2) Q: What was your motivation to commence writing these stories and where did the idea of the title and a trilogy come from?

A: The motivation was an incident that happened which would be a nightmare for any parent (assuming similar circumstances). It was a situation that caught me off guard, yet opened me up to an incredibly rare but illuminating insight about my two sons. I felt compelled to share this experience. So out of that, this whole trilogy evolved! I don’t want to elaborate on it right now because it’s a cool story destined for Book 2. It’s already written and polished and awaiting publication. As a parent, however, I will say it was a serious game changer.

After writing that story, I felt motivated to write more that would reflect several of my more unusual and embarrassing moments as a parent. Then over time, I began recollecting other notable seminal experiences with my sons involving twists of fate, near catastrophes, disappointments, humorous occurrences, and parental dilemmas. Then after a few years of intermittent writing, I was closing in on enough stories to form a reasonable collection. Somewhere in that process I came up with the name Weekend Dad and because of the nature of my earliest stories, I felt they were like confessions, hence ‘Confessions’ of a Weekend Dad.

After I had the name of the book, things started moving along more rapidly. I began envisioning the collection as a whole and how these stories would be like building blocks of an even greater story. The whole idea of growing up and the intertwined experiences of childhood and parenthood galvanized with the idea of the wooden alphabet blocks of the “Weekend Dad” logo. That happened while day dreaming.

When I started writing these stories, the boys were already about 10 and 12 and after three more years they were in high school. A lot happens in that 10 to 15 age range. I didn’t stop writing and even when I wasn’t, I was making notes of certain events and keeping a list of story titles to reflect those events. I had already accumulated about 45 story titles and they were still coming at me. At some point I knew I’d have enough for two books based on the average page length of the stories. Then with things still happening I eventually surpassed 60 story titles and written stories combined. With years of adolescence still to go, it was destined to be a trilogy collection. I would cover their whole boyhood “From Babes to Men”.

I continued writing about past experiences and new ones as they happened. I became very motivated and felt I was doing something very unique that hadn’t been done before. That alone was exciting. I also questioned myself as to how many fathers have actually written about their fatherhood experiences that cover two decades? I felt I was in new territory.

Of course the stories would be assembled in chronological order so that the reader would be able to enjoy each and every story for what it was but after awhile, they might start to see the character of these boys develop as they grew up. (Mine too I suppose). They would also get to see how I coped with unusual situations and predicaments. They would get to know me and wonder about my parental choices; or how my kids reacted or were potentially influenced by me and/or the circumstances cast upon us. It would be a “parental journey” all the while observing the growth of the kids and our male bonding. It would reflect the rigors of our respective relationships as time marched on.

It was tough because I was determined to accumulate and experience more of our adventures together before assembling the first book collection. The bigger vision was a tease but within my grasp. I did some research and couldn’t find anything like my concept out there. It would be a first. I wanted to be original and break new ground. I had a lot of ground to cover. I also wanted to have enough written so that releasing one book a year was totally doable. If things got bogged down with publishing and marketing commitments, I didn’t want to be struggling to deliver. So I skipped the temptation to focus only on the first book. I didn’t want to be starting from scratch with book two and three. I succeeded in assembling a collection that would get me well into Book 3.