Posted on Sep. 18, 2022

My teenage boy, who will be going by Ax, the narrator, is the other half of my writing partnership. He's the wildly creative half of our team who is unrestricted by adult fears and limitations like mine. All you have to do is have a slip of the tongue, throw out a crazy wordplay, or watch a movie and play with him, and he spins off into a new character, subplot, or a new book, which he can churn out in a few days. It was his slip-of-the-tongue when he said Alpacalips that my brain started churning, and Doomimals was born. I have a Master's in English and a practical sense of grammar, structure, writing, and literary depth. I frequently run into writer's block, and he bails me out with his wild ideas. He'll spin out a crazy scene for me, and I'll weave it into something ready to be read.

Recently, we watched the Broadway musical "School of Rock," based on the early 2000s movie with Jack Black. Even though it's about a slacker scamming his way into a substitute teaching, he must have done something right because, during my Master's program, my whole group of budding college English instructors was taken on a field trip to see the movie to learn to teach creatively. But in my boy's eyes, this inspired a crazy plotline about super chickens substituting at a high-brow school, where they end up having major awesome battles with possessed teachers.

While finishing up the editing process and doing the last items to prep my first book for publication, my boy is churning out zany Captain Underpantsesque/The Bad Guys-like insane books. I was going to release one of my books and then one of his books, but it's pretty clear he goes a lot faster than mine. How does this translate to your experience? The new plan is to put out one of my books, then release one of his, and a month later, another of his. Doomimals will come out every third month or so, while his will come out much faster. As soon as my first is done, we'll immediately focus on pumping out his. It's something to look forward to shortly.