Variables

It started with a ball of lightning.

Seriously.

Ball lightning is a phenomena that scientists still have no concrete explanation for and really no strong theories. Balls of light appear, usually the size of a basketball or smaller, sometimes travel short distances (down the aisle of a plane in midair for example) and then simply disappear. Very few people have ever seen this with their bare eyes and very few photographs exist.

I have seen it with the naked eye.

I was in the car sitting at a stop light as a thunderstorm rolled in. A bright blue ball appeared about twenty feet away out of my passenger side window. It was about the size of a small medicine ball and just hovered in the air. It was glossy, with some sort of subtle movement within it. The best way to describe it would be like a bubble when you can see the oils from the soap morph about on the surface. It was a deep, rich blue color. It just floated in place for what was probably ten seconds. And then it disappeared with a huge bang that sounded more like an explosion than the more reasonable explanation that accompanied the thunderstorm.

I could say that this was some sort of sign from a higher power or a message from space or the afterlife, but honestly it was just pretty cool. I needed to work it into a story.

Variables started as a television pilot. Through some connections I had in LA at the time, I was able to get it in the hands of a few production companies and one of them, a very legitimate one, really liked it. Then again, I found that Hollywood types “really like” everything and then just stop taking your calls. The initial positive response motivated me to get to work. I outlined two full seasons of Variables that included almost everything that ended up in the book. Remember a couple lines ago when I talked about people just not returning your calls? That’s what happened. I had twenty episodes of a TV pilot outlined in detail on my laptop that had nowhere to go.

After years of rejections, I don’t write screenplays and TV pilots anymore. But I still have stories to tell and I write all the time. I have an author friend who inspired me to turn Variables into a book.

Ball lightning is not a central theme (not directly anyway) in Variables, but it’s still the reason this crazy ball started rolling. I write for myself now. It makes me happy, but I do hope other people enjoy this book.

-SR