From Compton Land to ComptonWorld
ComptonWorld started as a weekend joke, a wacky billionaire's theme park called Compton Land, before the premise turned into something with real weight. A note on how a punchline became a novella.
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Mountain First, Money Second
A note on the order things have to happen in, years spent searching for Truth before there was wealth in the picture, and how that shaped a character who tried to do it backwards.
ReadThe Man Who Gave It Away
A street-interview video about a wealthy man who spent a year living unrecognized on the street, then quietly gave his things away and walked back into his old life, is where Dicky Weed began. A note on the stranger behind the character.
ReadNot the South, Just the Saw
Bone Saw began as a break from a longer, slower book, and grew into an American gothic anchored to an object instead of a place. A note on where the idea came from, and what it cost to write the amputation scenes.
ReadWere Civil War Surgeons Butchers?
Anaesthesia was the rule rather than the exception, amputation was usually the correct decision, and the real failure was somewhere else entirely. Research notes behind Bone Saw.
ReadWhy Half of Dicky Weed Is Told in Paperwork
Eight of the interludes in Dicky Weed are documents rather than narration. A note on why satire needs a legal clause, and why the moral weight of the novel ended up in an assistant margin note.
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