could make a difference.  I honestly believed that information would set the world free.  If even the most downtrodden had access to knowledge and experience from around the world,  they could educate themselves.  They could recognize that their situation was not normal.  They could rise up and demand change. Information seemed like the great equalizer. 

I invented technologies that made the Web real.  Other technologies made it accessible in the most remote places on earth. Together, we should have made a difference.  We patted ourselves on the back when the Berlin Wall fell.  Many thought Reagan’s arm race with the Soviets brought it down, but those of us in tech knew that without the information about the West that so many received through the Internet, it might never have happened. We enabled
communication like it had never existed before.  Radio Free Europe?  Nice idea, but it didn’t have the reach, allure, or the wealth of information we provided via the Web.  And it certainly didn’t allow anyone to connect to anyone else anywhere, any time. 
 
Yes, we thought the World-Wide-Web meant World-Wide-Change.  But commercialism trumped us.  It’s all about advertising and popularity now.  Like it, retweet, vote, give a thumbs up.  Hire a social media consultant and flood the web. Distract people with sensational products, games, or videos.  Hide the substance.  Or, if you’re one of the big oppressors out there, capitalize on this propaganda machine that Hitler never dreamed could exist.  Think what he did with propaganda.  You ain’t seen nothing yet.  

We have the rich who feel entitled to get richer,  we have the complacent middle class, and we have the poor who are lured into making choices against their own interests. We have mobs, extremists, suicide bombers, amoral leaders.  We thought information would change all that.  
 
We gave a gift to mankind and they perverted it.   If it sounds like the story from the Garden of Eden, maybe it is.  

I’m tired of seeing our technologies perverted to make the rich richer at the expense of others.
Something needs to be done.   No, I need to do something. 
_____________________________________

 I hate women.

 The ‘fairer sex’ isn’t so fair once you get to know them.  They’re jealous of each other and will stab other people in the back faster than any sleazy businessmen I’ve ever met if it helps them look better among their peers.  They use love and sex to lure men in to get what they want and then move on when they have it.  Men are such suckers.  We believe from an early age that we will find a kind, caring, loving, supportive woman, a life partner.  Advertisements promise sex. 
Movies and novels promise true love.  But women are calculating.  The Serpent chose one of his own to destroy Paradise.

Like my wife Janice.  We married young.  She was beautiful and intelligent with a goal of making a real difference in the world. After law school, she worked in legal aid, helping the poor and unprotected.  I believed in her and what she  did.  

But then I got rich.   Not just comfortable, not just well off, RICH.  

Janice changed. She quit her practice and became a socialite.  I never imagined this was possible.  She always seemed so grounded.  Suddenly, life became about being seen.  People needed to know who we were and how wealthy we were.  No, not in dollars, but in what we could afford to do or buy. She needed the biggest house with the best view, expensive clothes, homes
in exotic places.  We had to throw regular parties for the elite of the San Francisco Bay Area.  

I set up charities so that we could ‘pay-back’,  and asked her to manage them, thinking that would bring back some of the ‘make-the-world-a-better-place’ Janice, But these too became vehicles for her social climbing.

When I started giving away our fortune, she filed for divorce.  She wanted to make sure she got her half before it became too small to support her new lifestyle.  Truth be told, I was  glad to see her go.  

But I started looking around.  Other high tech founders were going through the same fate.   Sure, there were many who reveled in their new-found wealth and the social doors their wives opened.  But others, those with a conscience, those true believers, often found themselves in my place – stunned at what their wives had become.  

I think it’s even worse for the entrepreneurs who haven’t made it yet, who risked it all to be successful in bringing their visions to the world.  Their wives hung around for one or two startups, but at some point, they decided that their husbands were losers.  And for them too, it was time to move on to greener pastures, leaving in their wakes visionaries who were already suffering after their exhausting efforts led to failure, now emotionally devastated too.  

I lost two of these friends to suicide.  They could have made a difference but now they’re gone. And the wives moved on, their exes’ deaths just confirming their decisions.

Yes.   I hate women.  I’m tired of seeing women destroy the vulnerable.  Something needs to be done.   No, I need to do something.  
 
_____________________________________

I'm working on ideas for my next novel, The Misogynist, and have started describing one of the main characters, Samantha Louis, Psychiatrist.     If you read The Shadow of God, you'll recognize her and the case that this section refers to. 

A blog may not be the best place to put these excerpts.  But I'd appreciate any thoughts as blog comments for now.  I'll see if I can create a space on my website for work in progress for future excerpts.  Here's the first:

Samantha Louis looked out her second story office window above Haight Street in San Francisco and watched Liz Leahy drive away.   It was over.  They’d had their last session together. Sam knew it was coming.   Liz had made fantastic progress and now seemed to be ‘normal’.  By any standard, she was cured of her mental illness – a condition that had threatened her relationships and quite frankly the lives of others.  Liz had been dangerous.  
 
Sam should  be proud of her success.  It was rare that you could point to a seriously ill psychiatric patient who was actually cured.  Most were ‘managed’ – either through therapy, behavior modification, drugs, or a combination of the three.  Far too often it was drugs, but after her years of experience in residency and her work in inpatient facilities, Sam knew that for many, drugs were the only way to bring some sense of normalcy into their lives.  
 
This wasn’t the case with Liz Leahy.  Yes, some drugs were involved at the outset, but that was just to help manage behavior. As therapy had its desired effect, the drugs were withdrawn and now Liz had a solid relationship, a good job, and was actually happy.  In Sam’s opinion, there was zero chance that Liz would relapse or that she’d present with other issues.   Liz was actually cured.  
 
As much as she kept repeating it to herself, Sam couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss.  This was the case of a lifetime.  Her mentor, Dr. Ken Karmere hadn’t seen anything like it in his entire thirty-plus year career.  What were the chances Sam would ever see a case like this again?  
 
So here she was, thirty-seven years old, almost two years into her private practice, and not making enough money to quit her part-time job at the inpatient facility of San Francisco Community Hospital.  At least that paid well.

Med School, fellowships, a long residency, and Liz Leahy’s case had consumed her life.  Like many of her counterparts, she had few really close friends.  They were all far too focused on  getting through their training so that they could make a difference in the world as psychiatrists. 

But aside from Liz Leahy, who was now gone, her patients consisted of a few couples that she counseled, and several teens with eating disorders.  Nothing exciting and not enough to pay the bills, certainly not enough to repay her student loans.    

As for her personal life, Sam didn’t even have a pet.  She couldn’t image subjecting an animal to the absences demanded by her psychiatric training.  And while she’d had a few relationships with men in Med School, none lasted.  Maybe it was her intensity.  Maybe, like with a pet, it was her unavailability.  She was too often doing night shifts or on Call.  Or maybe it was the fact that once her psychiatric training began, she couldn’t stop analyzing her dates.  It was like the Med-Student Syndrome. Virtually all med students imagine they have every possible illness as they begin studying medicine. She went through it herself in Med School but she got over it.  And then, after she entered her psych residency,  it seemed like her dates presented with every possible psychiatric disorder.  
 
 Sam stepped into the small shared bathroom outside her office and examined herself in the mirror. She was still attractive.  There were a few strands of gray starting to show if you looked closely, but her blond hair concealed them well.  Small lines were beginning to show on her face. 
Worry lines?  No, nothing too bad.  And since she’d finished her residency two years ago, her more flexible schedule had permitted her to take yoga classes three days a week and Pilates two days a week, with a couple of jogging sessions added in.   She’d dropped most of the weight she’d put on during Med School and Residency.

 Looking at herself objectively, Sam decided that it was time to work on the personal side of her life.  It had been put off far too long.  She needed to find some group activities.  She could make friends.  Maybe she could even meet someone.  

Sam  returned to her desk to review her notes before her next patients arrived.  She couldn’t help seeing the irony that she was providing couples therapy but had never had a long term relationship herself.  That would have to change.

My third novel, The Shadow of God, is published and out for professional review.  I'll be officially announcing it once the reviews come back.   So, it's time to get going on my fourth book.  But what should I write?

Having spent most of my life as a fanatic reader, usually reading four to six books a month, I feel like I could write books in pretty much any genre, except, perhaps, fantasy - I haven't read many of those and it's not a genre that appeals to me. 

But so far, each of the novels I've written has been completely different from the others.  I really don't have a genre.

As a new author, I've looked for advice from successful authors.   Hugh Howey and others suggest finding that genre.   You need to know what shelf your book would be found on in a bookstore.  Once you know this, write several books in the genre, and readers, who tend to pick books within just a few genres, will find you.  But what genre do my books fit into?

My first book, The Silicon Lathe, is a semi-autobiographical novel about the Silicon Valley.  Anywhere there is a lot of money to be made, people will show their best and their worst.   The Silicon Lathe tells the story of young people trying to make it.  Some get rich, some fail, some are just screwed by bigger or greedier players.  Since it was my first novel, I learned a lot about keeping a story together for 400 pages, but it doesn't fit easily into a definable genre. 

I still haven't published Ethics, my second book - I can't quite figure out how to rewrite it to eliminate my personal risk in publishing it while preserving a tight storyline.   Still, I realize that some of the characters in the book came alive for me and that I'd really like to get to know them better as they get older and their careers progress. 

And as I think about The Shadow of God, I have other characters that I've really come to admire.  I'd like to see what becomes of them too. 

One of my favorite fun-to-read authors is John Lescroart.  Most of his novels take place in San Francisco and include characters from previous novels he's written.  But he changes it up.  Sometimes, Dismas Hardy (#dismashardy) is the main focus.  Other times, Abe Glitsky (#abeglisky) is the focus.  And in still others, it can be a spouse or another lesser character that comes to the fore.  Dismas Hardy, Abe Glitsky and different main characters are usually present, but as readers, we get to see the spotlight shift.  Many of his books fit into an almost-series.  However, ultimately, we get to know each character individually across several books as they take on different roles in each story. 

So, since I like this idea of changing up characters and focus, but carrying them forward in future books, what do I have to work with from what I've already written? 

I can't really come up with anything from The Silicon Lathe that I can carry forward.  But in Ethics, I really like George and Janey Gray.  George is a somewhat awkward young reporter for a national newspaper who tries to discover why a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who appeared to have it all, suddenly commits suicide.  His wife Janey is a genius software developer who often helps George with technology issues and keeps him on track as he pursues his investigations.

In The Shadow of God, I have Mike McKensey, San Francisco homicide detective, and May Reeves, homicide detective for Marin County.  Both are somewhat jaded veterans who have survived divorces and have seen the best and the worst humanity has to offer.   They start working together on a series of murders. 

I also have Samantha Louis, a psychiatrist just starting out on her career who stumbles into a once-in-a-lifetime case. 

And, as I look at these two books, I realize that both revolve around people who appear normal, but who have major psychological issues simmering just below the surface.  In Ethics, George and Janey try to find the person who drove the entrepreneur to suicide.  In The Shadow of God, Mike and May pursue a serial killer while Samantha treats a very disturbed person who may be that killer. 

So, we now have characters with psychological problems/mental illness, two police detectives, a young reporter and his genius technologist wife, and a psychiatrist who's just starting out on her career.  I think I see where this can go.  In future novels, one or more of these characters can try to identify/help/catch the people with psychological problems.  I can see the police, reporter, and psychiatrist working against each other in some situations, and working together in others. 

Could be interesting.  I'd really appreciate any ideas or comments you might have. 

By the way, if you're interested in possibly winning a free, signed and personally dedicated copy of The Shadow of God, follow the link below to the GoodReads giveaway.

As I mentioned in my last post on Mental Health, I just finished the first draft of The Shadow of God and have sent it out for review.  It's easy to think you're done writing when you've finished your first draft.  You've put several months into  getting three or four hundred pages down which you hope present a cohesive story.  Of course, there's a good chance you've put too much into it and that it's not very tight. Revisions and Rewrites are probably coming.

In The Silicon Lathe, my first novel, I threw everything into the story.  It's got lots of high risk sports, sleazy and altruistic characters, technology, how to run a company, murder, and of course, personal relationships.  I probably should have cut a lot of that out; maybe turned it into two or three books.  But after revising it several times over the course of a couple of years, I actually like the way it turned out.  It is what I wanted it to be.

So now, I'm looking at the prospect of revising The Shadow of God as well.  Hopefully it won't take me years to get that done. 

As I'm waiting for feedback from my initial reviewers, I need to fill my time with something else.  I'm not quite ready to start another book given that this one really isn't finished.  So, I picked up Ethics, my second novel, and read it again.  I finished writing it over a year ago and knew at the time that it was the best thing I've ever written and may be the best thing I'll ever write.  Back then, I also knew that if I published it, I'd likely put myself at major personal risk, so I decided to put it on the shelf and leave it.  Perhaps it could be published after my death.  After rereading it, I've decided that I'm going to try to revise it in a way that distances real-life people from my characters in hopes that I can make it publishable now.

When I finished The Silicon Lathe, I met with an attorney who specializes in defamation lawsuits.  He convinced me to change the names of companies, the descriptions of characters, and to hide certain technologies and events.  Surprisingly, that was easy to do.  I think I completed all his proposed revisions in less than a day. 

But as I look at changing Ethics, and then at revising The Shadow of God, I realize that this could be quite difficult.  While The Silicon Lathe was linear, in Ethics and The Shadow of God, I embedded clues to future events right from the beginning.     Something I wrote on page 20 might have a major impact on a person or event on page 220.  I put in countless misdirections, purposely trying to mislead the reader. 

Writing this way isn't always conscious.  You get an idea of where you want the story to go and you make sure that the foundations are in place before you go for the big surprises.  The intricacies of the story get weaved into the people, places, and events.  There are hints of what's to come in the style, in the ways people talk, and even in the ways that places and situations are described.  

So, now I need to do revisions.  I need to change characters, how they look, what they do for a living, and how they express themselves.  I need to change places and events,  eliminating some altogether.  I need to tamper with the foundations of my stories, somehow keeping the hints intact.  Fine threads need to survive major surgeries. 

I'm confident I can be successful with this process for The Shadow of God. The characters in the original story don't have a lot of real-life counterparts.  My changes there will be to improve flow, readability, eliminate distractions, and tighten up the story.   But I'm still worried about Ethics.  I knew the characters the story is based on. This familiarity is built into how they act, react, and talk.  I am afraid that altering their fundamental characteristics will jeopardize the foundation I've crafted and that what I think of as my very best work will be diminished.  But I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to burn bridges back to the original people and make it a different book.  If I do it well, these people won't recognize themselves, but I can preserve their essences.  The story will remain the same. 

I've backed up the original, so if the revisions don't work out, Ethics can always be published after I'm gone.  In the meantime, stay tuned for progress on The Shadow of God.  I received final cover art from Lanny Markasky today.  Hopefully, publication is only weeks away (after revisions and some professional reviews - these usually take 3-5 weeks by themselves).

Wish me luck!

I love rainy days.  Even more than just watching the rain, listening to the drops slap the windows, or hearing the wind whistling by, I love to write on rainy days.  Somehow being inside, protected from the elements, I can focus better on what's in front of me.  I can retreat from the storm deeper into my stories.  Writing is an introspective pursuit.  Rainy days encourage introspection while sunny ones often lead to procrastination.

Unfortunately, since January 2013, we've had very few rainy days here in Santa Cruz and I must admit, my writing has suffered.  It's too easy to go out for a second three-hour surf session, go play another round of disc golf, or just head out on a bike ride.  

With the return of the rains a few weeks ago, my productivity returned.  I was once again intrigued with my latest novel and at a point where I found it hard not to write.  I seemed to be able to crank out a page or two whenever I had a few minutes available at my laptop.   My characters were screaming to express themselves, even if only for a few lines at a time.

Then, two weeks ago Karen and I went to Costa Rica for my stepson's destination wedding.  While most people would be ecstatic at the prospect of warm weather, endless beaches and fine surf, I was expecting the worst.  I hate being warm.  Costa Rica is warm.  I hate being tied up with family obligations that prevent me from doing what I want or need to do.  Costa Rica looked like a disaster in the making for the novel that was back on track.  I wanted to stay in Santa Cruz, experiencing the sorely missed rain and reveling in the recovered pace of my writing.  But I had to go.

Surprise, surprise.  The experience in Costa Rica was not the disaster I anticipated.  I never imagined that I could be productive sitting on a covered patio next to a jungle waterfall, a light breeze carrying the scent of exotic flowers.  But the sound of the cascading water once again allowed me to escape into my story. 

Of course, family members, seeing me hammering away in this serene setting, just couldn't help themselves and had to interrupt to ask what I was writing or to talk about the beauty of the place.  But I admit that even with the interruptions, it was almost better than being at home.

After a spectacular wedding, certainly the most beautiful I'd been to, we left the Waterfall Villas and moved to a beach resort.  Our beach bungalow was separated from the sand by a strip of lawn with palm and coconut trees providing all-day shade.  At precisely eight thirty each morning, onshore winds would begin to blow from the ocean.  I'd exit the surf, grab a quick breakfast, and find a spot in the shade.  Once again, the tranquility of the lush green grass, wind rustling the palm fronds, and the ocean in the background provided an ideal environment to write.  Of course there were interruptions, required trips to nearby towns to explore and shop, but I still managed to eke out productive time.

We returned to several days of rain in Santa Cruz and I've been immersed in The Shadow of God.  I recently sent out most of the first draft for review and I'm in the final stretch.  I have the last chapter to write before the serious editing and rewrites begin.  

Oddly, I find myself wondering how both tropical breezes and cold Santa Cruz rainstorms inspire me to write. They seem so different.  And maybe that's it. 

With only a hundred non-sunny days in Santa Cruz each normal rain-year (and we haven't had one of those in a while), rainy days are exceptional.  They challenge the routines I've developed on the sunny ones - routines that make it easy to procrastinate.  Similarly, the change of scene in Costa Rica challenged my routines.  There were a lot of expectations on my time and those rare moments of solitude, whether next to the waterfall or in the shade of the swaying palms, made me urgently want to take advantage of that special time to lose myself in my writing.   

The forecasts are calling for more rain over the next week followed by a dry spell of at least a week.  If I don't finish The Shadow of God by then, I think I'll find a change of scene to keep my writing on track.

I'm pleased to announce that Tony Deblauwe has posted an interview with me on his amazing HR site, WorkBabble.com. I met Tony at Citrix after they acquired my last company.  For an HR-type (you know we engineers and entrepreneurs have doubts about HR), Tony was surprisingly down-to-earth and espoused very practical ideas about management.  Many of these are described in his book Tangling with Tyrants, advice on how to deal with unmanageable bosses.  I highly recommend it.

Welcome!  

I've always loved to write but work came first and my writing was put on hold in favor of my career.  With the successful acquisition of my last start up, I'm in a position to take time to see if writing can replace the thrill of bringing new technologies to the world.  At the very least, I suspect this lifestyle will be much less stressful than that of a technologist and Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

People often ask me how I could possibly write a novel.  To most it seems like a daunting task.  They also tell me that they, too, would love to write but they don't know where to begin.  I usually respond by suggesting they write their own life story.  Once that is done, I propose that they look at various places in their lives (which I think of as inflection points) and ask themselves what would have happened if...  They can base a story in fact, but change an event and see how their lives or the lives of others would have changed if something different had happened.

Most of my books are based in fact.  In looking back at my relatively long life, I can see countless places where a minor change would have given me a completely different future.  My stories come from jumping off at these inflection points and imagining alternative outcomes.  Sometimes I image events far removed from any likely reality, so please don't assume that details in the story are necessarily true.  

The Silicon Lathe is my first attempt at holding a story together for a few hundred pages.  Let me know what you think about it. 


Steve