For a long time I’ve had quite a fascination with ghosts, mostly because of the mystery that is associated with them. 
Are they the once living who have passed on, or are they something else?   Are they demons impersonating the dead
with evil intent?  Are they us from a parallel universe who’s voice and/or essence have transcended the line that divides
the universes?  Could we actually be ghosts in someone else’s parallel universe?

Okay. So there are more questions than answers.  For me that’s fodder for several more novels.

I think one of the best ghost stories that I have read is Ghost Story by Peter Straub. But to be honest I have not read
many ghost stories.  At least, not a story where the main plot is based on a ghost, or ghosts.

I would love to write a good ghost story.  But it has to be unique.  It can’t be the same old stuff.

When speaking of ghosts one experience stands out for me.  It happened a few years ago when my children were little. 
At the time we were living in an old house downtown.  It was a three bedroom.  The bedrooms were situated off the
hallway.  Our boys stayed in one room and our girls in the other.  From the living room one could see the boy’s bedroom
door on the other side of the hallway.  That was a good thing because the boys would sometimes sneak out of bed and
try to scare the girls in their bedroom.  At this particular time it was late.  My wife and I were watching a movie.  The kids
had settled down.  I hadn’t heard anything from them for a good while.  From the corner of my eye I saw one of the boys
leave the bedroom and head down the hallway.  I jumped out of my seat.  “You’d better get your butt back in that bed,” I called as I stepped in the hallway.  But the hallway was empty.  I went into the girl’s bedroom expecting to find one of the boys hiding there.  All I found were the girls sound asleep.  I went to the boy’s room thinking that maybe the guilty party
had somehow slipped back into the bedroom.  The boy’s looked to be asleep, but to be sure they weren’t pulling one over
on me I went back out of the room and hid in the hallway listening for whispers or any kind of movement.  I heard nothing.  After a couple minutes I snuck back into the bedroom.  I tried several strategies to get either of the boys to reveal
themselves, but it didn’t happen.  I finally came to the conclusion that they were indeed asleep.

I can’t say what really happened that evening.  Over the time that we lived there, however, my wife and I have heard the
faint, brief voice of a child a time or two when our children were not around.

I have to admit that all of this could have been our imagination.  Maybe it was.  I never got around to calling one of the
ghost busting teams to confirm it one way or the other.

     I remember reading, many years ago, the works of Carl Jung, the noted psychologist.  I was fascinated by the many facets of the human mind as described in some of Carl Jung’s cases.  I recall one case in particular.  It involved a man suffering from dual personalities.  In his second personality he spoke with a foreign accent and was extremely outgoing and charming. 
This was a real contrast to his primary personality which was rather shy and boring.  I don’t remember what had caused the man’s problem, but I was awed that the brain could manufacture such a thing.

     Through the years I have been intrigued by psychology, philosophy, and other intricacies of the human mind.  In the Matrix movie one of the greatest questions of Philosophy is brought up:  What is reality?

     I think that is why some of my stories are a little bit odd.  The coming of dark and Twisted are examples.

      Besides psychology and philosophy there are other things that influence my imagination and have, or may be at some time, incorporated in my writings.

      At the age of seven while undergoing a tonsillectomy my heart stopped for three and a half minutes.  Sometime between the surgery and waking up in recovery I dreamed about riding on a bus.  On the ceiling of the bus were large, round lights. 
In this dream people were being sucked up into the light.  From the light people were calling out for me to help them, but I didn’t know what to do.

     Later, while recovering in the hospital my mom began bringing me comic books to keep me entertained.  That began my love of comic books and the super hero genre.

     I grew up watching Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Alfred Hitchcock.  During that time I had some pretty scary, and vivid dreams.  One dream was reoccurring.  In the dream I was in a second story hallway of an old house.  I was alone, near a window looking down. It was night and the corridor was dark. Over the next few years I had several dreams involving that same house.  At times I was in different locations in the house, but I was always alone.

     The dreams stopped after a time.  I halfway thought that I might come across that house one day but so far I haven’t. If one day I do find that house for real my next book might just be nonfiction.

By now most people -- those that are familiar with Tom Clancy's works:  His novels, his games, his movies ---have heard the news that Tom Clancy has died.  It saddens me that another great American writer has died.  He will be missed.

Tom Clancy's first novel was The hunt for red October.  It was published by a publishing company who only published non-fiction at the time.  Right off the bat that first novel sold about 45,000 copies, but when former President Ronald Reagan mentioned how much he liked the book it zoomed up to over 300,000 copies.

Tom Clancy had 17 best sellers.  A 100,000 copies of his book are in print.

Tom Clancy was born in Baltimore ,Maryland.  Incidentally, that was where I lived up until the age of 13.  He was also part owner of the Baltimore Orioles.

I think it's safe to say that Mr. Tom Clancy will be remembered for many years to come.