I began writing Nero’s Fiddle about a couple of years ago. Well, sort of.

 

As I sat doing my boring data entry job, I listened to audiobooks. My co-workers turned me on to this. I had never considered listening to audiobooks, thinking it would be too much of a distraction from doing the work.

 

I was mistaken: audiobooks are a delightful way to enhance any repetitive, mundane task.

 

Be that as it may, I was listening to the book One Second After by William Forschten. I was fascinated as the reader talked about an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). I had never heard of such a thing and immediately researched it via the Internet.

 

I was appalled to learn that such a thing was real. I shouldn’t have been. I had learned about bioethics and nanotechnology from a couple of Dean Koontz books. It’s amazing how much truth can be found in fiction, isn’t it?

 

As I continued listening to One Second After, I began to visualize my own version of an EMP attack. While One Second After presents the effects of an EMP attack on a community level, my vision of an EMP attack was on a somewhat larger scale. With women heroes, no less.

 

At the time, however, I was hip-deep in writing the Sword of Tilk Trilogy. So I filed away the EMP idea asking my subconscious to work on it for me while I completed the work in progress.

 

Even so, I conducted research and read everything I could find about EMP, its sources and its effects. I was surprised to learn than an EMP doesn’t have to be manmade. Nature is capable of lashing out with an EMP via solar flares from the sun.

 

June 18, 2013, I ordered the preview copies of the trilogy.

 

A few hours later, I suffered a heart attack.

 

While I was in the hospital, I realized I have spent far too much of my life dreaming of being a successful author. It was time I began actually working on it.

 

Shortly after returning home, I began working on Nero’s Fiddle in earnest. My subconscious, indeed, had worked overtime. I worked on Nero’s Fiddle every spare moment I had: on the commute to and from work, during breaks and lunchtime, up late during the weekends. Situations and dialogue flowed as though they were already written, though I can assure you, each word was painstaking.

 

June 18, 2014 – exactly one year after my heart attack – I completed the rough draft of Nero’s Fiddle. This was only five days after being laid off from my full time job which occurred two weeks after the death of my older brother.

 

It was a very challenging year.

 

Like most people, I was astounded by the volume of the tome. But I had taken my characters on a journey over a period of 30 days during which they encountered the worst – and the best – of humanity. And they did it all on foot.

 

Though I wanted to – and had actually planned to – walk the route my characters travelled myself, it was not conducive under the circumstances.

 

In order to lend authenticity to the novel, see the terrain my characters would travel by, not to mention I had never been to Washington, DC myself, I settled for driving the route.

 

My best friend and I hopped into her truck and we were off, driving for about eight hours to Dumfries, Virginia. We stayed overnight, then took the Metro Rail into DC and spent the day sightseeing. Of course, we couldn’t resist being “tourists” and hitting the hot spots: the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, the Smithsonian castle and, of course, the White House.

 

It was humbling to stand upon this hallowed ground: ground where, in all likelihood, our forefathers stood or walked before us. Is it possible that Lincoln actually once stood in the exact spot where his memorial now stands? Or Washington? To stand at the very spot where Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the words, “I Have a Dream” sent chills down my spine.

 

The trip was over all too soon: after all, I had job searching to do and my best friend had a job to get back to. But there was also proofreading and editing, proofreading and editing, proofreading and editing. Yes, it’s something I obsess over.

 

Ironically, when I thought the book was complete, a strange thing happened. I awoke one morning with a Prologue practically completely written in my head.

 

I was fascinated by the story of Richard Carrington who discovered solar flares one day in 1859. This discovery led to the further discovery that solar flares emit electromagnetic pulses capable of disrupting electronics. In 1859, telegraphs were the “modern” electronics of the day. A few telegraph offices caught fire due to flying sparks when the EMP hit.

 

Logically, I figured if the Prologue made itself known at this point, it was meant to go in.

 

I scheduled the launch of Nero’s Fiddle for October 27, my best friend’s birthday. I figured it was best birthday present I could give her. After all, she did the driving.

 

The creative process is a very fluid thing. Allowing your subconscious to work on creative ideas often brings about creative solutions.

 

Most importantly, the creative process keeps life interesting.