So how did I get to here?
The story begins in a small cabin in the deep dark woods…kidding kidding
Before I got started in Podcasting and even before writing for MyMac.com, I belonged to a Washington DC based user group called the Washington Apple Pi (wap.org). They had a monthly journal (hard copy…like cavemen) and as a frustrated writer without a project, I decided to create a somewhat original story that involved Apple history. I also love Film Noir with Humphrey Bogart movies being some of my favorites, so being “inspired” by that, I started to write a detective story around a stolen Apple prototype computer (at the time the lampshade G4 iMac was a thing).
I used a lot of people with their names slightly changed as well as incorporating Mac trivia for the main characters and started to write. It was originally released through the WAP Journal over about a year period, just as user groups were starting to fade. By the time the story was done, I was also writing for MyMac and Tim Robertson was kind enough to let me republish it through his website. I made some changes (as writers with any excuse will do) and it was done. Or so I thought.
A few years went by and when feeling nostagic over the death of my mother who loved listening to the old radio serials from the 40s and 50s on tape (again…like cavemen), I decided to rewrite it (again) as an audio drama which is where it sat for many more years. I casually mentioned it to a good friend over in the UK (Karl Madden of the Mac & Forth podcast) who offered to help me finish it. Which with a lot of Skype calls and Apple Pages collaboration, we completed it last year. Where it sat (again) as with one son getting ready to graduate from college and another just starting, time was not a luxury that I had.
Well things have straightened out and even with a full time job, 2 podcasts, and three other writing projects, I found myself wanting to take another crack at this, this time without excuses. So I blew the virtual dust off the story and solicited for volunteers for the various parts. Which is where we are today.
As far as a schedule for release goes, it’s completely up to the people who decide to join me. There’s no money and not much promise of any in the future. The book itself is available on Amazon and Apple’s iBook store, but I think as a self-published novel I’ve had maybe 50-60 sales. Any profit was eaten up by doing a print run of thirty that I tried to sell at a conference that had me bringing back about 25 copies. Once completed, I’ll probably make the collected set available for sale, but unless this goes all Serial, I doubt much will come of it.
There’s no pressure, no timeline for release, and the only milestone is that I won’t release anything until the entire story is complete. I don’t want to leave people hanging for the next chapter.
Some have suggested doing a Kickstarter or Patreon to raise funds, but as this is a labor of love with my name on it, I don’t want to disappoint anyone. A website is cheap enough and I have all the other audio tools I need because of the podcast. Still working on getting that mono old time radio sound, but I have a neighbor who’s a sound engineer for NPR so I’ll get that sorted one way or another.
Once the actual production is complete, the episodes will be released every two weeks with a short interview podcast in-between for all the people involved so we’re looking at a total run of 24-28 weeks of content.
Like with podcasting for me, this as I said is a labor of love that one way or another I will get done. I hope that you’ll join us but all I can offer is a smile and links to your stuff through social media and the website. It could be huge, but by keeping my expectations small, I’m guaranteed to not be disappointed.