In my novel, “Immaculate White Smoke,” I started to make it a comedy. I wanted Arty to be a wild and unpredictable character. I wanted to make him mangy, dirty and even downright honoree. Somewhere in the course of writing I realized that I had to explain this character of mine. To give a reason for who he was… what he was and why he was the way he was.

Andorra was an easy write.  I just thought of my wife and realized that many times a woman’s biggest sin can be loving her man.  This may cause her to make decisions she knows she shouldn’t make.  It may even blind her to the mistake because she loves too much.

            Arty, on the other hand turned out to be a challenge.  I had no problem portraying him as the self-confident bank robber.  I didn’t see a problem with making him talk with slang or over react to the situations.  Making bad decisions is easy.  I do it all the time.  The challenge came when I tried to look inside.  Arty had a past and it was what made him what he was.  Arty also had someone to love and she turned out to be more than he ever knew she could be. 

            The story up until the time they drove over the cliff into the waters below is simply a fiction and took not so much imagination but when they found themselves in an unexpected afterlife I had to stop many times to reassess my motives.  I had to search within myself to find some of Arty and then consider what would happen if my life had not been as happy as it is.  In short, I had to give Arty a heart in order to break it and then figure how he would react to the pain.  I must have struck through chapter after chapter and then rewrite them because this is a challenge and I wanted to give Arty a total personality.  He was not just a scoundrel.  He was also a victim.  If you read “Immaculate White Smoke,” you will see why this unbelievable tail has an awful lot of truth in it.