Most of what I'm posting here is about the process of writing, publishing, and marketing a book. The first two being relatively easy, the last, confusing, difficult, and expensive.

Once published, if you decide to read my book, "The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn, great! But that's not the point.

Most of these posts, this one included, are intended to provide information that may help others write, publish, and market their books. Maybe your book?

That said, I don't want to completely ignore what drove me to attempt fiction.

Raymond's story is somewhere between fantasy and science.

He is KIA in Vietnam, but believes he is living an unhappy life 46 years later.
He meets a stranger who tells him he has been dead for 46 years, and is "living" a life in a universe parallel to the one in which he was killed.

Fantasy because the concept of parallel universes is, at best, just a concept.
Science because one day their existence may be proved.

Do I care?

Not really. Science will have to hurry with that proof to beat me dying.

But I can and do speculate what it would be like to encounter myself in a universe parallel to the one in which we all believe we live. 

Raymond is my fictional "guinea pig". I have put him in situations that may one day prove to approximate what our alternative lives would be like.

It's been fun, I'm glad I attempted it, but now Raymond has become much more a part of me than I expected or wanted him to be.

He's not real, dead or alive, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about him a lot, awake and in my dreams.

​I began his story wondering what life in a parallel universe would be like.

​I'll end it questioning whether I'm already in one.

After a long career in marketing and strategic planning, I wrote The 7 Keys to Change: A New Approach to Managing Change to Live Better and Work Smarter. A book for people who want to see more positive results from personal and professional change initiatives.

Nothing odd about that. 

Now I'm preparing to publish a novel about a man who is given the  opportunity to visit some of the lives he would have lived had he made different choices.

Who wouldn't want to do that? 

The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is a big leap from strategic planning. At first, I planned to publish under a pseudonym.

Did I really want my clients and other business contacts to know about my fiction writing?  People I trust said, "Hell, yeah!"

So I started publishing updates on LinkedIn and I'm planning my book promotion. I'm going full monty as a fiction writer.

​Well, at least metaphorically.