Have you ever watched a steam locomotive cold start? It takes hours. A small fire builds slowly while engineers run dozens of safety checks. More heat. More inspections. Check the water. Check the pressure. All that work just so vacationers can ride the rails for a few minutes.

I’m cold starting my writing career.

I wrote my first book in 2011, published in 2013. By 2023, I’d finished four books in a series that no longer interests me. Hundreds of hours. Thousands of lessons. Time for a complete rebuild.

Looking back at 27 years of blog posts—over a hundred articles since 1997—none of them belong here. Not one. This post barely makes the cut. But an empty site needs a first post.

Life changes (retirement) mean I finally have time to write what I want. My heart races at the thought of a new series, though it’ll take a year to develop and publish. If I’m lucky.

Until then, expect behind-the-scenes posts. Proof of life. The placeholder books you see? They’ll become a library of long-form writing thoughts—advice I’ve given over the years, collected in one place.

The fire’s lit. Time to build steam.