I was out of work, I was Sick and it was the dead of winter. A doctor friend told me he thought I should forget about going back to work for a while and concentrate on something artistic. When a job came up requiring a background in music, my cousin Cheryl told me to "tell them about your band in college with John Travolta's cousin."

I had forgotten all about that.

I didn't get the job.

But what followed was an incredible, weeks and months long daydream where I thought of nothing but my soon to be epic novel. The tale of my garage punk and bluess band quickly morphed into a long, decades long tale about a young rock star who becomes incredibly wealthy in a Citizen Kane-like existence.

What became the basis of the two novel set as it was originally conceptualized soon existed in a kind of mental free form. But it wasn't until August 14, 2000 I began actually trying to set it down in pixels -- my daughter's third birthday.

The first book was finished by December. The second book would come almost a year later, when I fell sick again and was released from the hospital.