January 12, 2021

I suspect for most writers, there is an incubation period preceding the actual penning (gives you an idea of my age, doesn’t it) of a work. During this warm-up period (months for me), several exercises are part of the process. Crucial among them: 1) thinking – of plot, characters, scenes, possible story progression from beginning to end. I’m one who prefers to have an ending at least roughly in mind. 2) jotting – ideas, possible dialogue, story development – jotted immediately. 3) for my Quarry crime fiction series – re-reading previous work to re-establish a feel for characters, chronology and continuity of facts, i.e. getting into Quarry’s skin once more. Rather then re-imagining my protagonist, I’m recalling him. 4) for new work – research.

As an example of the latter, my most recent effort, The Matchmaker: A Love Story in a Technological Age, two lonely adults are connected by a drone equipped with artificial intelligence (AI). Though the story might be classified under the rubric of science fiction (SciFi), I don't think of it as such. My research focused on cutting-edge scientific developments of drones, materials, battery life development, flight mechanics and electro-physical laboratory essentials. In other words, for me at least, the story is contemporary, not futuristic.

Though The Matchmaker is foremost a love story framed by science, I have little doubt that a lover of science (or even a scientist) somewhere will find questionable any event in the story as of yet scientifically untenable. In anticipation of this, I will say that though my imagination traveled along the edge of current drone development, even if I’m a bit pre-mature in my imagining of what is, it won’t be by much. It’s only a matter of time until the imagined becomes historical. That said, readers, please know I sought to be as accurate as possible with the science up to where data ended and my imagination assumed control.