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The Trainer FAQs
How did
the idea for this story come about?
In the mid-90’s
I took a job doing software training, logging 35 weeks on the road in 1997. One
night after suffering from a bout of insomnia I went for a walk in an
unfamiliar city and as I walked down vacant sidewalks the thought occurred to
me that no one was keeping tabs on me. As long as I trained the students and
came prepared with answers to any of the previous day’s residual
questions, no one ever questioned what I was up to in the middle of the night.
By Friday night I would leave the city. So it struck me that if a person was
involved in clandestine activity, being an inauspicious, traveling software
instructor with a couple crates of computer and network gear would make a good
cover.
Didn’t Kramer come up with something like that in
a Seinfeld episode?
Great minds think alike... ok,
actually, that was brought to my attention after I’d finished the book and
Kramer’s idea was that Jerry’s cover would be great for a CIA
operative because his career as a stand-up commedian takes him from city to
city. The problem as it relates to my story is, a comedian works evenings /
nights and doesn’t need to ship crates full of ‘equipment’ via
air-freight. And Kramer’s idea came to him because he’s Kramer. My
idea came from a bout of insomnia.
That entire story is from
one bout of insomnia?
Not entirely. The insomnia had me
considering a story about a software trainer who loses his family and then
becomes a vigilante. Unfortunately, that story had one chapter that repeated
over and over. It wasn’t until I came up with the character of Jacquelyn
that the story took its present form.
Is Jacquelyn someone you
know
Yes and no. The character is a composite of many
people I’ve known at some time or other throughout my life. After I had
molded the character, I had to come up with a unique name that was in some way
representative of her characteristics. I picked a name, then changed it,
eventually settling on Jacquelyn.
Does that have anything to
do with why the book is written as two nearly independent stories - the first
set in high school and the latter set on the eve of Y2K?
Again, yes and no. Any time I reminisce about the past with friends,
it strikes me how all of us vividly recall emotional events we experienced in
our youth. So, I liked the concept of presenting the story in two parts where
you get to see the main characters as kids and then as adults. As such the
reader discovers how the boy becomes father to the man for Robert and how
events similarly unfold for Jacquelyn.
Do you have any regrets
about splitting your book into the two stories?
No.
Although I understand that some people find the high school-aged antics a bit
juvenile, that’s the point. Those of us who look back on high school as a
distant memory know only too well that high school was a time when life was
full of distractions and everyone’s emotional state seemed exaggerated. In
writing the first half, I wanted to recapture that flavor. Teenagers take heart
- by the time you’re in your mid-twenties, your teen years will seem to be
as juvenile and over-dramatic as grade-schoolers are.
Did you
envision yourself as the protagonist?
No. Although I was
a software trainer for a few years, and I was inseparable from my Apple //e as
a kid, the protagonist transcends anything that I was or would want to be. The
adage goes, you write what you know and you make up the rest. I made up a lot.
Manipulation and secret, if not shady, government dealings
play a significant part in The Trainer. Do you believe in government
conspiracies?
No, not to the extent that drives Robert
to a state of paranoia. But nothing surprises me anymore. It seems that not a
week goes by when there isn’t some story breaking on the six o’clock
news that deals with government corruption or clandestine activity perpetrated
by people within the government. As to the way I presented it in my story, I
just like to throw fuel on the fire.
How much of the story is
actually true?
It’s fiction. As my disclaimer says,
names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of my imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business
establishments, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The novel is based on a screenplay. Isn’t that a
backwards way to do things?
I suppose. But that’s
just the way it worked out. I wrote the story as a screenplay because my
original intention was to present The Trainer on the big screen
and supplement that release with the novel. Lack of funding and other
significant circumstances changed my plans. Let me put it this way, for me
going from no kids to kids changed
everything.
Will there be a sequel since the ending is a bit
open ended?
I certainly hope so. It is my intention to
write two more books related to The Trainer and I have sketched a
general plot for both, but, having said that, I’d like to release a
different sort of book or two before I revisit The Trainer
characters. However, I’m still a small fish in the big publishing sea, so
we’ll see. |
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