10 Years On

It was about ten years ago that I started writing To Defend The Earth. I was working my day job, a substitute teacher at Bernards High School, when I began Guitars and Stars:

Grant sat on the blanket in the cool October night contentedly strumming his guitar. The notes drifted across the hill, but there was no one to hear except for Kristin, who was busy gathering her clothes. Two hours before he had been playing guitar in ‘Cal’s Drinkery’, where a hundred people had gathered to watch Arrival. Since everybody was glued to the TV no one had really noticed him, except for two girls playing pool near the stage. One of them wore snug jeans and sandals, and when she bent over to shoot, Grant saw she had a sunburst tattoo above her tailbone. She was shapely, with big brown eyes and long brown hair. Seeing them look over at him, Grant switched from testosterone fueled classic rock to more ‘sensitive’ songs. It was Led Zeppelin’s Tangerine that finally drew Kristin over to the stage. Grant and Kristin chatted for a while, and then ditched her roommate for the hill overlooking town, ‘to get a good view of the aliens, if they come our way,’ he had said....

I always liked that scene.

Actually, part of the idea had been percolating in my head for a decade. From Presidential Briefing.:

From: Secret Committee for Extraterrestrial Defense
To: POTUS
RE: Extra Terrestrial Defense
Top Secret: Not to leave the Oval Office

Madam President:

The Secret Committee for Extraterrestrial Defense (SCED) would like to congratulate you on your historic victory.

I first worked with the idea for an English class presentation waaaaaaay back in the summer of 1996. It stuck with me through the next ten years.

It did well, seeing something actually sell, after watching A Line through the Desert do absolutely nothing, was quite a thrill.

We have a squeal now, of course, To Survive the Earth. I began thinking about that one almost as soon as TDTE was out. The ideas just kept coming to me.

They have been ever since.