Well overdue.

On May 5th 2025 I self-published my first book, The Observer. Now, I started writing for an audience back in 2009. I submitted my first finalized article to Cracked.com the day my son was born.

That November, I joined several of my freelancer colleagues and participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). It’s an organization that “provides tools, structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds — on and off the page.” Every year, in November, they issue a challenge. Write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. You have to write an average of 1,667 words every. single. day. No weekends. No holidays. You’ll be writing right there at the Thanksgiving dinner table, because if you miss a day, it’s really hard to get back on track.

Did you get it done?

To put it succinctly, no. Working full time with a 2-3-month-old baby was not very conducive to any deep creative sessions, much less daily ones. I don’t remember how many words I got to, but it was nowhere near 50,000. However, the seed of The Observer had been planted.

How long did it take to write?

At this point the novel was nothing more than a creative outlet. I’d write part of it, then it might go months where I didn’t touch it. Then I’d have the itch and a new idea, and I’d be deep into cranking out words. Not very Stephen King of me, but everyone’s a little George R. R. Martin every now and then.

And you do hit six pages a day? You don’t ever have a day where you sit down there and it’s like constipation? And you write a sentence and you hate the sentence? And you check your email and you wonder if you ever had any talent after all? And maybe you should’ve been a plumber [laughs] — don’t you have days like that?

–George R. R. Martin to Stephen King

I got 14 chapters fully written by February 2011 when I had an epiphany. I didn’t like that the story was being told in the first-person past tense. Frank, the protagonist, is discovering a whole new existence. The twists and revelations wouldn’t be quite as impactful hearing them being described by the main character from the future. I wanted the reader to discover Frank’s reality as he did. I wanted them to see through his eyes, hear his thoughts as he’s having them, experience the highs and lows along with him. So, I undertook the process of rewriting everything I had done into the first-person present tense.

It took until June 2012 to fully update and get to chapter 19 which I didn’t know at the time, but was about halfway through the book. Then I hit my stride. By December 2012 I had completed writing the story. I shared it with some family members and friends, but didn’t really have any plans to submit it for publishing, either traditional or self.

So, it sat. Every now and again my wife would ask me when I was going to publish it, and I always brushed it off. I didn’t leave the characters though. I still wanted to see where the story continued so I started writing a sequel.

So, why now?

To hell if I know. One day I was just thinking about it and decided to research what the differences and expectations were between traditional publishing and self-publishing. I’m not looking to sell a billion copies, get a huge movie deal, and spend the rest of my days on my own private island (but it would be cool). I went through the effort of creating it, so why shouldn’t I put it out there.

I created an account on Amazon KDP and after a final editing pass and formatting updates, I submitted it for publication.

Where do we go from here?

I don’t know. It’s too early to tell how the book will do. Right now I’m getting this site set up so I actually have a home to link back to and where I can hopefully start to grow a fan base. I need to grow a social media presence. There are so many non-writing things to do now that the book is out there, and honestly, I probably should have done a bunch of this stuff before publishing.

The Demon, the sequel novel, isn’t quite ready for publishing. Plus it wouldn’t make sense to release that immediately after this one. I don’t need to put that expectation out there.

So, if you’re reading this, I hope you have or will check out The Observer. It’s available on Kindle, paperback, and hardcover.

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I’m excited to head on this journey with you.