Dishonored tells the tale of Jefferson Coburn, a disenfranchised Navy Officer caught up in a world of conspiracy, fraud, and murder. But this book started out much differently. It originally wasn’t a mystery at all, but rather an autobiographical take on Catcher in the Rye. So, the character closely followed my own experiences. The first draft went deep into the mundane existence of a Naval Flight Officer deployed to Djibouti and sent to the Pentagon. That all changed almost immediately when I read my first draft because—it was boring!
 

I pivoted to thinking, “What if something actually happened in Catcher in the Rye?” I remembered reading that book in between voracious bouts of reading police procedurals and mystery novels and expecting something to happen the entire time. Was somebody going to die? Was Holden going to uncover some mystery? But, no, it was a slice of life of a depressed young man. It was perfectly fine, but not something I was really into reading, but I recognized the appeal of the developed character and his slanted view of the world. So, while I attempted the same thing with the first draft of Dishonored, it still wasn’t what I wanted to write. That’s when the idea for the uncle’s suicide/murder came in. After that, the entire subplot and mystery unfolded in my mind from my experiences as a Government contracts attorney and U.S. Senate staffer. The puzzles also took inspiration from Dan Brown and my interests in art, music, and woodworking. Quite the mélange of topics.

The Moth came from a completely different place. It ultimately developed from an idea I’d been toying with. True Detective Season 1 was one of the greatest things I’d ever watched, and I became slightly obsessed with it. Delving deep into Carcosa and associated literature. Beyond the show’s deep dive into character and the relationship between Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson), the scene that stuck out to me was Shea Whigam’s depiction of Revical preacher Joel Theriot. The evangelical sermon and his haunting depiction seemed like fodder for more exploration. I also thought of another show I really enjoyed, Justified and Walter Goggins’ depiction of Boyd Crowder. There was an arch where he played his own version of a Southern revival preacher. This all led me to the thought—“What if these two preachers, Joel Theriot, and Boyd Crowder, were in the same town and rivals?” Add a sinister edge that the Goggins character had, and I had the first idea for Two Fathers, which ultimately became The Moth.

So there you have it, that’s some of where my ideas came from for those novels. But I hear you asking, “Cool, but where do your new ideas come from?” I’m glad you asked. Everywhere. I can’t go anywhere without something sparking. For instance, just the other day I was at the Estonian Seaplane Museum. Inside, they have a WWII submarine you can tour. While walking around it and the other exhibits, an idea popped into my head for a present-day submarine traveling in time to enter WWII and what would happen on the ships of the time-traveling submarine and the unaware surface navies with a futuristic menace in the sea. Another one that recently popped up was when I read Project Hail Mary and thought about a mystery on a spacecraft—what would happen if a former detective awoke from cryosleep to find a murder onboard he had to solve. Movies, TV, Books, real life—My ideas seem to come from everywhere!