What? Cancer? Leave it to a TV writer to add a twist at the end of the story? Please elaborate on this. You had (have?) cancer? How did that factor into the writing of this book?"
A few years ago, I started having terrible heartburn. Originally, I accepted my teenaged son’s diagnosis: “Dude, you’re old.” But eventually I sought another opinion, and an ultrasound exam showed that my spleen was roughly the size of an adult raccoon. It had pushed my esophagus into a horizontal position, which is not ideal if you subsist primarily on Mexican food and Diet Pepsi. The cause turned out to be a fairly rare – and fairly treatable – form of leukemia.
The doctors put me on chemotherapy and told me to avoid human contact as much as possible, because my immune system would be temporarily out of commission. Being stuck at home eliminated most of my favorite means of avoiding work, so I decided to sit down and write something.
I’d been threatening to inflict a novel upon the world for about thirty years, and learning that you have The Big C tends to force a reexamination of your To Do list. So I wrote Keep It Real in about three months, and I’m now both a published author and a cancer survivor – neither of which really seem possible. Somebody please pinch me. Ow, not there!
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