Introduced to writing in high school, I found a creative voice. I wrote countless essays, short stories, and plays but never revealed my internal struggle. As a senior, I dabbled with writing The Writer—then a short story about a man with severe writer's block. For decades, I wrote intermittently on the "Prologue" to this would-be book, but always hit the same obstacle—what is the idea behind The Writer.

Struck by debilitating checking behaviors and immobilizing mood changes, I became consumed by chaos. I lost everything but my wits before turning back to writing in my late-50s. Semi-retired, I sat down with my iPhone, and in a stream of consciousness, outlined and then drafted The Writer—a novel that explores one man's coping with trauma.