We interrupt this program ...

There are two things you can do when you see a train wreck about to happen. In real life, you just kind of watch in fascination and wish there was something you could do to stop it, knowing you're helpless.

But when you're an author and the train wreck is going to happen to your beloved characters, you can turn into Superman, throw yourself in front of the train and stop the durn-fangled wreck from happening.

Here's what happened: Warren Bluhm and I promised Chapter 1 of The Imaginary Lover, the second story of The Imaginary Age, would appear in a podcast Sept. 1. We did it. No sweat, really. I was cheerfully rolling along writing subsequent episodes when I spotted the oncoming train.

This is a very nifty story about the three unlikely heroes of the I-Bomb and how they help their friend Snooky when her bar becomes the acquisition target of some unsavory characters. But just as I reached the place where I hit writer's block when I first started writing The Imaginary Lover 15 years or so ago, I realized why I hit that roadblock: There's a better story that could be told starting with the same premise.

Options: 1. Tell Warren to keep on telling the story as I first wrote it, and switch gears at an appropriate spot in the action. Or
2. Put the podcast on hiatus and start revising the story from scratch.

As you know, at first we picked Option 1, and the plan was that I was going to keep writing on the fly. It actually sounded like fun, trying to finish the novel while the early chapters were being released a day at a time. The reason this quickly started looking like an oncoming train wreck is that as I fleshed out the new scenarios, I saw ways that I should be setting the stage way back in those early chapters. Warren thought we could get around that by simply explaining that the podcast will be kind of a "first draft," but on second thought I think you, the reader/listener, deserve the polished draft, not a half-baked early stab at it.

So, quicker than some maniac Fox executive, we're canceling the show, pulling the plug, so that I can have the luxury of working this little tale out the way it deserves to be worked out. I owe no less to my good friends Bob, Pete, Baxter, Snooky and Eddie.

Wait a frickin' minute, you ask - who's Eddie?

Hee hee hee. I'll let you know in a few weeks. Or maybe a little longer.

Never fear - this is not the Inner Critic that Sunni M. wrote so eloquently about a few days ago, slamming the door on the Imaginary adventures I've finally worked up the courage to share with the world. No, this is the creative beast I unleashed with the I-Bomb saying, "Whoa! Do I have a better idea for you!" and careening into the future on the heels of that nifty Hugh Macleod article that Sunni found after jomama found it.

It's still going to be an interesting autumn. Stay tuned.