ABO – History

In 1992, I had just left IBM, after a 25-year career as a programmer and software architect, and I was searching for something else to do with my life. “Why not write a novel?” I thought. But about what? I happened to hear the song “Can’t buy me love…” by the Beatles. What if a billionaire wanted to buy true love? Could he do it while avoiding the false loves of one-night stands and gold-diggers? My working title was “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

I started writing, and one idea led to the next. I didn’t have a plot outlined or specific characters defined; they all came to my mind as I was writing. In this way, I advanced the novel up to Roland’s departure from Albany. I then ran out of steam, unable to figure out what Roland and Lillian should do next. Further, I moved from Rochester, MN to Minneapolis, MN, and I got a new job as a Smalltalk programmer. The novel was forgotten until 2002 when I finally retired from the work-a-day world of software development.

Again, I was faced with the question of what to do with my life, and there it was, lurking untouched on my computer, that old unfinished novel. I dabbled at it, off and on, for a few years until I had what I thought was a reasonable manuscript. Then, not willing to engage in marketing it, it sat untouched for a few more years.

In 2018, while resting in a hotel in London during a vacation, I was inspired to begin writing American Democracy Forever (under the title Life 2, but that’s another story.)  I finished its manuscript, but I wasn’t satisfied with the way the novel flowed; there was too much narrative and not enough dialogue. By chance, I learned of a lecture on writing compelling dialogue by Angela Weichmann, a professional editor. Impressed by her, I asked her to do what she called a “developmental edit” of the book. Her critiques and suggestions led to a major restructuring of the novel. Great, why not have her do the same for Can’t Buy Me Love? The result after a name change is the novel A Billionaire’s Odyssey, which I am now attempting to publish, after still more years of procrastination.