A few months ago on this blog, I mentioned that my friend and fellow author of dangerous tales—RD Ronald—was creating a website for folks who like to read (and write) fresh, edgy fiction. Well, the wait is over … the site is now ready for primetime!

Introducing TransgressiveFiction.info.

Go ahead, click the link. It’s totally safe—assuming you like books that aren’t.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with transgressive fiction, you’re probably more familiar than you think. I’m betting you’ve read or heard of many transgressive novels, or at least know of the movies based on the masterpieces. Does Fight Club ring a bell? How about Trainspotting? Or American Psycho? Or The Exit Man? (Okay, so maybe you haven’t heard of that last one, but you can’t blame a guy for trying to stand on the shoulders of giants.) 

For those of you who like your literary terms more clearly defined, I’ve got you covered … well, Wikipedia does anyway:

Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that features characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society, and who break free of those confines in unusual or illicit ways. Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressive fiction may seem mentally ill, anti-social or nihilistic.

Yeah baby! Who doesn’t love rebellious and unstable sociopaths.

Despite its key themes and characteristics being so appealing to mass audiences, transgressive fiction is considered a fringe genre—if considered a genre at all. TransgressiveFiction.info is out to change that. There are too many formulaic thrillers and mysteries lingering on bestseller lists these days. TF.info aims to shine the spotlight on the most original and daring books out there—by authors living and dead (though rarely both). Some of the featured authors are famous, others soon-to-be so.

So click the link and have a look around the site. I think you’re going to like it—especially if you dig stories that challenge, unnerve and surprise as much as they entertain, awaken and inspire. Stories with characters you wouldn’t be caught dead with but can’t stop rooting for. Stories that, well, transgress.

On behalf of RD Ronald and all the authors featured on TransgressiveFiction.info, thank you for helping to spread the word about the site. (Yeah, I know you haven’t said you’d help, but I’m feeling presumptuous today.) If there's a book/author you feel deserves a spot on the site, you can send RD a message via the TF.info Contact page. Or just leave a comment here on my blog and I'll make sure RD sees it. Oh, and be sure to follow TransgressiveFiction.info on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks again, and happy dangerous reading!

Thanksgiving is a time for those of us in the U.S. to get together with family and express our gratitude for all that is good in our lives and the world—and a time to sneak off and work on your manuscript while everyone in the house is too drunk and/or full and/or busy arguing about politics to notice. Needless to say, it’s my favorite holiday.

While I'm looking forward to tiptoeing away from the turkey carcass next Thursday to write, right now I'd like to thank all the people who’ve kept me wanting to write. This is not to imply that I’ve been thinking of giving up writing. That would be like me giving up oxygen. However, I must acknowledge that bringing enthusiasm, passion and originality to the page every day—in a profession where commercial success is elusive and effort often goes unrewarded—can be challenging.

The support and encouragement I’ve been lucky enough to receive from so many wonderful readers over the years inspires me to continue giving everything I’ve got every time I sit down to write. That's why I'm sending out a huge THANK YOU to everyone of you who’ve done even just one of the following:    

• Subscribed to my mailing list.
• Remained subscribed to my mailing list even after I used it to promote one of my novels.
• Purchased one of my novels.
• Purchased one of my novels and actually read it.

• Borrowed one of my novels from a friend or library.

• Lent one of my novels to a friend or donated it to a library.

• Told a friend they could no longer be your friend if they didn’t read one of my novels.

• Told your library it could no longer be your library if it didn’t carry one of my novels.

• Threatened to release thousands of cockroaches and/or wasps inside a bookstore if it didn’t stock one of my novels.

• Took the time to review one of my novels on Amazon and/or Goodreads.
• Sent me a message via email or social media to let me know you enjoyed one of my novels.

• Sent me a bottle of vodka or bourbon to let me know you enjoyed one of my novels.

• Chose one of my novels for your book club.

• Asked Oprah to choose one of my novels for her book club.

• Named one of your pets or children after a one of my characters.

• Legally changed your name to that of one of my characters.

• Broke up with/divorced your significant other because they refused to read one of my novels.

• Hired a babysitter so you could finally finish one of my novels.

• Confessed to a crime I committed, thus enabling me to continue writing novels without supervision.

• Served as a member of my “launch team”—a group of awesome individuals that reads advanced copies of my novels before they’re officially published, then helps to build some early buzz via word-of-mouth, reviews, tweets, public graffiti, and, of course, testimonials on stadium Jumbotrons.   

As much fun as I’m having with these bullet points, I’m going to take a break from them now to give ULTRA-SPECIAL THANKS to a couple of readers I’ve been meaning to give such thanks to for a while now:

Angie McMann. Every once in a while a reader who’s not your mother comes along and tells you they think you’re going to be the next big thing in fiction. Then you find out the reader was off their meds, and you go back to feeling insignificant. (And call your mother.) So when Angie McMann—an avid bookworm and an author herself—bought seven copies of my novel The Exit Man for friends in 2015 and asked if I’d autograph them before I got too famous to contact, I assumed she had escaped from an institution. Turns out she was just appreciative and generous.

Not only has Angie bought multiple autographed copies of each novel I’ve published since, she continues to spread the word about my writing to fans of dangerous fiction, and often sends me praise and witty words of encouragement by way of email, Facebook, Twitter and my blog. And as if all that weren’t enough, she eagerly volunteered to proofread the final version of my last two manuscripts before they were published—and ended up catching numerous typos missed by my professional proofreader, who hopefully isn’t reading this.

I’m still not famous like Angie predicted, but she insists I’ll be a household name soon. I just hope it’s for writing and not for some horrible crime I end up committing out of artistic frustration. But even if I do remain just a midlist author, it certainly won’t be due to any lack of effort on Angie’s part. She truly is a writer’s dream—no, not the dream where your keyboard turns into a blowfish that convinces you in Japanese to exhume the body of James Joyce. The other dream.    

Debbie Lavender. Debbie is the meanest reader I love. And the reason I love her is her meanness is really just honesty that’s brutal enough to make me a better writer (but still not as good a writer as I could be—just ask Debbie).

I lived next door to Debbie the two years I lived in New Orleans, over a decade ago. Every night, Debbie (a brilliant lawyer and literature junkie) would sit on the porch—of a home once owned by author Richard Ford—with a glass or bottle of wine in one hand and a giant novel in the other. Whenever she’d see me getting out of my car or catch me stumbling home from one of my seventeen favorite bars in our neighborhood, she’d call me over to offer me a drink and tell me why whatever literary masterpiece she was reading at the time was garbage. So, naturally, I asked if she’d read the manuscript of my debut novel.

I still have scars on my psyche from the editorial feedback she provided following that reading. Gruff notes about plot holes and pacing and narrative structure. I didn’t end up making many of the changes she suggested. That’s why most of you have never heard of my debut novel, and why it’s now out of print.  

I moved to Austin following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but I continue to send Debbie the final manuscript of every novel I write, asking her for feedback on it prior to its publication. It’s not that I’m a glutton for punishment, it’s that I really want to see if I can dazzle the crankiest, bluntest and brightest reader I know. And I know that deep down, beneath all the angry question marks and explanations points and expletives Debbie scribbles in red ink all over my manuscripts, she’s rooting for me to dazzle her. Hopefully I’ll succeed in doing so before she murders me for failing to.  

Several others. I know above I said “a couple,” but I’d be an idiot if I didn’t give special thanks to just a few more people who’ve gone above and beyond for me as readers, keeping me inspired to grind out decent and dangerous fiction most days. These folks include:

• J.R. Hardenburgh. A slightly kinder and gentler version of Deb Lavender (see above), J.R. reads all my stuff and, while a proponent of my books and writing, he doesn’t pull punches whenever he feels I could have done a better job with a plot point or a final scene or a blog post title. And he’s usually right.   

• Amy Shipper. Amy, with whom I worked briefly at a publishing firm in NYC in the early 1990s, not only read the weird satirical shorts I used to write back then, she made the mistake of telling me I had actual writing talent. So you can blame her for my books, which she always buys—and then forces everyone in her inner and outer circles to do the same. She’s perhaps the nicest person I’ve ever met; still, you’d better do as she says or she’ll cut you.

• Yael Schonfeld. Few things are better than being one of just a dozen writers selected by your favorite author (Chuck Palahniuk) to participate in his inaugural ten-week writing workshop. And one of those better things is having a fellow participant as selfless, kind and encouraging as Yael Schonfeld around to help you survive said workshop. I’m not saying getting your work-in-progress critiqued by the iconic author of Fight Club is daunting, I’m just saying it can make you question why you ever became a writer and whether you even deserve to live. Week in and week out, Yael not only picked herself off the mat after having her wonderful work punched in the face by Chuck and the gang, she helped everyone else to their feet so they, too, could avoid a career-ending knockout during the fight of their lives.

• Miranda Burnet. I’ve already thanked (and apologized to) my wife via this blog a couple of times in recent months, but the thing is, I could do so a thousand times and it still wouldn’t be enough to express what Miranda has done for me and my writing career. She’s not only the reason I have had time to write and publish three semi-successful novels over the course of three years, she’s the reason I believed I could. And continues to be. Sometimes, after a couple of bad writing sessions or when my books aren’t flying off Amazon’s virtual shelves, I’ll stomp around and declare it’s just not worth it for me to continue grinding out 250-page stories, that I don’t care any more, that I give up. But rather than pity me, Miranda will ignore me. She does so because she knows my angry declarations are ludicrous—and because she knows I know that. So she’ll wait for me to finish ranting, then tell me to get back to work. She’ll tell me I don’t have a choice. She'll tell me I'm a writer and writers write. And she’ll tell me readers—more of them than I can imagine but not more than she can—await.

Who or what are YOU most thankful for as a reader or a writer? Please share in the comments section below. Oh, and if you are one to celebrate it, Happy (early) Thanksgiving! 

It happened again—you spent so much of the past eleven months with your face in books, you forgot to plan your Halloween costume. Fear not, I’m here to help.

Rather than waste your time with a bunch of cheesy puns about how you don’t stand a ghost of a chance of pulling off a wicked-cool costume this late in the game, I’ve decided to instead provide you with some dress-up ideas that are so novel, it’s scary.

Don’t let another failed Halloween haunt you for the remainder of your days. Just read on and choose one of the following costumes guaranteed to make you a dead-ringer for the character in question, and the life of any party you’re dying to attend.   

Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis (by Franz Kafka). Going as Gregor Samsa for Halloween is a great attention-getter, but only if you know the book and didn’t just design your costume after quickly skimming the character description provided online by SparkNotes. After all, nobody will be impressed if you show up as a traveling salesman instead of a giant, hideous cockroach. They’ll just think you’re Willy Loman, and yawn.

To get Gregor Samsa right, just visit any fast-food dining establishment and collect one of the many insect carcasses you’ll find, then model your costume around it. You’ll need some cardboard, a toy plastic shield spray-painted brown, a baseball catcher’s chest-protector, brown pants/shirt/shoes, black pipe cleaners, and a strong stomach.

To make sure people know you’re Gregor Samsa and not just a giant disgusting bug, it’s a good idea to carry a briefcase, as well as to lecture everyone on the grotesque absurdity of existence and how modern society has stripped us of our humanity. Do this before you hand any candy out to them.  

Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (by Stieg Larsson). What better time than now—at the height of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements—to dress up like a badass avenger of sexual predators. But if you do decide to be Lisbeth Salander, don’t do what so many Halloween Lisbeths have done in the past, which is portray her as a one-dimensional hyper-sexual S&M vamp. (Yes, I realize the risk of mansplaining this costume to women.) I don’t have a problem with women (or men) who opt to keep silly Halloween traditions alive by dressing up like a sexy nurse/librarian/teacher/police officer/maid/referee, but out of respect for what Lisbeth Salander has been through and what she’s out to achieve, if you’re going to portray her, do it right. Shoot for deadly, not slutty.

Here’s what you’ll need: A tattered black Henley or T-shirt; a pair of ripped/distressed black jeans (NOT leggings or yoga pants, damn it); black combat boots; a black leather motorcycle jacket; pink leather messenger bag (just kidding—BLACK); spike earrings and a giant spiked collar; a black wig long enough to cut/shape into a punk-goth pixie ‘do; clip-on studs for nose, lips and eyebrows; a black temporary dragon tattoo—large enough to run from shoulder-blade to waist.

If you want to be as badass as the REAL fictional Lisbeth, forgo the fake/temporary accessories and get an actual dragon tattoo and wild haircut, and put actual holes in your face. Bonus points for any real-life doctors, lawyers or kindergarten teachers who take on my challenge. (NOTE: If you don’t have the shirt, jeans or boots listed above and need to buy them new, make sure you run over them several times with a car when you get home to give them that tattered, scuffed look you’re going for. If you don’t have a car, ask your neighbor or an Uber driver to assist.)

Alex from A Clockwork Orange (by Anthony Burgess). Nothing says Halloween like an ultraviolent dystopian anarchist with an affinity for classical music and milk spiked with narcotics.

All you need to rock this costume are white pants, a white banded collar shirt, white suspenders, fake eyelashes and a cane, along with a black bowler hat and combat boots. Oh, and don’t forget the codpiece or athletic cup to protect your crotch. If you don’t already have all these items at home, then I honestly don’t see us ever being friends. 

Miss Havisham from Great Expectations (by Charles Dickens). An old woman who was jilted at the altar in her youth and wears her wedding dress for the rest of her life in a ruined mansion. ‘Nuff said. (For best results, go for creepy rather than sexy/slutty with this costume.) 

Annie Wilkes from Misery (by Stephen King). Like any other author or human being, I find Annie Wilkes terrifying. That said, I often fantasize about having a fan just like her—so obsessed by and devoted to my characters, she’d torture me until I mold my manuscript to her liking. Yes, I’m currently receiving professional help for this.

Pulling off a convincing Annie requires nothing more than a turtleneck, a plaid shirt and a denim dress, Oh, and a huge sledgehammer. Now, keep in mind that such clothes and weaponry may cause folks to mistake you for a run-of-the-mill public high school librarian. To avoid this, you can rent me at $150/hour to play the tortured author. The role is really no stretch for me at all.   

Have you ever dressed up as a favorite literary character? If so, which one? If not, what's wrong with you? Dish the details in the comments section below.

Oh, and one more thing: 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Few things are more gratifying than having thousands of fans tell you they’re dying to read your next book when it comes out.

Or so I imagine.

Rather than me sitting around and praying for such fervor to occur, I’m going to try to create it by sharing an excerpt from my work-in-progress (WIP) today. Who knows—maybe the excerpt will go viral and create the kind of frenzied buzz that results in tens of thousands of sales of my novel whenever it launches. At the very least, the excerpt will prove to my wife that I haven’t just been watching Netflix while locked away in my writing office these past several months.

Before we jump into the excerpt, I’d like to tell you just a little bit about my WIP. It’s an irreverent crime thriller tentatively titled Scott Free. Don’t bother memorizing the title because it’s likely I’ll change it or perish before the book comes out. Assuming I survive the entire writing and editing process, here’s the tentative blurb that will appear on the back of the book (for those of you who still hold actual physical books):

Fed up with society and stifled by mounting debt, artist Roxy Scott and her aging mother discover their one real shot at freedom.

Prison.

All they have to do is commit the perfect crime—one that’s sure to land them in a minimum security “Club Fed” correctional facility where their basic needs will be provided for years.

There’s just one problem: They don’t get caught. Instead, they get rich.

That’s when the real problems start.

Since everything else I’ve mentioned thus far is tentative, I’m gonna go ahead and say the book will tentatively receive the following testimonials:

“I’m proud to call Levin one of my disciples, but what he does with this book is a prime example of the student surpassing the teacher.” —Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club; president of the Greg Levin Fan Club

“It’s time for everybody to stop reading J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin and Stephen King, and start reading Greg Levin.” —J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin and Stephen King

“Not even being dead for twelve years could stop me from singing the praises of this electrifying novel. I’d buy Levin a drink, but my wallet decomposed.”—Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)  

Okay, back to reality. Here’s some fiction—an excerpt from the opening chapter of what will soon probably no longer be called Scott Free. If you like slow starts, you’re going to hate this. Enjoy!

Take away the two or five or ten cops tailing us. Take away their loaded Glock 19s and the pack of K-9s closing in. Take away the ninety-eight-pound septuagenarian lying limp in my arms and load-testing my muscles and ligaments every foot we move forward. Add a thousand sunflowers to the field we're halfway through. Add a bit more azure to the vast Texas sky.

Do all that, and this would still be terrifying.

Agoraphobia has a way of ruining even the most idyllic outings. Combine it with running for your life while carrying your broken mother, and it’s a wonder nothing inside implodes any more than it already has.

The dogs bark in the distance like a stranger just rang Hell’s doorbell. The only thing separating us from them is a matter of time. Way too thin a layer of it.

Mama groans but I don’t hear it. 

The back pocket of my blood- and mud-splattered jeans vibrates with yet another call or text from Griff or Big Gail, or perhaps from someone who knew someone who once had the same number as this burner phone. If I had a spare hand or second, I’d let them know we’re not going to make it and we’re sorry and we love them. Even if it is a wrong number.

But right now I’m all about making it out of this unbearably bucolic meadow and into the damp tangle of trees up ahead. It’s easier to breathe in tight spaces. Plus live oaks can stop hollow-points.

Mama groans again and this time I’m getting something. Something like what birthing an eight-pound girl forty-five years ago without an epidural must have felt like. I glance down at Mama’s beautiful brown face and lie to it. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She murmurs something about stopping and surrendering but I don’t hear it. My heart is earning time-and-a-half.

The trees we just reached greet us with stabs. Branches poke and tear at our clothes. Scratch my face, neck and hands, adding a few more drops of crimson to the picture. Mama murmurs what sounds like “please” but I keep moving, scanning the forest for a secret portal. A trap door. A chance in hell.

 The dogs are still out of sight but loud enough to smell everything. Cradling Mama, I crouch and set her down not gently enough against the trunk of an oak about twice her age. She moans, and with one eye open, goes, “Why?”

Her neck gives out, sending her chin into her sternum. I lift her head and dab a speck of blood from the corner of her mouth with the bottom of my flannel shirt, then stand up and rip the shirt open. One of the projectile buttons misses all the trees and lands near a massive mule deer too stunned to run. I can empathize. The buck and Mama both stare at me as I yank my arms out of the sleeves of the ruined shirt and use it to wipe all the sweat and all the red from every uncovered part of me.  It’s not until I start to tear the shirt into three pieces that the mule deer decides to bolt.

I roll up one of the strips of flannel and chuck it outward and upward. The branch of a tree ten or so feet over catches the ragged fabric right as it starts to unravel. I roll up the second strip and throw it in the opposite direction. This one flies farther and lands on the ground behind a rotted stump.

You’ve heard of last-ditch efforts. You’ve heard of quiet desperation. You’ve heard of nothing left to lose.

This is all that. And less.

And none of it would be necessary if we’d just been lucky enough to not get filthy rich. Lucky enough to get caught red-handed and locked up six months ago.

Just like we’d planned.

I take the last strip of shirt and soak it with a little more of my blood and salt and stink before balling it up and giving it a running toss toward where we just came from. It gets snagged by a tree like the first strip did, only higher off the ground.

Mama’s got two eyes open now and they’re both on me. She seems perplexed and a little angry. She’s never liked me tossing my clothes all about. 

Using the toe of one of my once-white Nikes, I shimmy its companion off my heel and kick it into a pine bush. Next off is a sock that smells like eighth-grade gym. I ball it up and chuck it over near where the mule deer was gawking at us moments ago.      

The sound of the dogs tells me I need to keep my jeans as well as my other shoe and sock on. Not my bra, though. It’s quick to lose and too ripe to waste. I pull it off over my head like a first boyfriend would and slingshot it a distraction away.   

“Give up,” whispers Mama. But that doesn’t stop me from squatting down half-naked and half-barefooted to scoop her up in my arms. A grunt more like a growl escapes me as I hoist Mama over my shoulder and fireman-carry her toward a rocky outcrop splitting two oaks. Closer, and all there is between the overhang of the outcrop and the ground right below is darkness.

Not a cave, but close enough.

Not a chance in hell, but I’ll take it.

That’s it—that’s all I’m going to share for now. The good news is there’s plenty more where that came from. Or, if you hated it, the good news is it will still be quite a while before the book is available. I’ll keep you all posted on the progress, and will likely share a couple more excerpts between now and the day I give birth to the book—which I’m hoping will be no later than March or April 2019. I don’t want to have to carry this baby through another scorching Texas summer.

I’ve done some dumb things in my writing career. Even dumber than choosing writing as a career. I'm not proud of my mistakes, but they say admitting to them is a sign of integrity and humility. Or in my case, a sign that I’ve been drinking.

So, before I go pour my third bourbon of the morning and continue working on my next novel, here are five of the dumbest things I’ve done as an author: 

5) I wrote my first novel for myself rather than for the reader. A teacher once told me writing is about self-expression and creativity, not about having lots of people read what you’ve written. And I was stupid enough to believe him.

This helps to explain why I opted to write my first novel (Notes on an Orange Burial) about an unpublished poet. It’s also why 99.99 percent of you have never heard of it. (Still, it was a big hit with some people—namely my parents, and three librarians in England.) It’s quirky and literary and has some funny scenes derived from experiences I had in my twenties, so I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a bad book.

But you would.

4) I didn’t focus on the marketing-side of publishing until my third novel. This may seem the same as #5 above, but it’s not. It’s worse. After all, when you write a bad book and fail to market it properly, you’re doing yourself and the world a favor. But when you write a good book and fail to market it properly, you miss big opportunities to attract readers and meet Oprah.

Today, many consider my second novel—The Exit Man—my best (or at least my most enjoyable) book to date. However, it didn’t make much of a splash when it first came out because I hadn’t taken the time to learn the ins and outs of publicity, promotion and platform-building. It wasn’t until a TV producer tripped over a copy (while looking at bigger and better-promoted books) months later that The Exit Man started to pick up a little steam, and even then I failed to do a lot of what I should have done from a marketing standpoint.

Which leads directly to my next big mistake. …

3) I assumed getting optioned by HBO meant I’d hit the big-time. See that guy over there, the one strutting around like he owns the place? That’s me at the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas conference in Austin. The Exit Man had recently been optioned by HBO for development into a TV series, but I went to the conference anyway despite having nothing left to prove or to learn as an author. [Feel free to pause here and gag. I just did.] I skipped most of the sessions at the conference but spent plenty of time at the cocktail reception, where I mentioned my option deal to all the other attendees and held my hand out for them to kiss. (I'm exaggerating of course—both of my hands had drinks in them and thus weren't available to be kissed.) 

And see that guy over there, the one lounging poolside at the trendy Mondrian hotel on Sunset Boulevard reading a copy of his own novel? That’s me the day after flying out to LA to take the producer (who got me the HBO option) out for dinner to show my appreciation—but really just to show off.  

Oh, and see this guy over here, the one muttering curse words while cancelling his HBO Now subscription out of spite? That’s me in 2016 after hearing HBO decided not to renew its option of The Exit Man.

2) I waited too long to start forming alliances with other authors. No man is an island, but I used to think good authors were. I had it that, to be successful, I needed to spend as much time as possible holed up in a small, quiet room and just let my imagination and words run wild. I stayed away from writing workshops and critique groups. (“I had enough of that in college,” I’d tell myself.) I wasn’t active in writing organizations or communities. And, worst of all, I viewed other authors in my genre as the competition rather than as brothers and sisters with whom I shared a rare and wondrous disease. 

It wasn’t until relatively recently that I realized isolation, while good for writing, is awful for a writing career. For the latter, you need to connect with and share ideas with like-minded—and even unlike-minded—authors. Doing so not only keeps you almost sane in a maddening field, but also provides you with invaluable feedback and advice to better your craft. And, if you join forces with “the competition,” it can open the door to a whole new world of readers who might have otherwise never heard of you or your disease. (NOTE: I recently teamed up with author RD Ronald to create a unique new website for readers and fellow writers of transgressive fiction. If you like novels and short stories about good people doing bad things—or bad people doing good things—you’re going to LOVE the site. I’ll be announcing its official launch via my blog soon. Stay tuned!)         

And now, for the absolute dumbest thing I've done as an author ...

1) I put my characters ahead of my family and friends. I’ve touched on this in previous posts, mostly in a joking manner to downplay my fiction addiction and lessen my shame. But the truth is, I have put my characters ahead of my family and friends in the past.

Actually, the real truth is … I still do.  

That “disease” I hinted at in #2 above, it’s not always fun. For anyone. And particularly not for my wife Miranda and my daughter Leah, whom I’ve shooed away from my writing space countless times in order to give all my care and attention to imaginary people instead. In fact, I’ve gotten so good at shooing, I rarely even have to anymore. Miranda and Leah have learned to keep their distance whenever my office door’s closed. Come to think of it, they’ve started doing so even when the door’s open and the writing day’s done. Go figure.

I’ve apologized multiple times to them, as well as to my parents and brother and the small handful of friends I somehow still have. I’ve promised each that I’d make more time for them and be more attentive and present whenever we’re together. They can tell by the look in my eyes and the sound of my voice that these apologies and promises are sincere. And they all want to believe me, but deep down they suspect something.

That maybe it’s all just fiction.