I cannot tell a lie, writing with a big name author has some pressure attached to it.

Mike's offer came via e-mail, one of his standard cryptic two-liners. Something like "Brian Thompsen wants a story about a mobster. I want to write something funny. Send me 4,000-6,000 words." Okay, so that's three lines. You get the point.

Humor! I thought. Ack! I don't do humor.

Never daunted, I did the exact wrong thing, and went to the library to read up on gangsters. Needless to say, reading about real life gangsters is a crappy way to get a light-hearted feeling rushing through your veins. But that's what I did. Then I put three or four storylines together and sent them to Mike for him to review. Mike came back with one that I'll charitably call a revision of mine. So I wrote the first draft of that one, and it was like pulling teeth without so much as a shot of whiskey to dull the pain.

Did I mention I don't do humor?

I felt like I was drowning for a few moments there, when a different take hit. Write what you know, I've always heard. And I know the corporate environment. And Scott Adams has made a fortune out of what I know about the corporate world.

Enter Vinnie Caladina, corporate hit man.

Of course it took me a few drafts and some great help from my secret weapons (the Lisas Collins and Silverthorne), but I managed a first draft that I kinda liked, then shipped it to Mike and held my breath, hoping he would like it. A couple days later I got Mike's revisions back and found that he worked mostly on the character, leaving the storyline and most of my jokes intact.

Whew!

All in all it was a great deal of fun. I learned a bit from the process, the business end of it went super smoothly, and I would certainly be glad to do it all over again.