It all started when…

My daughter had an imaginary friend when she was about 2 and should would always tell us of the adventures she went on. I took one of those adventures and wrote her a short picture book. As my brother and his wife had kids, they also starting writing simple abc/123 picture books for their kids.

From the time my son was about 8 or 9, he started commenting that he was the only one who didn’t have a book. He would ask when is he going to get one. He was the only one of 5 kids to not have a book written. The problem I had was by this age a simple picture book wouldn’t be enough, so now I had to write an actual book, but what was I going to write?

I thought about what he liked and started and stopped his book at least 10-15 times, with different concepts, plots, characters, etc. When he was around 12 I started to think I had a decent idea with a focus on Augmented Reality, but it still wasn’t working.

I was coming up on roadblock after roadblock and had decided this wasn’t the way. I needed a new plot and I stalled out for 3-6 months. Then one day he was in my wife and I’s bathroom, brushing his teeth, and he asked me off-hand, “Do you know what Lucid Dreams are?”

I said, “I think so.”

He responded, “Supposedly they’re dreams where people can actually control their dreams while they are in them. I think it would be so cool to have a Lucid Dream.”

With that one comment, I had the framework of the storyline in about 10 minutes and knew I finally had the plot which has become Anders Reality.