The Imaginary Bomb - Author's note

"The ship was rushing through space at twice the speed of imagination."

It's funny how the creative process works. Those dozen words formed themselves into a sentence, a surge of adrenaline raced through my veins, and a few weeks later I had a 24,000-page novel - well, maybe that's a novella - or maybe even a long short story - called The Imaginary Bomb.

I'm a terrible procrastinator. Once I had the idea, I needed a way to keep the juices flowing, so that I wouldn't set the thing down for 18 years and never come back to it.

So I made a pact to myself that every time I got together with my girlfriend, let's call her Samantha, I would have another chapter finished and would read it to her. Sam started looking forward to snuggling on the couch with the next stage in the adventures of Bob Whelan, Pete Wong and the mighty Baxter Hetznecker. She was a kid at heart and really enjoyed having a bedtime story, as it were - that's one of the things I loved about her (and the fact that I didn't tell her the many things I loved about her is among the reasons why she's a figment of my past - but in memory of those times, I frequently tell Sweetie what I love about her, so I guess I've learned that lesson - but I digress).

I sent the finished product out to two or three publishers, and each time it came back with a "thanks anyway" note. I meant to send it out again, but instead I set the thing down for 18 years and never came back to it.

Enter Warren Bluhm. We got to talking to each other late in 2005; we're both free-radical libertarian near-anarchists who like to write essays about liberty and freedom and were born in New Jersey, so it was perhaps inevitable that we'd get to know each other. Sometimes we think so much alike we may as well be the same person. Like me, he is an ex-radio guy, but in his case he still likes the sound of his own voice. Me, I'd rather hide away in my hermitage and write. He's been itching to get into podcasting but couldn't settle on an idea for one, and I've been itching to haul The Imaginary Bomb back out and get it to the world. I also remember how entertained Sam seemed to be as she heard the story told out loud. The various interests seemed to fit together like peas in a podcast.

We conceived this idea. I would revise the novel to clean up the clunky spots, and we'd put out a podcast with Warren reading the story. Maybe we'll take donations to fund the self-publication of the book, or maybe some publisher who's into podcast novels will say, "Whoa baby! This is the project my company has been waiting for!" or even better, some movie producer will buy up the rights and I can retire and give up this life of crime (a little Serenity reference there for you).

So I've been revising away, and Warren's been clearing his throat and reading Podcasting for Dummies, and we're just about ready to launch - aiming for around May 1. The 27 chapters of The Imaginary Bomb are kind of short, so we're thinking we'll split the story into nine three-chapter sections, but we won't know for sure until we see how long it takes him to read a chapter. We're thinking 20-minute segments, so however many chapters (up to three) he can spit out in about 20 minutes, that's what we'll do.

We're at least a couple of weeks away from having our ducks in a row. So why are we telling you this now? That's easy - if we don't, we'll just end up setting the idea aside for 18 years, and then what?!?

Cross-posted to The Imaginary Bomb and the Green Bay Free Radical