Why I wrote The Chronicles of IDIOT:

Why did I write this novella, which is not chick-lit or fantasy, without any vampires, zombies or graphic descriptions of sex.

Well, if you haven't stopped reading after that last sentence, I will describe my book. It is a satirical novella about a secret U.S. government organization called IDIOT. It purpose is to distract us Americans from what the government does by any means necessary. Ok, not ANY means necessary, just the ones that work, such as entertainment.

Now, I am not saying the world should not be entertained. Far from it, life can suck, life can be wonderful, and entertainment gives us perspective on how lucky we are as Americans. I would be a hypocrite if I said everyone should not watch TV, I am just trying to say maybe people should think about how these distractions influence our lives.

It all started in August 2008. It was a great month that year, my daughter had been born 3 months previously and was a happy baby. My son was 2 and enjoying being a big brother and started his now 3 year obsession with all things Thomas the Tank Engine.

The Olympics in China had just started with the Opening Ceremony, and the web was buzzing about the potential use of fake pictures to show what were supposedly (I wasn't there so I don't really know) real fireworks of footprints all along China to the Bird Nest Stadium. But that wasn't what the biggest buzz was, it seemed that there were these guys from Georgia who claimed to have found Bigfoot. Did they actually find the big guy? No, they bought a fake Bigfoot suit and filled it with dead animals, put it in a freezer and called the media. This got all the Cryptozoology nuts in a frenzy and took many of us for the ride.

I have a degree in Zoology, and happen to know that if Bigfoot was found (highly unlikely), the big guy would be found in some extremely remote region. Let's say in Nepal, or northern Alberta, Canada, but not the wilds of Georgia. Have you ever been to Georgia? There is not a lot of completely empty space there, so this whole thing stank of a hoax to me. But people lapped it up, and these guys actually made money, at least temporarily, from their hoax. News stories of the “Georgia Bigfoot” were actually out competing the freakin' olympics! Seriously!

That got me thinking, it is like people want to be fooled. So what if there was a government agency that helped them do that, so they wouldn't be concerned with or have time to do such things as vote?

It took me another 2 ½ years to write the book, since my main job is looking after my kids and their happiness is my priority. I will release some chapters soon, but I want to go over them with a fine tooth comb, especially since e-books are notorious for being poorly edited. I would like to buck that trend if possible.

Now, I am not saying that everyone is a complete idiot. We are not, but there are things that we are good at and things that show we are complete idiots. Let's use me as an example, I am great at doing the dishes, cause I like my dishes darn well clean. The rest of my house? Not so much. I am not an expert at wall cleaning and with 2 young children, the walls have suffered. I is good at writing (ok, sometimes) but I am not the best when it comes to using grammar correctly. My Mother lovingly suffered through editing the first draft of my book. A later blog will concentrate on answering the eternal question of why editing is the bane of a writer's life. And this blog will not be edited properly and therefore will contain the occasional errorrrrrrrr.

Everyone is good at something but most people are not good at everything. Leonardo Di Vinci is famous to this day because he was a Renaissance Man, but I bet he was not that great at communicating with, and counseling children. Just a guess, I could be wrong.

I am just trying to show with this book, that some things seemed to be purposefully dumb-ed down, it is almost as if idiocy is encouraged. With this book things are taken just a few steps further, and hopefully a few laughs are found in the electronic pages.