The Making of The Potential of Zeroes: A Timeline

How long does it take to publish your first novel? Too long. Here's an illustrated timeline of events.

June 2002: My sister, Marissa, my good friend Dylan Harris create Terese, Maximus, and Bartholomew in a free writing exchange around my mom's kitchen table. We each wrote a page and a half or so.

Fall 2002: I develop the characters further and write several more sections including opening bit about brownies, the Mall Santa story, and the playground scene with Zeke and Alonzo in the Writing Short Fiction class with Dave Paddy at Whittier College. Tentative Title: The Urban Quest

Spring 2005: I write more scenes including Doobie's opening story, Terese's Singles Group, How Max Lost His Arm, and the Morning After during the Advanced Fiction Writing class with Tony Barnstone at Whittier College. Several sections of the story are published in the Whittier College Literary Review selected by the Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society. Tentative Title: The Thick Underground

May 2005: I graduate from Whittier College with a minor in English and a major in Biology.

2005-2008: I work intermittently on the novel on weekends while working at ADInstruments.

July 2008 - August 2009: I quit my job at ADInstruments and move to Boulder with the intention of finishing and publishing the novel within a year. I work on the book as if it were my job waking up early, making a PBJ for lunch, and taking the bus to the CU Norlin Library (my own personal, free office). I finish a draft, now titled Urban Maelstrom, and I make copies for my friends binding the books by hand using recycled cardboard from beer and cereal boxes.

This is the cover. I printed it in black and white and then used colored pencil for the lettering. The figure on the bottom left is supposed to be the top of Doobie's head sort of cracking open with the gun and flower growing out of it.

This book was made using the box from a 30-pack of Rolling Rock.

This is the back cover. The quotes are all made up, but my mom's sentiment was pretty real.

2009-2011: I receive a Master's degree in Secondary Science Education and Curriculum.

2011-Present: I teach science and spend every summer telling myself that this year is the year that I will publish, but end up taking all kinds of course work to improve my teaching practice. Here's the LifeTouch pictures to prove it.

(They gave them to us for free. Is it my fault I kept them?)

2016: I rewrite the whole novel in order to clarify present tense vs past tense portions of the story and have several sections critiqued while taking a class with John Cotter at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. New Title: The Potential of Zeroes.