This story very much started from its opening paragraphs, which spilled easily onto the page. It followed pretty quickly that the narrator had been dreaming about his dog and mother, even though he knew that he never had a dog and couldn’t remember his mother. At that point, I thought, Oh my gosh! What’s going on here? What is this story about?

Like a lot of people, my head is buried in news and social media and talks with my neighbors. I’m always in the center of the most politically awkward conversation at the con bar, but I can’t point to too many specific references that inspired this story. It kind of came out of the subconscious soup that paying attention to the world cooks up.

There’s still a lot of stigma around mental illness. Even the profession that treats it isn’t immune. There would most definitely be the pressure for a psychiatrist with a psychotic disorder to hide their diagnosis from colleagues and patients. So, already, the ‘what if?’ was ripe in my head. I’ve always found the brain, consciousness, and human perception fascinating. It’s what’s drawn me both to being a speculative fiction author and a psychiatrist.

I’ve always wanted to return to the world of Six-Gun and it was only a matter of time before a new one found me. Before, I was always locked into back-to-back trad publishing contracts (80 books, not counting other commissioned projects!). Now that I’m full indie and have found a loyal, growing readership online, I can’t write new stories fast enough to satisfy the demand.