If I am completely honest, I write because of what I get from the process. I do appreciate telling a good story but what drives me to the keyboard is often the unwitting messages, the deeper unseen things that I can discover nestled within a great story.

There are many days when I turn my computer off, maybe crack open a beer, take a walk and suddenly the story becomes my tutor, or counselor, the words leaping off the page, punching me in the gut. In Sacred Duty, Peter, our protagonist, ultimately decides to join Hitler and the German war machine rejecting his father’s deepest hopes and beliefs. When I wrote that scene I had a heavy decision to make and had relied too heavily on certain influences in my life, albeit good influences. Like Peter, I had not taken the time to be alone, to be still, to enter the quietness, the space where I have often received the greatest guidance. I can give you hundreds of examples of fortuitous counsel that my stories have imparted to me. This is the essence of writing for me, and perhaps of many artistic pursuits.

I write because I selfishly want to know what I don’t know, and hopefully unselfishly give it away that others may also know.