I waited a long time to become a writer. When I finally began, I ended up writing two novels, Hidden and Stone Creek, in five years, in a nearly nonstop writing frenzy that began in the spring of 2001 and ended in the spring of 2006. After finishing Stone Creek, I allowed myself the luxury of sitting back and taking time to recognize and appreciate my accomplishment, to travel and spend more time with friends and family, and to relish the excitement of Stone Creek’s reception before diving into my next project.

I am now halfway through my third book – presently titled Approaching The Speed Of Light. Set in New York city, against the millennial hope and dread of the last half of 1999, it is a character-rich story in the vein of Stone Creek, a deeply psychological and authentic look at human emotions, frailties, and resiliency.

Like Stone Creek, Approaching The Speed Of Light is a story about love and damage, but of very different sorts. Whereas Stone Creek tells the story of people coming to terms with loss, regret, and disappointment, my new book goes deep into a darker heart. Approaching The Speed Of Light is an exploration of the imbalance and abuse of power in human relationships – from the brutally overt to the subtly covert – and the terrible toll abuse takes on the human soul.

The story is told through the wry self-deprecating voice and splintered persona of Jody, a twenty-eight year old man who as a child suffered years of physical abuse at the hands of his mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend, as well as the emotional abuse of his mother’s disregard and ultimate abandonment. Mixed in with Jody’s narration are a series of flashbacks that relate his history.

Although Jody is smart, handsome, athletically gifted, and warm-hearted, a seemingly successful person with a good job, an active life, and a string of lovely girlfriends, inside he is a shattered person. His childhood experiences have warped him, left him with no clear sense of identity, no self-esteem, no comprehension of the concepts of love, trust, kindness, or happiness.

For twenty years, Jody has carefully managed his world, and himself. But in the space of one fateful week, he meets Tess – a gently fading 80-year old widow with a lost son; Ella – a lonely 47-year old divorcée with a lost love; and Fern – Jody’s brother’s new girlfriend, a young woman with a complicated, unconscious need to seek out pain. As the entanglements between Jody and the three woman develop, he finds himself wrenched out of his carefully managed world. Each woman pulls at a different thread of his tattered personality, offering him peace, love, or disaster.

Gradually, Jody is forced to confront his past. And as we watch him struggle to understand who he is, what happened to him and why, only one question comes to matter: can Jody survive and find happiness in his life, or was the damage done to him fatal.

Approaching The Speed Of Light has been a difficult book to write, and it’s going slowly. My hope is that it will see publication in June 2011. After that – stay tuned! And after this one, perhaps a sequel to Hidden. We’ll see which way the wind is blowing by then…