So I had this dream one night—a very vivid dream—of a dystopian setting in which people were attending a local music concert (see Part 1).  I remembered it very clearly when I woke, and it bothered me.  Its setting was reminiscent of what I knew about the 1930s’ Great Depression as it was here in the United States.

I remember studying photos of poor people living during that period.  One photo in particular—I believe it was of a family or mother and children—took my breath away.  Like everyone, I had seen the photographs of mothers and children, suffering extreme poverty and starvation which charitable organizations often showed us on television commercials to solicit our membership and donations.  These commercials confronted us with heart-wrenching video and photographs of emaciated children and mothers who looked like skeletons with skin stretched over them.

Well, as I turned the page of the book I was viewing—the one, filled with photos of Americans during the 1930s—I was suddenly faced with the image of an American family who looked like starving war refugees or victims of famine.  And certainly, they were victims of famine but these were not from some far away place which I might not be able to find on a map.  No, these were Americans from places like Tennessee or Alabama or California!  That photograph allowed me to understand just how bad those times were for common folk here in the United States.  I had never experienced anything like that level of need in my lifetime, but, as my History professor had stated, it was possible if not likely to happen again.  The only question was:  When?

After my dream, I decided I wanted to write a novel, set in that sort of future dystopia of great economic destress.  I wanted to explore how it might look, but especially how it might feel—and to reach into the emotional impact of such a disaster on, say, someone like me or you.  And, thus, I began writing.  But that was only the seed of the idea.  There was much to develop, still.

There’s more to say, but I’ll say it later.  Until then—see you around the block.